[Congressional Record Volume 149, Number 109 (Tuesday, July 22, 2003)]
[House]
[Pages H7284-H7311]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
DEPARTMENTS OF COMMERCE, JUSTICE, AND STATE, THE JUDICIARY, AND RELATED
AGENCIES APPROPRIATIONS ACT, 2004
The Committee resumed its sitting.
Mr. MEEHAN. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the requisite number of
words.
I rise to oppose the amendment, and I agree with much of the
substance of this amendment; but I am concerned about the provisions
with regard to newspapers.
Mr. Chairman, there used to be a time in every major city in America
where we had three, four, five vibrant newspapers. Today, what we are
seeing is fewer and fewer newspapers across the country. We are seeing
circulation of newspapers going down and the economic viability of
newspapers reduced dramatically because of the inability of newspapers
to compete economically.
I know something about this because my father worked at the local
newspaper in my hometown for 43 years. He was not the publisher. He was
not the editor. He was not even a reporter. He punched a clock as
compositor for 43 years, and that local newspaper meant a lot to our
community.
I believe that the provisions regarding cross-ownership for
newspapers would do serious harm to the financial viability of local
newspapers with disastrous consequences for journalism. In a world
where 24-hour cable news and Internet have made news sources for
information widely available, we still depend, and our democracy
depends, upon newspapers to provide high-quality, in-depth coverage of
local news events; but with the emergence of so many alternative
sources of news and entertainment, newspapers are struggling to retain
advertisers who want to reach a high-quality, fragmented audience of
consumers.
Newspapers are getting hit from both directions because they are
losing circulation, viewers, and advertisers to broadcasters and major
news media. The FCC's decision to relax the cross-ownership rules with
regard to newspapers was based on extensive evidence showing that when
newspapers are allowed to participate in local broadcasting, consumers
benefit.
Daily newspapers almost always have the most extensive and
sophisticated news-gathering apparatus in their circulation area. So
this should not be surprising. Newspapers have been used in classrooms
across America to discuss local issues. So when co-owned broadcast
stations are able to draw on the depth and breadth of newspaper
expertise, the stations can produce better local news programming; and
when newspapers make their pitch to advertisers, they can say that they
reach consumers across their circulation area through radio or, in some
instances, TV ads as well as print.
The FCC did not have to guess what would happen with the quality of
local news under lax cross-ownership rules with regard to newspapers.
Several local newspaper/broadcast combinations have been in operation
since the 1970s under the grandfather rules. This experience shows that
broadcast stations, co-owned with daily newspapers, are offering better
local news and more of it.
Studies by both media owners and independent entities agree on these
benefits. For example, a 5-year study by the Project for Excellence in
Journalism at Columbia University, found that co-owned stations were
more likely to do stories focused on important community issues and
were more likely to provide a wide mix of opinion. Other studies show
that existing newspaper/broadcast combinations do not coordinate the
editorial views they express on important public issues.
The health of daily newspapers across this country is absolutely
critical to the functioning of our democracy because newspapers offer
by far the most extensive and consistent coverage of local political
issues and public policy issues. That is why I believe the FCC's
decision to allow more newspaper/broadcast cross-ownership is good
public policy.
While I agree with many of the provisions in this particular
amendment and also the gentleman from Wisconsin's (Mr. Obey) amendment,
the relaxation of a cross-ownership ban for newspapers will serve the
public interest by fostering better newspapers and information; and I
base that on my experience in dealing with local newspapers in my own
district and my own family's involvement in 43 years.
I might also add, since there have been other issues such as
overtime, when my father worked as an hourly employee for 43 years
punching a time clock every day, whether or not we took a vacation that
summer was determined by his ability to earn overtime at that
newspaper. Fortunately, he was able to make the overtime payments
because of the ability of that newspaper to provide a quality of life
for the employees.
Mr. INSLEE. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the requisite number of
words.
Mr. Chairman, I rise in strong support for this amendment for the
simple reason that a monopoly of ideas is ultimately more destructive
to American democracy than even a monopoly of money; and the American
people understand this amendment should pass for two reasons, one
philosophical and one practical. Let me address the philosophical one
first.
In the words of Thomas Jefferson, who said, ``Were it left to me to
decide whether we should have a government without newspapers, or
newspapers without a government, I should not hesitate a moment to
prefer the latter,'' the overwhelming majority of American people have
an understanding in their gut and in their bones and in their heads
that if we loosen the rules on media consolidation, we will
[[Page H7285]]
get more media consolidation. It is not rocket science.
So let me address the practical issue that I have heard addressed on
this floor today and argued on this floor that somehow if we vote for
this amendment it actually means we are going to reduce the remedy we
get against the FCC. Let me debunk that argument for this reason.
It is based on two faulty assumptions. It is based on the assumption
the President will veto this bill if we give Americans what they want,
which is less consolidation in the media. The President might have said
that today, some of his political advisers may have said that today;
but when this bill gets to the White House desk, that e-mail account
and Web site of the White House is going to melt down. They are going
to have to double the number of e-mails that they can recover, and the
FCC, when they did this, they thought this would just go kind of
quietly in the night. That is why they had one hearing in Virginia for
the whole country about this issue. They thought they would just sneak
this by them.
Let me tell my colleagues what happened when the American people
found out about this. The U.S. Senate, or the other chamber, very
quickly understood that it had to happen, the commerce committee had a
good vote moving in this direction, and now it is up to my colleagues
and me to keep this ball rolling. We do not know how far this ball is
going to go unless we get the message to the American people; and let
me suggest to my colleagues, that ball is going to go a lot further,
which is total repeal of the FCC going backwards.
I am not alone in this, and I want to make sure the Members in this
Chamber know this is just not a good governing issue. It is not just a
good government issue. It is not just a consumers federation.
The labor community of the United States of America understands the
consolidation of media voices is not good for democracy. That is why
the Communication Workers of America are supporting this amendment. The
Department of Professional Employees are supporting this amendment. The
International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers are supporting this
amendment. The Newspaper Guild is supporting this amendment. The people
support this amendment.
So it is our job to push the envelope here. It is our job to make
sure this does not get swept under the radar screen, and let me tell my
colleagues why that is important.
These consolidation rules go much further than repealing the Sherman
Antitrust Act. They allow consolidation that will increase the
concentration over 20 times the level of local market control of what
would trigger a Sherman Antitrust Act investigation. That is in a one-
newspaper town. In a two-newspaper town, mergers allowed under this
rule, without this amendment, would increase concentration nine times
the level of concentration that would trigger antitrust concern.
I am standing here to say that our scrutiny of a monopoly of ideas
should be every bit as vigorous as a scrutiny of a monopoly of money;
and that is the reason we need to, in fact, pass this amendment.
I have heard it argued today that there is a lot of new channels,
there is Internet Web sites, there is new cable channels and that is
enough. To me, it is a little bit like saying we will just have sort of
20 hoses, we have got all these new hoses to give you water, but then
you screw the hoses all into the same faucet, which is the corporate
board of governors who control these markets, and that is the promise
you effect, that we have got to guard against by, in fact, passing this
amendment.
I will just make one closing comment if I can of those who may be
thinking about this or my colleagues. I will say one thing that I think
all of us as elected officials understand. This started as a very
quiet, little modest regulatory issue; but it has turned into a
firestorm of criticism, and there are two tsunamis. One has already
washed over Congress, and that is the Do Not Call list. That finally
got Congress' attention. The second one is this amendment. My
colleagues vote against this amendment, they are going to have people
with pitch forks and torches in front of their Chamber arguing that
they should not get in bed with those who want consolidation of this
industry.
Let us push the envelope and fight back for this amendment.
Ms. LEE. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the requisite number of
words.
Mr. Chairman, I rise in support of the Hinchey-Price amendment, and I
would like to speak to the substance of this amendment. It promotes
diversity by preserving existing limitations on media ownership. It
actually promotes democracy.
The recent FCC decision to adopt new broadcast ownership rules
raising the national television ownership rules undermines the
fundamental principle of diversity, fair play, competition, and
exchange of ideas. It really does run counter to our notion of freedom
of the press, the right to free expression, the right to be heard.
The overwhelming public reaction against this FCC move dramatically
illustrates the very diversity in America that this ruling circumvents.
{time} 1715
Groups as wide ranging as Common Cause and the National Rifle
Association, the National Organization for Women, in fact, the National
Association of Black-Owned Broadcasters actually support this
amendment. All of these groups oppose this step toward greater
monopolization of the Nation's airwaves.
If we fail to take action, it is possible that a single company could
own a newspaper, a television station, and a local radio station. Do we
want all local news controlled by one company now that is possible
under the new FCC rules? These few monopolies would shut down the views
and voices of millions of Americans.
Another likely result of this rule change will be the further
silencing of minority voices. According to recent surveys, minorities
own less than 2 percent of the country's licensed television stations
and only 4 percent of the commercial AM and FM stations. These minority
owners and other independent operators are in grave danger of being
trampled on by the accelerated expansion of media conglomerates.
Millions of Americans have contacted the FCC to express their
disapproval of raising the limits on media ownership. This amendment
addresses all of these very important concerns. It prevents the
implementation of this unwise and unsound rule change.
Mr. DeFAZIO. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the requisite number of
words.
Mr. Chairman, this rule, which this amendment would address, in my
opinion is perhaps the most radical usurpation of the public interest
in the history of regulation. But then again, the head of the FCC does
not believe in regulation nor does he believe in public interest.
To quote him, he has called regulation ``the oppressor.'' And when
asked about public interest, he said he has no idea. ``It is an empty
vessel in which people pour whatever their preconceived views or biases
are.''
And he went on to say, ``The night after I was sworn in as a
commissioner,'' this is Michael Powell, the Chair of the Federal
Communications Commission, ``I waited for a visit from the angel of
public interest, I waited all night, but she did not come.'' So his
conclusion is, if you believe in markets, part of the right price is
determined by the give-and-take of consumers and producers, and ``Thou
shalt not regulate,'' and that, in fact, is what he has done here.
Now, there is substantial agreement on this side of the aisle that
what he has done is an extraordinary blow to our system in the United
States of America, our system of governance of our democratic republic.
But there is some disagreement over the tactics on how we fight back.
Considering the fact that the Republicans control both Houses of
Congress and the White House, I believe that we need to send the
strongest possible message, and this amendment would, thus far, absent
adoption of the Dingell legislation, which I believe the Speaker of the
House, the gentleman from Texas (Mr. DeLay), and others will never
allow to come to the floor of the House, but absent that, this is the
strongest statement that we could send so far. We would be standing
with more than 400,000 Americans who commented against this rule.
[[Page H7286]]
Now, the chairman of the committee got up to say, well, the benefits
of this flow to the public, but he did not go on to say, they just do
not realize it. Because almost every person who testified on the most-
commented-upon rule-making in the history of the United States of
America said ``no.'' ``No.''
There was one hearing held in the distant realm of Virginia. That is
how much public scrutiny this rule received. Why did it receive so
little public scrutiny? Because they knew that more than 400,000 people
would oppose it had they only known about it ahead of time.
Now we are hearing about a lot of red herrings. This place kind of
smells a little bit. The waivers will go away. No, the waivers are
preexisting in this rule. The waivers will not go away. They want to
help the little guys that are doing good things with the waivers. That
is the only reason they are supporting Michael Powell and total
rollback of public interest and the total collapse of any idea of
diverse media in this country and the total concentration of this
system.
No, they are really for the little guys and the waivers and the
exceptions and the grandfathers, and that is why we are really here.
Well, no, that is not why we are really here. We are really here
because the big money and the big interests want to own it all. It will
be great, the day we can go anywhere in America, turn on the tube,
watch a local station and we will see exactly the same thing we would
have seen at home. It will purport to provide local news.
Some people are getting puzzled when they see what is considered to
be local news under the current system, which is already concentrated
enough, which has nothing to do with where they live. Imagine what it
will be like when it is totally one or two or three big companies
dictating all the content across all the country, and not only the
content of television but the content of newspapers and radio. It will
be great. We will not have to be confused anymore by conflicting
opinions.
God forbid we should even begin to discuss the concepts of fairness,
which stood as the rule of this land for nearly three-quarters of a
century under which we had a vibrant democracy. Fairness. Now it is
whoever can own it can say whatever they want and the hell with
fairness.
We do not have to have fairness. We do not have to have diversity of
opinion. We afford it, we bought it, we can say what we want, we can
exclude who we want, we can discriminate against the groups that we do
not like that say things we do not like about our President or about
anything else we disagree with.
That is the vision of Michael Powell and the majority in this House.
That is the system they want.
That is wrong. It is wrong whether in the majority or the minority.
It is wrong for the future of our Nation.
So, please, support this amendment. Send the strongest message
possible. And if this passes by a big margin, if the worst thing that
could happen in the conference committee with the Senate is that we
bargain back a little bit toward the good work done by the gentleman
from Wisconsin (Mr. Obey), then, okay, that is the best we can do. I
would love to see the President put in a position to have to veto
something so much in the public interest that people care so much
about.
Mr. SANDERS. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the requisite number of
words.
Mr. Chairman, I rise in strong support of the Hinchey amendment,
which is, in many ways, consistent with legislation that I introduced
which has 90 cosponsors.
Mr. Chairman, I think Thomas Jefferson, Tom Payne, James Madison, and
some of the other Founding Fathers of our country understood the issue
that we are discussing today very well.
It is a problem in our society that in industry after industry fewer
and fewer large corporations control those industries. I think that is
a very serious economic problem for this country. But it is a very
different and even much more serious problem when a handful of large
corporations control what the American people see, hear and read.
This is not just an economic problem. This is a problem that gets to
the root of American democracy.
How can we vote intelligently? How can we come to reasonable
positions on all of the important issues facing America unless we hear
a diverse point of view?
I think most Americans understand that there is something profoundly
wrong. For example, one example, in a Nation which is politically
divided, where Al Gore got more votes than George Bush, where if you
turn on talk radio in America the only debate that you hear on
corporate radio is a debate between the right wing and the extreme
right wing. That is not, in my view, an accident.
I think that many Americans understand that some of the most
important issues facing our country, the devastating loss of
manufacturing jobs, the fact that the minimum wage has not been raised
in many, many years, the fact that we have the most unfair distribution
of wealth and income of any major country, the fact that we are the
only major nation on Earth that does not have a national health care
program, the fact that we have so little discussion about these
important issues certainly is related to the fact that the people who
own our television industry are, without exception, major multinational
corporations.
We have General Electric owning NBC, Disney owning ABC, Viacom owning
CBS, the right-wing millionaire Rupert Murdock owning Fox, Time Warner
owning CNN. I would remind Members of Congress never to forget that in
the waning days of the authoritarian Soviet Union, there was not just
one television station or one radio station or one newspaper, there
were hundreds of radio stations and television stations and magazines
and newspapers. The only problem was that all of that media was
controlled by either the Communist Party of the Soviet Union or the
Government of the Soviet Union.
So the idea that we have many, many newspapers or magazines or cable
television stations is meaningless when we understand that virtually
all of them are owned by a handful of large corporations who have
enormous conflicts of interest.
What the Hinchey amendment is saying, and I think the overwhelming
majority of Americans agree with him, is that it will be a very
dangerous day in this country when people who live in midsize cities
find that one company owns their television station and their radio
station and their local newspaper.
Is that, my friends, what American democracy is supposed to be about?
I think most of us think that it is not.
Now, I have heard some discussion about political tactics, about how
dangerous it would be to pass this amendment. I would suggest that
those people who are talking that language are playing inside-the-
Beltway baseball and they are forgetting about the heat and the passion
and the concern that tens of millions of people on the outside feel
about this issue.
I can only tell you of my own experience in Vermont. We held a town
meeting with Michael Copps of the FCC, and 600 people came out. We held
another meeting where 400 people came out. And I believe that this
feeling of concern about growing media consolidation exists all over
the country. When the FCC allowed for people's opinion to come forward,
750,000 Americans contacted the FCC and 99 percent said, do not go
forward with more media consolidation.
In my own city of Burlington, we used to have a number of radio
stations reporting local news. Today there is one. Let us support the
Hinchey amendment.
The CHAIRMAN pro tempore (Mr. LaTourette). The time of the gentleman
from Vermont (Mr. Sanders) has expired.
(On request of Mr. Obey, and by unanimous consent, Mr. Sanders was
allowed to proceed for 2 additional minutes.)
Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?
Mr. SANDERS. I yield to the gentleman from Wisconsin.
Mr. OBEY. Let me say, Mr. Chairman, that in substance I agree with
virtually every word the gentleman just said. He is coming from exactly
the right place.
Here is my tactical problem. I want this bill to get 290 votes, so
that when the White House looks at it, it knows
[[Page H7287]]
that there are enough votes here to override the veto, if they are ill-
advised enough to veto the bill over this provision. And it is my
considered judgment that if the Hinchey amendment passes, that there
will be significant additional numbers of people who will vote against
this bill, and that means we will send exactly the reverse signal.
So all I want to say is, I agree with where the gentleman is coming
from, we simply have a different tactical judgment about how to get
there. I think we need a two-step process and the gentleman wants one.
Mr. SANDERS. Reclaiming my time, Mr. Chairman, let me express my
disagreement with my good friend, because let me tell him this. I want
the President of the United States to go in front of the national media
and say, I am vetoing this bill because I believe in more media
consolidation. I think fewer large corporations should control what we
see, hear, and read. I want the President of the United States to do
that.
Mr. Chairman, I think he is smart enough not to do that.
Mr. KUCINICH. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the requisite number of
words.
The Federal Communications Act of 1934 mandated that the electronic
broadcasting industry operate in the public interest, convenience, and
necessity. The idea behind the FCC Act of 1934 was that we the people
own the airwaves and that we grant a license for people to operate in
the public interest, but that the first claim on those airwaves belongs
to the people.
{time} 1730
How far we have come in America, to a position where we the people
are begging corporate broadcast interests to allow us the right to free
speech. How far we have come in America, to a condition where the
Federal Communications Commission, which was created to make sure that
the public interest is represented, instead has been captured by the
very industry they are to regulate. It is a matter of public record.
Indeed, it has been recorded by the Center for Public Integrity which
examined the travel records of FCC employees that they have accepted
over a period of 8 years 2,500 trips costing nearly $2.8 million and
that these trips were paid for by telecommunications and broadcast
industries which are regulated by the FCC. This on top of the trips
that the taxpayers paid for.
There is no question that the Federal Communications Commission,
which has been created to represent the public interest, represents
instead the private interest. And so then the public's right to the
airwaves, to control of the airwaves, and to access to the airwaves
becomes diminished, damaged, and degraded by a system which has now
been captured by media corporations. This then must be a cause of great
debate in our democracy because we understand as wealth concentrates in
fewer and fewer hands there is less democracy, and we understand as
concentration in the media occurs and there are fewer and fewer
independent media outlets, it is to the detriment of our democracy, it
is a lessening of freedom of speech in our Nation.
If we are to remain one Nation, we cannot be one Nation and at the
same time have one broadcast power, a private one. We have to ensure
that there is a multiplicity of media outlets. We must ensure that the
media responds to the public interest. We must regain what it truly
means to have a public spirited debate in a democracy which can only
occur if there are significant numbers of outlets in the media and that
each community has the opportunity to have a balance of media
interests.
When our Constitution was established and when our Bill of Rights was
set in motion establishing freedom of speech, our founders did not
countenance that freedom of the press would belong to the man who owns
one. Our founders did not countenance that freedom of broadcast media
or freedom of speech would belong to the broadcast media. The Hinchey
amendment seeks to strike once again a balance on behalf of the public
interest to set aside the FCC's action which resulted in a stunning
ruling which permitted the country's largest media conglomerates to
achieve a level of multiple ownership that could only be said to be
totally against the interest of our democracy.
We stand here every day in debating the great questions of our time.
How often those questions receive attention is a matter of the private
interest. We need to regain the public interest here. That is why this
amendment achieves a great amount of importance. The public needs to
remember once again that they are ultimately the owners of the
airwaves, that the airwaves do not belong to corporations. They do not
have any primary right to those airwaves. Those airwaves are the
product of a free Nation and those airwaves should always be regulated
in the public interest. They are not being regulated in the public
interest, and it is only this Congress which can rescue the public
interest.
Vote for the Hinchey amendment.
Mr. MARKEY. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the requisite number of
words.
I have served on the telecommunications subcommittee for 27 years,
and I can tell you that not only is the decision made by the Federal
Communications Commission in this area of media consolidation the worst
decision made during my 27 years overseeing them, it is the worst
decision ever made by the Federal Communications Commission. Ever.
First of all, Chairman Powell decided to have one public hearing, one,
on an issue that goes to the fundamental question of what is the
relationship between the American public and the media while they were
considering the changes in 75 years of laws.
The public furor is totally understandable. And Congress in the
Committee on Energy and Commerce, the committee with jurisdiction over
this issue, we have yet to have a hearing on this issue. What did the
FCC decide? Did it decide that they were going to expand the rules so
that one newspaper could be owned by one television station? No. Did
they decide that one cable company could own four radio stations in one
community and expand the rules that way? No. Here is what they decided.
Listen to this, ladies and gentlemen. Listen to the worst decision ever
made by the Federal Communications Commission. In the largest
metropolitan media areas where many, many of us come from, here is what
is now possible. One company in your hometown, your metropolitan area,
can own three television stations, three, in your hometown; eight radio
stations at the same time; the biggest newspaper in town even if it is
the only newspaper in town at the same time; and the entire cable
system in your hometown even if it includes the all-news channel on
cable plus all of the Internet news Web sites that attach to all of
those sites.
So listen again, my friends. The FCC has decided in your hometown
that one company can own three TV stations, eight radio stations, the
only newspaper in town, and the entire cable system including the all-
news cable channel. That is absurd. That is crazy. They did not decide
that one company can own one TV station and one newspaper. No. That is
not what this debate is about. If they had been more tailored, if they
had been more restrictive, if they had expanded on some commonsense
basis, we would not be out here right now. They did not do that. Every
single industry that came in and asked them for something, they said
``yes'' to.
I am the author, in 1995, with the gentleman from North Carolina (Mr.
Burr) and Sonny Montgomery, of the 35 percent rule. That is my
amendment here. And so I am glad that that is included in the
appropriations bill. But I think everyone should understand the
consequences of what the FCC is doing and it is coming to your hometown
soon. It just goes too far. No one should have that kind of power. The
kind of power that one company is now going to have in your hometown
will make Citizen Kane look like an underachiever. It is too much in
one company at one time. It has to be tailored.
I am glad that this 35 percent rule was included. I think it is
important that it was included. It is essential in having a better
balance between the networks and the individual communities across the
country. And I understand the debate which is going on as to what is
the best tactical way of proceeding from here, and I have to respect
the incredibly great work that the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr.
[[Page H7288]]
Obey) did and the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Dingell) and the
gentleman from North Carolina (Mr. Burr) and the gentleman from New
York (Mr. Serrano) in getting the language in on the 35 percent rule.
It is very important. Very important. But there are many other very
important issues as well, and I outlined the worst-case scenario; and
it is now the law, with one hearing, one hearing held in Richmond,
Virginia, where all the lobbyists from Washington just got on the train
and went down there for a day.
Personally, I am going to vote for the Hinchey amendment; but I hope
you all understand that while it may not pass today that there are big
stakes that America is facing as this change is made in American life.
The CHAIRMAN pro tempore (Mr. LaTourette). The question is on the
amendment offered by the gentleman from New York (Mr. Hinchey).
The question was taken; and the Chairman pro tempore announced that
the noes appeared to have it.
Mr. HINCHEY. Mr. Chairman, I demand a recorded vote.
The CHAIRMAN pro tempore. Pursuant to clause 6 of rule XVIII, further
proceedings on the amendment offered by the gentleman from New York
(Mr. Hinchey) will be postponed.
Amendment No. 13 Offered by Mr. King of Iowa
Mr. KING of Iowa. Mr. Chairman, I offer an amendment.
The CHAIRMAN pro tempore. The Clerk will designate the amendment.
The text of the amendment is as follows:
Amendment No. 13 offered by Mr. King of Iowa:
At the end of the bill (before the short title), insert the
following:
TITLE VIII--ADDITIONAL GENERAL PROVISIONS
Sec. 801. None of the funds made available in this Act may
be used to engage in negotiations respecting a trade
agreement with another country which creates or expands a
nonimmigrant visa category authorizing the temporary entry of
professionals into the United States.
Mr. KING of Iowa. Mr. Chairman, I appreciate the opportunity to offer
this amendment. I am going to do something slightly unusual and simply
read it since it is short and it does describe what it does. It says,
``None of the funds made available in this Act may be used to engage in
negotiations respecting a trade agreement with another country which
creates or expands a nonimmigrant visa category authorizing the
temporary entry of professionals into the United States.''
Mr. Chairman, this issue arises out of our U.S. Trade
Representative's including nonimmigration status, created a whole new
category; it was a ``W'' category that now we have changed into H-1Bs.
It is being included now in at least discussions in other trade
agreements across Central and South America. And so I rise today to
offer an amendment to prevent the United States Trade Representative
from negotiating changes to U.S. immigration law in trade agreements
with other countries. Our Constitution in article 1, section 8, gives
Congress, not the U.S. Trade Representative, plenary power over
immigration.
Immigration policy does not belong in free trade agreements. My
amendment provides that none of the funds appropriated by the bill may
be used by the United States Trade Representative to negotiate trade
agreements which create or expand a nonimmigrant visa category
authorizing the temporary entry of professionals into the United
States.
Recently, the U.S. Trade Representative has negotiated free trade
agreements which contain immigration provisions that infringe upon the
plenary power of Congress over immigration matters. The first draft of
the implementing legislation for the Chile and Singapore free trade
agreements included the creation of a new ``W'' category for visas for
professional workers. Only after the Trade Representative received
serious resistance from the Committee on the Judiciary did they agree
to slightly change the immigration provisions to accommodate some, but
not all, of the concerns of the Committee on the Judiciary.
The inclusion of immigration provisions in the Chile and Singapore
agreements is especially troubling since the agreements will likely be
used as a template for future free trade agreements, including those
with Central America, Southern Africa, Australia, Morocco and others.
The U.S. Trade Representative has negotiated these immigration
provisions without any authority or decision to do so from Congress.
With my amendment, Congress can reassert congressional primacy over
immigration law.
The United States Trade Representative's practice of proposing new
immigration law in the context of bilateral or multilateral trade
negotiations usurps Congress' constitutional responsibility for
immigration law. Trade Promotion Authority eliminates our ability to
amend such proposals, taking the plenary power over immigration out of
the hands of Congress. We cannot allow this to continue and must
prevent the U.S. Trade Representative from agreeing to include
immigration provisions in trade agreements.
The practice of including immigration provisions that usurp
congressional authority is not limited to the Chile and Singapore trade
agreements. The North American Free Trade Agreement and the General
Agreement on Trade in Services both included such provisions. In NAFTA,
the Clinton administration USTR agreed to a limitless professional
worker visa category containing not even a prevailing wage requirement.
In GATS, the USTR divested from future Congresses the ability to make
possibly crucial modifications to the H-1B visa program.
I am not opposed to free trade agreements. In fact, I am a free
trader. We need to make trade agreements with other countries, for
example, to increase our agriculture exports. However, the Trade
Representative does not need to change immigration law to achieve that
goal. As Members of Congress, we often disagree as to what our
immigration policy should be, but we are all united in the belief that
the responsibility for crafting an immigration policy belongs to
Congress, not the executive branch; and we take our duty seriously.
I ask Members to support my amendment.
Mr. WOLF. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the last word. I understand
the gentleman from Iowa is going to withdraw the amendment, and I
appreciate that; but I think Members ought to understand that the
gentleman raises a very, very valid and very, very important point. I
voted for Fast Track. I voted for it without the administration asking
me to vote for it. But he makes a very valid point, so I hope someone
from the Trade Representative's Office is listening to what the
gentleman is trying to say here.
We have a 6.4 percent unemployment rate in the country; and there are
many of these workers, moms and dads, who desperately want to return to
work. So I do appreciate the fact that the gentleman from Iowa is going
to withdraw it. I know the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Crane) is going
to address the amendment.
{time} 1745
But the Trade Representative's Office ought to be paying attention to
the King amendment and paying attention to what the gentleman from Iowa
(Mr. King) is saying, or else I think this issue will be dealt with
later on.
So I thank the gentleman for offering the amendment.
Mr. CRANE. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the requisite number of
words.
I rise in opposition to the amendment offered by the gentleman from
Iowa. The international mobility of business professionals has become
an increasingly important aspect of our competitive markets for both
suppliers and consumers. Facilitating the movement of professionals
allows trade partners to more efficiently provide each other with
services such as architecture, engineering, consulting, and
construction. TPA establishes that the principal negotiating objective
regarding trade in services is to reduce or eliminate barriers to
international trade in services.
Each trade negotiation the United States enters, like Chile and
Singapore, is approached individually to determine if the conclusion of
a temporary entry chapter will benefit U.S. trade in services, and if
so, whether a section on temporary entry of professionals is needed in
the agreement.
The Chile and Singapore Free Trade Agreements contain provisions
allowing for the temporary entry of business professionals into the
other party to facilitate trade in services.
[[Page H7289]]
This amendment would potentially limit our ability to discuss our
current obligations under NAFTA, Chile and Singapore.
This amendment would also encourage other industries that would like
their issues taken off the table in future negotiations to offer
amendments.
The administration worked diligently to address concerns on temporary
entry in the Singapore and Chile FTA, and it is very sensitive to
Members' concerns regarding the inclusion of temporary entry provisions
in free trade agreements.
USTR inherited a tradition of including such temporary entry
provisions in trade agreements from prior administrations. These
provisions are used to facilitate trade in services which is a
predominant economic interest in the U.S.
My experience with Ambassador Zoellick is that he is very sensitive
and responsive to congressional concerns, and I am confident that he
will be in this regard as well.
Mr. ROHRABACHER. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the requisite number
of words.
I yield to the gentleman from Iowa (Mr. King).
Mr. KING of Iowa. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman from California
for yielding.
Just a few quick points to make on the remarks made by the gentleman.
First of all, it is Congress' authority to establish immigration
policy, and when we open up and provide that opportunity to the U.S.
Trade Representative to inject immigration issues into any and all
trade agreements that they might make, that is voluntarily giving up
congressional authority that is constitutionally vested in the United
States Congress.
We have a responsibility to defend our oath of office, which is to
uphold the Constitution of the United States; and once we move outside
of that, our Founding Fathers knew better. That is why they put that in
the Constitution.
We are not allowed to amend a trade agreement. So by not being
allowed to amend a trade agreement, that means that they can inject
immigration issues into a trade agreement and those of us who believe
in free trade, but do not believe that we should set up the authority
with a Trade Representative to bring in any limit of immigration, that
puts us in a position of having to decide, devil's choice, are we for
the trade or are we against immigration policy?
So it is Congress' authority.
Mr. Chairman, I ask unanimous consent to withdraw the amendment.
The CHAIRMAN pro tempore (Mr. LaTourette). Is there objection to the
request of the gentleman from Iowa?
There was no objection.
Amendment Offered by Mr. Rohrabacher
Mr. ROHRABACHER. Mr. Chairman, I offer an amendment.
The CHAIRMAN. The Clerk will designate the amendment.
The text of the amendment is as follows:
Amendment offered by Mr. Rohrabacher:
Page 103, after line 26, insert the following:
TITLE VIII--ADDITIONAL GENERAL PROVISIONS
Sec. 801. None of the funds made available in this Act may
be used by the Department of Justice or the Department of
State to file a motion in any court opposing a civil action
against any Japanese person or corporation for compensation
or reparations in which the plaintiff alleges that, as an
American prisoner of war during World War II, he or she was
used as slave or forced labor.
Mr. ROHRABACHER. Mr. Chairman, this amendment offered by the
gentleman from California (Mr. Honda) and me supports the rights of
former American prisoners of war who were captured at the fall of
Bataan, the Philippines, in 1942. They were used as slave labor by
Japanese corporations during the rest of the Second World War.
These heroes survived the Bataan Death March only to be transported
to Japan and elsewhere in infamous death ships. They were then forced
to labor for Japanese corporations under the most horrendous
circumstances one can imagine. Private employees of these corporations
tortured and physically abused our American POWs while the corporations
withheld essential medical care and even the most minimal amount of
food. All of this, and when it was over, they were not even permitted
to be compensated by the Japanese corporations that used them as slave
labor.
Perhaps the worst part of this nightmare is that these American
heroes have been thwarted in their efforts to secure for themselves
just compensation and an apology, and they are being thwarted by our
own State Department, which claims they have no right to sue.
My amendment to H.R. 2799 would prohibit any funds in the act from
being used by the United States Government to prevent our POWs from
seeking a fair hearing in civil court against the Japanese companies
that used them as slave labor.
We are told, of course, that if the American POWs seek this
compensation from these Japanese corporations, that it would be an
insult to the corporate leaders in Japan who led these corporations or
an insult to the Japanese people. Ironically, even while we are being
told this, the Japanese have extended favorable reparation terms to
other victims from other countries, and they continue to settle war
claims for people of other countries. But, of course, those other
countries have their governments fighting for the rights of their
people rather than trying to undermine the rights of their greatest
heroes.
Unfortunately, to date, our State Department continues to argue in
court against our POWs, touting a ridiculously restrictive reading of
the peace treaty between the United States and Japan. In that, our
State Department is now betraying our own POWs in order to protect
Japanese corporations that used them as slave labor during the war. If
our State Department is doing that, it is wrong; and it is therefore up
to this Congress to pass this bill to force our State Department to get
out of the way of our POWs and let them have their day in court,
because every time our POWs come forth to sue these Japanese
corporations, our State Department is there arguing against them and
tearing down their arguments.
This is not the first time that we have taken on this issue to try to
prevent this from happening to our American heroes. On July 18 of 2001,
this amendment passed in the House with a resounding vote of 395 to 33.
It was also agreed to on September 10, 2001, in identical form by a
majority in the United States Senate.
It is a disgrace that this amendment, after having been approved by
both Houses of Congress in identical terms, was pulled out of the bill
and did not make it into the conference report; thus, behind closed
doors, our POWs were again betrayed.
Is this a democracy where if a majority of people in both Houses vote
for something, it does not stay in the bill, that someone can just take
it out? No. I think that we have got to try to correct this situation
now; and if we stand up today, we send a message that this kind of
behavior, making these kind of decisions behind closed doors, is
unacceptable. And what better issue to draw the line against this
practice than in protecting the rights of some of America's greatest
heroes?
I would hope that we can once again put restrictions into this bill
that will prevent the State Department from using any of these funds
that we authorize or appropriate today to prevent our own POWs from
suing Japanese corporations that used them as slave labor during the
Second World War.
Which side are we on? It comes down to that. Which side are we on? On
the side of America's greatest heroes or are we more concerned with the
sensibilities of big Japanese corporations who used our heroes as
slaves?
I urge my colleagues to join me in supporting this amendment.
The CHAIRMAN. The question is on the amendment offered by the
gentleman from California (Mr. Rohrabacher).
The amendment was agreed to.
Amendment Offered by Mr. Otter
Mr. OTTER. Mr. Chairman, I offer an amendment.
The CHAIRMAN. The Clerk will designate the amendment.
The text of the amendment is as follows:
Amendment offered by Mr. Otter:
At the end of the bill (before the short title), insert the
following:
Section . None of the funds made available in this act may
be used to seek a delay under Section 3103a(b) of title 18
United States Code.
[[Page H7290]]
Mr. OTTER. Mr. Chairman, over 200 years ago when the formulation of
this great republic was being put together, John Stuart Mill sat down
and probably put the essence of this government in writing better than
anyone could. ``A people,'' he said, ``may prefer a free government,
but if from indolence or carelessness, or cowardice, or want of public
spirit, they are unequal to the exertions necessary for preserving it;
if they will not fight for it when it is directly attacked; if by
momentary discouragement or temporary panic, they can be deluded by the
artifices used to cheat them out of it; or if in a fit of enthusiasm
for an individual, they can be induced to lay their liberties at the
feet of even a great man, in all these cases, they are more or less
unfit for liberty. And though it may have been to their good to have
had it for a short time, they are unlikely long to enjoy it.''
The United States PATRIOT Act was well intentioned, Mr. Chairman,
especially during a time of uncertainty and panic. However, now we have
had a chance to step back and examine it objectively. The legislation
deserves serious reevaluation. While I agree with some of the new
powers granted to the Federal law enforcement authorities that may be,
and I stress ``may be,'' necessary, many more are unjustified and are
dangerously undermining our civil liberties.
We have the opportunity to revisit these sections of the USA PATRIOT
Act and to correct these mistakes from those first frenzied weeks after
September 11, 2001.
One provision, section 213, allows delayed notification of the
execution of a search warrant. It authorizes no-knock searches of
private residences, our homes, either physically or electronically. By
putting off notice of the execution of a warrant, even delaying it
indefinitely, section 213 of the USA PATRIOT Act prevents people, or
even their attorneys, from reviewing the warrant for correctness in
legalities.
These ``sneak and peek'' searches give the government the power to
repeatedly search a private residence without informing the residents
that he or she is the target of an investigation. Not only does this
provision allow the seizure of personal property and business records
without notification, but it also opens the door to nationwide search
warrants and allows the CIA and the NSA to operate domestically.
American citizens, whom the government has pledged to protect from
terrorist activities, now find themselves the victims of the very
weapon designed to uproot their enemies.
It is in defense of these freedoms that I offer this amendment today
to the Commerce, Justice, and State, the Judiciary, and Related
Agencies Appropriations Act for the fiscal year 2004 bill. This
amendment would prohibit any funds from being used to carry out section
213 of the USA PATRIOT Act as signed into law on October 26, 2001.
Through the passage of this amendment, Americans would have reinstated
a different kind of security, one giving them renewed confidence in
their government in tirelessly protecting their individual freedom from
unjustified and unnecessary intrusion.
Being secure at the expense of our freedom is no real security. Like
many Idahoans who have come to me with their concerns about the USA
PATRIOT Act and in passionate defense of their freedoms, we must
continue to examine our actions to correct our mistakes to guard
against the apathy or the indifference to safeguarding our liberties.
To these Federal agencies, it is a house, it is a building, it is a
business; but to us, Mr. Chairman, it is our homes, and there is
nothing more sacred than homes in America because it is the foundation
on which we build our families. It is the arsenal in which the virtue
and hope of every generation resides, and it is the fundamental primer
of any free people.
{time} 1800
We can, with the adoption of this first alteration to the PATRIOT
Act, begin the reclamation of our title of a Nation as a people fit for
liberty.
Mr. WOLF. Mr. Chairman, I rise in opposition to the amendment,
without really knowing completely what it does. Let me just say if
anyone from the Justice Department is listening, is there an office of
legislative counsel down there who can give opinions? Hello, is there a
policy office down there?
This would be a mistake, though. We are amending the PATRIOT Act,
this is not an appropriations issue, on the floor of the House. The
gentleman may very well be right, and he seems to have pretty good
information, but he may not be. So for us to amend the PATRIOT Act in
this bill, I think would be a mistake.
This is not an appropriate amendment for an appropriations bill. This
is clearly for the authorizers; this is clearly for the Department of
Justice to come up and sit down with the gentleman from Idaho (Mr.
Otter) and discuss this with him. This is clearly for the legislative
counsel of the Department of Justice to address.
The gentleman from Idaho (Mr. Otter) may very well be right. The
gentleman from Idaho (Mr. Otter) may not be right. But undoing a
statute with a funding limitation at 6 o'clock at night without knowing
what the ramifications are is not really the way to legislate.
So because of that, not because the gentleman from Idaho (Mr. Otter)
is wrong, I want to stress again he may very well be right; and then
again, I want to stress he may not be, but I also want to stress that
the Department of Justice is AWOL on this issue with regard to coming
and sharing with the Congress, and with the gentleman from Idaho (Mr.
Otter), some of the concerns. But in an appropriations bill, I do not
think it would be appropriate to amend the PATRIOT Act, without having
extensive and deep debate.
So with that, I oppose the amendment. I would be glad, as I said, to
set up meetings, should this amendment fail, with the Justice
Department and the gentleman from Idaho (Mr. Otter) so we can get to
the bottom, to make sure whether what the gentleman from Idaho (Mr.
Otter) said is true or not true.
With that, I oppose the amendment.
Mr. SERRANO. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the last word.
Mr. Chairman, I rise in opposition to the amendment, and I would
refer the gentleman to my earlier comments about civil liberties and
the issues which are contained within the PATRIOT Act.
I may not totally end up on the side of disagreeing with the
gentleman once some more research is done. My problem with the
amendment is that lately we have been seeing a lot of amendments on
this bill, both in committee and on the floor, where we fully do not
know the full impact.
That may sound to some people as a contradiction to the fact that I
would want to be the leader in changing and I would lead the charge in
changing the PATRIOT Act. So I understand that, if there is concern,
the gentleman has to be respected for that. But this is an issue that
we really need to consult with many people on, and we just do not think
it should be done on this particular bill.
With that in mind, not only would I oppose it, but I would hope the
gentleman would reconsider and withdraw his amendment.
Mr. KUCINICH. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the requisite number of
words.
Mr. Chairman, I rise in support of the amendment of the gentleman
from Idaho (Mr. Otter) and am proud to join with him and the gentleman
from Texas (Mr. Paul) in cosponsoring it.
It has been said that Members may not know the impact of this
amendment. This amendment seeks to deny funds which would be used to
carry out section 213 of the PATRIOT Act, which allows for so-called
sneak-and-peak searches. It has been said that Members may not know the
impact of this amendment.
Let it be stated here that when this House passed the PATRIOT Act,
most Members, as diligent as they are, nevertheless did not have access
to see the very bill they were voting on, that, in fact, we were not
voting on at 6 o'clock in the afternoon, we were voting on in the dead
of night. In an atmosphere of apprehension and confusion and chaos, the
Congress passed the PATRIOT Act, which has led to a destructive
undermining of numerous provisions of the Bill of Rights. The amendment
of the gentleman from Idaho (Mr. Otter) is the first opportunity that
we have had
[[Page H7291]]
in this House to correct something that has been a grievous assault on
our Constitution.
We are offering this amendment to restore integrity to the fourth
amendment by denying funds from being used to carry out section 213 of
the PATRIOT Act, that section which allows for the sneak-and-peak
searches. Common law has always required that the government cannot
enter your property without you and must, therefore, give you notice
before it executes a search. That knock-and-announce principle has long
been recognized as having been codified in the fourth amendment to the
United States Constitution.
The PATRIOT Act, however, unconstitutionally amended the Federal
Rules of Criminal Procedure to allow the government to conduct searches
without notifying the subjects, at least until long after the search
has been executed. Let me tell you what this means. This means that
under this law, this law which was passed by the Congress, the
government can enter your house, your apartment, your office, with a
search warrant, when the occupants are away, search through your
property, take photographs, and, in some cases, even seize property and
not tell you until later. This effectively guts the fourth amendment
protections.
In response to questioning by the Committee on the Judiciary, the
Department of Justice makes it clear that the fourth amendment is
already in peril as a result of section 213. Listen to this box score
of their activity: the Department of Justice reports that sneak-and-
peak searches have been used on 47 separate occasions and that the
period of delay for notification has been sought almost 250 times. I
would suggest to you just once constitutes a threat to our Bill of
Rights.
These secret warrants have been used in Federal criminal
investigations not necessarily related to terrorist investigations.
Notice with a warrant is a crucial check on the government's power.
It forces authorities to operate in the open. It allows citizens to
protect their constitutional rights. For example, it allows subjects to
point out problems with a warrant, for instance, if the police are at
the wrong address or if the scope of the warrant is obviously being
exceeded.
If, for example, authorities in search of a stolen car go into
someone's apartment and rifle through a dresser drawer, search warrants
rightly contain limits on what may be searched. But when the searching
authorities have utter control and discretion over a search, American
citizens are unable to defend their constitutional rights.
This assault on the fourth amendment is wrong, it is
unconstitutional, it is un-American; and it must stop. I would ask my
colleagues to recall the oft-invoked words of a great American,
Benjamin Franklin, who once said: ``Those who would give up essential
liberty to purchase a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty
nor safety.''
I say today that section 213 of the PATRIOT Act destroys an essential
liberty. The Otter amendment restores it.
Mr. PAUL. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the requisite number of
words.
(Mr. PAUL asked and was given permission to revise and extend his
remarks.)
Mr. PAUL. Mr. Chairman, I rise in support of this amendment. I want
to compliment the gentleman from Idaho (Mr. Otter) for bringing this to
the floor.
When the PATRIOT Act was passed, it was in the passions following 9/
11, and that bill should have never been passed. It was brought up
carelessly, casually, in a rapid manner. The bill that had been
discussed in the Committee on the Judiciary was removed during the
night before we voted. The full text of this bill was very difficult to
find. I am convinced that very few Members were able to review this
bill before voting. That bill should have never passed. We certainly
should continue to maintain the sunset provisions. But that is a long
way off, and we should be starting to reform and improve this
particular piece of legislation. This is our first chance to do so.
I have had many Members in the Congress come to me and on the quiet
admit to me that voting for the PATRIOT Act was the worst bill and the
worst vote they have ever cast; and this will give them an opportunity
to change it, although this is very narrow. It is too bad we could not
have made this more broad, and it is too bad we are not going to get to
vote on the amendment of the gentleman from Vermont (Mr. Sanders) to
make sure that without the proper search warrant that the Federal
Government would not have access to the library records.
But there is no need ever to sacrifice liberty in order to maintain
security. I feel more secure when I have more liberty; and that is why
I am a defender of liberty, because my main concern is security, both
in the physical sense as well as the financial sense. I think the freer
the country is, the more prosperous we are; and the freer the country
is, the more secure we are.
Yet it was in the atmosphere of post-9/11 that so many were anxious
to respond to what they perceived as demands by the people to do
something. But just to do something, if you are doing the wrong thing,
what good is it? You are doing more harm.
But my main argument is that there is never a need to sacrifice
liberty in order to protect liberty, and that is why we would like to
at least remove this clause that allows sneak-and-peak search warrants.
It took hundreds, if not thousands, of years to develop this concept
that governments do not have the right to break in without the proper
procedures and without probable cause. And yet we threw that out the
window in this post-9/11 atmosphere, and we gave away a lot.
Yes, we talked about numbers of dozens of examples of times when our
government has used this and abused it. But that is only the beginning.
It is the principle. If they had only done it once, if they had not
done it, this should still be taken care of, because as time goes on,
and if we adapt to this process, it will be used more and more, and
that is throwing away a big and important chunk of our Constitution,
the fourth amendment.
Not only should we do whatever we can to reform that legislation, but
we already know that there is a PATRIOT Act No. 2. It has not been
given to us, the Congress; but the administration has it for the
future. It is available, but we have only gotten to see it from the
Internet.
In that bill there is a proposal that the government can strip us of
our citizenship, and then anybody then stripped of their citizenship
could be put into the situation that many foreigners find themselves in
at Guantanamo before the military tribunals.
I see this as a very, very important issue, if anybody cares about
liberty, if anybody cares about personal freedom and the rule of law
and the need for probable cause before our government comes barging
into our houses. It has been under the guise of drug laws that have in
the past instituted many of these abuses, but this is much worse. This
has been put into an explicit piece of legislation, and the American
people and this Congress ought to become very alert to this and realize
how serious the PATRIOT Act is.
I hope that the Congress and our colleagues here will support this
amendment. It is very necessary, and it will be voting for the
Constitution; and it will be voting for liberty if we support this
amendment.
Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the requisite number of
words.
Mr. Chairman, I want to congratulate the gentleman from Texas (Mr.
Paul) who just spoke. It is a cliche in this House that almost no
speeches change people's minds, but I think this speech is one occasion
when it has certainly changed mine, and I want to thank the gentleman
for that.
Originally, when I first heard the amendment offered, I thought,
well, this is not the right place for this, and it is not; and I
thought there may be ramifications to this that we do not understand,
and there probably are. But I have full confidence in the ability of
the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Wolf) and the gentleman from New York
(Mr. Serrano) to see to it that that is fixed in conference if this
amendment is adopted.
The reason I have changed my mind listening to the gentleman from
Texas and the reason I intend to support this amendment is because of
the history of the PATRIOT Act.
[[Page H7292]]
{time} 1815
When the first act was brought to this House floor, I voted
``present'' because this House had no idea what was in it. We were
asked to vote blind. And as a protest to doing that, even in the heat
of 9-11, I voted ``present'' to signify that I did not feel that I knew
enough about the contents of that bill to vote for it.
When it came back from conference, I very reluctantly voted ``yes,''
because I thought there were some things in it that, because of what I
had learned in classified briefings, we needed to face. Things like
being able to go after multiple telephones rather than just being able
to target one telephone number of a suspected terrorist, for instance.
So I assumed that given the unifying approach that the administration
at that point had been taking after 9-11, I assumed the Justice
Department would exercise those authorities with restraint. I was
wrong.
I believe this Attorney General has far overreached legitimate
boundaries. I often disagree with The Washington Post, but I have to
congratulate their constant drumbeat of editorials in support of
preserving the values of the Constitution that protect individual
freedom and privacy. And when I see the Justice Department overreach,
as it has, and when I see them assert the claim that they have a right
to lock up anybody they want without any kind of court review
whatsoever, I am appalled and chagrined and horrified.
So in my view, anything that can be done to push the Justice
Department back a little bit closer to the Constitution, anything that
can be done to reinforce Congress's determination to give PATRIOT II a
far tougher scrutiny than it gave PATRIOT I, I am willing to do.
So I congratulate the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Paul), because my
first reaction was that we did not know enough about the effect of this
amendment to adopt the amendment. But upon reflection, after hearing
the gentleman, I conclude that we know far too much about how PATRIOT I
has been used not to adopt this amendment. As I say, the gentleman from
Virginia is correct, that there may be problems with this; but I really
think we have the capacity to fix those problems in conference if there
are problems.
Mr. Chairman, I want the Justice Department to have to come to us and
assure us that the way they are enforcing the law that we have given
them the authority to enforce is the correct way. I do not want us to
have to go hat in hand to the Justice Department asking them to defend
the Constitution.
So I would at this point simply say I think the gentleman is right.
We ought to adopt this amendment if for no other reason than to send a
message to the Justice Department that we want respect for law
demonstrated by the Justice Department as well as average citizens of
this country.
I thank the gentleman for his speech, and I thank the gentleman for
offering the amendment.
Mr. SANDERS. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the requisite number of
words.
Mr. Chairman, I find myself feeling good that once today I can agree
with the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Obey), and that is that the
gentleman from Idaho (Mr. Otter) has brought forth a very important
amendment which is addressing an issue that I believe millions of
Americans from very different political perspectives, whether they are
conservatives, like the gentleman from Idaho (Mr. Otter), or
progressives like myself, or people in between, are demanding a tough
examination of, and that is the U.S.A. PATRIOT Act.
Everybody in our country knows that on 9-11, 2001, a dastardly attack
took place against our country and 3,000 innocent people were killed.
And every Member of this Chamber pledges to do everything that we can
to protect the American people from other acts of terrorism and to do
everything that we can to wipe out terrorism throughout the world.
But what some of us very strongly believe is that we should not be
undermining basic American constitutional rights in the fight against
terrorism. We have strong law enforcement capabilities in this country
to fight terrorism, and we have to support our law enforcement
officials to do that. But we can fight terrorism without denying the
American people their basic constitutional rights, and that is the
point that I think the gentleman from Idaho (Mr. Otter) is making
today.
As my colleagues know, I am very disappointed on a similar issue,
section 215, which deals with the FBI going into libraries and book
stores all over this country with virtually no probable cause. That
issue is not being debated. But I applaud my friend from Idaho for
demanding that this body begin, just begin to take a hard look at the
U.S.A. PATRIOT Act, which passed so swiftly through this body where I
think many honest Members will acknowledge that they really did not
have the time to look at all aspects of that legislation.
So I rise in strong support of the Otter amendment, and I hope that
it carries.
Mr. TANCREDO. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the requisite number of
words.
Mr. Chairman, there is a lot of discussion as to whether or not this
is an appropriate time or the appropriate place to debate this issue.
Certainly there will be more debate to come. But this is as good a time
as any, and as good a place as any, because it is a good amendment that
definitely needs to be heard.
Mr. Chairman, I yield to the gentleman from Idaho.
Mr. OTTER. Mr. Chairman, I thank those who have engaged in the
debate, whether one is for or against this amendment.
But there is one thing I must notice and bring to everybody's
attention, Mr. Chairman, and that is that pound for pound, we have
debated this amendment longer than we debated the PATRIOT Act. We
passed the PATRIOT Act in 45 days. The smoke was still coming up out of
the rubble in New York City and at the Pentagon, and who could not be
torn by still hearing the cries and the pain of the victims and the
families of those victims.
But now we have an opportunity to reflect back on what have we done.
I have to tell my colleagues that the comments that have been made
relative to, is this the proper time or is this the proper place, I am
just so thankful that our Founding Fathers did not sit around and say
that. It was the time. It was the place. And that is the legacy that
they gave us; and that legacy demands that whenever the opportunity
arises, we have an obligation to stand and to stand firm to make sure
that the liberties of the American people are foremost. There is only
one purpose for government, one purpose for government, and that is to
defend us in the peaceful exercise of our liberties.
So I am hoping, once again, as my friend, the gentleman from Vermont
(Mr. Sanders), said, that this will be the first in the piece-by-piece
taking back the freedoms and the liberties that we have, while leaving
some of the PATRIOT Act in place. The proper role of government, the
proper role of government is to defend us in the free and peaceful
exercise of our liberties and in our homes, and not to take those away
from us.
So I pray, I hope that today we begin that process, and I invite the
gentleman from Wisconsin and all others who will want to participate in
that to join me.
Mr. FEENEY. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the requisite number of
words.
Mr. Chairman, first, I want to rise to express a lot of empathy and
sympathy with the concerns expressed on the Otter amendment. I think
that they are very legitimate questions. I think some of the concerns
about the rapidity with which the PATRIOT I Act was passed in the
aftermath of a huge American historic tragedy are legitimate concerns.
But the rapidity with which we are passing this amendment in some ways
reflects the problems that some of the proponents of the amendment are
suggesting the original PATRIOT Act is guilty of.
I will tell my colleagues that it is important to have deliberation
and thoughtfulness as we go through the process of striking a new
balance. I think all of us will recognize that the last time the
mainland of the United States was attacked by a foreign power before
September 11 was in 1812. All of us here are civil libertarians, but
defining the balance between order and liberty is a constant struggle
with new technologies, with new challenges.
[[Page H7293]]
When was the last time that we as Americans before September 11
literally thought about the terror of a potential biological, chemical,
nuclear attack from a foreign power? This is a whole new set of
balancing that we have to do within the great framework that the
founders provided us in the Constitution. And I agree with the
gentleman from Idaho (Mr. Otter) and the proponents of this amendment
that we need to have careful and thoughtful reflection, and we need to
be constantly dealing with balancing these new issues.
But I do believe that the best place to do that is through the
subcommittee process, in committees like the Committee on the
Judiciary, which I serve on. We hear expert testimony from civil
libertarians and law professors, from prosecutors and defense
attorneys, from people throughout the country who have expertise in
advising us, as the body that represents the people of the United
States in a democratic fashion, but also in a fashion that respects the
constitutional framework.
I personally am a huge civil libertarian, and there is much in the
suggestion that the gentleman from Idaho (Mr. Otter) and the proponents
have of this amendment with which I hugely sympathize. But I will tell
my colleagues this: in a new day when all of our children and all of
our grandchildren are constantly under threat of biological, chemical,
or nuclear terror, which was not true, 10, 15, 20, 30 years ago, the
time for us has come to move into the 21st century in terms of
preparing the defense of the homeland. That is why we created an Office
of Homeland Security.
Now, let me address the merits of the amendment itself, because with
all due respect, there is some suggestion that the PATRIOT Act
radically changed the process of delayed notification. The question is
when a subpoena is issued, are there times when actual prior
notification to the recipient of the subpoena can be waived; and the
answer is, it has always been true, or at least far before September
11, that in most circuits in the United States, Federal courts have
allowed the delayed notification. But several things are required.
Number one, one would think from listening to some of the debate that
any prosecutor or any sheriff or any law enforcement agent or any FBI
agent could go in and subpoena records and tell people only after the
fact that their records had been confiscated and reviewed by the
government. That is a scary thought, but it is simply not accurate. The
truth of the matter is that in all events, 213 requires that a judge
make a decision. The authority is based on a court order and a court
order alone. So a judge is going to review all of the potential
evidence in the case to determine whether or not the delayed
notification is warranted.
I want the people to understand throughout America when courts are in
power, and the only time they are in power to approve delayed
notification, courts can delay notice only when immediate notification,
in other words, prior notification, might result in the death or
physical harm of an individual.
Imagine the events leading up to September 11 and the intelligence we
now know, if we had been better prepared to put it together, assimilate
it, understand what it meant. Courts can only delay notification if the
death or physical harm of an individual is impacted, or when there is
flight from prosecution; and we had some 19 terrorists floating around
America that we now know organized the September 11 events; evidence
tampering, or witness intimidation.
Mr. Chairman, I would suggest that the Otter amendment raises
concerns that I share, and those concerns are that we have to balance
in a new technological world, in a world of new threats, liberty and
order and security and homeland security. I would suggest that the
issues raised here are appropriate to debate. We will be debating them
for years, dare I say decades; but I do not think the place to debate
them is in the appropriation bill of the gentleman from Virginia (Mr.
Wolf).
The CHAIRMAN pro tempore (Mr. LaTourette). The question is on the
amendment offered by the gentleman from Idaho (Mr. Otter).
The question was taken; and the Chairman pro tempore announced that
the noes appeared to have it.
Mr. OTTER. Mr. Chairman, I demand a recorded vote.
The CHAIRMAN pro tempore. Pursuant to clause 6 of rule XVIII, further
proceedings on the amendment offered by the gentleman from Idaho (Mr.
Otter) will be postponed.
Amendment Offered by Mr. Tancredo
Mr. TANCREDO. Mr. Chairman, I offer an amendment.
The CHAIRMAN pro tempore. The Clerk will designate the amendment.
The text of the amendment is as follows:
Amendment offered by Mr. Tancredo:
At the end of the bill (before the short title), insert the
following:
TITLE VIII--ADDITIONAL GENERAL PROVISIONS
Sec. 801. None of the funds made available in this Act for
``DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE--Office of Justice Programs--state
and local law enforcement assistance'' may be used to assist
any State or local government entity or official that
prohibits or restricts any government entity or official from
sending to, or receiving from, the Bureau of Immigration and
Customs Enforcement of the Department of Homeland Security
information regarding the citizenship or immigration status
of an individual, as prohibited under section 642(a) of the
Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act
of 1996 (8 U.S.C. 1373(a)).
{time} 1830
Mr. TANCREDO. Mr. Chairman, in 1996, this body passed the Illegal
Immigration Reform and Immigration Responsibility Act. Other provisions
of that act, it is noted in the amendment, state that ``Notwithstanding
any of the provisions of Federal, State or local law, a Federal, State
or local government entity or official may not prohibit or in any way
restrict any government entity or official from sending to or receiving
from the Immigration and Naturalization Service information regarding
the citizenship or immigration status, lawful or unlawful, of any
individual.''
Now, this was a good provision of law. I am glad it was passed and
that President Clinton signed it. The only problem with this particular
law is that there is no sanction should any State, local or any other
agency choose to violate the law. So this amendment is similar to the
one I offered during consideration of the Homeland Security
appropriations bill.
Outrage is often expressed by Members of this House when corporations
flee from the United States seeking some sort of tax haven off the
coast of America, yet dare to seek Federal funds in the several
appropriations and tax bills that we pass in this body. They are
indignant; and I, by the way, share the feeling of indignation.
In that same vein, I think it is outrageous to have cities and States
applying for law enforcement funds under this act when they passed laws
and ordinances, which has been done in several cities and States around
the country, that actually prevent the law enforcement agencies in
those cities from sharing information with or obtaining information
from the Immigration and Naturalization Service, or as it is now known,
the Bureau of Immigration and Customs.
Unfortunately, there are cities in the United States that have
disregarded the law. Recently, as a matter of fact, the City of New
York rescinded an ordinance that it had on the books for 20 years that
had prohibited police officers from communicating with the INS.
Mr. Chairman, there are several cities in the United States that have
chosen to pass legislation, pass laws that in fact restrict the ability
of their own police forces in many cases from sharing information with
the now Bureau of Immigration and Customs. This is a violation of law,
the law that we have on the books.
I am not trying to expand the law. I am simply trying to do something
that would help us enforce the law.
It is a very simple amendment. It says that if you make that choice
as a city or State to make America a more dangerous place by refusing
to share data with or accept data from Federal immigration authorities,
that you will forgo State and local law enforcement assistance funds.
If a city or State makes an affirmative choice to thumb their nose at
the Federal law, then they get no Federal money under the provisions of
this particular act; it is as simple as that.
There are, in fact, right now we have, Lord knows, how many
immigration
[[Page H7294]]
policies being operated in the country. And the question we have to ask
ourselves is, how many should there be and who should be responsible
for setting immigration policy? Is it not the position, is it not the
sole responsibility of the Federal Government to set immigration
policies? And yet we have it now happening all over the country that
cities are determining their own.
Well, I guess if we cannot stop that from happening, at least what we
can do is say, they cannot apply for Federal funds under this
particular provision of the act. That is really all it does. It does
not actually restrict any money from flowing to any city because all
they have to do is, of course, abide by the law that is already on the
books.
I guess I have to keep reiterating, because I know on the last
discussion we had on the matter there was a lot of concern about
whether or not we were creating a brand-new law. I repeat, this is not
creating new law. It is simply asking for some sort of enforcement
mechanism or sanction for a city that decides to actually violate the
law. That is all there is to it.
It has no significance in terms of immigration policy. There was a
lot of discussion about that, whether we were changing that. It is
simply reinforcing the fact that the United States of America, the
Federal Government, has the sole responsibility to set immigration
policy. We cannot let States and cities do their own all over the
country. Something has to be done to change that. This is my attempt to
do just that.
Mr. WOLF. Mr. Chairman, I rise in opposition to the amendment. The
gentleman from Colorado (Mr. Tancredo), is a good friend, and I
appreciate all the good work he has done on Sudan and the Sudan Peace
Act and other issues. It is painful to rise in opposition to this.
This amendment is exactly what we did before on the Homeland Security
bill. There was a vote on the Homeland Security appropriations bill,
the Rogers bill, it was 106 for the Tancredo amendment, 322 against. We
are facing this issue again.
In this subcommittee we do not have jurisdiction over the Bureau of
Immigration and Customs Enforcement. That is under the jurisdiction of
Homeland Security appropriations and not this subcommittee.
Also, I understand the gentleman's amendment could result, or
probably would result, in the States not being able to receive funding
under State and local law enforcement assistance. It could have a
devastating impact on resources made available to State and local law
enforcement and to citizens that are involved. It could result in
States losing tens of millions of dollars in programs such as the Byrne
program. People are complaining that there is not enough money in here
for the Byrne program; this amendment would reduce that.
The SCAAP program, the budget request has zeroed out SCAAP. We have
it at $400 million. That would be impacted, drug courts, State prison
drug treatment programs. So to punish the State and local law
enforcement, I believe, is not the way. Also, this amendment really
should have been offered as it was drafted and it is more appropriate
for the Homeland Security bill. We do not have the jurisdiction over
the Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
So I oppose the amendment and would urge Members to vote no. This
amendment is basically what we did several weeks ago, the amendment
failed 322 against and 122 for.
Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?
Mr. WOLF. I yield to the gentleman from Wisconsin.
Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I would just like to reiterate what the
gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Wolf) said. Rather than taking a long time
speaking against this amendment, I think Members should understand that
the House has already turned this proposition down by a vote of 322 to
102.
We will have copies of that previous rollcall here at the desk if
Members want to know how they voted on previous occasions.
I thank the gentleman for yielding.
Mr. KING of Iowa. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the last word.
Mr. Chairman, as I listen to this debate, I think there is a point
that needs to be clarified and that is what the gentleman from Colorado
(Mr. Tancredo) seeks to do is simply say that if you are a local
government and you have passed an ordinance that prohibits your
employees from cooperating with Federal law by providing information
to, and this is the Federal law, specifically, the Illegal Immigration
Reform and Immigration Responsibility Act of 1996. We have out here
about a baker's dozen of major cities in this country that have passed
an ordinance saying we are going to be a safe haven and we will not
cooperate with the Federal entities or Federal law, and the ordinance
says so.
So if we are going to have any linkage at all between Federal dollars
and this rule of law that requires cooperation between all levels of
government, we need to put some strings in here; and that is what we
have done.
I was rather taken aback some years ago when the fairly new city of
El Cenizo, Texas, precluded their employees from complying with Federal
agents. I thought that was an anomaly; instead, it is becoming a
standard.
With regard to the comment that there is no jurisdiction over the
Bureau of Immigration and Customs in this committee, I do agree with
that particular statement as far as the jurisdiction is concerned. But
we need to have a hook in here. This is dollars, and it just says that
if you have an ordinance that prohibits your people from complying with
this Federal law, we are not going to allow the dollars to go then to
that particular political subdivision or community.
Mr. SERRANO. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the requisite number of
words.
Mr. Chairman, first of all, I rise in opposition to the amendment.
Very briefly, this amendment runs the risk, as others have, of breaking
down local relationships that law enforcement has tried to build with
some communities.
Picture, if you will, the situation that a lot of police departments
throughout this Nation have in large cities especially and in other
communities where they are trying on a daily basis to build a
relationship with folks that are just coming to the country. In many
instances, and this we can attest to, whether you have been born here,
whether you have just arrived here, whether you are a citizen or you
are not, the whole idea of dealing with the Immigration Department is
one that strikes fear in the hearts of many people and it is across the
board.
Police departments, local law enforcement are aware of this and part
of their relationship building has been the fact that they have always
been seen as something other than the Immigration Department.
Now, to continue to try to force local law enforcement to, in fact,
act as immigration officers just breaks down the ability of those
relationships to be put together. So, therefore, if you take a
situation where, and police have said this over and over again in other
issues where they were asked to participate in these kinds of behavior
where they said, look, if we need to know who committed a crime, if we
need to know what is going on in a neighborhood, if we need to know how
to go in and deal with issues of crime and other forms of abuse, we
need the confidence of the community we are dealing with.
If they think in any way, shape or form that we are only dealing with
immigration issues or that we are, in fact, immigration officers, we
lose the ability to deal with this community, we lose the ability to
have them as supporters of what we do.
Now, this amendment says, and if you choose to build those
relationships and if you choose to act in that way and we find out, we
will withhold from you dollars, very valuable dollars, that go to all
the issues we have discussed here in the fight against crime and all
the issues that we need to take care of locally.
So I really think that this is an ill-conceived notion. It was
defeated before. As the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Obey) said,
Members can come and look at their vote. It was defeated strongly in
this House and it should be defeated again.
Mr. BERMAN. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the requisite number of
words.
Mr. Chairman, the gentleman from Colorado (Mr. Tancredo) with this
amendment declares war on Los Angeles and a number of other cities
[[Page H7295]]
throughout this country. He takes a city that is desperately trying to
increase the size of the police force, using its own resources and
utilizing State and Federal resources where they are available, to
expand, to remove itself from the distinction of being one of the most
under-policed cities in the country and says, You are no longer
eligible for the Byrne program. You are no longer eligible for local
law enforcement assistance block grants. You are no longer eligible for
more than a billion dollars of funds appropriated by this bill to help
local law enforcement around the country.
Why? Well, the gentleman would have you believe it is because the
City of Los Angeles and other jurisdictions, State and local, around
this country, have chosen to try to promote and protect undocumented
immigrants who have come to this country. But the truth is very far
from that.
The problem is, there are millions and millions of undocumented
people in this country, and if they are going to report when they are
the victims of rapes and robberies and assaults and other violent
crimes that their immigration status will be referred to the INS, they
are not going to report those crimes. And where witnesses know that if
they come forward to report what they have observed in terms of violent
crime, their names are going to be referred to the INS, they are not
going to come forward. And local law enforcement in many jurisdictions
has concluded that their mission of trying to deter and apprehend
violent criminals and incarcerate them is going to be seriously impeded
by the policy the gentleman seeks to advocate. They have undertaken
their own policies to try to encourage people to come forward.
Now, to tell those cities and States and counties around this country
that because they have undertaken those policies, they are ineligible
for one dollar of any of the Federal grant programs to help local law
enforcement to build up their ranks, provide the bulletproof vests,
provide the technology and the crime labs to deal with any of these
very important missions, they are ineligible.
This is a reckless and unfortunate amendment.
Mr. TANCREDO. Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?
Mr. BERMAN. I yield to the gentleman from Colorado.
Mr. TANCREDO. Mr. Chairman, I would like to ask the gentleman, he has
been here in the Congress for several years. Does the gentleman recall
if he voted for the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant
Responsibility Act of 1996?
Mr. BERMAN. I know I opposed the bill that came out of the conference
committee.
Mr. TANCREDO. I know that many of the gentlemen who have spoken here
did, in fact, vote for it. I do not know if the gentleman did.
Mr. BERMAN. I am telling you how I voted.
Mr. TANCREDO. You opposed the bill?
Mr. BERMAN. I opposed the bill that came out of the conference
committee.
Mr. TANCREDO. Then you have a right, of course, to argue with the
concept. But many of the people who already argued against the bill
voted for the original bill.
Mr. BERMAN. Reclaiming my time, I not only have a right, but I have a
duty to try and protect the jurisdiction that I represent in this body
from a Draconian, harsh, unjustified amendment which seeks to cut off
all funding.
If the gentleman wants to promote this policy, let him introduce a
bill. Let it go through the Committee on the Judiciary. Let it go
through the regular process. But do not render L.A. and a number of
other jurisdictions throughout this country ineligible for local law
enforcement assistance in order to promote his very narrow and, I
think, self-defeating ideological agenda.
{time} 1845
Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?
Mr. BERMAN. I yield to the gentleman from Wisconsin.
Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I would simply say that all of us, regardless
of how we voted on the original bill, have an obligation to determine
whether or not this amendment will contribute to reduced effectiveness
of law enforcement or enhanced effectiveness of law enforcement, and
obviously 322 Members of the House the last time around recognized it
would contribute to a lowered standard of law enforcement, which is
what they ought to recognize on this amendment again tonight.
Mr. BERMAN. Mr. Chairman, reclaiming my time, just my final comment
on this, the gentleman is absolutely correct. Policies are initiated
not about philosophical positions on the question of how to deal with
undocumented people in this country or illegal immigrants in this
country. The question is how best for law enforcement to serve their
local missions; and to have this body come in and seek to intrude on
that process by shutting off the means that we have decided are worthy
to help local law enforcement have the manpower and the technology and
the resources to apprehend violent criminals, I think is just crazy;
and I urge this body to defeat this amendment.
Ms. JACKSON-LEE of Texas. Mr. Chairman, one of Mr. Tancredo's
amendments would impose restrictions on the Department of Justice with
respect to making funds available to assist State and local law
enforcement programs. Such financial assistance would be denied to a
State of local government that has prohibited its police forces or
other government entities from providing information about the
immigration status of aliens to the Department of Homeland Security.
In fact, State and local governments are already prohibited from
imposing such restrictions on their police forces and other government
entities by section 642(a) of the Illegal Immigration Reform and
Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996, 8 U.S.C. Sec. 1373(a). It is
apparent, therefore, that the threat of losing financial assistance is
not necessary. The conduct addressed by Mr. Tancredo's amendment can be
stopped already on the basis of the fact that it is unlawful.
Mr. Tancredo's other amendment would prevent the Department of State
from receiving funds that would be used to assist foreign governments
in the development of consular identification cards. It is not apparent
why the State Department would be using funds for that purpose in the
first place.
Nevertheless, if a foreign government requested such assistance, I do
not believe that it would be improper to provide it. For instance, our
government may be able to provide valuable assistance to some foreign
governments with respect to such things as high security devices for
preventing the creation of fraudulent consular identification cards.
I urge you to vote against both of these amendments.
The CHAIRMAN. The question is on the amendment offered by the
gentleman from Colorado (Mr. Tancredo).
The question was taken; and the Chairman announced that the noes
appeared to have it.
Mr. TANCREDO. Mr. Chairman, I demand a recorded vote.
The CHAIRMAN. Pursuant to clause 6 of rule XVIII, further proceedings
on the amendment offered by the gentleman from Colorado (Mr. Tancredo)
will be postponed.
Amendment Offered by Mr. Ose
Mr. OSE. Mr. Chairman, I offer an amendment.
The CHAIRMAN. The Clerk will designate the amendment.
The text of the amendment is as follows:
Amendment offered by Mr. Ose:
At the end of the bill after the last section (preceding
the short title) insert the following new title:
TITLE VIII--ADDITIONAL GENERAL PROVISIONS
Sec. 801. None of the funds made available in this Act may
be used in violation of section 212(a)(10)(C) of the
Immigration and Nationality Act.
Mr. OSE. Mr. Chairman, I rise before my colleagues today to offer an
amendment to the Commerce-Justice-State and the Judiciary
appropriations bill to prohibit funds to the Department of State for
the issuance of visas to child abductors and their immediate family and
agents who aid and abet these child abductors.
Despite an increasingly high level of congressional and public
concern regarding the tragedy of international parental child abduction
and wrongful retention of American children abroad, the plight of
American children persists.
The State Department reports 1,000 international parental abductions
of children annually. Between 1973 and 1991, about 4,000 American
children were reported to the U.S. State Department as abducted by a
parent and taken across an international border.
[[Page H7296]]
In fact, estimates of the actual total exceed 10,000 American children.
The House Committee on Government Reform, of which I am a member, has
held numerous hearings on this matter, and I want to thank the
gentleman from Indiana (Mr. Burton) during his tenure for his guidance
on that. I have heard heart-wrenching testimony from mothers and
fathers who have lost their children through child abduction, and I
have heard from children who have returned to the U.S. as victims of
child abduction.
Under current law, we have remedies for returning children who are
abducted to nations that have signed the Hague Convention on the Civil
Aspects of International Child Abduction. However, for nonsignatory
nations, there are few remedies.
One specific provision of current law denies visas for admission to
the United States for child abductors, their immediate family or
agents, who aid or abet a child abductor. Our amendment will prohibit
funding to the State Department for any violation of this act. It is
important for the State Department to utilize all available remedies
for applying pressure for the return of these abducted children.
I again want to thank the gentleman from Indiana (Mr. Burton) and
want to add my appreciation and compliments to the gentleman from Texas
(Mr. Lampson) and the gentlewoman from New York (Mrs. Maloney) for
their support of this amendment. I have had significant conversations
with the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Wolf) about this, and he is very
attentive to this issue.
We are all too familiar with cases of abducted children. It is time
for our foreign counterparts to take notice of the 10,000 American
children who have been abducted overseas. This is a nonpartisan issue
that none of us can afford to ignore any longer.
Mr. Chairman, if I may, there are two classes of countries. There are
countries that have signed the Hague Convention, and there are
countries that have not signed the Hague Convention. My limitation
addresses those that have not signed the limitation; and it is
consistent with 8 U.S. Code 1182, which is an existing law in the
Immigration and Naturalization Act allowing the Secretary of State to
deny visas to people who he has been notified have been involved in the
abduction and retention of children in violation of a court order.
Mr. WOLF. Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?
Mr. OSE. I yield to the gentleman from Virginia.
Mr. WOLF. Mr. Chairman, I just would say I strongly support the
amendment and want to thank the gentleman from California (Mr. Ose) and
the gentleman from Indiana (Mr. Burton) and the gentleman from Texas
(Mr. Lampson) and the gentlewoman from New York (Mrs. Maloney) for
this. This has been a real problem, and I think what the gentleman has
done is going to force this to be addressed.
I know that the gentleman from Indiana (Mr. Burton) has done an
outstanding job with regard to the Saudi government. I saw the ``60
Minutes'' piece; and when we talk to these moms, these children have
not been released.
So I will vote for the amendment, support the amendment. I think it
is a great amendment; and with that, I want to again thank the
gentleman from California (Mr. Ose) and the gentleman from Indiana (Mr.
Burton) and all the others.
Mr. BURTON of Indiana. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the last word.
I want to thank the gentleman from California (Mr. Ose) for working
on this. He has been a real leader in showing concern for these mothers
who have had their children kidnapped to Saudi Arabia and elsewhere,
never to be seen again or heard from again; and I want to thank the
chairman of the committee, the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Wolf). He
has been a fighter for human rights for a long, long time; and this is
another manifestation of his dedication to making sure that human
rights are realized.
Let me just tell my colleagues one story, and then I will yield back
my time. We had a young lady from Terre Haute, Indiana. She had three
children. She was married to a Saudi who had gone to college over here.
They were divorced, and he went back to Saudi Arabia.
The mother was very concerned when he wanted to visit the children
for the summer, have them visit him, that he would take them to Saudi
Arabia and she would not see them anymore. So she went to the judge and
she told the judge of her concern, and the judge said, well, we cannot
very well keep the father from seeing his children. However, we will
tell the Saudi embassy of the divorce decree and that you have custody
of the children and that they are not to be taken out of the country,
and we will tell the father that he is not to take the children out of
the country.
They told the father when he got the children he was not to take the
children out of the country. He could have them for a couple of weeks
in the summer and return them to the mother. He said he would. His
passport and the passports of the children were surrendered.
He got the children. He went to the Saudi embassy in Washington, D.C.
They issued passports for the children, even though there was a court
order against it, and the mother had custody. He took the children to
Saudi Arabia, three children; and the mother has not seen the children
or talked to them since. Maybe she talked to them one time on the
telephone.
This is just one example of the tragedy that has been taking place
regarding these children who are being kidnapped to Saudi Arabia and
other countries throughout the world, and the gentleman from
California's (Mr. Ose) amendment will be a giant step in the right
direction to put pressure on the Saudi Government to assist in
returning these children to their rightful parent, the parent who has
custody of them.
There are other issues regarding this sort of thing, women who have
been kidnapped to Saudi Arabia, who cannot get back because of the
Saudi laws and because men, in effect, own the women over there and the
children. So we are continuing to try to put pressure on them, and the
gentleman from California's (Mr. Ose) amendment is a giant step in the
right direction in dealing with this, and I want to thank him and the
gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Wolf) and all of the cosponsors of the
bill.
Mr. OSE. Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?
Mr. BURTON of Indiana. I yield to the gentleman from California.
Mr. OSE. Mr. Chairman, I want to clarify the critical piece on this 8
U.S. Code 1182 is a notification process for the Secretary of State to
receive notice from the families that an issue involving the foreign
alien and these children has arisen. The Secretary of State's office,
in our conversation with them, will receive a fax, a registered letter,
a phone call, an e-mail, all these things; and my purpose in bringing
that up is to try and establish a legislative history that the Congress
is comfortable with any one of those singular forms of communications
as long as it can be substantiated in a court of law that the Secretary
of State has been put on notice. So I thank the gentleman for yielding.
Mr. BURTON of Indiana. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for that
clarification.
Mrs. MALONEY. Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong support of the Ose/
Burton/Lampson/Maloney amendment.
This amendment speaks directly to the American children who have been
torn apart from their parents and are being held against their will in
a foreign country that does not observe the many rights American
citizens enjoy in this country.
Between 1973 and 1991, roughly 4,000 American children were reported
to the U.S. State Department as abducted by a parent and taken across
an international border.
We have heard from the worst of these cases in the Government Reform
Committee which include young children, American mothers, and Saudi
fathers.
Saudi men wield an extraordinary amount of control and power over
women and children in Saudi Arabia.
Children cannot travel without the approval of their father, often,
the very person who kidnaped them to a foreign country.
Women are not allowed to drive a car.
They cannot walk outside without completely covering themselves with
an abaya.
And, women are prohibited from studying certain subjects in school.
These are just a few examples of the breach of basic human rights
that is at the root of the problem of child abduction.
[[Page H7297]]
Women in Saudi Arabia have very few rights and the result is the
tragic child custody cases where families are broken apart and children
are stripped from one of their parents.
The United States has long taken a lead in creating a mechanism for
the return of children abducted internationally and was instrumental in
the negotiation of the Hague Convention on the Civil Aspects of
International Child Abduction.
The Convention provides a civil legal mechanism in the country where
the child is located for parents to seek the return of, and access to,
their child.
Since the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is not a signatory to the
Convention, these rules do not apply, and the result is that children
suffer.
I remind my colleagues that we must not forget that we are talking
about real people, real daughters and sons who are separated from a
parent.
Each time a parent abducts, or wrongfully retains a child from his or
her home, and prevents the child from having a relationship with the
other parent, the trauma to the child is immediate and compounded each
day the child is not returned home.
This amendment will provide a tool for the State Department to help
American children reunite with their families.
It is the least we can do.
I urge a ``yes' vote on this amendment.
Mr. Ose's amendment would bar funding by the State Department to
issue entry visas for anyone who violates U.S. child abduction laws and
those relatives who aid and abet them.
The CHAIRMAN. The question is on the amendment offered by the
gentleman from California (Mr. Ose).
The question was taken; and the Chairman announced that the ayes
appeared to have it.
Mr. OSE. Mr. Chairman, I demand a recorded vote.
The CHAIRMAN. Pursuant to clause 6 of rule XVIII, further proceedings
on the amendment offered by the gentleman from California (Mr. Ose)
will be postponed.
Sequential Votes Postponed in Committee Of The Whole
The CHAIRMAN. Pursuant to clause 6 of rule XVIII, proceedings will
now resume on those amendments on which further proceedings were
postponed in the following order: amendment No. 10 offered by the
gentleman from Texas (Mr. Paul); amendment offered by the gentleman
from Indiana (Mr. Hostettler); amendment No. 2 offered by the gentleman
from New York (Mr. Hinchey); amendment offered by the gentleman from
Idaho (Mr. Otter); amendment offered by the gentleman from Colorado
(Mr. Tancredo); amendment offered by the gentleman from California (Mr.
Ose).
The first electronic vote will be conducted as a 15-minute vote.
Remaining electronic votes will be conducted as 5-minute votes.
Amendment No. 10 Offered by Mr. Paul
The CHAIRMAN. The pending business is the demand for a recorded vote
on the amendment offered by the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Paul) on
which further proceedings were postponed and on which the noes
prevailed by voice vote.
The Clerk will redesignate the amendment.
The Clerk redesignated the amendment.
Recorded Vote
The CHAIRMAN. A recorded vote has been demanded.
A recorded vote was ordered.
The CHAIRMAN. The vote on the Ose amendment will be postponed to
later this evening.
The vote was taken by electronic device, and there were--ayes 145,
noes 279, not voting 10, as follows:
[Roll No. 405]
AYES--145
Aderholt
Akin
Bachus
Baker
Ballenger
Barrett (SC)
Bartlett (MD)
Barton (TX)
Bilirakis
Bishop (UT)
Blackburn
Boehner
Bonner
Boozman
Brady (TX)
Brown (SC)
Brown-Waite, Ginny
Burgess
Burns
Burr
Burton (IN)
Buyer
Cannon
Cantor
Carter
Chabot
Chocola
Coble
Collins
Cox
Crane
Crenshaw
Cubin
Culberson
Cunningham
Davis, Jo Ann
Deal (GA)
DeLay
DeMint
Diaz-Balart, M.
Doolittle
Duncan
Emerson
Everett
Feeney
Flake
Forbes
Fossella
Franks (AZ)
Gallegly
Garrett (NJ)
Gibbons
Gingrey
Goode
Goodlatte
Graves
Green (WI)
Gutknecht
Hall
Hart
Hastings (WA)
Hayes
Hayworth
Hefley
Herger
Hoekstra
Hostettler
Hulshof
Hunter
Hyde
Isakson
Istook
Janklow
Jenkins
Johnson, Sam
Jones (NC)
Keller
Kennedy (MN)
King (IA)
Kingston
Kline
LaTourette
Lewis (KY)
Linder
Lucas (OK)
Manzullo
McCotter
McInnis
McIntyre
Mica
Miller (FL)
Miller, Gary
Moran (KS)
Musgrave
Myrick
Neugebauer
Ney
Northup
Norwood
Nussle
Otter
Paul
Pearce
Pence
Peterson (MN)
Peterson (PA)
Petri
Pitts
Platts
Pombo
Putnam
Rehberg
Renzi
Reynolds
Rogers (AL)
Rohrabacher
Royce
Ryan (WI)
Ryun (KS)
Schrock
Sensenbrenner
Sessions
Shadegg
Shimkus
Shuster
Simpson
Smith (MI)
Smith (TX)
Stearns
Sullivan
Tancredo
Taylor (MS)
Taylor (NC)
Terry
Thornberry
Tiahrt
Tiberi
Toomey
Vitter
Wamp
Weldon (FL)
Whitfield
Wilson (SC)
Young (AK)
Young (FL)
NOES--279
Abercrombie
Ackerman
Alexander
Allen
Andrews
Baca
Baird
Baldwin
Ballance
Bass
Beauprez
Becerra
Bell
Bereuter
Berman
Berry
Biggert
Bishop (GA)
Bishop (NY)
Blumenauer
Blunt
Boehlert
Bonilla
Bono
Boswell
Boucher
Boyd
Bradley (NH)
Brady (PA)
Brown, Corrine
Calvert
Camp
Capito
Capps
Capuano
Cardin
Cardoza
Carson (IN)
Carson (OK)
Case
Castle
Clay
Clyburn
Cole
Cooper
Costello
Cramer
Crowley
Cummings
Davis (AL)
Davis (CA)
Davis (FL)
Davis (IL)
Davis, Tom
DeFazio
DeGette
Delahunt
DeLauro
Deutsch
Diaz-Balart, L.
Dicks
Dingell
Doggett
Dooley (CA)
Doyle
Dreier
Dunn
Edwards
Ehlers
Emanuel
Engel
English
Eshoo
Etheridge
Evans
Farr
Fattah
Filner
Fletcher
Foley
Frank (MA)
Frelinghuysen
Frost
Gerlach
Gilchrest
Gillmor
Gonzalez
Gordon
Goss
Granger
Green (TX)
Greenwood
Grijalva
Gutierrez
Harman
Harris
Hastings (FL)
Hill
Hinchey
Hinojosa
Hobson
Hoeffel
Holden
Holt
Honda
Hooley (OR)
Houghton
Hoyer
Inslee
Israel
Issa
Jackson (IL)
Jackson-Lee (TX)
Jefferson
John
Johnson (CT)
Johnson (IL)
Johnson, E. B.
Jones (OH)
Kanjorski
Kaptur
Kennedy (RI)
Kildee
Kilpatrick
Kind
King (NY)
Kirk
Kleczka
Knollenberg
Kolbe
Kucinich
LaHood
Lampson
Langevin
Lantos
Larsen (WA)
Larson (CT)
Latham
Leach
Lee
Levin
Lewis (CA)
Lewis (GA)
Lipinski
LoBiondo
Lofgren
Lowey
Lucas (KY)
Lynch
Majette
Maloney
Markey
Marshall
Matheson
Matsui
McCarthy (MO)
McCarthy (NY)
McCollum
McCrery
McDermott
McGovern
McHugh
McKeon
McNulty
Meehan
Meeks (NY)
Menendez
Michaud
Millender-McDonald
Miller (MI)
Miller (NC)
Miller, George
Mollohan
Moore
Moran (VA)
Murphy
Murtha
Nadler
Napolitano
Neal (MA)
Nethercutt
Nunes
Oberstar
Obey
Olver
Ortiz
Osborne
Ose
Owens
Oxley
Pallone
Pascrell
Pastor
Payne
Pelosi
Pickering
Pomeroy
Porter
Portman
Price (NC)
Pryce (OH)
Quinn
Radanovich
Rahall
Ramstad
Rangel
Regula
Reyes
Rodriguez
Rogers (KY)
Rogers (MI)
Ros-Lehtinen
Ross
Rothman
Roybal-Allard
Ruppersberger
Rush
Ryan (OH)
Sabo
Sanchez, Linda T.
Sanchez, Loretta
Sanders
Sandlin
Saxton
Schakowsky
Schiff
Scott (GA)
Scott (VA)
Serrano
Shaw
Shays
Sherman
Sherwood
Simmons
Skelton
Slaughter
Smith (NJ)
Smith (WA)
Snyder
Solis
Souder
Spratt
Stark
Stenholm
Strickland
Stupak
Sweeney
Tanner
Tauscher
Tauzin
Thomas
Thompson (CA)
Thompson (MS)
Tierney
Towns
Turner (OH)
Turner (TX)
Udall (CO)
Udall (NM)
Upton
Van Hollen
Velazquez
Visclosky
Walden (OR)
Walsh
Waters
Watson
Watt
Waxman
Weiner
Weldon (PA)
Weller
Wexler
Wicker
Wilson (NM)
Wolf
Woolsey
Wu
Wynn
NOT VOTING--10
Berkley
Brown (OH)
Conyers
Davis (TN)
Ferguson
Ford
Gephardt
Hensarling
Kelly
Meek (FL)
Announcement by the Chairman
The CHAIRMAN (during the vote). Members are advised that 2 minutes
remain in this vote.
{time} 1917
Ms. McCOLLUM, Mrs. MILLER of Michigan and Messrs. WELLER, BOEHLERT
and DeFAZIO changed their vote from ``aye'' to ``no.''
Ms. HART, Messrs. SHIMKUS, JANKLOW, GREEN of Wisconsin, PETERSON of
Pennsylvania and CRENSHAW, Mrs. NORTHUP and Mr. HALL changed their vote
from ``no'' to ``aye.''
So the amendment was rejected.
The result of the vote was announced as above recorded.
Stated for:
[[Page H7298]]
Mr. PICKERING. Mr. Chairman, on rollcall No. 405 I inadvertently
voted ``no.'' I intended to vote ``yea.''
Announcement by the Chairman
The CHAIRMAN. Pursuant to clause 6 of rule XVIII, the remainder of
this series will be conducted as 5-minute votes.
Amendment Offered by Mr. Hostettler
The CHAIRMAN. The pending business is the demand for a recorded vote
on the amendment offered by the gentleman from Indiana (Mr. Hostettler)
on which further proceedings were postponed and on which the noes
prevailed by voice vote.
The Clerk will redesignate the amendment.
The Clerk redesignated the amendment.
Recorded Vote
The CHAIRMAN. A recorded vote has been demanded.
A recorded vote was ordered.
The CHAIRMAN. This will be a 5-minute vote.
The vote was taken by electronic device, and there were--ayes 307,
noes 119, not voting 8, as follows:
[Roll No. 406]
AYES--307
Aderholt
Akin
Alexander
Baca
Bachus
Baker
Ballenger
Barrett (SC)
Bartlett (MD)
Barton (TX)
Bass
Beauprez
Bereuter
Berry
Biggert
Bilirakis
Bishop (GA)
Bishop (NY)
Bishop (UT)
Blackburn
Blunt
Boehlert
Boehner
Bonilla
Bonner
Bono
Boozman
Boswell
Boucher
Boyd
Bradley (NH)
Brady (PA)
Brady (TX)
Brown (OH)
Brown (SC)
Brown, Corrine
Brown-Waite, Ginny
Burgess
Burns
Burr
Burton (IN)
Buyer
Calvert
Camp
Cannon
Cantor
Capito
Cardin
Cardoza
Carson (OK)
Carter
Chabot
Chocola
Coble
Cole
Collins
Cooper
Costello
Cox
Cramer
Crane
Crenshaw
Crowley
Cubin
Culberson
Cummings
Cunningham
Davis, Jo Ann
Deal (GA)
DeFazio
DeLay
DeMint
Deutsch
Diaz-Balart, L.
Diaz-Balart, M.
Dingell
Doolittle
Doyle
Dreier
Duncan
Dunn
Edwards
Ehlers
Emerson
Engel
English
Etheridge
Everett
Fattah
Feeney
Flake
Fletcher
Foley
Forbes
Fossella
Franks (AZ)
Frost
Gallegly
Garrett (NJ)
Gerlach
Gibbons
Gillmor
Gingrey
Goode
Goodlatte
Gordon
Goss
Granger
Graves
Green (TX)
Green (WI)
Greenwood
Gutknecht
Hall
Harris
Hart
Hastings (WA)
Hayes
Hayworth
Hefley
Herger
Hill
Hinojosa
Hobson
Hoeffel
Hoekstra
Holden
Hooley (OR)
Hostettler
Hulshof
Hunter
Hyde
Inslee
Isakson
Israel
Issa
Istook
Janklow
Jenkins
John
Johnson (CT)
Johnson (IL)
Johnson, E. B.
Johnson, Sam
Jones (NC)
Kanjorski
Kaptur
Keller
Kelly
Kennedy (MN)
Kildee
King (IA)
King (NY)
Kingston
Kirk
Kleczka
Kline
Knollenberg
Kucinich
LaHood
Lampson
Langevin
Larsen (WA)
Latham
LaTourette
Leach
Lewis (CA)
Lewis (KY)
Linder
Lipinski
LoBiondo
Lowey
Lucas (KY)
Lucas (OK)
Lynch
Manzullo
Marshall
Matheson
McCarthy (NY)
McCotter
McCrery
McHugh
McInnis
McIntyre
McNulty
Menendez
Mica
Michaud
Miller (FL)
Miller (MI)
Miller, Gary
Mollohan
Moore
Moran (KS)
Murphy
Murtha
Musgrave
Myrick
Nethercutt
Neugebauer
Ney
Northup
Norwood
Nunes
Nussle
Oberstar
Ortiz
Osborne
Ose
Otter
Oxley
Pallone
Pascrell
Pastor
Paul
Pearce
Pence
Peterson (MN)
Peterson (PA)
Petri
Pickering
Pitts
Platts
Pombo
Pomeroy
Porter
Portman
Price (NC)
Pryce (OH)
Putnam
Quinn
Radanovich
Rahall
Ramstad
Regula
Rehberg
Renzi
Reyes
Reynolds
Rodriguez
Rogers (AL)
Rogers (KY)
Rogers (MI)
Rohrabacher
Ros-Lehtinen
Ross
Royce
Ruppersberger
Ryan (WI)
Ryun (KS)
Sandlin
Saxton
Schiff
Schrock
Scott (GA)
Sensenbrenner
Sessions
Shadegg
Shaw
Sherwood
Shimkus
Shuster
Simmons
Simpson
Skelton
Smith (MI)
Smith (NJ)
Smith (TX)
Smith (WA)
Souder
Spratt
Stearns
Stenholm
Strickland
Stupak
Sullivan
Sweeney
Tancredo
Tanner
Taylor (MS)
Taylor (NC)
Terry
Thomas
Thornberry
Tiahrt
Tiberi
Toomey
Turner (OH)
Turner (TX)
Upton
Visclosky
Vitter
Walden (OR)
Walsh
Wamp
Weiner
Weldon (FL)
Weldon (PA)
Weller
Whitfield
Wicker
Wilson (NM)
Wilson (SC)
Wu
Wynn
Young (AK)
Young (FL)
NOES--119
Abercrombie
Ackerman
Allen
Andrews
Baird
Baldwin
Ballance
Becerra
Bell
Berman
Blumenauer
Capps
Capuano
Carson (IN)
Case
Castle
Clay
Clyburn
Davis (AL)
Davis (CA)
Davis (FL)
Davis (IL)
Davis, Tom
DeGette
Delahunt
DeLauro
Dicks
Doggett
Dooley (CA)
Emanuel
Eshoo
Evans
Farr
Filner
Frank (MA)
Frelinghuysen
Gilchrest
Gonzalez
Grijalva
Gutierrez
Harman
Hastings (FL)
Hinchey
Holt
Honda
Houghton
Hoyer
Jackson (IL)
Jackson-Lee (TX)
Jefferson
Jones (OH)
Kennedy (RI)
Kilpatrick
Kind
Kolbe
Lantos
Larson (CT)
Lee
Levin
Lewis (GA)
Lofgren
Majette
Maloney
Markey
Matsui
McCarthy (MO)
McCollum
McDermott
McGovern
McKeon
Meehan
Meeks (NY)
Millender-McDonald
Miller (NC)
Miller, George
Moran (VA)
Nadler
Napolitano
Neal (MA)
Obey
Olver
Owens
Payne
Pelosi
Rangel
Rothman
Roybal-Allard
Rush
Ryan (OH)
Sabo
Sanchez, Linda T.
Sanchez, Loretta
Sanders
Schakowsky
Scott (VA)
Serrano
Shays
Sherman
Slaughter
Snyder
Solis
Stark
Tauscher
Tauzin
Thompson (CA)
Thompson (MS)
Tierney
Towns
Udall (CO)
Udall (NM)
Van Hollen
Velazquez
Waters
Watson
Watt
Waxman
Wexler
Wolf
Woolsey
NOT VOTING--8
Berkley
Conyers
Davis (TN)
Ferguson
Ford
Gephardt
Hensarling
Meek (FL)
Announcement by the Chairman
The CHAIRMAN (during the vote). Members are advised that 2 minutes
remain in this vote.
{time} 1926
Mr. GILCHREST changed his vote from ``aye'' to ``no.''
Mr. SWEENEY and Mr. PASTOR changed their vote from ``no'' to ``aye.''
So the amendment was agreed to.
The result of the vote was announced as above recorded.
Amendment No. 2 Offered by Mr. Hinchey
The CHAIRMAN. The pending business is the demand for a recorded vote
on the amendment offered by the gentleman from New York (Mr. Hinchey)
on which further proceedings were postponed and on which the noes
prevailed by voice vote.
The Clerk will redesignate the amendment.
The Clerk redesignated the amendment.
Recorded Vote
The CHAIRMAN. A recorded vote has been demanded.
A recorded vote was ordered.
The CHAIRMAN. This will be a 5-minute vote.
The vote was taken by electronic device, and there were--ayes 174,
noes 254, not voting 7, as follows:
[Roll No. 407]
AYES--174
Abercrombie
Ackerman
Akin
Alexander
Allen
Baca
Baird
Baldwin
Ballance
Becerra
Bell
Bereuter
Berman
Bishop (NY)
Blumenauer
Boehlert
Boswell
Brady (PA)
Brown (OH)
Brown, Corrine
Burton (IN)
Capito
Capps
Capuano
Cardin
Carson (IN)
Case
Castle
Clay
Cooper
Crowley
Cummings
Davis (CA)
Davis (IL)
Davis, Jo Ann
DeFazio
DeGette
Delahunt
DeLauro
Deutsch
Doggett
Doolittle
Duncan
Dunn
Ehlers
Engel
Eshoo
Etheridge
Evans
Farr
Filner
Gibbons
Gillmor
Gingrey
Green (WI)
Grijalva
Gutierrez
Gutknecht
Harman
Hayworth
Hill
Hinchey
Hoeffel
Hoekstra
Holt
Honda
Hooley (OR)
Hoyer
Inslee
Israel
Jackson (IL)
Jackson-Lee (TX)
Janklow
Jefferson
Kanjorski
Kaptur
Kelly
Kildee
Kind
Kleczka
Kucinich
Lampson
Langevin
Lantos
Larsen (WA)
Larson (CT)
Leach
Lee
Lewis (GA)
Lipinski
Lofgren
Lowey
Majette
Maloney
Markey
Marshall
McCarthy (MO)
McCollum
McDermott
McGovern
McIntyre
McNulty
Menendez
Michaud
Millender-McDonald
Miller (FL)
Miller (NC)
Miller, George
Moore
Moran (KS)
Moran (VA)
Nadler
Napolitano
Northup
Oberstar
Olver
Owens
Pallone
Pascrell
Pelosi
Peterson (MN)
Petri
Platts
Price (NC)
Rangel
Renzi
Rodriguez
Rogers (MI)
Rothman
Roybal-Allard
Ruppersberger
Rush
Ryan (OH)
Sabo
Sanchez, Linda T.
Sanchez, Loretta
Sanders
Sandlin
Schakowsky
Schiff
Scott (VA)
Sensenbrenner
Sherman
Simmons
Slaughter
Smith (WA)
Snyder
Solis
Spratt
Stark
Stenholm
Strickland
Tanner
Tauscher
Taylor (MS)
Taylor (NC)
Thompson (CA)
Thompson (MS)
Tierney
Udall (CO)
Udall (NM)
Van Hollen
Velazquez
Walsh
Watson
Watt
Waxman
Weiner
[[Page H7299]]
Weldon (PA)
Wexler
Woolsey
Wu
Wynn
Young (AK)
NOES--254
Aderholt
Andrews
Bachus
Baker
Ballenger
Barrett (SC)
Bartlett (MD)
Barton (TX)
Bass
Beauprez
Berry
Biggert
Bilirakis
Bishop (GA)
Bishop (UT)
Blackburn
Blunt
Boehner
Bonilla
Bonner
Bono
Boozman
Boucher
Boyd
Bradley (NH)
Brady (TX)
Brown (SC)
Brown-Waite, Ginny
Burgess
Burns
Burr
Buyer
Calvert
Camp
Cannon
Cantor
Cardoza
Carson (OK)
Carter
Chabot
Chocola
Clyburn
Coble
Cole
Collins
Costello
Cox
Cramer
Crane
Crenshaw
Cubin
Culberson
Cunningham
Davis (AL)
Davis (FL)
Davis, Tom
Deal (GA)
DeLay
DeMint
Diaz-Balart, L.
Diaz-Balart, M.
Dicks
Dingell
Dooley (CA)
Doyle
Dreier
Edwards
Emanuel
Emerson
English
Everett
Fattah
Feeney
Flake
Fletcher
Foley
Forbes
Fossella
Frank (MA)
Franks (AZ)
Frelinghuysen
Frost
Gallegly
Garrett (NJ)
Gerlach
Gilchrest
Gonzalez
Goode
Goodlatte
Gordon
Goss
Granger
Graves
Green (TX)
Greenwood
Hall
Harris
Hart
Hastert
Hastings (FL)
Hastings (WA)
Hayes
Hefley
Hensarling
Herger
Hinojosa
Hobson
Holden
Hostettler
Houghton
Hulshof
Hunter
Hyde
Isakson
Issa
Istook
Jenkins
John
Johnson (CT)
Johnson (IL)
Johnson, E. B.
Johnson, Sam
Jones (NC)
Jones (OH)
Keller
Kennedy (MN)
Kennedy (RI)
Kilpatrick
King (IA)
King (NY)
Kingston
Kirk
Kline
Knollenberg
Kolbe
LaHood
Latham
LaTourette
Levin
Lewis (CA)
Lewis (KY)
Linder
LoBiondo
Lucas (KY)
Lucas (OK)
Lynch
Manzullo
Matheson
Matsui
McCarthy (NY)
McCotter
McCrery
McHugh
McInnis
McKeon
Meehan
Meeks (NY)
Mica
Miller (MI)
Miller, Gary
Mollohan
Murphy
Murtha
Musgrave
Myrick
Neal (MA)
Nethercutt
Neugebauer
Ney
Norwood
Nunes
Nussle
Obey
Ortiz
Osborne
Ose
Otter
Oxley
Pastor
Paul
Payne
Pearce
Pence
Peterson (PA)
Pickering
Pitts
Pombo
Pomeroy
Porter
Portman
Pryce (OH)
Putnam
Quinn
Radanovich
Rahall
Ramstad
Regula
Rehberg
Reyes
Reynolds
Rogers (AL)
Rogers (KY)
Rohrabacher
Ros-Lehtinen
Ross
Royce
Ryan (WI)
Ryun (KS)
Saxton
Schrock
Scott (GA)
Serrano
Sessions
Shadegg
Shaw
Shays
Sherwood
Shimkus
Shuster
Simpson
Skelton
Smith (MI)
Smith (NJ)
Smith (TX)
Souder
Stearns
Stupak
Sullivan
Sweeney
Tancredo
Tauzin
Terry
Thomas
Thornberry
Tiahrt
Tiberi
Toomey
Towns
Turner (OH)
Turner (TX)
Upton
Visclosky
Vitter
Walden (OR)
Wamp
Waters
Weldon (FL)
Weller
Whitfield
Wicker
Wilson (NM)
Wilson (SC)
Wolf
Young (FL)
NOT VOTING--7
Berkley
Conyers
Davis (TN)
Ferguson
Ford
Gephardt
Meek (FL)
Announcement by the Chairman
The CHAIRMAN (during the vote). Members are advised there are 2
minutes remaining in this vote.
{time} 1934
So the amendment was rejected.
The result of the vote was announced as above recorded.
Amendment Offered by Mr. Otter
The CHAIRMAN. The pending business is the demand for a recorded vote
on the amendment offered by the gentleman from Idaho (Mr. Otter) on
which further proceedings were postponed and on which the noes
prevailed by voice vote.
The Clerk will redesignate the amendment.
The Clerk redesignated the amendment.
Recorded Vote
The CHAIRMAN. A recorded vote has been demanded.
A recorded vote was ordered.
The CHAIRMAN. This will be a 5-minute vote.
The vote was taken by electronic device, and there were--ayes 309,
noes 118, not voting 7, as follows:
[Roll No. 408]
AYES--309
Ackerman
Akin
Alexander
Allen
Andrews
Baca
Bachus
Baird
Baker
Baldwin
Ballance
Barrett (SC)
Bartlett (MD)
Barton (TX)
Becerra
Bell
Bereuter
Berman
Berry
Biggert
Bilirakis
Bishop (GA)
Bishop (NY)
Bishop (UT)
Blumenauer
Blunt
Boehner
Bonner
Bono
Boozman
Boswell
Boucher
Boyd
Brady (PA)
Brown (OH)
Brown, Corrine
Burgess
Burns
Burr
Calvert
Capps
Capuano
Cardin
Cardoza
Carson (IN)
Carson (OK)
Case
Castle
Clay
Clyburn
Cole
Cooper
Costello
Cramer
Crane
Crenshaw
Crowley
Cubin
Culberson
Cummings
Davis (AL)
Davis (CA)
Davis (FL)
Davis (IL)
Davis, Jo Ann
Davis, Tom
DeFazio
DeGette
Delahunt
DeLauro
Deutsch
Dicks
Dingell
Doggett
Dooley (CA)
Doyle
Duncan
Dunn
Edwards
Ehlers
Emanuel
Emerson
Engel
English
Eshoo
Etheridge
Evans
Everett
Farr
Fattah
Filner
Flake
Fletcher
Foley
Forbes
Frank (MA)
Franks (AZ)
Frost
Gonzalez
Gordon
Grijalva
Gutierrez
Gutknecht
Hall
Harris
Hastings (FL)
Hastings (WA)
Hayworth
Hefley
Hensarling
Hill
Hinchey
Hinojosa
Hobson
Hoeffel
Holden
Holt
Honda
Hooley (OR)
Hoyer
Inslee
Israel
Issa
Istook
Jackson (IL)
Jackson-Lee (TX)
Janklow
Jefferson
Jenkins
John
Johnson (IL)
Johnson, E. B.
Jones (NC)
Jones (OH)
Kanjorski
Kaptur
Kennedy (RI)
Kildee
Kilpatrick
Kind
King (IA)
Kingston
Kirk
Kleczka
Kucinich
LaHood
Lampson
Langevin
Lantos
Larsen (WA)
Larson (CT)
Latham
LaTourette
Leach
Lee
Levin
Lewis (GA)
Lewis (KY)
Linder
Lipinski
Lofgren
Lowey
Lucas (KY)
Lucas (OK)
Lynch
Majette
Maloney
Manzullo
Markey
Marshall
Matheson
Matsui
McCarthy (MO)
McCarthy (NY)
McCollum
McCotter
McCrery
McDermott
McGovern
McHugh
McIntyre
McNulty
Meehan
Meeks (NY)
Menendez
Mica
Michaud
Millender-McDonald
Miller (FL)
Miller, George
Mollohan
Moore
Moran (KS)
Moran (VA)
Murtha
Musgrave
Myrick
Nadler
Napolitano
Neal (MA)
Nethercutt
Neugebauer
Ney
Nussle
Oberstar
Obey
Olver
Ortiz
Osborne
Ose
Otter
Owens
Pallone
Pascrell
Pastor
Paul
Payne
Pelosi
Peterson (MN)
Peterson (PA)
Petri
Pickering
Pombo
Pomeroy
Porter
Portman
Price (NC)
Pryce (OH)
Putnam
Radanovich
Rahall
Rangel
Rehberg
Reyes
Rodriguez
Rogers (AL)
Rohrabacher
Ros-Lehtinen
Ross
Rothman
Roybal-Allard
Ruppersberger
Rush
Ryan (OH)
Sabo
Sanchez, Linda T.
Sanchez, Loretta
Sanders
Sandlin
Schakowsky
Schiff
Schrock
Scott (GA)
Scott (VA)
Serrano
Shaw
Sherman
Shimkus
Shuster
Simpson
Skelton
Slaughter
Smith (NJ)
Smith (WA)
Snyder
Solis
Spratt
Stark
Stearns
Stenholm
Strickland
Stupak
Sullivan
Tancredo
Tanner
Tauscher
Taylor (MS)
Taylor (NC)
Terry
Thompson (CA)
Thompson (MS)
Tiberi
Tierney
Toomey
Towns
Turner (TX)
Udall (CO)
Udall (NM)
Van Hollen
Velazquez
Visclosky
Walden (OR)
Wamp
Waters
Watson
Watt
Waxman
Weiner
Weldon (FL)
Weldon (PA)
Wexler
Whitfield
Wicker
Wilson (SC)
Woolsey
Wu
Wynn
Young (AK)
Young (FL)
NOES--118
Abercrombie
Aderholt
Ballenger
Bass
Beauprez
Blackburn
Boehlert
Bonilla
Bradley (NH)
Brady (TX)
Brown (SC)
Brown-Waite, Ginny
Burton (IN)
Buyer
Camp
Cannon
Cantor
Capito
Carter
Chabot
Chocola
Coble
Collins
Cox
Cunningham
Deal (GA)
DeLay
DeMint
Diaz-Balart, L.
Diaz-Balart, M.
Doolittle
Dreier
Feeney
Fossella
Frelinghuysen
Gallegly
Garrett (NJ)
Gerlach
Gibbons
Gilchrest
Gillmor
Gingrey
Goode
Goodlatte
Goss
Granger
Graves
Green (TX)
Green (WI)
Greenwood
Harman
Hart
Hayes
Herger
Hoekstra
Hostettler
Houghton
Hulshof
Hunter
Hyde
Isakson
Johnson (CT)
Johnson, Sam
Keller
Kelly
Kennedy (MN)
King (NY)
Kline
Knollenberg
Kolbe
Lewis (CA)
LoBiondo
McInnis
McKeon
Miller (MI)
Miller (NC)
Miller, Gary
Murphy
Northup
Norwood
Nunes
Oxley
Pearce
Pence
Pitts
Platts
Quinn
Ramstad
Regula
Renzi
Reynolds
Rogers (KY)
Rogers (MI)
Royce
Ryan (WI)
Ryun (KS)
Saxton
Sensenbrenner
Sessions
Shadegg
Shays
Sherwood
Simmons
Smith (MI)
Smith (TX)
Souder
Sweeney
Tauzin
Thomas
Thornberry
Tiahrt
Turner (OH)
Upton
Vitter
Walsh
Weller
Wilson (NM)
Wolf
NOT VOTING--7
Berkley
Conyers
Davis (TN)
Ferguson
Ford
Gephardt
Meek (FL)
Announcement by the Chairman
The CHAIRMAN (during the vote). Members are advised there are 2
minutes remaining in this vote.
{time} 1942
Mr. FOSSELLA changed his vote from ``aye'' to ``no.''
[[Page H7300]]
Mr. BLUMENAUER changed his vote from ``no'' to ``aye.''
So the amendment was agreed to.
The result of the vote was announced as above recorded.
Amendment Offered by Mr. Tancredo
The CHAIRMAN. The pending business is the demand for a recorded vote
on the amendment offered by the gentleman from Colorado (Mr. Tancredo)
on which further proceedings were postponed and on which the noes
prevailed by voice vote.
The Clerk will redesignate the amendment.
The Clerk redesignated the amendment.
Recorded Vote
The CHAIRMAN. A recorded vote has been demanded.
A recorded vote was ordered.
The CHAIRMAN. This will be a 5-minute vote.
The vote was taken by electronic device, and there were--ayes 122,
noes 305, not voting 7, as follows:
[Roll No. 409]
AYES--122
Aderholt
Akin
Bachus
Baker
Barrett (SC)
Bartlett (MD)
Barton (TX)
Bereuter
Bilirakis
Blackburn
Boozman
Bradley (NH)
Brady (TX)
Brown (SC)
Brown-Waite, Ginny
Burgess
Burns
Burton (IN)
Buyer
Camp
Cantor
Carter
Chabot
Coble
Collins
Cox
Crane
Crenshaw
Cubin
Culberson
Cunningham
Davis, Jo Ann
Deal (GA)
DeMint
Doolittle
Duncan
Emerson
Everett
Feeney
Forbes
Franks (AZ)
Gallegly
Garrett (NJ)
Gingrey
Goode
Goodlatte
Graves
Green (WI)
Gutknecht
Hayes
Hayworth
Hefley
Herger
Hoekstra
Holden
Hostettler
Hulshof
Hunter
Isakson
Istook
Janklow
Jenkins
Johnson, Sam
Jones (NC)
Keller
King (IA)
Kingston
Linder
Lucas (OK)
Manzullo
McCrery
McInnis
Mica
Miller (FL)
Miller, Gary
Moran (KS)
Murphy
Musgrave
Myrick
Neugebauer
Norwood
Otter
Paul
Pearce
Pence
Peterson (PA)
Petri
Pitts
Platts
Putnam
Ramstad
Rehberg
Rogers (AL)
Rogers (KY)
Rogers (MI)
Rohrabacher
Royce
Ryun (KS)
Schrock
Sensenbrenner
Sessions
Shadegg
Shays
Shimkus
Smith (TX)
Stearns
Sullivan
Tancredo
Taylor (MS)
Taylor (NC)
Thornberry
Tiahrt
Toomey
Turner (OH)
Upton
Vitter
Wamp
Weldon (FL)
Weldon (PA)
Whitfield
Wicker
Wilson (SC)
NOES--305
Abercrombie
Ackerman
Alexander
Allen
Andrews
Baca
Baird
Baldwin
Ballance
Ballenger
Bass
Beauprez
Becerra
Bell
Berman
Berry
Biggert
Bishop (GA)
Bishop (NY)
Bishop (UT)
Blumenauer
Blunt
Boehlert
Boehner
Bonilla
Bonner
Bono
Boswell
Boucher
Boyd
Brady (PA)
Brown (OH)
Brown, Corrine
Burr
Calvert
Cannon
Capito
Capps
Capuano
Cardin
Cardoza
Carson (IN)
Carson (OK)
Case
Castle
Chocola
Clay
Clyburn
Cole
Cooper
Costello
Cramer
Crowley
Cummings
Davis (AL)
Davis (CA)
Davis (FL)
Davis (IL)
Davis, Tom
DeFazio
DeGette
Delahunt
DeLauro
DeLay
Deutsch
Diaz-Balart, L.
Diaz-Balart, M.
Dicks
Dingell
Doggett
Dooley (CA)
Doyle
Dreier
Dunn
Edwards
Ehlers
Emanuel
Engel
English
Eshoo
Etheridge
Evans
Farr
Fattah
Filner
Flake
Fletcher
Foley
Fossella
Frank (MA)
Frelinghuysen
Frost
Gerlach
Gibbons
Gilchrest
Gillmor
Gonzalez
Gordon
Goss
Granger
Green (TX)
Greenwood
Grijalva
Gutierrez
Hall
Harman
Harris
Hart
Hastings (FL)
Hastings (WA)
Hensarling
Hill
Hinchey
Hinojosa
Hobson
Hoeffel
Holt
Honda
Hooley (OR)
Houghton
Hoyer
Hyde
Inslee
Israel
Issa
Jackson (IL)
Jackson-Lee (TX)
Jefferson
John
Johnson (CT)
Johnson (IL)
Johnson, E. B.
Jones (OH)
Kanjorski
Kaptur
Kelly
Kennedy (MN)
Kennedy (RI)
Kildee
Kilpatrick
Kind
King (NY)
Kirk
Kleczka
Kline
Knollenberg
Kolbe
Kucinich
LaHood
Lampson
Langevin
Lantos
Larsen (WA)
Larson (CT)
Latham
LaTourette
Leach
Lee
Levin
Lewis (CA)
Lewis (GA)
Lewis (KY)
Lipinski
LoBiondo
Lofgren
Lowey
Lucas (KY)
Lynch
Majette
Maloney
Markey
Marshall
Matheson
Matsui
McCarthy (MO)
McCarthy (NY)
McCollum
McCotter
McDermott
McGovern
McHugh
McIntyre
McKeon
McNulty
Meehan
Meeks (NY)
Menendez
Michaud
Millender-McDonald
Miller (MI)
Miller (NC)
Miller, George
Mollohan
Moore
Moran (VA)
Murtha
Nadler
Napolitano
Neal (MA)
Nethercutt
Ney
Northup
Nunes
Nussle
Oberstar
Obey
Olver
Ortiz
Osborne
Ose
Owens
Oxley
Pallone
Pascrell
Pastor
Payne
Pelosi
Peterson (MN)
Pickering
Pombo
Pomeroy
Porter
Portman
Price (NC)
Pryce (OH)
Quinn
Radanovich
Rahall
Rangel
Regula
Renzi
Reyes
Reynolds
Rodriguez
Ros-Lehtinen
Ross
Rothman
Roybal-Allard
Ruppersberger
Rush
Ryan (OH)
Ryan (WI)
Sabo
Sanchez, Linda T.
Sanchez, Loretta
Sanders
Sandlin
Saxton
Schakowsky
Schiff
Scott (GA)
Scott (VA)
Serrano
Shaw
Sherman
Sherwood
Shuster
Simmons
Simpson
Skelton
Slaughter
Smith (MI)
Smith (NJ)
Smith (WA)
Snyder
Solis
Souder
Spratt
Stark
Stenholm
Strickland
Stupak
Sweeney
Tanner
Tauscher
Tauzin
Terry
Thomas
Thompson (CA)
Thompson (MS)
Tiberi
Tierney
Towns
Turner (TX)
Udall (CO)
Udall (NM)
Van Hollen
Velazquez
Visclosky
Walden (OR)
Walsh
Waters
Watson
Watt
Waxman
Weiner
Weller
Wexler
Wilson (NM)
Wolf
Woolsey
Wu
Wynn
Young (AK)
Young (FL)
NOT VOTING--7
Berkley
Conyers
Davis (TN)
Ferguson
Ford
Gephardt
Meek (FL)
Announcement by the Chairman
The CHAIRMAN (during the vote). Members are advised 2 minutes remain
on this vote.
{time} 1958
Mr. CUMMINGS changed his vote from ``aye'' to ``no.''
So the amendment was rejected.
The result of the vote was announced as above recorded.
Amendment Offered by Mr. Fossella
Mr. FOSSELLA. Mr. Chairman, I offer an amendment.
The CHAIRMAN. The Clerk will designate the amendment.
The text of the amendment is as follows:
Amendment offered by Mr. Fossella:
At the end of the bill (before the short title), insert the
following:
limitation on united states contributions to certain united nations
entities
Sec. __. None of the funds made available in this Act may
be used for a United States contribution to any United
Nations commission, organization, or affiliated agency that
is chaired or presided over by a country, the government of
which the Secretary of State has determined, for purposes of
section 6(j)(1) of the Export Administration Act of 1979 (50
U.S.C. App. 2405(j)(1)), has repeatedly provided support for
acts of international terrorism. None of the funds made
available in this Act may be used to pay expenses for any
United States delegation to any United Nations commission,
organization, or affiliated agency described in the preceding
sentence.
{time} 2000
Mr. FOSSELLA. Mr. Chairman, I ask the body, what do Libya, Cuba,
North Korea, Iraq, Iran, and other nations have in common, other than
being oppressive, dictatorial regimes? Well, what they have in common
is that at one time or another, they have served as Chair of
commissions or organizations within the United Nations.
So what my amendment does, based on legislation introduced earlier
this year, is it essentially blocks funding to organizations,
commissions, or other bodies headed by nations on a terrorist watch
list. Specifically, it would block U.S. taxpayer dollars from being
disbursed to the United Nations if the money is used for committees
headed by nations that have repeatedly provided support for acts of
international terrorism.
Now, by way of example, I think a vivid example, I should say, is
essentially what happened earlier this year with the Commission on
Human Rights, or the Conference on Disarmament. These very commissions
are dominated by nations opposed to the very concepts by which those
commissions are named. Last month's outrage was Cuba. The
dictatorship's brutal crackdown included the execution of three men for
trying to escape Cuba and imprisoned dozens of others for daring to
speak out. They have a vital role on the Commission on Human Rights.
The U.N. said nothing about the crackdown, but Cuba was then elected to
another term to serve on the panel. Ironically, the chairman, or the
Chair country of that Commission on Human Rights, is Libya.
At the beginning of the year, Iraq was going to head the Conference
on Disarmament. Iraq did not take over, but remained on the commission,
the Commission on Disarmament. Iran
[[Page H7301]]
chaired the conference instead. Also on the Disarmament Committee is
North Korea. I just think that this is symptomatic of a lot of
carelessness at the United Nations.
There are many who think that the United Nations can play a pivotal
and vital role in securing the world's peace. But from time to time,
the only language it seems they understand is the power of the purse.
So all this amendment does is if one of these nations, and I think
everybody in good conscience can look at these nations and say they
represent not only what the brutal regimes are all about, but really
are inconsistent with fundamental universal values, I would suggest
that the money is withheld. Very simply put, I think it is common
sense. After all, the U.S. provides almost 22 percent of the U.N.
budget, which currently stands at about $222 million; and what we are
suggesting is that if one of these nations on the State Department list
of terrorist nations is heading one of these commissions, the money is
withheld.
With that, I urge adoption of this amendment.
Mr. WOLF. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the last word.
Mr. Chairman, the State Department has been in touch with the
committee, and I want to share with the Members their position. They
said that this is an amendment that they strongly oppose. They go on to
say, we the State Department, have taken a hard stand against Libya, a
country that supports terrorism and has a dismal human rights record in
its election to chair the Commission on Human Rights. In calling for a
vote, the State Department said that they forced members to take a
stand on this issue, and everyone knew what the U.S. position was.
They end by saying that withdrawing support by withholding part of
our assessed contributions, thus accumulating arrears and eliminating
funding for U.S. participation in these bodies, weakens our
effectiveness and would be counterproductive.
That is the position of the State Department.
This amendment would prohibit U.S. contributions for activities
funded within the budgets of the U.N. or its affiliated agencies whose
decision-making bodies (e.g., commission) are chaired by a member state
which supports acts of international terrorism (as determined by the
Secretary under section 6(j)(1) of the Export Administration Act of
1979).
The Administration fully agrees that U.N. bodies should not be headed
or chaired by member states which sponsor or support international
terrorism.
We have made these views abundantly clear over the past year.
We took a hard stand against Libya, a country that supports terrorism
and has a dismal human rights record, in its election to chair the
Commission on Human Rights. In calling for a vote, we forced members to
take a stand on this issue, and everyone knew the U.S. position.
We also work hard to keep states that support international terrorism
off the U.N. Security Council.
But we strongly believe that withholding funding for bodies chaired
by such states will not help us achieve our policy goals at the U.N.
To effect change at the U.N., we need to remain fully engaged, which
is our goal and our plan.
Withdrawing support by withholding part of our assessed
contributions--thus accumulating arrears--and eliminating funding for
U.S. participation in these bodies weakens our effectiveness, and would
be counterproductive.
Mr. SERRANO. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the requisite number of
words.
Mr. Chairman, I think that my colleague from New York makes some very
strong points. The problem with his amendment and the reason I rise in
opposition to it is that I believe that while we may not be happy with
some of the folks that make up some of the organizations that are part
of the U.N. and other international organizations, for that matter, it
is in the best interests of our country, it is in the best interests of
our foreign policy to be engaged in these organizations, rather than
withdraw from them and not support them.
So while his points are well taken, and I am sure that if we sat down
around a table we would not disagree on some of the makeup of these
organizations, to withdraw from them, not to be supportive, not to pay
our dues is, in fact, one, to turn our back on the ability to do some
good work by those organizations and secondly, and most importantly, if
we sort of take our marbles or take our basketball and go home, we do
not get to participate and, therefore, we do not get to speak about the
same issues that the gentleman from New York is concerned about.
So for those reasons, I would join the chairman in opposing the
amendment.
The CHAIRMAN. The question is on the amendment offered by the
gentleman from New York (Mr. Fossella).
The amendment was agreed to.
Amendment Offered by Mr. Hostettler
Mr. HOSTETTLER. Mr. Chairman, I offer an amendment.
The CHAIRMAN. The Clerk will designate the amendment.
The text of the amendment is as follows:
Amendment offered by Mr. Hostettler:
Insert in an appropriate place the following:
Sec. . None of the funds appropriated in this Act may
be used to enforce the judgment of the United States Court of
Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit in Glassroth v. Moore,
decided July 1, 2003 or Glassroth v. Moore, 229 F. Supp. 2d
1067 (M. D. Ala. 2002).
Mr. HOSTETTLER. Mr. Chairman, in Glassroth v. Moore, the 11th Circuit
Court of Appeals ruled that the Alabama Supreme Court Chief Justice Roy
Moore violated the establishment clause of the first amendment to the
Constitution by placing a granite monument of the Ten Commandments in
the rotunda of the Alabama State judicial building in Montgomery,
Alabama. In the court's words, ``The rule of law does require that
every person obey judicial orders when all available means of appealing
them have been exhausted.''
In this statement, Mr. Chairman, the court plainly shows that it
believes itself to be the chief lawmaker whose orders become law. But,
in fact, Mr. Chairman, this is inconsistent with both the Constitution
and article I, section 8, and, in fact, Federal statute, which says
that the United States Marshal Service shall execute ``all lawful
writs, process, and orders of the U.S. district courts, U.S. Courts of
Appeal and the Court of International Trade, 28 U.S.C. 566(c).
In reality, Mr. Chairman, the founders of this great Nation foresaw
this problem and wrote about it. And when they developed our form of
government, they said this, according to Alexander Hamilton in
Federalist No. 78: ``Whoever attentively considers the different
departments of power must perceive that in a government in which they
are separated from each other, the judiciary, from the nature of its
functions, will always be the least dangerous to the political rights
of the Constitution; because it will be least in capacity to annoy or
injure them.
``The executive not only dispenses the honors, but holds the sword of
the community. The legislature not only commands the purse, but
prescribes the rules by which the duties and rights of every citizen
are to be regulated. The judiciary, on the contrary, has no influence
over either the sword or the purse; no direction either of the strength
or of the wealth of the society, and can take no active resolution
whatever. It may truly be said to have neither force nor will, but
merely judgment, and must ultimately depend upon the aid of the
executive arm even for the efficacy of its judgments.''
Mr. Chairman, given the fact that the judiciary has neither force nor
will, it is left to the executive and the legislative branches to exert
that force and will.
We have heard tonight that the executive branch wants to argue the
Newdow case that was spoken of earlier and may hear that the executive
branch wants to argue in favor of the display of the 10 Commandments in
that case. We will allow, therefore, the executive branch to leave
these decisions in the hands of the judiciary who, a few years ago,
concluded that sodomy can be regulated by the States, but most recently
said that sodomy was just short of a fundamental right that is
enshrined in our United States Constitution.
But the framers of the Constitution never intended for the fickle
sentiments of as few as five people in black robes unelected and
unaccountable to the people to have the power to make such fundamental
decisions for society. That power was crafted and reserved for the
legislature, and one of the mechanisms that was entrusted to us was the
power of the purse.
[[Page H7302]]
Mr. Chairman, time and again I am sure that our colleagues are asked
about ridiculous decisions made by the Federal courts, and many of us
say that there is nothing we can do. Mr. Chairman, today, we can do
something. We do not have to put our faith in the faint possibility
that some day five people in black robes will wake up and see that they
have usurped the authority to legislate and will constrain themselves
from straying from their constitutional boundaries.
Mr. Chairman, it might be suggested that we do not want this
legislation to disrupt the judicial process in the interim between the
Circuit Court of Appeals process and the Supreme Court. It is not my
intention to do that tonight. In fact, I welcome the highest Court's
review of this decision; and I say tonight that if they get it wrong, I
will exercise the power of the purse again and defund the enforcement
of that inane decision.
Mr. Chairman, today is a great opportunity for us to learn the powers
of the legislature vis-a-vis the judiciary. After this vote, Mr.
Chairman, and the vote to defund the Ninth Circuit's decision to
effectively remove the phrase ``under God'' from the Pledge of
Allegiance, sour constituents will ask us, Congressman, do we, your
constituents, have a voice in these most fundamental decisions, and we
do not need to wait on a new Supreme Court Justice who may or may not,
today or tomorrow, inject common sense into the decisions of the
Supreme Court?
Mr. Chairman, we will be able to tell them, Yes, you do have a
fundamental say.
And it is for that reason, Mr. Chairman, that I have offered this
amendment to the Commerce, Justice, State, and the Judiciary
Appropriations Act. This legislation is where we find any funding in
any executive agency that would enforce the 11th Circuit's judgment in
this case. My amendment would prevent any funds within that act from
being used to enforce that erroneous decision in Glassroth v. Moore. I
ask my colleagues to support the amendment.
Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the requisite number of
words.
Mr. Chairman, this amendment is a classic. In the long history of
this institution, there have been many amendments offered on the floor
of this Chamber. Never has an amendment been offered that did less than
this amendment does tonight. It does not matter how people vote. No
matter what side one is on on the question of separation of church and
State or the Ten Commandments or anything else, it does not matter how
one votes, because this amendment does not do nothing to nobody.
All this amendment does is to say that the Justice Department cannot
enforce the decision that the gentleman does not like. The only problem
is the Justice Department does not enforce this decision anyway. The
Justice Department has already made quite clear that this is a ``let us
pretend'' amendment. It pretends that we are doing something to protect
the Ten Commandments.
I would suggest that rather than offering amendments that pretend to
do that, if we want to protect the Ten Commandments, we will simply
start by following them in our own lives and in our own careers. That
will do a whole lot more than pretending that we are preventing the
Justice Department from enforcing a decision which they would not be
enforcing anyway.
So I could not care less how one votes on the amendment because it
does not have any effect whatsoever. If the gentleman wants to take the
time of this body to offer do-nothing amendments, be my guest; but I
hope Members are not under an illusion.
Mr. HOSTETTLER. Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?
Mr. OBEY. No, I will not. This is my time. The gentleman has had his
time.
Mr. HOSTETTLER. I just asked the gentleman to yield.
Mr. OBEY. And I said no, and I do not intend to yield for the
remainder of my time, okay?
Mr. HOSTETTLER. Is this in compliance with the Ten Commandments?
Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, who has the floor?
The CHAIRMAN. The gentleman from Wisconsin has the time.
Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I suggest the gentleman from Indiana start
following the Ten Commandments in terms of the way he treats people on
this floor. This is my time. It is not funny.
Mr. Chairman, I would simply close by saying, vote however you want.
This is a free vote. It is one of those votes that Members often offer
in hopes that the public can be convinced we are actually doing
something at 8:15 at night; but with all due respect on this amendment,
we are not. So vote any way you want, just do not be under the illusion
that when you do so, you are protecting the Ten Commandments. It does
not. I could care less what the vote is.
The CHAIRMAN. The question is on the amendment offered by the
gentleman from Indiana (Mr. Hostettler).
The question was taken; and the Chairman announced that the ayes
appeared to have it.
Recorded Vote
Mr. HOSTETTLER. Mr. Chairman, I demand a recorded vote.
The CHAIRMAN. Pursuant to clause 6 of rule XVIII, future proceedings
on the amendment offered by the gentleman from Indiana (Mr. Hostettler)
will be postponed.
{time} 2015
Amendment No. 1 Offered by Mr. Hinchey
Mr. HINCHEY. Mr. Chairman, I offer an amendment.
The CHAIRMAN. The Clerk will designate the amendment.
The text of the amendment is as follows:
Amendment No. 1 offered by Mr. Hinchey:
At the end of the bill (before the short title), insert the
following:
TITLE VIII--ADDITIONAL GENERAL PROVISIONS
Sec. 801. None of the funds made available in this Act to
the Department of Justice may be used to prevent the States
of Alaska, Arizona, California, Colorado, Hawaii, Maine,
Maryland, Nevada, Oregon, or Washington from implementing
State laws authorizing the use of medical marijuana in those
States.
Mr. WOLF. Mr. Chairman, I ask unanimous consent that the debate on
amendment No. 1 offered by the gentleman from New York (Mr. Hinchey)
and any amendment thereto be limited to 60 minutes to be equally
divided and controlled by the proponent and myself, the opponent.
The CHAIRMAN. Is there objection to the request of the gentleman from
Virginia?
There was no objection.
Mr. HINCHEY. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
Mr. Chairman, this amendment is a simple limitation that would
prevent the Justice Department from using any of the funds appropriated
to it by this bill to interfere with the implementation of State laws
that allow for the use of marijuana for medicinal purposes under the
supervision of a licensed physician.
During the past several years 10 States, Alaska Arizona, California,
Colorado, Hawaii, Maine, Maryland, Nevada, Oregon and Washington State,
have passed laws that decriminalize the use of marijuana for medical
purposes. With the exception of Hawaii and Maryland, all of these laws
were passed by referendum and the average vote in each of those eight
States was more than 60 percent approval. These State laws are not
free-for-alls that open the doors to wholesale legalization as critics
claim. Rather, in every case, they specify in great detail the
illnesses for which patients may use marijuana for medicinal purposes,
the amounts the patients may possess, and the conditions under which it
can be grown and obtained. Most establish a State registry and an
identification card for patients.
Federal law classifies marijuana as a Schedule I narcotic with no
permissible medical use. Despite the difficulty of conducting clinical
trials on such a drug, it has been highly effective in treating
symptoms of AIDS, cancer, multiple sclerosis, glaucoma and other
serious medical conditions. In fact, the Institute of Medicine of the
National Academy of Sciences has recommended smoking marijuana for
certain medical uses.
The AIDS Action Council, the American Academy of Family Physicians,
the American Nurses Association, the American Preventative Medical
Association, the American Public Health Association, Kaiser Permanente,
and the New England Journal of Medicine
[[Page H7303]]
have all endorsed supervised access to medical marijuana.
Internationally, the Canadian Government has adopted regulations for
the use of medical marijuana in that country to our immediate north. In
addition, the British Medical Association, the French Ministry of
Health, the Israel Health Ministry, and the Australian National Task
Force on Cannabis have all recommended the use of medical marijuana.
Here at home, however, our Federal Government has been unequivocal in
its opposition to the citizen-led initiatives in the States that I
mentioned. After California voters approved Proposition 215 in 1996,
the Clinton Justice Department brought suit against both doctors and
distributors in an attempt to shut down the new California State law.
Federal courts upheld the right of doctors to talk to their patients
about medical marijuana. The Supreme Court, however, ruled that it is a
violation of Federal law to distribute marijuana for medicinal
purposes. Despite State laws that protect patients from State
prosecution, the Supreme Court cleared the way for the Federal
Government to enforce Federal laws against those individuals,
nevertheless complying with laws in their own States.
Attorney General Ashcroft has vigorously enforced this decision,
choosing to prosecute patients and distributors, which makes passage of
this amendment critical to the States that have enacted laws for the
medicinal use of marijuana. This amendment would prevent the Justice
Department from arresting, prosecuting, suing or otherwise discouraging
doctors, patients and distributors in those States from acting in
compliance with their State laws.
This amendment in no way endorses marijuana for recreational use, not
in any way. It does not reclassify marijuana to a less restrictive
schedule of narcotic. It does not require any State to adopt a medical
marijuana law. It will not prevent Federal officials from enforcing
drug laws against drug kingpins, narco-traffickers, street dealers,
habitual criminals, addicts, recreational users or anyone other than
people who are complying with the laws of their own State with regard
to the medical use of marijuana.
By limiting the Justice Department in this way, we will be
reaffirming the power of citizen democracy and State and local
government. I urge my colleagues to vote ``yes'' on this amendment.
Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.
Mr. WOLF. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 4 minutes.
Mr. Chairman, I rise in very strong opposition to this amendment. The
Grand Lodge of the Fraternal Order of Police wrote a letter and said,
``Dear Mr. Chairman'' to the gentleman from Indiana (Mr. Souder), ``I
am writing to advise you of the strong opposition of the membership of
the Fraternal Order of Police to an amendment to be offered today by
Representative Maurice Hinchey to the appropriations measure on the
Departments of Commerce, Justice, State which would effectively
prohibit the enforcement of Federal law with respect to marijuana in
States that do not provide penalties for the use of the drug for so-
called `medical' reasons.''
It ends by saying, ``The Hinchey amendment threatens to cause a
significant disruptive effect on the combined efforts of State and
local law enforcement officials to reduce drug crime in every region of
the Nation.''
In the year 2001, the Supreme Court issued a notwithstanding rule and
held that marijuana is a Schedule I controlled substance under the
Controlled Substance Act. It has no currently accepted medical use and
treatment in the United States. There are other drugs that now can take
its place. It cannot be used outside the FDA-approved DEA-registered
research.
Marijuana is the most abused drug in America. More young people are
now in treatment for marijuana dependency and for alcohol than for all
the other illegal drugs. Marijuana use also presents a danger to others
beyond the users themselves. In a roadside study of reckless drivers
who are not impaired by alcohol, 45 percent tested positive for
marijuana.
It sends the wrong message. What a message it sends. I urge the
defeat of the amendment which was, I might say, defeated in the full
committee.
Grand Lodge,
Fraternal Order of Police,
Washington, DC, July 22, 2003.
Hon. Mark Souder,
Chairman, Subcommittee on Criminal Justice, Drug Policy, and
Human Resources, Committee on Government Reform, House of
Representatives, Washington, DC.
Dear Mr. Chairman: I am writing to advise you of the strong
opposition of the membership of the Fraternal Order of Police
to an amendment to be offered today by Representative Maurice
D. Hinchey to H.R. 2799, the appropriations measure for the
Department of Commerce, Justice, State and the Judiciary,
which would effectively prohibit enforcement of Federal law
with respect to marijuana in States that do not provide
penalties for the use of the drug for so-called ``medical''
reasons.
In these States, Federal enforcement is the only effective
enforcement of the laws prohibiting the possession and use of
marijuana. Federal efforts provide the sole deterrent to the
use of harder drugs and the commission of other crimes,
including violent crimes and crimes against property, which
go hand-in-hand with drug use and drug trafficking
organizations, particularly in the State of California where
marijuana is sometimes traded for precursor chemicals for
methamphetamines, and in the State of Washington, which is a
significant gateway for high-potency marijuana that can sell
for the same price as heroin on many of our nation's streets.
The Hinchey amendment threatens to cause a significant
disruptive effect on the combined efforts of State and local
law enforcement to reduce drug crime in every region of the
country. On behalf of the more than 308,000 members of the
Fraternal Order of Police, we urge its defeat. If I can be of
any further help on this issue, please feel free to contact
me or Executive Director Jim Pasco through my Washington
office.
Sincerely,
Chuck Canterbury,
National President.
____
National Narcotic Officers'
Associations Coalition,
West Covina, CA, July 22, 2003.
Hon. Mark Souder,
Chairman, Subcommittee on Criminal Justice, Drug Policy, and
Human Resources, Committee on Government Reform, House of
Representatives, Washington, DC.
Dear Chairman Souder: I am writing to let you know of the
strong opposition of the 60,000 state and local law
enforcement officers in 40 states who are members of the
NNOAC to an amendment to be offered today to the Commerce/
Justice/State Appropriations bill that would effectively
prohibit enforcement of federal marijuana law in states that
do not provide penalties for the use of so-called ``medical''
marijuana.
Because even a modest amount of federal marijuana
enforcement is now the only effective enforcement of the
marijuana laws in several such states, it provides a strong
deterrent effect to the use of harder drugs and other crimes,
including violent crimes and crimes against property. Federal
investigations of marijuana producers also serve to disrupt
larger drug trafficking organizations, particularly in the
State of California where marijuana is sometimes traded for
precursor chemicals for methamphetamines, and in the State of
Washington, which is a significant gateway for high-potency
marijuana that can sell for the same price as heroin.
The Hinchey amendment threatens to cause a significant
disruptive effect on state and local law enforcement of both
drug laws and of other crimes affecting public safety in
states where it would apply. We strongly encourage Members of
Congress who support their local police officers and law
enforcement to oppose this amendment.
Sincerely,
Ronald E. Brooks,
President.
Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.
Mr. HINCHEY. Mr. Chairman, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from
California (Mr. Farr).
Mr. FARR. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for yielding me time.
I am one of the cosponsors of this, and I would like to first point
out that the last statement you heard by your distinguished chairman is
not about the amendment. This amendment does not legalize marijuana. I
repeat, it does not legalize marijuana.
It is a very straightforward amendment. It removes the Federal
interference from local law, from local affairs where States have
adopted through their legislative process or initiative process, a
limited use of marijuana for medical purposes only. And in most cases,
in all the cases I know, it has to be dispensed by a doctor.
And the reason this amendment passed in California is because the
elderly community, oftentimes suffering from pain, felt this was a
remedy for pain. And the voters of California said, you should not deny
this as long as it is being used in the medical arena. That is all this
amendment does.
[[Page H7304]]
It says, Federal Government, get off the back of those States that
have used their legal process to have a limited use of marijuana for
medical purposes. And those States are Alaska, California, Colorado,
Maine, Nevada, Oregon, Washington, and the District of Columbia. The
States of Hawaii and Maryland have also passed the laws through their
legislatures.
This is not about legalization of marijuana. This is just saying,
Federal Government, where those States have adopted those laws, just
stay off their backs. The attorneys general of these States, the law
enforcement in these communities, they support these operations.
I know, because in Santa Cruz County they were very, very upset and
petitioned when the Federal Government came in and did a raid. It upset
everybody.
So this process of not allowing States to go forward, I think, is
wrong. This amendment provides States with voter-given authority to
promulgate regulations to control the limited, limited, limited use of
marijuana for medicinal purposes. It is an amendment about States'
rights. It is about the sacredness of the electoral process and the
sanctity of the citizens' votes. It is about treating people as if they
have instructed their government to do so.
That is all this amendment does. A very narrow, limiting amendment.
Please adopt it.
Mr. WOLF. Mr. Chairman, I yield 8\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from
Indiana (Mr. Souder).
(Mr. SOUDER asked and was given permission to revise and extend his
remarks.)
Mr. SOUDER. Mr. Chairman, this amendment is not about what it
purports to be about. It is bad amendment for so many reasons that I
can barely touch on.
First, let me clarify that the FOP, the Fraternal Order of Police,
exactly knows what amendment we are talking about. In fact, in their
letter, echoed also by a letter we received from the National Narcotics
Officers' Association Coalition says specifically this:
``Federal investigations of marijuana producers also serve to disrupt
larger drug trafficking organizations, particularly in the State of
California where marijuana is sometimes traded for precursor chemicals,
for methamphetamines, and in the State of Washington, which is a
significant gateway for high-potency marijuana that can sell for the
same price as heroin'' on many of our Nation's streets.
These officers in California and Washington, these States, opposed
the referendums. They warned the people about what was going to happen
and what they see happening in many places in these States.
Let me reiterate a couple of basic points. It does not help sick
people. First, this amendment is not about helping sick people. There
are no generally recognized health benefits to smoking marijuana. We
heard a false reference earlier to the Institutes of Medicine report
where in it its verdicts said marijuana is not modern medicine. They
issued a warning particularly against smoking marijuana in that report
which, admittedly, was mixed, but did not endorse medicinal marijuana.
The FDA has not considered or approved marijuana for this use. Its
active ingredient, THC, is available in an improved pill form for those
who want to use it. In fact, as people have said, there are many
dangerous products that have ingredients in them that can be helpful,
but that does not mean that the carrier of it, such as marijuana, is in
fact medicinal. It is something inside that.
In fact, I, as chairman of the Subcommittee on Criminal Justice, Drug
Policy and Human Resources recently met with officials from The
Netherlands and in their Office of Medical Cannabis, even that nation,
which is generally recognized for its extremely liberal drug policies,
specifically has rejected the use of smoked marijuana for so-called
``medicinal purposes,'' which these State referendums do not do.
The American Lung Association has said that marijuana contains 50 to
70 percent more of some cancer-causing tobacco smoke. This is very
dangerous.
Furthermore, in a recent article by the Deputy Director of ONDCP,
Andrea Barthwell called The Haze of Misinformation Clouds the Issue of
Medicinal Marijuana, she eloquently wrote, ``Before the passage of the
Pure Food and Drug Act in 1907, Americans were exposed to a host of
patent medicine cure-alls, everything from vegetable folk remedies to
dangerous mixtures with morphine. The major component of most `cures'
was alcohol, which probably explained why people said they felt
better.''
What we are hearing now is the same kind of classic peddling on the
street of remedies that, in fact, are not remedies, when there are
legal remedies to address the same question. The compounds in marijuana
plants may have some medicinal marijuana but that is not marijuana and
can be gotten elsewhere.
Secondly, it makes no legal or governmental sense. In fact, it is
fairly embarrassing we have this amendment on the floor. This amendment
is premised on two extremely curious principles, first, that the
Justice Department should not enforce a clear Federal law on the books;
and as acknowledged by the sponsor of amendment and other supporters,
the Supreme Court has ruled that States cannot usurp Federal law.
If the sponsor of the amendment believes that Federal law should
permit the medicinal use for marijuana, he ought to go through the
legislative process and change the law. But the Justice Department, the
DEA, and Members of Congress, I might add, have sworn an oath to
support and defend the Constitution of the United States which requires
enforcement of the laws of the United States; and it is an incredibly
dangerous precedent to retreat from that.
Second, to ask Federal law enforcement to look the other way in some
States, but not others is unfair and probably unconstitutional
selective enforcement of a law.
This amendment would only apply in certain States. So someone in
Washington State would be exempt from enforcement of Federal marijuana
laws if they claim it is for medicinal purposes, but someone in Indiana
would not. What kind of law is this?
In fact, we fought a Civil War over this. It is called nullification.
States do not have the right. How would the minority feel, those who
are advocating this, if civil rights laws could be overturned at the
Federal level, and we said we were not going to enforce Federal rights
because State can nullify a Federal law?
If you want to change a Federal law, have the courage to change the
Federal law. Do not try to nullify a Federal law.
{time} 2030
It makes no police sense. In the States listed in the bill, the
Federal Government is the only entity now doing effective marijuana
enforcement. This bill would end that enforcement, even though the
States in question are some of the most active drug States, and there
are clear ties between marijuana traffic and ties in harder drugs, as
well as marijuana traffic and other violent crime.
In the State of Washington, for example, streams of high-potency
marijuana are selling for more in Indiana and New York and Boston than
cocaine and heroin because its HTC content is not what we saw in the
1960s, 2 to 4 percent, but in the 18 to 30 percent range. That is
extremely dangerous to individuals. This amendment would in effect
prohibit DEA from enforcing marijuana laws if it claimed it was for
medicinal purposes.
For that reason, State and local law enforcement officers have
opposed this amendment, including the National Narcotic Officers and
the FOP, Fraternal Order of Police.
Lastly, State medical marijuana laws are a sham.
Finally, we have seen these laws do not operate as intended. A State
audit in Oregon found that many of those who obtained so-called
medicinal marijuana have not provided documentation of their claims. A
survey of many HIV patients who claimed to use marijuana for medical
purposes found that 57 percent smoked marijuana for mental, rather than
physical, reasons and that a third admitted outright that they had
smoked marijuana for recreational purposes. Even in California, the
State is trying to revoke the license of a physician who has written
[[Page H7305]]
7,500 marijuana recommendations for patients without conducting any
medical exams.
Lastly, we heard that this was citizen-led. What a joke. What we have
are people who historically, including some Members of this body, who
favor drug legalization in general support this as medicinal marijuana.
In fact, what they back more is legalization of marijuana, and this has
not been a citizen-led effort.
A man named George Soros has poured millions of dollars into these
referendums and the citizen groups have predominantly opposed them
against an overwhelming number of ads masquerading behind a few herding
individuals who have been given false promise by the modern-day medical
hustlers, just like they did in the 1900s. This is embarrassing from a
legal standpoint and embarrassing from a body that should be upholding
the laws of the United States and to be fighting the terrorism on our
streets where people are dying and here we are trying to give them
cover for this pro-drug movement by acting like it is medicine.
It is not medicine. If my colleagues believe it is medicine, get it
out of the main and into the people who need it. Do not hide behind
marijuana and make it more available so more kids can die in my
district and in my colleagues' districts as well.
Mr. HINCHEY. Mr. Chairman, I yield 4 minutes to the gentleman from
Texas (Mr. Paul).
(Mr. PAUL asked and was given permission to revise and extend his
remarks.)
Mr. PAUL. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for yielding me the
time.
As a cosponsor of the amendment, I rise in support of this amendment
and appreciate the fact that the gentleman from New York has brought it
to the floor.
I would suggest that the previous speaker has forgotten some of the
law; and to me, that would be the constitutional law of the ninth and
tenth amendments. So changing the law is one thing, but remembering the
Constitution is another.
This has a lot to do with State law; but more importantly, as a
physician, I see this bill as something dealing with compassion. As a
physician, I have seen those who have died with cancer and getting
chemotherapy and with AIDS and having nothing to help them.
There is the case in California of Peter McDaniels, who was diagnosed
with cancer and AIDS. California changed the law and permitted him to
use marijuana if it was self-grown, and he was using it; and yet
although he was dying, the Federal officials came in and arrested him
and he was taken to court. The terrible irony of this was here was a
man that was dying and the physicians were not giving him any help; and
when he was tried, it was not allowed to be said that he was obeying
the State law.
That is how far the ninth and tenth amendments have been undermined,
that there has been so much usurpation of States' rights and States'
abilities to manage these affair, and that is why the Founders set the
system up this way in order that if there is a mistake it not be
monolithic; and believe me, the Federal Government has made a mistake
not only here with marijuana, with all the drug laws, let me tell my
colleagues.
There are more people who die from the use of legal drugs than
illegal drugs. Just think of that. More people die from the use of
legal drugs; and also, there are more deaths from the drug war than
there are from deaths from using the illegal drugs. So it has gotten
out of control. But the whole idea that a person who is dying, a
physician cannot even prescribe something that might help them. The
terrible irony of Peter McDaniels was that he died because of vomiting,
something that could have and had only been curtailed by the use of
marijuana. No other medication had helped; and we, the Federal
Government, go in there and deny this and defy the State law, the State
law of California.
Yes, I would grant my colleagues there is danger in all medications.
There is some danger in marijuana, but I do not know of any deaths that
is purely marijuana-related. If we want to talk about a deadly
medication or a deadly drug that kills literally tens of thousands in
this country, it is alcohol. And how many people want to go back to
prohibition? I mean, nobody's proposing that, and yet that is a deadly
drug.
The whole notion that we can deny this right to the States to allow a
little bit of compassion for a patient that is dying, I would say this
is a compassionate vote. If we care about the people being sick, then
we have to vote for this amendment. This will do nothing to increase
the use of bad drugs. The bad drugs are there; and as a physician and a
parent and a grandparent, I preach against it all the time, but the
unwise use of drugs is a medical problem, just like alcoholism is a
medical problem; but we have turned this into a monster to the point
where we will not even allow a person dying from cancer and AIDS to get
a little bit of relief.
I strongly urge support and a positive vote for this amendment.
Mr. WOLF. Mr. Chairman, I yield 5 minutes to the gentleman from
Arizona (Mr. Shadegg).
Mr. SHADEGG. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for yielding me the
time, and I rise in strong opposition to the amendment and in very
strong disagreement with the last speaker.
The reality is his point would be well taken if indeed there were
medical evidence that medicinal marijuana helped people, but there is
none. In his entire testimony there was not a single citation to a
study that showed medical marijuana, in fact, helps, as my colleague,
the gentleman from Indiana (Mr. Souder), pointed out earlier where
indeed the medical evidence is to the contrary. And that leads me to an
important part of the case against this amendment I think it is very
important for people to understand, and that is, how did we get where
we are?
We got to this position because in a handful of States across the
country, valiant initiatives have been raised to legalize medical
marijuana. My State happens to be one of those States, but let me make
it clear to my colleagues what happened in those campaigns in those
States.
First, make no mistake about it, law enforcement agents in every
single one of those States opposed the medical marijuana initiative.
They did so for good and solid reasons: number one, there is no medical
benefit; but, number two, marijuana is a precursor drug.
Make no mistake about it, today's marijuana is not the marijuana that
we had 40 or 30 or 20 or even 10 years ago. The potency of today's
marijuana is dramatically higher, shockingly higher than the marijuana
that existed and was around in the 1960s. But what else happened in
those campaigns?
The other important thing that happened in those campaigns is that
the people were led astray by massive spending. My colleague, the
gentleman from Indiana (Mr. Souder), pointed out that some proponents
of this idea, including one who happens to be a resident of my State,
have spent many millions of dollars advocating the legalization of
marijuana; and they have outspent the opponents of these measures by
two, three, four, five, 10 times. In my State of Arizona in two
different campaigns the proponents of legalizing medical marijuana
outspent the opponents by a dramatic amount of money. When we stack the
debate, when only one side of the argument gets out, of course they are
going to win.
Let us talk about what happens with this marijuana, and I disagree so
strongly with my colleague who spoke just a moment ago. The reality is
that in this Nation we have a serious drug problem confronting our
youth, and why do we have that drug problem? We have that drug problem
because of this very debate, because as a Nation we have not decided
that drugs, illegal drugs, marijuana for one and many others, are bad.
Indeed, we have leaders of the Nation saying, oh, it is all right, we
are not really going to go against it; we are not really going to
enforce these laws; we do not care about these laws. How do my
colleagues think kids react to that?
I will tell my colleagues how I raised my kids. I raised my kids to
see these are the rules, you violate these rules, you will be punished.
You know what? My kids understood the rules because when they violated
them, we punished them.
That is not what we do with drugs in America. We say if it is a drug
we will
[[Page H7306]]
look the other way; we will let it go; we are not really committed to
enforcing our Nation's drugs law. Now look at the hypocrisy, the
outrageous hypocrisy of this proposal. Now we are going to say, yeah,
we have Federal laws against these drugs; we have Federal laws against
marijuana; we believe that those laws are valid and good and
appropriate, but you know what, in some States we will not enforce them
because in some States we do not want to enforce them.
So if the FBI is dealing with a person and they happen to be in
Maryland, they get one set of rules; but if they happen to be in
Arizona, they get another set of rules.
What about those States that border each other? What about New Jersey
right next to New York? What about Arizona right next to California?
What about all kinds of other border jurisdictions?
We want the laws of this Nation to say that in this State the Federal
antidrug laws on marijuana will be enforced, but right across the river
in Kansas City, Missouri, versus Kansas City, Kansas, we are not going
to enforce that law? Do my colleagues not think that will send a
confused message to our kids about our Nation's policy on illegal
drugs? Do my colleagues not think that will lead to more kids getting
involved in drugs?
The most outrageous statement made on this floor on this House
tonight was the statement that sending the message to our kids that
some drugs are okay will not lead them to use those drugs or other
drugs and will not lead to an increase in the use of illegal drugs.
That is the most outrageous and absurd concept we can possibly embrace,
and I hope this House will reject it.
We cannot afford to confuse our Nation's children. We cannot afford
to tell them that marijuana is okay. We cannot afford to let them begin
to use the dramatically more potent marijuana that is on the streets
today and coming through my State of Arizona, to your State and your
district by some confused policy that says, well, we think it is bad in
some States, but we do not think it is bad in others.
The truth is, the gentleman who spoke before me believes we should
legalize all drugs, and that is a valid and fair position; but take
that issue directly to the substance of this Congress, propose it as a
law, propose to amend the Federal laws that prohibit the possession and
the use and the sale of marijuana and talk that debate straight up. Do
not do it by subterfuge. Do not do it under the table. Do not do it by
saying in one State we are going to enforce the Federal law and in
another State we are not, because if we want to confuse a generation of
America's children, that is the way to do it.
Mr. HINCHEY. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
I just want to make it clear that we are not doing anything by
subterfuge here. We are just saying that in 10 States of this Nation
the people have decided that is a legitimate practice for people who
have certain medical conditions. Twenty percent of the States have said
so, and most of them by referendum; and 60 percent or more voted for
that in those referendums.
Mr. Chairman, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Ohio (Mr.
Kucinich).
Mr. KUCINICH. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for yielding me the
time.
There is a context here which is worth reflecting on, and that is the
law enforcement policies of an administration which cannot effectively
meet the challenge of international terrorism, but is ready to wage a
phony drug war, including locking up people dying of cancer simply
because those poor souls seek relief from horrible pain.
I ask, can we truly be so lacking in compassion? This is not about
legalizing marijuana. That is just a smoke screen. It is an amendment
to end Federal raids on medical marijuana patients and providers in
States where medical marijuana is legal. Despite marijuana's recognized
therapeutic value, including a National Academy of Science Institute of
Medicine report, recommending its use in certain circumstances, Federal
law refuses to recognize the importance and safety of medicinal
marijuana.
Instead, Federal penalties for all marijuana use, regardless of
purpose, include up to a year in prison for the possession of even
small amounts.
Let us reflect again on how cynical and how dark it is to even
contemplate sending someone to prison for a year when they may not even
have that much time left in their life; but since 1996, eight States
have enacted laws to allow very ill patients to use medical marijuana
in spite of Federal law. The present administration has sought to
override such State statutes, viewing the use of medicinal marijuana
for purposes in the same light as heroin or cocaine.
{time} 2045
Last year, Federal agents raided the Women and Men's Alliance for
Medical Marijuana, an organization that under California State law
legally dispensed marijuana to patients whose doctors had recommended
it for pain and suffering. Eighty-five percent of this organization's
225 members were terminally ill with cancer or AIDS.
This is about compassion. The Federal Government should use its power
to help terminally ill citizens, not arrest them. And States deserve to
have the right to make their own decisions regarding the use of medical
marijuana. I strongly urge my colleagues to support this amendment.
Mr. WOLF. Mr. Chairman, I yield 5 minutes to the gentleman from
Florida (Mr. Mica).
Mr. MICA. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman from Virginia for
yielding me this time.
I had the opportunity in Congress some 2\1/2\ years ago to chair the
Subcommittee on Criminal Justice, Drug Policy and Human Resources for
some 2 years. During that time, I held the first hearings, really, in
Congress on the question of legalization of marijuana; and I tried to
approach the issue of the medical use of marijuana from an open
standpoint.
We conducted hearings and brought in what we considered were the best
medical experts, and we dug into all of the testimony. And, my
colleagues, I can say here tonight that we did not find one scintilla
of evidence that there was any medical benefit by consuming marijuana,
whether an individual was healthy or whether they were ill, or
terminally ill. There was no evidence to that effect.
It has become sort of a cause celebre to promote these initiatives
with huge amounts of money. And at first blush, I think people support
some of these as possibly being compassionate, as we hear here.
We have also heard here that the medical use of marijuana will
relieve pain. Well, I can say also from chairing that subcommittee that
that is not the case. In fact, anything that we do to encourage use,
whether for this purpose or other purposes, will not relieve pain, it
will cause pain. Certainly, I am sure if someone smoked enough
marijuana or took enough crack or enough heroin or methamphetamines,
they would not have any pain.
What we did learn in our testimony and what I have learned over the
several years that I have served on that committee in the Congress is,
we did learn this one thing. We learned that the marijuana that we have
on the market today, and we have heard this from the previous chairman,
the gentleman from Indiana (Mr. Souder) and others, who cited that
today's marijuana is not the marijuana we had some 20 or 30 years ago.
There is a several hundred percent increase in potency in what is on
the market.
We also heard that marijuana is the greatest substance abuse of our
teenagers, even exceeding, believe it or not, alcohol today. We also
learned that there are more than 19,000 drug-related deaths in the
United States, overdose deaths, which now exceed homicides. And
everything we do towards trying to glorify or utilize marijuana for
whatever use or whatever purpose does lead more of our young people to
use this.
Marijuana is a gateway drug, and so we end up with a death toll that
we have seen so painfully across this Nation.
So if the object here is to relieve pain, that is not what is being
done. It will cause pain.
Almost every police group opposes the Hinchey amendment. Let me just
read some of the folks that oppose it. The Fraternal Order of Police,
the world's largest police union, made up of 300,000 members of State
and local
[[Page H7307]]
enforcement officers nationwide, and the National Narcotics Officers'
Association Coalition, with more than 60,000 members, have expressed
strong opposition to the Hinchey amendment that would prohibit
enforcement of Federal marijuana laws in some States but not in others.
Police groups oppose the amendment because Federal enforcement of
marijuana helps deter use and trafficking in harder drugs and also in
related crimes against property and some of our most violent crime.
Finally, some of those police groups that oppose the Hinchey
amendment have said to us, we strongly encourage Members of Congress
who support their local police officers and law enforcement to oppose
this amendment. And we have letters from the National Narcotics
Officers' Association Coalition and the Grand Lodge Fraternal Order of
Police stating their clear opposition.
Again, I think the presentation of this amendment has been that this
would relieve pain and be compassionate. My colleagues, this will cause
pain, and there are many who confirm that.
Mr. HINCHEY. Mr. Chairman, may I inquire the remaining time?
The CHAIRMAN. The gentleman from New York (Mr. Hinchey) has 16
minutes remaining, and the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Wolf) has 11
minutes remaining.
Mr. HINCHEY. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from
California (Ms. Woolsey).
Ms. WOOLSEY. Mr. Chairman, I rise in strong support of this
resolution. I believe we should respect the State authority in regards
to medical marijuana, and I remind my colleagues that we are not
talking about illegal drugs, we are talking about medicinal marijuana,
legally supported by 10 States.
As my colleagues know, in my home State of California, voters
overwhelmingly passed Proposition 215, allowing the use of marijuana
for medicinal purposes. Like my constituents, I believe that doctors
should be permitted to prescribe marijuana for patients suffering from
cancer, or AIDS, or glaucoma, spastic disorders, and other debilitating
diseases.
The people that I represent from Marin and Sonoma Counties, Mr.
Chairman, just over the Golden Gate Bridge, and my colleagues will not
be surprised, it is a very progressive area in our country, but they
want their doctors to be permitted to prescribe marijuana for their
patients suffering from debilitating diseases; and they believe that
the Federal Government should get out of the way. They should not butt
in. And that is why I support this amendment, because it would stop the
Justice Department from punishing those who are abiding by their
State's laws.
Please join me in supporting this important amendment so that those
who suffer from debilitating diseases can get relief without the fear
of Federal interference.
Mr. Chairman, I call on all Members of this Congress, particularly
those who believe in States' rights, to let States represent their
voters. It is not okay to pick and choose where States can butt in and
where they have the ultimate responsibility based on ideologies.
Mr. HINCHEY. Mr. Chairman, I yield 4 minutes to the gentleman from
New York (Mr. Nadler).
Mr. NADLER. Mr. Chairman, I am going to begin by reading from an
editorial that appeared in the New York Daily News this past Sunday,
written by a Richard Brookhiser, who is a senior editor of the National
Review, a very noted conservative magazine founded by William F.
Buckley.
He writes as follows: ``Earlier this year, the New York State
Association of County Health Officials, as cautious a bunch as you will
find in the medical community, urged New York lawmakers to pass
legislation to legalize the medical use of marijuana. It is past time
to remove patients fighting cancer, AIDS, and other scourges from the
battlefield of the war on drugs.
``The legalization of medical marijuana would be a step forward for
the health of all New Yorkers, the Association of County Health
Officials declared. Marijuana has proven to be effective in the
treatment of people with HIV/AIDS, multiple sclerosis, cancer, and
those suffering from severe pain and nausea.
``I discovered,'' that is, he did; I am quoting the article. ``I
discovered marijuana's benefits while receiving chemotherapy for
testicular cancer in 1992. Part way through my treatment, the
conventional antinausea drugs prescribed by my doctors stopped working.
Marijuana was the only thing that kept my head out of the toilet.
``I was lucky. As a member of the media elite, I probably wasn't at
huge risk for a drug bust. Living here, I was able to obtain my herb
under the cover of urban anonymity. But people shouldn't have to depend
on professional status or the luck of geography. Putting such patients
in jail for the `crime' of trying to relieve some of the misery caused
by their illnesses is cruel.
``The consensus regarding marijuana's medical value grows every day.
Just this May, The Lancet Neurology noted that marijuana's active
components are effective against pain in virtually every lab test
scientists have devised, and even speculated that it could become `the
aspirin of the 21st century.'
``Marijuana does have risks, but so do all drugs. Recent researchers
documented that relatively simple vaporizers can allow users to inhale
the active ingredients with almost none of the irritants in smoke.
``Ten States now have laws allowing medical use of marijuana with a
physician's recommendation, and those laws have been successful. Last
year, the General Accounting Office interviewed 37 law enforcement
agencies in those States, reporting that the majority of those
interviewed `indicated that medical marijuana laws has had little
impact on their law enforcement activities.'
``As a conservative, I am not surprised that common sense is bubbling
up from the State level while Federal marijuana laws remain stuck in
the 1930s. Federal law will change eventually, because science, common
sense, and human decency require it.''
That is the article. Mr. Chairman, I am not a conservative, as most
of my colleagues know. I am a liberal. But I certainly agree with this
conservative writer and editor.
The fact of the matter is, we ought to let doctors prescribe the
medicines they feel would be most effective for their patients. It is
not up to us to stand up on the floor of this House and declare with
the expertise of the politicians that we are that marijuana, or
morphine, or tetracycline is not an effective drug. That is the job of
the doctors and the medical professionals to make those judgments.
We can prosecute doctors or others who may abuse this privilege. We
allow morphine's use for medical purposes. No one has legalized the
general use of morphine, or heroin, from which it is derived. But for
medical purposes, we use it as a painkiller all the time. Most of our
drugs, if misused, are dangerous and even toxic, but we allow their use
to heal the sick under a physician's supervision. Why should marijuana
be any different?
Sure, it is a dangerous drug. I certainly do not deny that. But for
certain diseases, for certain conditions, it can help people. It can
make their lives bearable.
Let the doctors make those decisions, not the politicians. Let the
doctors decide what will work for someone's illness, and let them be
subject to the normal medical discipline procedures for the normal uses
of the law for those who would abuse their ability to prescribe a drug.
Mr. Chairman, let marijuana be treated as a drug the way morphine is,
the way other powerful drugs are. Let people be healed. Let them feel
better. Let people with HIV or AIDS or cancer be able to hold their
food. Let them survive longer. And let us fight the drug war on a
different battlefield.
Mr. WOLF. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Texas
(Mr. Burgess).
Mr. BURGESS. Mr. Chairman, I thank the chairman for yielding me this
time. I actually had not planned on speaking on this issue this
evening, but after sitting in my office and hearing some of the other
arguments, I felt compelled to come over and at least, if I could,
perhaps provide some illumination on this subject.
The last speaker, in fact, talked about science, common sense, and
human decency as dictating that we must make marijuana available to our
sickest patients.
[[Page H7308]]
{time} 2100
But why, indeed, would we want to make a substance available that is
widely recognized as a gateway drug which could lead to greater drug
use?
My friend from Arizona pointed out that drug use amongst our youth
and our children is increasing at a rapid rate, and we need to do what
we can to stop that. I do not believe that making marijuana generally
available, even for medicinal purposes, is going to further that
curtailment of drug use in children or young people.
But, Mr. Chairman, the fact remains that if we want to legally
prescribe medication to deal with our patients' suffering, that is,
anorexia, Marinol is available today; and I believe it is legal in all
States, not just 10 states. What is Marinol? Marinol is a synthetic
delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol. Delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol is also the
naturally occurring compound of Cannabis sativa, or marijuana.
So you see, Mr. Chairman, our physicians already have the active
ingredient in marijuana available to prescribe to their patients today;
and, in fact, I will include for the Record the package insert from
Marinol which details the double-blind placebo studies that show that
Marinol has been useful as an appetite stimulant and an antiemetic,
that is, it inhibits nausea and vomiting in individuals who are
suffering from terminal HIV/AIDS and individuals who are undergoing
chemotherapy. And perhaps the beauty of using Marinol is your patient
does not have to be terminally ill, they just have to be ill, because
Marinol can be used for a short term. In fact, that is what it is
recommended, to be used over the short term to deal with those two
adverse consequences of chemotherapy.
Mr. Chairman, compassionate care is available in this country. Our
doctors are providing compassionate care. It is approved by the Food
and Drug Administration. It is approved by the DEA.
Marinol (Dronabinol) Capsules
description
Dronabinol is a cannabinoid designated chemically as (6aR-
trans)-6a,7,8,10a-tetrahydro-6,6,9-trimethyl-3-pentyl-6H-
dibenzo[b,d]pyran-1-ol.
Dronabinol, the active ingredient in Marinol Capsules, is
synthetic delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol (delta-9-THC). Delta-
9-tetrahydrocannabinol is also a naturally occurring
component of Cannabis sativa L. (Marijuana).
Dronabinol is a light yellow resinous oil that is sticky at
room temperature and hardens upon refrigeration. Dronabinol
is insoluble in water and is formulated in sesame oil. It has
a pKa of 10.6 and an octanol-water partition coefficient:
6,000:1 at pH 7.
Capsules for oral administration: Marinol Capsules is
supplied as round, soft gelatin capsules containing either
2.5 mg, 5 mg, or 10 mg dronabinol. Each Marinol Capsule is
formulated with the following inactive ingredients: FD&C Blue
No. 1 (5 mg), FD&C Red No. 40 (5 mg), FD&C Yellow No. 6 (5 mg
and 10 mg), gelatin, glycerin, methylparaben, propylparaben,
sesame oil, and titanium dioxide.
clinical pathology
Dronabinol is an orally active cannabinoid which, like
other cannabinoids, has complex effects on the central
nervous system (CNS), including central sympathomimetic
activity. Cannabinoid receptors have been discovered in
neural tissues. These receptors may play a role in mediating
the effects of dronabinol and other cannabinoids.
Pharmacodynamics: Dronabinol-induced sympathomimetic
activity may result in tachycardia and/or conjunctival
injection. Its effects on blood pressure are inconsistent,
but occasional subjects have experienced orthostatic
hypotension and/or syncope upon abrupt standing.
Dronabinol also demonstrates reversible effects on
appetite, mood, cognition, memory, and perception. These
phenomena appear to be dose-related, increasing in frequency
with higher dosages, and subject to great interpatient
variability.
After oral administration, dronabinol has an onset of
action of approximately 0.5 to 1 hours and peak effect at 2
to 4 hours. Duration of action for psychoactive effects is 4
to 6 hours, but the appetite stimulant effect of dronabinol
may continue for 24 hours or longer after administration.
Tachyphylaxis and tolerance develop to some of the
pharmacologic effects of dronabinol and other cannabinoids
with chronic use, suggesting an indirect effect on
sympathetic neurons. In a study of the pharmacodynamics of
chronic dronabinol exposure, healthy male volunteers (N = 12)
received 210 mg/day dronabinol, administered orally in
divided doses, for 16 days. An initial tachycardia induced by
dronabinol was replaced successively by normal sinus rhythm
and then bradycardia. A decrease in supine blood pressure,
made worse by standing, was also observed initially. These
volunteers developed tolerance to the cardiovascular and
subjective adverse CNS effects of dronabinol within 12 days
of treatment initiation.
Tachyphylaxis and tolerance do not, however, appear to
develop to the appetite stimulant effect of
Marinol' Capsules. In studies involving patients
with Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS), the appetite
stimulant effect of Marinol' Capsules has been
sustained for up to five months in clinical trials, at
dosages ranging from 2.5 mg/day to 20 mg/day.
Pharmacokinetics: Absorption and Distribution:
Marinol' (Dronabinol) Capsules is almost
completely absorbed (90 to 95%) after single oral doses. Due
to the combined effects of first pass hepatic metabolism and
high lipid solubility, only 10 to 20% of the administered
dose reaches the systemic circulation. Dronabinol has a large
apparent volume of distribution, approximately 10 L/kg,
because of its lipid solubility. The plasma protein binding
of dronabinol and its metabolites is approximately 97%.
The elimination phase of dronabinol can be described using
a two compartment model with an initial (alpha) half-life of
about 4 hours and a terminal (beta) half-life of 25 to 36
hours. Because of its large volume of distribution,
dronabinol and its metabolites may be excreted at low levels
for prolonged periods of time.
Metabolites: Dronabinol undergoes extensive first-pass
hepatic metabolism, primarily by microsomal hydroxylation,
yielding both active and inactive metabolites. Dronabinol and
its principal active metabolite, 11-OH-delta-9-THC, are
present in approximately equal concentrations in plasma.
Concentrations of both parent drug and metabolite peak at
approximately 2 to 4 hours after oral dosing and decline over
several days. Values for clearance average about 0.2 L/kg-hr,
but are highly variable due to the complexity of cannabinoid
distribution.
Elimination: Dronabinol and its biotransformation products
are excreted in both feces and urine. Biliary excretion is
the major route of elimination with about half of a radio-
labeled oral dose being recovered from the feces within 72
hours as contrasted with 10 to 15% recovered from urine. Less
than 5% of an oral dose is recovered unchanged in the feces.
Following single dose administration, low levels of
dronabinol metabolites have been detected for more than 5
weeks in the urine and feces.
In a study of Marinol Capsules involving AIDS patients,
urinary cannabinoid/creatinine concentration ratios were
studied bi-weekly over a six week period. The urinary
cannabinoid/creatinine ratio was closely correlated with
dose. No increase in the cannabinoid/creatinine ratio was
observed after the first two weeks of treatment, indicating
that steady-state cannabionoid levels had been reached. This
conclusion is consistent with predictions based on the
observed terminal half-life of dronabinol.
Special Populations: The pharmacokinetic profile of
Marinol Capsules has not been investigated in either
pediatric or geriatric patients.
clinical trials
Appetite Stimulation: The appetite stimulant effect of
Marinol (Dronabinol) Capsules in the treatment of AIDS-
related anorexia associated with weight loss was studied in a
randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled study involving
139 patients. The initial dosage of Marinol Capsules in all
patients was 5 mg/day, administered in doses of 2.5 mg one
hour before lunch and one hour before supper. In pilot
studies, early morning administration of Marinol Capsules
appeared to have been associated with an increased frequency
of adverse experiences, as compared to dosing later in the
day. The effect of Marinol Capsules on appetite, weight,
mood, and nausea was measured at scheduled intervals during
the six-week treatment period. Side effects (feeling high,
dizziness, confusion, somnolence) occurred in 13 of 72
patients (18%) at this dosage level and the dosage was
reduced to 2.5 mg/day, administered as a single dose at
supper or bedtime.
As compared to placebo, Marinol Capsules treatment
resulted in a statistically significant improvement in
appetite as measured by visual analog scale (see figure).
Trends toward improved body weight and mood, and decreases in
nausea were also seen.
After completing the 6-week study, patients were allowed to
continue treatment with Marinol Capsules in an open-label
study, in which there was a sustained improvement in
appetite.
Antiemetic: Marinol (Dronabinol) Capsules treatment of
chemotherapy-induced emesis was evaluated in 454 patients
with cancer, who received a total of 750 courses of treatment
of various malignancies. The antiemetic efficacy of Marinol
Capsules was greatest in patients receiving cytotoxic therapy
with MOPP for Hodgkin's and non-Hodgkin's lymphomas. Marinol
Capsules dosages ranged from 2.5 mg/day to 40 mg/day,
administered in equally divided doses every four to six hours
(four times daily). Escalating the Marinol Capsules dose
above 7 mg/mg2 Capsules dose above 7 mg/
m2 increased the frequency of adverse experiences,
with no additional antiemetic benefit.
Combination antiemetic therapy with Marinol Capsules and a
phenothiazine (prochlorperazine) may result in synergistic or
additive antiemetic effects and attenuate the toxicities
associated with each of the agents.
[[Page H7309]]
individualization of dosages
The pharmacologic effects of Marinol (Dronabinol) Capsules
are dose-related and subject to considerable interpatient
variability. Therefore, dosage individualization is critical
in achieving the maximum benefit of Marinol Capsules
treatment.
Appetite Stimulation: In the clinical trials, the majority
of patients were treated with 5 mg/day Marinol'
Capsules, although the dosages ranged from 2.5 to 20 mg/day.
For an adult:
1. Begin with 2.5 mg before lunch and 2.5 mg before supper.
If CNS symptoms (feeling high, dizziness, confusion,
somnolence) do occur, they usually resolve in 1 to 3 days
with continued dosage.
2. If CNS symptoms are severe or persistent, reduce the
dose to 2.5 mg before supper. If symptoms continue to be a
problem, taking the single dose in the evening or at bedtime
may reduce their severity.
3. When adverse effects are absent or minimal and further
therapeutic effect is desired, increase the dose to 2.5 mg
before lunch and 5 mg before supper or 5 and 5 mg. Although
most patients respond to 2.5 mg twice daily, 10 mg twice
daily has been tolerated in about half of the patients in
appetite stimulation studies.
The pharmacologic effects of Marinol' Capsules
are reversible upon treatment cessation.
Antiemetic: Most patients respond to 5 mg three or four
times daily. Dosage may be escalated during a chemotherapy
cycle or at subsequent cycles, based upon initial results.
Therapy should be initiated at the lowest recommended dosage
and titrated to clinical response. Administration of
Marinol' Capsules with phenothiazines, such as
prochlorperazine, has resulted in improved efficacy as
compared to either drug alone, without additional toxicity.
Pediatrics: Marinol' Capsules is not recommended
for AIDS-related anorexia in pediatric patients because it
has not been studied in this population. The pediatric dosage
for the treatment of chemotherapy-induced emesis is the same
as in adults. Caution is recommended in prescribing
Marinol' Capsules for children because of the
psychoactive effects.
Geriatrics: Caution is advised in prescribing
Marinol' Capsules in elderly patients because they
are generally more sensitive to the psychoactive effects of
drugs. In antiemetic studies, no difference in tolerance or
efficacy was apparent in patients 55 years old.
indications and usage
Marinol' (Dronabinol) Capsules is indicated for
the treatment of:
1. anorexia associated with weight loss in patients with
AIDS; and
2. nausea and vomiting associated with cancer chemotherapy
in patients who have failed to respond adequately to
conventional antiemetic treatments.
contraindications
Marinol' (Dronabinol) Capsules is
contraindicated in any patient who has a history of
hypersensitivity to any cannabinoid or sesame oil.
warnings
Patients receiving treatment with Marinol'
Capsules should be specifically warned not to drive, operate
machinery, or engage in any hazardous activity until it is
established that they are able to tolerate the drug and to
perform such tasks safely.
Mr. HINCHEY. Mr. Chairman, I yield 4 minutes to the gentleman from
California (Mr. Rohrabacher).
Mr. ROHRABACHER. Mr. Chairman, I rise in strong support of this
amendment, for two reasons. Number one, I believe in freedom. I believe
in democracy and the democratic process. If the people of 10 States
have voted, I guess eight of them have actually voted through
referendum and two through their other legislative process to legalize
the medical use of marijuana within those States, it is totally
contrary to our way of life in the United States of America to say that
those States, the people of those States, do not have a right to set
their standards, their legal standards in those States.
There are dry counties, and there are wet counties. You can have a
State that is right next to one State. That is no argument. You do not
have to have one rule for the whole country. That is what federalism is
all about. And what greater use of federalism or more important use of
federalism than for people to control substances as they are consumed
in their own area? I would suggest that in my State, for example, where
the people did, by a large majority, vote for legalizing the medical
use of marijuana that it is a travesty for the Federal Government to
send police into my State and arrest people and throw them in a cage,
in jail, for doing something that the vast majority of people in my
State voted to make a legal practice. This is contrary to American
tradition. This is not right. It has only been in this last 100 years
that America has decided to go haywire and create this type of
oppression which is contrary to the wishes of the majority of people in
these areas.
Number two, let us just face it, it has not worked. The process that
we have tried to use to prevent drug use has not worked. The drug war
is a miserable failure. That does not mean we should give up. I am not
advocating that. I do not advocate legalizing drugs, but I think that
it is time to take a second look at what has been going on. It has not
succeeded at all in preventing people from using drugs, and it has been
a catastrophe in the black and other minority communities where young
people get thrown into jail at an early age and their whole life is
ruined. We need to take a second look at drugs in general and how we
are going to try to convince young people not to use drugs.
By the way, I was Ronald Reagan's speech writer and I wrote almost
every one of his speeches about drugs at a time when we convinced
America's youth to stop using drugs and there was the greatest decline
in the use of drugs during Reagan's administration as any time in our
history. I can assure you in Ronald Reagan's speeches, he talked about
just relying on law enforcement was not the answer. And it certainly is
not the answer in dealing with medical marijuana that has been approved
by the majority of people in various States. Lynn Nofziger, Ronald
Reagan's adviser; William F. Buckley, the editor of National Review;
Bob Ehrlich, the Governor of Maryland, all of these people understand
what this is all about and understand that those people opposing this
liberalization of the medical use of marijuana are living in a bygone
era.
Let me just note this. My mother passed away about 4 or 5 years ago.
One of the factors in my determination tonight to stand up here before
you is that I remember when the doctor told me that she had lost her
appetite and I was going to have to feed her. I was very pleased that I
had voted for making the medical use of marijuana legal because I could
not look at myself in the face knowing that I had done that to other
people who were confronted by their mother. What are we doing to
someone, and they do not have to be critically ill. What about an older
person that has lost their appetite and their will to live? If a doctor
thinks it is going to help them to use marijuana, it is immoral for us
to try to put people in jail who are moving to alleviate that type of
horror that people have in their own lives.
Are we compassionate or are we not? I suggest that we vote for
compassion and freedom and support this liberalization.
Mr. WOLF. Mr. Chairman, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from
Indiana (Mr. Souder).
Mr. SOUDER. Mr. Chairman, it is awful when your parents get older and
have different struggles and we need to look and we have found drugs to
give them to try to address this question. That is not what this debate
is about. The gentleman from California and I have been friends for
many years. We grew up in the same conservative youth organization,
Young Americans for Freedom. We had these same disagreements when we
were in YAF a long time ago on legalization of marijuana. We had a very
close vote in the national organization. It was an organization founded
by William F. Buckley. Richard Brookhiser came up through that same
organization. What we called, and I was a more traditionalist
conservative, the libertarians believed at that time, and in many cases
still do, as we heard from the most consistent libertarian in the
House, the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Paul), that drug laws are wrong
and that States can nullify Federal laws. I do not agree with that. I
believe there are times when the elected representatives of the
American people can make national policy and that is what we are
debating right now. Does the Federal Government have a right to make a
law by elected citizens all across the United States that will be
upheld because they believe it protects the citizens of the United
States in the best way?
Many States conceivably could pass different laws on civil rights to
nullify some of the things we do here and other laws. We cannot operate
that way. We heard earlier today that people said on the other side
that we should support the first responders and our police forces. They
are unanimous across the country as a whole saying
[[Page H7310]]
that they are against any weakening of the marijuana laws with the
signals they are sending. This is a fundamental debate about what
direction we are going in national drug law. This is a backdoor way to
move in. It is not about compassion. We need to look for additional
ways if Marinol does not solve it all, but it does and in the new,
improved ways it actually appears to deal with vomiting.
People can promise all types of different things. We can feel the
pain, but we should not change laws that are working. And if we want to
change those laws on the national drug policy, you should come and
change the national drug laws. It would be a travesty if this House in
effect nullifies Federal law. This is not just nullifying Federal law.
The case was brought to the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court ruled that
the Attorney General and DEA have an obligation to enforce Federal law.
I believe that the courts too often have usurped State authority and
taken the 10th amendment the wrong direction. This is not about that.
This is about when Congress passed a law under the Constitution that
said in interstate commerce, which narcotics move across interstate
commerce, which was not a liberal interpretation of that clause but a
strict interpretation of that clause from a conservative perspective,
all except the more anarcho-libertarians, as we used to call them,
believe that in drug laws the Federal Government historically has had
the right to enforce a Federal law. The conservative movement is not
divided. We have a few of the libertarian fringe who I respect for
their opinions but strongly disagree just as we did when we were kids;
now we are grownups, and we still have the same disagreement.
Mr. HINCHEY. Mr. Chairman, I yield 3 minutes to the gentlewoman from
Texas (Ms. Jackson-Lee).
(Ms. JACKSON-LEE of Texas asked and was given permission to revise
and extend her remarks.)
Ms. JACKSON-LEE of Texas. I thank the distinguished gentleman from
New York for yielding me this time.
Mr. Chairman, I respect the gentleman from Indiana (Mr. Souder) for
the work that he has done. We have traveled together. I think anyone
that comes to the floor of the House and discusses this issue obviously
is not concerned about the political liability that the headlines will
read that you stood on the floor of the House to support the free and
open use of marijuana and the promotion of drug use in the United
States of America. That is why I think it is very important to clarify
the distinctive arguments that are being made on either side. In fact,
I disagree with the interpretation of nullification when, in fact, it
is an issue of States' rights that will not be harmful to others.
I believe the Federal law is relevant when the Federal law seeks to
solve a problem that is, in fact, harmful overall to all Americans. The
civil rights example that the gentleman from Indiana used was an issue
where the United States wanted to fall on the side of what was right
and end the most heinous of behaviors in the 20th century, and that was
segregation, lynching; and so we wrote civil rights laws to give
equality to all Americans.
This issue of the medical use of marijuana is a question of the
patients asking and demanding relief. I guess there is no one that can
stand in the shoes of a patient who is suffering from the horrible pain
of cancer. No one, none of us who are standing here healthy today can
understand the absolute pain of not being able either to eat or suffer
through the treatment that might be provided by normal medical
procedures.
My understanding of the States that have voted for the use of medical
marijuana is, in fact, regulated processes; is, in fact, structures in
place to ensure that this is not a situation of drug running. So I do
not know why we have come to the floor of the House and not respect the
amendment that the gentleman from New York has put forward, which is to
cease the utilization of Federal funds for intervention in a process
that has been accepted by States and regulated by States.
Appropriately, I believe, the 10th amendment, leave-it-to-States,
States' rights, should be the acceptable call of the day. That should
be the law.
These nine or 10 States have opted to be able to choose in their
regulated manner to allow for physicians and others to be able to
prescribe marijuana for use to be able to help their patients and to
stop the pain that they are suffering from. I cannot imagine that we
would not want to be problem solvers on this issue and take the
responsible route, which is to allow States who have been responsible
in their own areas and suggested that medical marijuana is a vital and
important use.
I would hope my colleagues would see this separately from the war on
drugs when there is a great debate as to whether the war on drugs is
effective. I too am not interested in legalizing drug use, but I am
interested in making sure that the sick are taken care of and States'
rights are protected in this instance.
Mr. WOLF. Mr. Chairman, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from
Arizona (Mr. Shadegg).
Mr. SHADEGG. I thank the gentleman for yielding me this time.
Mr. Chairman, I again reiterate my opposition to this amendment. I
would agree with the gentlewoman who just spoke that each side has an
argument of merit in this debate. I compliment her for standing up and
speaking out her views. But I would say I strongly disagree.
Let us start with this whole issue of States' rights. I yield to no
one on the issue of States' rights. I have a piece of legislation I
have introduced every year in this Congress which would have required
every Member of Congress to cite in each bill they introduce the
constitutional authority, the provision of the U.S. Constitution that
gives the Congress the right to act in this area. The gentlewoman would
suggest that medical marijuana is not an area in which the Federal
Government has the right to legislate.
{time} 2115
The implication there is that the Federal Government does not have
the right to legislate in the area of drug policy.
I would suggest that our Nation's civil rights laws, which I strongly
support, are based on the issue of interstate commerce and that
discrimination affects interstate commerce, and therefore it is
appropriate for the Federal Government to pass laws prohibiting civil
rights conduct that is offensive, including discrimination.
By the same token, clearly our Nation's laws against drugs, marijuana
and all of the others, are based on the same premise, and that is that
they do affect interstate commerce. Indeed, drug use, illegal drug use
by American workers, imposes a tremendous burden on our workforce and
on our productivity.
But let us go beyond that. The argument I believe she tried to make
was there is a distinction because these laws that do not have any
negative effect, they do not do harm. I would suggest that even if
medicinal marijuana did not harm anyone other than its user, an
argument I will refute in just a moment, that premise would be wrong.
But let us look at the case cited earlier in this debate. There is a
doctor in California who has taken advantage of that State's medical
marijuana law to write 7,500 prescriptions for medical marijuana and
has conducted in doing that not a single medical exam. The reality is,
this is a fraud. The medical marijuana prescriptions which that doctor
and other doctors have written are not written for medicinal reasons.
The gentleman from Texas (Mr. Burgess) gave, I thought, eloquent
testimony here on this floor just a few moments ago in which he made it
very clear that there are drugs available to doctors today with the
exact same medical and medicinal properties as marijuana, that will
relieve the pain or that will deal with the lack of hunger or appetite,
that will deal with those issues.
I want to make another point. It was interesting that in this debate
one of my colleagues on the other side said, Look, we already recognize
certain painkilling drugs and we allow them to be legal in our system,
and he cited a couple of those painkilling drugs. Why do we not allow
marijuana? The answer is, there is sound evidence behind allowing
certain drugs and there is no
[[Page H7311]]
sound evidence behind allowing marijuana to be used for the reasons for
which it is argued.
I strongly urge my colleagues to oppose this amendment. It will, in
fact, send an inconsistent signal to our children and do grave damage
to the children of America.
Mr. HINCHEY. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
Our Federal system reserves to the States all those powers that are
not designated to the Federal Government in the Constitution. Ten
States have decided that they want to alleviate the pain and suffering
of their citizens who may be afflicted with AIDS or cancer or some
other debilitating, killing disease, and make their last days on this
Earth more comfortable by allowing them, under prescription from a
licensed physician in those States, to use marijuana for medical
purposes.
The Federal Government has said ``no.'' The Justice Department and
this administration have said ``no.'' They are not going to allow
people in those 10 States, fully 20 percent of the States of the
Nation, to be relieved of the pain and suffering under the laws of
those States. That makes no sense.
Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.
Mr. WOLF. Mr. Chairman, do I have the right to close?
The CHAIRMAN. The gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Wolf) has the right to
close.
Mr. HINCHEY. Mr. Chairman, how much time is remaining?
The CHAIRMAN. The gentleman from New York (Mr. Hinchey) has 2 minutes
remaining. The gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Wolf) has 3 minutes
remaining.
Mr. HINCHEY. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
I want to thank everyone who participated in this debate. I think it
is very important that issues like this be discussed on the floor of
the House of Representatives. The fact of the matter here, in this
particular amendment, is simply this: Are we going to continue to allow
the United States Justice Department to stick its nose into the
business of 10 sovereign States of this Union who have decided that
they want to help people who are suffering and dying from debilitating
disease, AIDS, cancer, and others, who suffer from ailments such as
glaucoma and a whole host of other ailments that have been found by a
vast majority of the highly respected medical associations of this
country, they have found that people suffering in that way can be
relieved by the prescriptive use of marijuana under the supervision of
a licensed physician?
That is what this amendment would do. It does not open up anything
else.
Some of the arguments that have been made against this amendment have
nothing to do with what this amendment seeks to achieve. It is very
narrow in its form and in its definition. It relates only to States
that have decided in their own way, either by referendum, which eight
of them have, or by laws passed by their State legislative bodies, to
allow people to use marijuana for medical purposes to relieve the pain
and suffering in the final days of their lives.
People talk about a gateway drug. Someone dying from cancer is not
going to use marijuana as a gateway drug. They are using it to try to
gain back a bit of their appetite so that they can maintain their
strength and continue to live among their family and offer the aid and
assistance of themselves to that family during the last days of their
lives. Are we going to deny people that?
That is exactly what we are doing by the present law, and that is why
this amendment is here, and I ask for its passage.
Mr. WOLF. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself the remainder of my time.
Mr. Chairman, this is really a cultural issue. That is what this is
all about. It is about the culture, nothing else. The Hinchey amendment
would mean that State medical marijuana laws are the supreme law of the
land. This amendment would prevent Federal officials from enforcing
Federal law in a manner contrary to State law.
Under this amendment anyone who manufactures, distributes, or
possesses marijuana in purported compliance with State law would have
immunity under Federal law.
I think it is a big issue and I think the gentleman from Arizona (Mr.
Shadegg) and the gentleman from Indiana (Mr. Souder) covered it very
well. Medical marijuana laws send the wrong message to our youth, too
many of whom do not recognize the dangers of marijuana and continue to
experiment. It is a cultural issue. It has taken the culture in the
wrong direction, and I urge defeat of the amendment.
Mr. Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time.
The CHAIRMAN. The question is on the amendment offered by the
gentleman from New York (Mr. Hinchey).
The question was taken; and the Chairman announced that the noes
appeared to have it.
Mr. HINCHEY. Mr. Chairman, I demand a recorded vote.
The CHAIRMAN. Pursuant to clause 6 of rule XVIII, further proceedings
on the amendment offered by the gentleman from New York (Mr. Hinchey)
will be postponed.
Mr. WOLF. Mr. Chairman, I move that the Committee do now rise.
The motion was agreed to.
Accordingly, the Committee rose; and the Speaker pro tempore (Mr.
Kolbe) having assumed the chair, Mr. Hastings of Washington, Chairman
of the Committee of the Whole House on the State of the Union, reported
that that Committee, having had under consideration the bill (H.R.
2799) making appropriations for the Departments of Commerce, Justice,
and State, the Judiciary, and related agencies for the fiscal year
ending September 30, 2004, and for other purposes, had come to no
resolution thereon.
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