[Congressional Record Volume 149, Number 138 (Thursday, October 2, 2003)]
[House]
[Pages H9155-H9166]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




APPOINTMENT OF CONFEREES ON H.R. 2660, DEPARTMENTS OF LABOR, HEALTH AND 
HUMAN SERVICES, AND EDUCATION, AND RELATED AGENCIES APPROPRIATIONS ACT, 
                                  2004

  Mr. REGULA. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to take from the 
Speaker's table the bill (H.R. 2660) making appropriations for the 
Departments of Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education, and 
related agencies for the fiscal year ending September 30, 2004, and for 
other purposes, with a Senate amendment thereto, disagree to the Senate 
amendment, and agree to the conference asked by the Senate.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Shimkus). Is there objection to the 
request of the gentleman from Ohio?
  There was no objection.


                 Motion to Instruct Offered by Mr. Obey

  Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I offer a motion to instruct conferees.
  The Clerk read as follows:
  Mr. Obey moves that the managers on the part of the House at the 
conference on the disagreeing votes of the two Houses on the bill, H.R. 
2660, be instructed to insist on section 106 of the Senate amendment 
regarding overtime compensation under the Fair Labor Standards Act.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Pursuant to clause 7 of rule XXII, the 
gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Obey) and the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. 
Regula) each will control 30 minutes.
  The Chair recognizes the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Obey).
  Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 4 minutes.
  Mr. Speaker, the House bill does not contain and the Senate Labor HHS 
bill does contain an important provision which affects millions of 
American workers. That provision would preclude the Department of Labor 
from issuing any regulation that takes away overtime protection from 
workers who currently qualify for that protection. It would protect 
rights that workers in this country have had since the enactment of the 
Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938.
  Under the Senate provision, the Department of Labor could proceed 
with its ongoing rulemaking process and modify the overtime 
regulations. Example: The department could proceed with making a long-
overdue inflation adjustment that guarantees overtime protection for 
certain low-income workers earning $22,100 a year.

                              {time}  1300

  The Department of Labor says that this will result in an additional 
1.3 million workers receiving overtime. I do not know if that estimate 
is right, but we agree with this provision. We, in fact, think that it 
would add far fewer number of workers than does the Department of 
Labor. The only shortcoming we see with it is that it does not go far 
enough and does not even keep pace with inflation, full adjustment to 
match inflation would require the department to increase the salary 
threshold in the rule to at least $27,560.
  The Senate provision also would not stop the department from 
clarifying the overtime regulations to update them for the 21st 
century. For example, by eliminating an achronistic terms such as 
``straw boss'' or ``gang leader'' or eliminating job classifications 
which no longer exist such as ``teamster''. Do not tell that to the 
Teamsters Union, however.
  The Senate provision would provide the same protections to newly 
hired workers as to current workers. It does not grandfather in current 
workers but ensures the same overtime protections to all workers in a 
job classification.
  Mr. Speaker, there is general agreement that workers are going to 
lose overtime protection under the administration's revised regulation. 
The question is how many will lose that protection? By some estimates 
as many as 8 million workers who are currently protected will lose that 
protection. Even if the Department of Labor concedes that a minimum of 
644,000 workers currently covered would lose that protection and could 
be forced to work overtime without being compensated. Whether the 
number is 644,000 or 8 million, Mr. Speaker, the Bush administration 
should not put American workers in the position of being forced to work 
more than 40 hours a week without being paid overtime.
  So to reiterate, the Senate provision would simply stop the 
Department of Labor from issuing a regulation taking away overtime 
protections from workers who currently have them. The Senate provision 
is absolutely essential to protect workers' overtime rights. It is not 
enough that more than 3 million workers have lost their jobs since this 
administration has taken office. Now the administration apparently 
wants to cut the pay of a number of workers who still have jobs by 
cutting their overtime protections. That is clearly not right. It is 
not fair. I do not think that the public would support it, and I would 
urge a yes vote on the motion to instruct.
  Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. REGULA. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
  Mr. Speaker, I think the operative word here as stated by the 
gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Obey) is they ``apparently.'' Well, they 
have not finished this procedure. The Department of Labor has received 
80,000 comments on the proposed change. What they are trying to do is 
to bring the rules on overtime into the new century. It has been over 
50 years since the present rules were promulgated and the department 
thinks it is important to take a look in relationship to today's world, 
today's communications, today's structures of our labor programs that 
would be realistic.
  I think one of the things that I want to put to rest is that this 
will affect certain groups. I have here a letter from the national 
president of the Fraternal Order of Police writing on behalf of the 
members of the Fraternal Order of Police to advise of their opposition 
to the motion to instruct. What they are saying is let us look, let us 
take these 80,000 comments and see what makes sense and is fair to 
everyone concerned. The Secretary of Labor is approaching it from that 
point of view. What is fair.
  Likewise, it has been said that the nurses would come under this 
because they have do a lot of overtime and, again, the Nursing 
Executive Watch, a publication that goes to nurses says, ``Contrary to 
popular belief, changes to overtime regulations won't affect nurses.''
  So, again, it is an effort by the Department of Labor to look at 
regulations that have been in place more than 50 years and say what is 
fair, what makes sense in 2003 and thereafter.
  Now, there is another risk involved in all of this and that is the 
fact that the administration's leadership, the executive branch, has 
said they would recommend a veto.
  Well, what would be the result of a veto? We would be living on a 
continuing resolution without increases voted by this House in support 
of the Labor, Health and Human Services, Education Bill, increases in 
the amount of money for many good programs. And let me tell you a few 
of these:
  Special education gets an extra increase of $1 billion in the Labor H 
bill. Title I, which is designed to help children from low income homes 
gets an increase of $650 million. Reading programs, and we hear more 
and more evidence that reading is such a vital part of the education of 
any individual. They use scientific evidence to help

[[Page H9156]]

children, and they are funded at over $1 billion. Impact aid, for those 
of you who have military bases, is increased by $50 million for a total 
of $1.2 billion. That is just education.
  As I said many times, this is the people's bill. Every one of the 280 
million Americans in one way or another, their lives are touched by the 
things we do in this bill. Health programs, many of you have community 
health centers, a very valuable asset in any community, and we 
recognize this, and based on the President's recommendation have 
increased the funding for these in the bill. Centers for Disease 
Control. The CDC has been much in the news in recent months because of 
a wide variety of diseases and, again, we increase the funding for the 
Centers for Disease Control. Substance abuse. We hear all the time 
about the problem of drugs. And again, we have increased the money for 
this program and, of course, the National Institutes of Health. This is 
the premier medical research institution in the world. Not only does it 
benefit the people in the United States, it has a worldwide impact on 
the health of people. We have substantial increases for the National 
Institutes of Health.
  I could read off a whole list of agencies that get increases in this 
bill, Even Start, Reading First, Early Reading First, Literacy, Migrant 
Education, programs for neglected and delinquent youth, Comprehensive 
School Reform, Mathematics and science partnerships, after-school 
centers, education for homeless children, education programs for rural 
school districts, teacher enhancement programs, charter school grants, 
credit enhancement for charter schools, the list goes on and on, PELL 
grants, vocational education state grants, Historically Black Colleges 
and Universities, TRIO, GEAR UP, Teacher Quality Enhancement Grants, 
Howard University, education research, and so on.
  All of these programs get increases under the bill under discussion, 
and we are going to put that at risk if we reject the efforts of 
Secretary Chao and that is what this amendment does. It says, do not 
pay any attention to the 80,000 comments that have been sent in to your 
agency to evaluate how it is presently working in comparison to what it 
would have been 50 years ago. We are saying, no, no, no, stop. And then 
you run the risk that if the President's advisors prevail and there is 
a veto, we could be on a continuing resolution even for the balance of 
this fiscal year. If that were to happen, all of these programs would 
be funded at levels below what we have put in the bill.
  And I think as our Members contemplate making a decision on how to 
vote on this motion to instruct, that they ought to keep in mind that 
what they are doing is gambling the future of our children or gambling 
these increases in some great programs against what we think is a very 
orderly process, and that is to let the Secretary go forward, evaluate 
the 80,000 comments and make a decision on what the rules should be in 
terms of overtime pay for the next years.
  So I say to all of my colleagues, weigh your vote carefully because 
you are not only voting on a proposal that was brought up in the Senate 
by way of an amendment, you are voting on the future of a lot of very 
good programs that are funded under the Labor bill.
  Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 1 minute.
  Mr. Speaker, I cannot believe one thing that I just heard. The 
distinguished gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Regula) I believe said that if 
this were to be included in the conference report, the White House 
would veto the bill. I really want to see whether this President has 
the unmitigated gall to veto this bill because of protections that we 
place in the bill so that workers do not have to work more than 40 
hours a week and still not be paid overtime. I want to see whether the 
President who has presided over the loss of 3 million jobs in this 
economy has the unmitigated gaul to then say to those workers, ``Sorry, 
folks, you've got to work more than 40 hours without collecting 
overtime.
  Now, I believe, given his track record, he would like to do that, but 
very frankly, I doubt that he has got the moxie to do that in the teeth 
of the miserable economic performance that he has provided this country 
on the economic front. It is outrageous to even think that the 
President would veto this bill over this provision.
  Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. REGULA. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 1 minute.
  Just let me say that the Secretary's proposal would allow, this is a 
proposal that she has the comments on, would allow an opportunity for 
overtime for over one million workers that are now not covered. And 
these are the workers that are at the low end of the wage scale. So you 
have to keep in mind what the administration is proposing to do here, 
although they have to evaluate the 80,000 comments.
  Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I assume that came out of the gentleman's 
time?
  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Shimkus). Is the gentleman from Ohio 
(Mr. Regula) yielding to the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Obey)?
  Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I was not asking that.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair is trying to decide who is 
controlling time. Has the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Regula) yielded 
back?
  Mr. REGULA. Mr. Speaker, I have time I want to yield to some of my 
colleagues.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Regula) 
reserves his time.


                         Parliamentary Inquiry

  Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I have parliamentary inquiry. I was just 
trying to determine whether the gentleman's last remarks came out of 
his time.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Regula) had 
yielded himself 1 minute.
  Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 30 seconds.
  I want to make clear this instruction motion does not prevent the 
Labor Department substituting the change in regulations that allow 
additional workers to claim overtime, so that is included in our 
motion. The only thing we stop is, we stop the President from 
unilaterally taking away overtime from workers who get it now.
  Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. REGULA. Mr. Speaker, I yield 6 minutes to the gentleman from 
Georgia (Mr. Norwood).
  Mr. NORWOOD. Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong opposition to the motion 
to instruct conferees which would prevent the Department of Labor from 
implementing regulations to update complex and outdated, the key word 
is outdated, wage and hour regulations and provide additional overtime 
protections to millions of this country's workers.
  Numerous hearings have been held in my Subcommittee on Workforce 
Protections of the Committee on Education and the Workforce in the last 
several Congresses, and they have demonstrated the need for the current 
regulations to be updated after 1938 to meet the needs of today's 
American workforce.
  The Department's proposed regulations, Mr. Speaker, will guarantee 
overtime pay to 1.3 million workers who do not presently get overtime 
now. Now, remember, 1.3 workers are going to get an increase in the 
amount of money in their pocket. It has been of interest to me as I 
watched on national television some of the leaders of the opposition of 
this say, oh, just a few people are going to get overtime pay. Oh, just 
a handful. Well, it is not a handful if you are part of that 1.3 
million.

                              {time}  1315

  This also will ensure that 10.7 million workers who are eligible for 
overtime continue to get it. A vote to accept the Harkin amendment is a 
vote against giving overtime to those 1.3 Americans and a vote to truly 
threaten overtime pay for the 10.7 million working families.
  I think it is imperative we take a minute and try to get the record 
straight as to what the proposed regulations do not do, because Big 
Labor and their friends in the Democratic Party have been playing fast 
and loose with the facts. These regulations do not take overtime away 
from 8 million people. In fact, those 8 million people do not make 
overtime now. They are made sure that they do not make overtime, but 
they could make more

[[Page H9157]]

money, which is what they are interested in, because they work on their 
production and their production could yield a lot more money if they 
could work the hours they choose to work.
  These are numbers which have been spread around not by economists but 
by lobbyists in a Democratic labor think tank. They simply do not add 
up. Check these numbers. They are plain and simple an untruth, the 
numbers that have been thrown around.
  These regulations would not strip overtime pay from policemen, 
firefighters, nurses, and other first responders. Listen, these 
regulations would not strip overtime pay from policemen, firefighters, 
nurses, and other first responders. Whoever says that is not telling 
the truth. Workers in these jobs who get overtime pay today will 
continue to do so, and more of them will get overtime pay under these 
new rules.
  These regulations do not affect a single union member who gets 
overtime under his or her collective bargaining agreement. These 
regulations do not affect a single union member. For workers whose 
rights to overtime pay is in their labor contract, these regulations 
simply have no effect.
  Finally, these regulations are not a take-back by employers. This is 
not an effort to trim the payroll by denying workers overtime. In fact, 
the Department of Labor estimates that under the proposed regulations, 
businesses will pay almost $900 million more in overtime in next year 
alone. What employers support a rule that would cause them to pay more 
in overtime pay? Because, my colleagues, they know that the current 
system just does not work; and it does not fit the 21st century. It is 
outdated, it is complex, and it is broken. Employers cannot know who 
they have to pay overtime, and employees cannot know if they are 
entitled to overtime, and the Department of Labor cannot effectively 
and efficiently enforce the law. My colleagues want to keep that?
  Who does support a Harkin amendment? Trial lawyers, for one, who have 
made a killing on gotcha class action litigation, filing lawsuits to 
try to get overtime pay for corporate executives and rocket scientists; 
and Big Labor supports the Harkin amendment, not because it has any 
effect on union members who are already protected under their 
contracts, but because labor has turned this into a scare tactic and an 
organizing tool to raise money and to collect more union dues. It is 
just that simple.
  The Harkin amendment would only add to existing confusion, making 
matters worse for both employees and employers. It would result in 
fewer hardworking Americans getting overtime. It would result in fewer 
hardworking Americans getting overtime, and it is nothing more than a 
big tool of labor and the trial lawyers. That is why the President has 
vowed to veto the bill if the Harkin amendment, which would result in 
fewer workers receiving overtime, is included in this bill.
  I urge my colleagues to reject this distortion, this misinformation, 
these outright untruths that have been spread and, I might add, spread 
very effectively about these regulations and all of us stand up and 
vote against this motion to instruct.
  Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 1\1/2\ minutes.
  Mr. Speaker, the gentleman from Georgia always gives a fine speech on 
the floor. The problem is he just gave a fine speech against a 
proposition that is not being offered.
  The fact is that the motion that we are offering today does, I repeat 
does, D-O-E-S, does allow the Labor Department regulations that add 
people to overtime protection. We do accept those updated definitions. 
What we do not accept is the President unilaterally, without 
congressional action, knocking off from the overtime protection rolls 
workers who now have that protection.
  The gentleman also says not a single union member will be affected by 
the Labor Department's suggested rulings. Let me point out two things. 
First of all, we ought to be worried about all workers, not just union 
workers; and, secondly, the fact is that right now unions do not have 
to negotiate this overtime provision in their contracts. Right now they 
have the protection of the law. If this is removed, then that is just 
another way that you are going to unbalance the bargaining table 
against workers by forcing them to have to go back and negotiate 
something which they have had by right since 1938. I dare the 
administration to go into any union hall in this country or any working 
plant in this country and claim to be a friend of workers if they veto 
this bill over our efforts to stop that kind of unilateral action.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Massachusetts 
(Mr. Lynch).
  (Mr. LYNCH asked and was given permission to revise and extend his 
remarks.)
  Mr. LYNCH. Mr. Speaker, as a co-chairperson along with the 
gentlewoman from California (Ms. Linda T. Sanchez) and the gentleman 
from Maine (Mr. Michaud) of the newly formed Congressional Labor and 
Working Families Caucus, I urge my colleagues to vote in favor of this 
motion to instruct.
  Mr. Speaker, the action that we are recommending today is necessary 
because the Department of Labor is indeed intending to implement new 
regulations that will place an undue burden on millions of American 
workers and their families. These proposed regulations would indeed 
block as many as 8 million American workers from receiving overtime 
pay, and we are not talking about CEOs of Fortune 500 companies here.
  The exact language of these regulations would hurt the very men and 
women that are on the front lines of our war against terrorism, our 
first responders. There is no language in these regulations that would 
exempt our nurses, our firefighters, or our police officers that 
dedicate their working lives to protecting the safety of all of us.
  Mr. Speaker, under the economic policies of this administration, more 
than 3.3 million jobs have been lost in this country since 2001; and as 
a result, unemployment is now at a 10-year high. Millions of additional 
workers are concerned about their pensions, health benefits, and 
ability to meet their basic needs such as rent and groceries.
  This Congress today must act to protect American workers. If this new 
regulation is implemented, then millions of American workers will be 
put in a position where they are forced to work harder for less pay.
  Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Obey) 
for his hard work on this; and I want to point out, the gentleman from 
Georgia just said that there is no effect on firefighters, on nurses or 
on police officers by this regulation. That is what this motion to 
instruct requires. If he truly believes that, then he should support 
this motion to instruct.
  Mr. REGULA. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
  I want to read the operative section of the so-called Harkin 
amendment: ``None of the funds provided under this Act shall be used to 
promulgate or implement any,'' and I emphasize ``any regulation that 
exempts from the requirements of section 7 of the Fair Labor Standards 
Act of 1938 any employee who is not otherwise exempted pursuant to 
regulations under section 13 of such Act that were in effect as of 
September 3rd, 2003.''
  Now, with 80,000 comments to evaluate and if this were adopted, this 
amendment, the result would be that the Secretary would be very 
reluctant to do anything because it says none of the funds shall be 
used to promulgate or implement any regulation that exempts and so on. 
It would simply put a chill on trying to bring overtime regulations 
into this century.
  The result would be that over 1 million people who are presently not 
getting the benefit of overtime pay would be denied this prospect for 
the future because the Secretary would look at this language and say, 
look, under those circumstances, I cannot even get involved because 
this language is so restrictive, and they are in effect denying the 
very people that the other side would say they want to help. They are 
denying them an opportunity to participate in overtime regulations and 
in effect get the time and a half that they would deserve.
  Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 30 seconds.
  I will simply repeat again, the effect of this motion does not deny 
the Labor

[[Page H9158]]

Department the right to add a single worker to overtime protections 
that they provide under their adjustments. All it does is to prevent, 
to prevent workers who now have that overtime protection from losing 
it. It is just that simple.
  I am the author of the motion. I think I know what it says. I think I 
know what it means.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from Maine (Mr. 
Michaud).
  Mr. MICHAUD. Mr. Speaker, as co-chair of the newly formed 
Congressional Labor and Working Families Caucus, I urge my colleagues 
to vote in favor of the motion to instruct conferees.
  It is time to stop the all-out assault on workers in Maine and 
throughout our Nation who rely on overtime to make ends meet. It is 
time to abandon the proposal to block overtime pay for 8 million 
workers nationwide, and it is time that this Congress and this 
President listen to the hardworking American people.
  I rise today on behalf of the families across our Nation and in my 
State of Maine whose overtime pay accounts for 25 percent of their 
entire income. What message could this be sending them? Mr. Speaker, 
after working 30 years in a paper mill, I know what message it sends to 
the working people of this country. It tells them that their work is of 
less and less value and that this Congress does not care that they are 
falling further and further behind.
  I urge my colleagues to listen to the people who work hard, who built 
this country, made this country what it is today.
  Mr. REGULA. Mr. Speaker, how much time is left for each side?
  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Shimkus). The gentleman from Ohio (Mr. 
Regula) has 14\1/2\ minutes remaining. The gentleman from Wisconsin 
(Mr. Obey) has 19\1/2\ minutes remaining.
  Mr. REGULA. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from 
Iowa (Mr. Boswell).
  (Mr. BOSWELL asked and was given permission to revise and extend his 
remarks.)
  Mr. BOSWELL. Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of the motion to instruct 
conferees on the Labor-HHS-Ed appropriations bill. This motion is 
urging support for Senator Harkin's provision, which blocks the 
administration's effort to gut overtime pay as we know it should be 
adopted.
  These proposed changes will imperil an estimated 8 million workers 
and make them ineligible for overtime pay. Most Americans have grown 
accustomed to working a little extra to make a little extra in their 
paychecks. This helps employers and employees. These workers do not 
consider overtime pay as frivolous or spare change. It is not a luxury 
in today's shaky economy.
  Many workers who earn overtime receive 25 percent of their annual 
income from the extra hours on the job. We should not take away a very 
important component to our workers. This is unfair. It is unwise. We 
should not penalize workers who are playing by the rules and need 
overtime pay.
  The other body successfully adopted an amendment to prevent the 
administration from implementing this harmful regulation, and I remain 
hopeful, I remain hopeful this House will see the merits of overtime 
pay and agree with the need to block the regulation.
  I urge my colleagues to join me, to join us in support of this motion 
to instruct and keep fairness for all American workers.
  Mr. REGULA. Mr. Speaker, I continue to reserve my time.
  Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentlewoman from 
Connecticut (Ms. DeLauro).

                              {time}  1330

  Ms. DeLAURO. Mr. Speaker, for 70 years, overtime pay has meant time 
and a half in this country. Without overtime, countless Americans, 
including police officers, firefighters, nurses, and EMTs would be 
forced to take a second job to make up for the lost earnings, meaning 
more time away from their families and higher child care costs.
  The administration's rule is designed to give flexibility to 
companies, not to families, but flexibility to withhold rightfully 
earned pay from their employees by weakening the 1938 Fair Standards 
Labor Act, protections that safeguard our workers' rights today and 
make mandatory overtime a less attractive option for the employer.
  This comes at a time when we have more than 9 million Americans out 
of work, when income is declining, poverty is increasing, and nearly 44 
million Americans are without health insurance. Mr. Speaker, this is a 
matter of values, of our country's long-standing contract with working 
people that says hard work deserves to be rewarded, especially when 
that work is above and beyond the call of duty, after normal working 
hours. That contract must be honored.
  I urge our conferees to include the Harkin amendment in the 
conference report.
  Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from 
Texas (Mr. Bell).
  Mr. BELL. Mr. Speaker, I have listened closely to the arguments 
offered on the other side in opposition to this motion to instruct, but 
I think something that should be pointed out is that just standing up 
here and saying something does not make it so, or saying this proposal 
will not affect certain people does not make it the truth.
  Let us be very clear about what we are talking about here today. 
Under the Fair Labor Standards Act, employers are required, they are 
required to pay employees a premium for overtime work. They have been 
required to do so since the 1930s. An exception does exist for three 
categories: for executive, administrative, and professional positions.
  Under this Department of Labor proposal, every proposed change to the 
duties test, which determines whether someone falls under one of those 
exception categories, every proposed change to the duties test would 
make it easier to avoid paying overtime, would make it easier for 
employers to get around their obligation to pay a premium for overtime 
work.
  And my colleagues can say that certain jobs will not be affected, but 
look at the list. Look at the list of those who would be affected: mid-
level office workers, lower-level supervisors, licensed practical 
nurses, newspaper reporters, policemen, firefighters, and the list goes 
on and on.
  This is an unfair proposal. It is a lousy proposal. Vote for the 
motion to instruct.
  Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentlewoman from 
California (Ms. Linda T. Sanchez).
  Ms. LINDA T. SANCHEZ of California. Mr. Speaker, as co-chair of the 
newly formed Congressional Labor and Working Families Caucus, which now 
has over 75 Members of this House, I urge my colleagues to vote in 
favor of this motion to protect overtime pay.
  For many hardworking men and women, including cops and firefighters, 
nurses and first responders, overtime pay is not spare change. It helps 
families pay the mortgage, feed the kids, pay for college, and save for 
retirement. In this especially brutal economy, which has been so hard 
on America's working families, I urge my colleagues to not let the Bush 
administration shortchange our working families.
  Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, how much time do we have?
  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Shimkus). Each side has 14\1/2\ minutes 
remaining.
  Mr. REGULA. Mr. Speaker, I have one more speaker, and I understand 
the gentleman has the right to close, so I will reserve the balance of 
my time.
  Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Ohio 
(Mr. Kucinich).
  Mr. KUCINICH. Mr. Speaker, this administration now seems intent on 
picking the pockets of workers. First we saw an attempt to give workers 
a pay cut by giving them comp time instead of overtime. The real 
meaning of comp time, of course, is unpaid time off at the employer's 
discretion.
  Now, through administrative action, and without the input of elected 
representatives, the administration seeks to enact the most significant 
change to overtime rules since the Fair Standards Labor Act was passed 
in 1938. The result of these changes is that at least 8 million workers 
will no longer be eligible for overtime. Among the unlucky 8 million 
are paramedics, firefighters, air traffic controllers, social workers, 
and architects.

[[Page H9159]]

  In 2000, overtime pay accounted for about 25 percent of the income 
for these workers. Their families will now have much less money to pay 
the bills, while their employers will have a great incentive to make 
them work longer hours.
  The Obey-Miller motion to instruct will stop the rollback of overtime 
pay. This motion will protect the wages of America's working people.
  Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield 5 minutes to the gentleman from 
California (Mr. George Miller).
  (Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California asked and was given permission to 
revise and extend his remarks.)
  Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman 
for yielding me this time.
  Mr. Speaker, I wonder what it is that President Bush does not 
understand about the difficulty that the American family today is 
having trying to provide for their needs. Some 9 million people are 
unemployed in this country, actively looking for work, perhaps dropping 
out of the job market because they are so discouraged. There are some 3 
million new unemployed in the last 2 years, 400,000 last month.
  Do they not understand what these families are going through, many of 
these families with two earners, many of these families single heads of 
household? Now they want to come along and suggest that for millions of 
Americans who now get overtime under the law that they would no longer 
get that. Do they understand what it means to provide for a family, the 
average working person in this country, how important overtime is to 
those individuals? It could be up to a quarter of their wages. This is 
how they qualify for their home mortgage. This is how they qualify for 
their automobile payment. This is important to their family income on 
an annual basis.
  What is it that so angers the Republicans that they want to 
constantly attack average working people in this country? As mentioned 
before, they wanted to provide them comp time. As mentioned before, 
they will not raise the minimum wage to help them. Now they want to 
strip them of their overtime. Do they not understand that when somebody 
calls and says at the end of the day that someone has to work another 2 
hours, 3 hours, or 4 hours that that individual has to scramble for 
child care, that they have to scramble for transportation, they have to 
find somebody to stay with the children at home? Do they not understand 
what those costs mean to families? Can they not identify with these 
families?
  Apparently, they cannot because they continue this assault on working 
families in this country. They continue this assault. Now, 
administratively, they want to decide that engineers and draftsmen, and 
engineering technicians without college degrees in the automotive and 
aerospace industry, because they did not have a 4-year degree but now 
have work experience, they will not be eligible for overtime. Health 
care employees without a 4-year degree, licensed practical nurses, 
dental hygienists, ultrasound technicians, physical therapists, 
respiratory therapists, laboratory technicians will no longer be 
allowed to have overtime. Cooks and chefs, if they got educated in the 
Army on how to be a cook, on how to be a chef, they will not be 
eligible for overtime because they got educated in the Army.
  What is it this administration does not understand? What is it they 
do not understand when we have EMT teams, emergency medical 
technicians, one of whom supervises the other two in an ambulance for 
that night, that that person is not eligible for overtime but the other 
two are? How can that be just, how can that be fair if they have to 
work 50 hours or 60 hours a week? Why is it one of the people in the 
vehicle gets overtime and the other does not, simply because they may 
take command of that vehicle for that particular night?
  That is the unfairness of these regulations. These regulations, as 
was said the other day in the newspaper by the big-employer consulting 
firms across this country, all of these changes are for the benefit of 
the employer. All of these changes enable the employer to take away 
overtime pay. It does not take away overtime. Workers still have to 
work the 50 hours, they still have to work the 60 hours, they still 
have to work that Saturday, they still have to work that Sunday. They 
just do not get paid for the extra time, the premium pay for the 
inconvenience to the worker.
  This is incredibly unfair, incredibly insensitive to how families are 
struggling in this Bush economy to not only hold on to their job, but 
now they find out if they go and get additional education to improve 
their skills, they may lose their overtime. If they simply try to 
improve their worth to their employer, to improve their employability, 
they find out under these regulations they will not have overtime.
  If an employer asks you, what do you think about Joe and they say I 
think Joe should be fired, and Joe is fired, that employer will say 
that they gave particular weight to your comments and you are 
ineligible for overtime.
  What the hell is going on here? These are people who go to work every 
day on behalf of America's economy, on behalf of our society. They come 
home tired. They want to see their children. They need the overtime 
pay, and the Bush administration and the Republicans in this Congress 
are insisting that they take it away from them.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The gentleman's time has expired. The 
gentleman will suspend.
  Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California. * * *
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The gentleman will suspend.
  Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California. * * *
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The gentleman will suspend.
  Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California. * * *
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The gentleman will suspend. The gentleman's 
time has expired.
  Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California. * * *


                Announcement By the Speaker Pro Tempore

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The time of the gentleman from California 
has expired. The gentleman will be reminded that he should not use 
profanity in debate on the floor of the House.
  The Chair would advise Members that remarks uttered while not under 
recognition do not appear in the Record.
  The Chair now recognizes the gentleman from Ohio.
  Mr. REGULA. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
  I think we need to clarify some things here. Number one, this 
proposed regulation will offer a lot of hardworking Americans that have 
been alluded to here an opportunity to get overtime pay. These are the 
people making less than $65,000. They will then be eligible under this 
proposed regulation.
  Now, we understand that these comments have to be evaluated and that 
the Secretary of Labor will ultimately have to rule on what is fair. 
And what we are trying to do is to give her this opportunity.
  I want to quote from a letter from the Fraternal Order of Police: 
``The proposed regulations offer an important opportunity to correct 
the application of the overtime provisions of the FLSA to public safety 
officers. We are therefore concerned that the retention of this 
amendment,'' as proposed by the other side, ``during conference 
committee deliberations will undermine our efforts to successfully 
protect overtime compensation for more than 1 million public safety 
officers and hinder the DOL's,'' Department of Labor's, ``ability to 
issue final regulations.''
  They would propose, as it is outlined here, to hinder the possibility 
and protection of overtime compensation for more than 1 million public 
safety officers.
  Now, one of the things that has been tossed around is that nurses 
would come under this. As a matter of fact, they will not. And the 
Nurses Association makes it clear that they are not covered, that it 
will not affect them, as far as their availability of overtime.
  It is a matter of being fair. None of us drive, or very few, an 
automobile that is over 50 years old, yet we are operating under 
standards promulgated more than 50 years ago. Let us bring these up to 
date so that more Americans will be eligible to participate in the 
American Dream.
  We cannot discount the fact that there is a possibility of a veto. 
Because if this were to happen, and if we were

[[Page H9160]]

to operate the Labor-HHS programs under a continuing resolution, as I 
have pointed out earlier, a lot of good programs would no longer get 
the increases that have been provided in our bill, starting with the $1 
billion extra for IDEA.
  Here is a chance to do something good for America. That is why the 
Secretary of Labor is proposing to take a look. And if you read this 
proposed restriction carefully, what it says is that none of the funds 
shall be used. I can see the lawyers in the Labor Department saying, 
hey, Congress has said none of the funds shall be used, and they put in 
certain conditions. So the Secretary of Labor, in all probability, 
would say we cannot take the risk so we will not do anything. The 
result would be that more than one million Americans would be denied an 
opportunity to participate in overtime.
  I do not think Members here want to do that. I think they want to be 
fair. And the vote that is fair on this issue is to reject the motion 
to instruct and, in effect, reject the motion that we instruct the 
conferees to accept the Harkin amendment. Mr. Speaker, I urge Members 
to vote against the proposal of the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. 
Obey).

                              {time}  1345

  Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.


                         Parliamentary Inquiry

  Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, parliamentary inquiry.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The gentleman may state his parliamentary 
inquiry.
  Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, is the transcript that is being taken of 
today's proceedings in English or is it in some other language?
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair would advise the gentleman that 
the transcript of the proceedings is in English.
  Mr. OBEY. I thank the Chair for that clarification.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 30 seconds.
  Mr. Speaker, I wanted to make sure that was the case because despite 
the comments of the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Regula), under our 
proposal that we are offering today, any worker who is added to the 
overtime protection rules by the new proposed rule is, by our motion, 
allowed to get that overtime protection. The only effect of our motion 
is to prevent the Department of Labor from knocking people off the 
overtime protection rules.
  I have said it for the fourth time. I think I said it in English. I 
think the meaning is clear.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentlewoman from Oregon (Ms. 
Hooley).
  Ms. HOOLEY of Oregon. Mr. Speaker, I want to be fair, and that is 
what this motion is all about, being fair to the working men and women 
of this United States.
  I rise in strong opposition to the proposed rollbacks to protect 
overtime protection for American workers and to encourage my colleagues 
to support this motion to instruct conferees.
  The language in the House-passed bill cheats working men and women of 
America out of just compensation for an honest day's work. The intent 
of overtime pay is to protect certain employees by establishing a 40-
hour work week. It is an incentive to treat employees with dignity and 
fairness. I think most Members would agree with me that the vast 
majority of employers take great pains to protect their employees 
because they recognize the employees' ability to directly affect a 
business bottom line, but a few employers do not.
  An empty promise for comp time at an undetermined time with no 
meaningful enforcement is not an incentive to protect workers. It 
creates hardships for working families in scheduling child care, it 
means a loss of income, and it is a cut in pay. That is what we have to 
remember. It is a cut in pay.
  Mr. REGULA. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from 
South Carolina (Mr. Wilson).
  Mr. WILSON of South Carolina. Mr. Speaker, I rise in opposition to 
this motion to instruct. The Department of Labor is attempting to 
modernize overtime pay regulations that are over 50 years old, yet 
there are many that are distorting their common-sense efforts. The Fair 
Labor Standards Act of 1938 has not been amended since 1949, and only 
protects overtime pay for employees earning under $8,060, below even 
minimum-wage standards.
  The Department of Labor has proposed new regulations that would 
guarantee overtime pay for anyone making less than $22,100. This means 
an additional 1.3 million low-income workers will be guaranteed 
overtime pay regardless of any other criteria.
  Critics have argued that anybody making over $22,100 would lose their 
ability to receive overtime pay. That is not correct. The truth is, 
according to the Department of Labor's new standards, only certain 
white-collar employees who meet specific tests will qualify for exempt 
status. All other employees, regardless of their income, would be 
guaranteed overtime pay.
  Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to help give overtime pay security 
to 1.3 million additional low-income workers and support the new 541 
regulations and oppose the motion to instruct.
  Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 20 seconds.
  Again, that was a nice speech, but it was prepared against a 
proposition that is not before us. The proposition before us does allow 
the modernization of the law.
  There, I have said it. I have said it five times in a row. It would 
be nice if someone heard it and paid attention. Otherwise we might as 
well adjourn because we are talking past each other.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. 
Hoyer).
  Mr. HOYER. Mr. Speaker, to reiterate what the gentleman from 
Wisconsin has just said, the 1.3 million people are protected by the 
gentleman's motion, and they will be advantaged; but the millions of 
people who will be disadvantaged by the proposal of the Department of 
Labor will be protected by the gentleman's motion. That is the issue.
  Under the Bush administration and this Republican Congress, our 
economy has lost more than 3 million jobs, including 2.5 million 
manufacturing jobs. President Bush has the worst job creation record of 
any President since Herbert Hoover, and with a new unemployment figure 
out tomorrow, the Department of Labor reported today that jobless 
claims rose last week to nearly 400,000 Americans.
  The fact is working families have borne the brunt of the Republican 
Party's failed economic policies. The poverty rating increased last 
year for the second consecutive year. The ranks of the uninsured 
swelled by 2.4 million. The median household income plunged for the 
third straight year under this administration.
  While millionaires reaped an average tax cut of $93,000 from the 
GOP's tax bill this year, this Republican Congress has failed to extend 
the child tax credit to families earning less than $26,000, 6.5 million 
families, 12 million children and 200,000 military personnel.
  Now, as if to add insult to injury, the GOP is pushing new 
regulations that would strip more than eight million people from their 
eligibility for overtime pay under the Fair Labor Standards Act on 
which they rely to support their families, pay college tuition for 
their kids, pay their mortgage payment and car payment. The Secretary 
of Labor claims that businesses are lobbying for that change, and 
listen to this, ``not because they are getting any particular benefit 
but because they just want clarity.'' Give me a break.
  ``Firms that represent employers can hardly contain their glee,'' 
according to the Washington Post. Hewitt Associates, a human resources 
consultant, said ``Employees previously accustomed to earning, in some 
cases significant amounts of overtime pay, would suddenly lose that 
opportunity,'' under the Department of Labor's proposal. And the law 
firm that represents clients who will be advantaged by this bill said, 
``Thankfully, virtually all of these changes should ultimately be 
beneficial to employers.'' I am for benefiting employers, but I am not 
for not benefiting employees.
  Mr. Speaker, this Democratic motion instructs conferees to accept the 
Senate-passed provision to block the Bush administration's proposed 
rule changes that adversely affect employees while keeping those that 
do.
  Mr. Speaker, we have been advised that profanity was out of order on 
this floor; doing things that are profane ought to be as well.

[[Page H9161]]

  Mr. REGULA. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from 
California (Mr. Cunningham), a member of the subcommittee.
  Mr. CUNNINGHAM. Mr. Speaker, it is just wonderful being on the House 
floor with no partisanship. Is not it wonderful for Democratic leaders 
to stand up and say how bad the Republicans are doing, no matter what 
bill we have up here?
  We want to throw people out of houses, we want to do this, our 
economic policies are terrible, it is destroying the country. Well, 
there is an election coming up, Mr. Speaker, and they are desperate.
  In 1993, they had the highest taxes against anybody ever. They cut 
military COLAS, they cut veterans' COLAS, they cut the gas tax. When 
they promised tax relief on the middle class, they increased that tax 
on the middle class. And then in 1994, we limited the tax on Social 
Security, we restored the veterans' and military COLAS. We cut the gas 
tax that they had in a general fund. And guess what, we eliminated most 
of their stuff.
  And in 2000 there started to be a recession, and we had tax relief. 
According to Alan Greenspan that recession slowed, and then we had, 
guess what? 
9/11. The billions of dollars that it took to restore not just New 
York, the Pentagon and the war on terror, but look at what it did to 
the stock markets and the economy. So I would curb a little bit of the 
partisanship from the Democrat leaders. They want this body, the other 
body, and they want the White House, and they are likely to say just 
about anything when they get up here, but it is not true, Mr. Speaker.
  Mr. REGULA. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from 
Pennsylvania (Mr. Weldon).
  Mr. WELDON of Pennsylvania. Mr. Speaker, I have been here 17 years. I 
was not going to speak on this issue, but as I sat in my office I heard 
speaker after speaker mention the word ``firefighter.''
  Now, I came to the Congress as a firefighter, and I spent the first 
part of my career when the other side had control of this body fighting 
on behalf of firefighters. It was not the other side who delivered a 
program for grants for fire departments in America, although we had 
bipartisan support, it was when we controlled the Congress that we 
passed the Assistance to Firefighter Grant Program, which this year is 
providing $750 million for fire departments across the country.
  And it was not during the control of the other side, despite the 
rhetoric that we have heard out of the leadership on that side, and 
will hear later on, that we do not care about firefighters. It was not 
the other side when they controlled the Congress that started a grant 
program to hire more firefighters, but when the defense bill passes 
next week on the floor of the House, the conference report, there will 
be a $7.6 billion program for firefighters. That was done under 
Republican control of the Congress.
  So when my colleagues stand up and say we are hurting firefighters, 
cut me a break. In my 17 years here, we have worked in a bipartisan way 
for firefighters, and for them to come to the floor today and say that 
somehow this is meant to gut them is an absolute lie.
  I just got off the phone with the firefighters' union, the 
firefighters' union. I set up the meeting with Secretary Chao and the 
firefighters over a month ago, and they are satisfied and they told me 
I could say this on the floor, they are satisfied with the assurances 
they have that they will not be impacted by this, and neither will the 
paramedics and neither will the FOP and the first responder community.
  So for the other side to stand up here and use that over and over 
again galls me because where were they when I was fighting for the 
firefighters for the years that they controlled this body? What did you 
do to give us a grant program? What did you do to put more firefighters 
into the cities? You did nothing. You did nothing. For you to stand up 
here and say somehow you are protecting the firefighters, you can be as 
smug as you want as you sit there, but you did nothing to support the 
firefighters and the emergency responders of this country.
  This motion to instruct does not protect them. They are already 
satisfied. The leadership of the union told me that 10 minutes ago, so 
I stand up here and tell my colleagues on the Republican side, you can 
vote against this motion to instruct, and you are not going to hurt any 
firefighters. You are not going to hurt any paramedics or nurses or 
police, and their national associations will tell you that. Sure, they 
are not going to endorse this because the AFL-CIO has come out against 
it, but the facts are the facts.
  So I ask my colleagues on the both sides of the aisle to consider it 
based on the facts and do not listen to the rhetoric that I heard out 
of every Member on the other side, or I would not have been here for 
the last few minutes' rail about how they are concerned about the 
Nation's firefighters. I urge Members to oppose the motion to instruct.

                              {time}  1400

  Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 1 minute.
  Despite the hyperventilation we have just heard, the fact is that 
there will be up to 8 million workers hurt unless this motion is 
passed.
  Mr. WELDON of Pennsylvania. Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?
  Mr. OBEY. No, I will not. The gentleman has had his time to bloviate. 
This is my time.
  As I was saying, Mr. Speaker, the issue is very simple. Are you going 
to protect the up to 8 million workers who will be knocked out of 
protection for overtime if this motion does not pass? That is the only 
issue before us, despite all the other claims to the contrary. In a few 
short moments, we will see who cares about workers and who does not.
  Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. REGULA. Mr. Speaker, I yield the balance of my time to the 
gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Boehner), the chairman on the committee of 
jurisdiction for authorizing legislation of this type.
  Mr. BOEHNER. Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my colleague for yielding 
me this time and remind our Members that there is an awful lot of 
rhetoric that has been said on the floor today. If you had listened to 
all of it, you would think that the Labor Department was out to 
eliminate the overtime pay in America. Nothing could be further from 
the truth. We all know that the Fair Labor Standards Act that controls 
who gets overtime and who does not, what all the workplace rules are, 
has not been updated since I have been born, 1949. We all know that for 
decades we have had difficulties, employees have had difficulties, 
employers have had difficulties understanding the regulations in terms 
of who is entitled to overtime pay and who is not.
  When you have all this confusion, guess who decided to come into the 
middle of this? The trial lawyers, of course; and they are filing class 
action lawsuits, trying to make some determination about what the law 
is.
  So the Department of Labor has taken the courageous position of going 
out and issuing, or attempting to issue, regulations about bringing 
clarity to the situation so that workers will know whether they are 
entitled to overtime pay and employers will know what the law means, 
who is covered and who is not.
  I think that the regulations that we have, the draft regulations that 
have been issued, needed a little work. I think most Members would 
agree. That is why the Department of Labor got 80,000 comments on their 
proposal. The Department currently is in the process of looking at 
those 80,000 and trying to determine whether they need to make 
adjustments.
  Under the proposal, those people who today make a little over $8,000 
are guaranteed overtime, regardless of what their position is. Under 
the proposal, that number would rise to $22,100. If you make that 
amount or less, you are guaranteed overtime. That would affect over 1 
million American workers who will be guaranteed overtime who may not be 
guaranteed that they will get it today.
  But why do we want to stop this proposal from moving? We do not have 
to do that. We do not know what the final regulations are going to be, 
and we do not know when they are going to come. We have got the 
Congressional Review Act if you disagree with what they finally 
propose, but I think bringing clarity to this situation is very 
important.

[[Page H9162]]

  Let me also say that the effect of the gentleman's motion to accept 
the Harkin language from the Senate would effectively only do one 
thing, allow the Department to do one thing, and that would be to raise 
the threshold from over $8,000 to $22,100. Because it also goes on to 
say in the Senate language that any proposed regulation that would 
eliminate one person's ability to get overtime means that the proposal 
cannot go into effect. No job reclassifications. No new titles. It 
effectively eliminates all the modernization that we are trying to seek 
in these new regulations. That is unfair to American workers, and it is 
unfair to employers who are stuck in the dilemma today that we need to 
resolve.
  Mr. Speaker, I would suggest to all of my colleagues today that we 
ought to allow this procedure to go ahead. Let the Department of Labor 
look at those 80,000 comments and make decisions about what the draft 
says and what the final regulations really ought to be. If in fact they 
issue regulations, we have the Congressional Review Act instituted in 
this Congress in 1995 to allow us under an expedited procedure in both 
the House and Senate to look at the regulations; and, if we disagree 
with them, we can overturn them just like we did with the ergonomics 
regulations that were issued 1 week after President Bill Clinton left 
office.
  Vote ``no'' on the motion to instruct.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Shimkus). The time on the majority side 
has expired.
  Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield the balance of my time to the 
distinguished gentlewoman from California (Ms. Pelosi), the minority 
leader.
  Ms. PELOSI. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding me this 
time; and I thank him for his extraordinary leadership on behalf of 
working families in America.
  This motion to instruct which he is bringing to the floor and 
supported by the ranking member on the committee of authorization, the 
gentleman from California (Mr. George Miller), is a very, very 
important piece of legislation to support the position that was taken 
in a bipartisan way in the other body.
  Much has been said earlier about the use of profanity on the floor of 
the House and that it should not be allowed, and we heard the earlier 
heated debate over that.
  What about obscenities, Mr. Speaker? Are obscenities allowed on the 
floor of the House? Because what is in this legislation as it would 
come to the floor without the motion to instruct is an obscenity. It is 
an insult to America's working families.
  We expend a great deal of rhetoric around here about how supportive 
we are of working families in our country. They are important to us. 
They do our work. They raise our families. Indeed, we are all a part of 
it. So when we see an initiative from the administration that 
undermines the ability of parents to provide for their families, I call 
that an obscenity.
  The Bush administration proposal would mean a pay cut for 8 million 
workers in our country. Millions of workers depend on that overtime pay 
to make ends meet. Indeed, it triggers their ability to get a mortgage 
or a car loan or send their children to school. In the year 2000, 
overtime pay accounted for about 25 percent of the income of workers 
who worked overtime. Millions of workers who receive time and a half 
for their overtime work today will be required to work longer hours for 
less money under the Republican proposal. Millions more who have long 
depended upon overtime work to help make ends meet will face effective 
pay cuts as opportunities to work overtime are diminished. Even workers 
still covered by overtime pay could suffer a pay cut because employers 
would shift overtime assignments to the millions of workers who would 
no longer be entitled to overtime pay.
  The Bush administration proposal would mean longer hours, effectively 
undermining the 40-hour workweek. The many millions of workers denied 
overtime protection under the Department of Labor proposal would no 
longer be paid anything, anything, for their overtime. More work, less 
pay. If employers no longer have to pay extra for overtime, they will 
have an incentive to demand longer hours; and workers will have less 
time to spend with their families.
  This ill-advised proposal from the administration comes at a very bad 
time for our economy. Certainly Democrats and Republicans alike want to 
modernize the regulations regarding overtime. But we must not use that 
modernization to undermine pay and working hours for America's 
families.
  But this proposal, as fraught with pain as it is for America's 
families, comes at a time, in fact, on the day when the new figures 
were released just today on unemployment claims. They are up nearly 
400,000, the place where some economists think that you are at the 
definition of weakness in our economy in terms of the labor market 
relationship. This is on top of the 3.3 million jobs that have been 
lost during the Bush administration, the worst record of job creation 
of any President. He is in the category of Herbert Hoover.
  Every President since Herbert Hoover has created jobs. Some more, 
some less. Under President Clinton, 22 million new jobs were created. 
Under President Bush, to date, over 3.3 million jobs have been lost. 
The figures for first-time people applying for benefits again is in the 
record-breaking category.
  So, in that context, we have a regulation modernization being brought 
to the floor of this House that is very much needed to be amended; and 
that is what our distinguished ranking member on the committee is 
doing, along with the gentleman from California (Mr. George Miller).
  Median household incomes have already fallen $1,400 since Bush became 
President. Now he wants workers to be paid even less. Millions of 
workers who now receive time and a half for their overtime will be 
required to work longer hours, more hours for less pay. Millions of 
Americans depend on overtime pay, but the Bush proposal would deny 
overtime pay to 8 million workers who now earn such pay. It bears 
repetition.
  In times of elections and even just to measure the popularity of a 
President, there is a question that is asked by pollsters that says, 
cares about people like me, yes or no. Today, this House of 
Representatives has the opportunity to say to the American people that 
we care about people like them. We care about middle-income working 
families.
  This is not a labor issue. These are people who are not organized. 
Union people have their pay and working conditions and hours 
established in contracts. These are about other workers in our country.
  Again, other speakers have gone into detail about how if you are just 
seen as supervising other workers, if that responsibility is yours, 
then you are not eligible for overtime. So the harder you work, the 
better you do, the less pay you will make. How can that possibly be 
fair? I think it is not only unfair, I think it is an obscenity.
  Due to the remarks made earlier about profanities not being allowed 
on the floor, I do not think obscenities should be, either. That is why 
I commend the very distinguished gentleman from Wisconsin for 
presenting the motion to instruct for this House to agree in conference 
to the language of the Senate, to the Harkin amendment, if that is 
allowed to be said on the floor.
  Mrs. CHRISTENSEN. Mr. Speaker, I rise to support this motion to go to 
conferees and to accept the important Senate provisions which would 
prevent the administration from once again taking their failed economic 
policies out on working families. We must block the provision which 
would deny the overtime that may be the only thing keeping many 
families going.
  But also of great importance to me, and to millions of Americans from 
our racial and ethnic minority populations are the requests we made as 
this bill went through the subcommittee.
  First, we would ask reconsideration be given to several measures that 
deal specifically with minority health.
  Mr. Speaker, we would ask that in light of the increasing toll of 
HIV/AIDS on people of color, which cry out for the need for more 
funding that the Conference reconsider funding the Minority HIV and 
AIDS Initiative at the full $610 million requested, and that the 
language submitted also be included. I am deeply concerned by recent 
CDC reports regarding the instability in its recompetiton process and 
the strategy to only work with HIV positive populations. I believe that 
the HIV/AIDS epidemic demands a comprehensive prevention effort that 
includes primary and secondary approaches.
  I would also submit that the escalating disparities in health and 
death rates for people of

[[Page H9163]]

color that they requested for $66 million for the Office of Minority 
Health (OMH). OMH is the Department of Health and Human Services' 
(DHHS) lead office for improving the health status of racial and ethnic 
minorities; $225 million for the National Center for Minority Health 
and Health Disparities to further address minority health and health 
disparities and to help improve the infrastructure associated with this 
research; as well as a $120 million for the Racial and Ethnic 
Approaches to Community Health (REACH) grants initiative aimed at 
helping to eliminate disparities in health status experienced by ethnic 
minority populations in cardiovascular disease, immunizations, breast 
and cervical cancer screening and management, diabetes, HIV/AIDS and 
infant mortality also be considered.
  Of equal concern and need is the request for full funding $45 million 
for the Health Careers Opportunity Program, (2) $45 million Minority 
Centers for Excellence, (3) $55 million for Scholarships for 
Disadvantaged Students, (4) $4 million for Faculty Loan Repayment and 
Faculty Fellowships and (5) $160 million for the Public Health 
Improvement of Centers for Disease Control. Diversity in the health 
professions, including increasing the proportion of under represented 
U.S. racial and ethnic minorities among health professionals is a 
requirement to ensure competent service in our diverse Nation, 
elimination of health disparities and health for all.
  Again, to help close the health disparities in our society, we ask 
you to urge the conferees to support the request of the Congressional 
Black Causus. I have attached a copy of my statement made before the 
Appropriation subcommittee to review the necessary justification. And I 
urge my colleagues to support this motion to go to conference.

  Statement of Hon. Donna M. Christensen Before House Appropriations 
   Committee, Subcommittee on Labor, Health and Health Services and 
                         Education, May 6, 2003

       Thank you Mr. Chairman, Ranking member and other members of 
     the committee, I appreciate the opportunity to testify on 
     this important panel again this year.
       You already have my written testimony which contains the 
     details of the specific funding and language requests. 
     Although I will be speaking specifically to issues in the 
     African American communities, my remarks are generally 
     applicable to all communities of color and many rural 
     communities as well.
       Let me say at the outset Mr. Chairman, that my colleagues 
     and I remain grateful to you and your colleagues for the 
     support you have given us both on the Minority HIV/AIDS 
     Initiative, as well as on our efforts to end the disparities 
     in health care.
       When I appeared before you last year, I began my remarks by 
     informing the subcommittee of the fact that this great 
     country of ours ranks at the bottom of all of the 
     industrialized countries of the world with regard to the 
     quality of our health care system, we are not where we should 
     be given our resources in infant mortality, HIV/AIDS, 
     immunization, substance abuse and many of the major diseases. 
     In most cases the reason is because more than one third of 
     our population remains outside of the healthcare mainstream.
       Today almost 43 million Americans are uninsured, of which 
     50 percent are minorities: 18 percent of the total elderly 
     population has no coverage at all; 1 out of 6 Americans do 
     not have health insurance; more than 100,000 people lose 
     their health insurance every day; and an astounding 23 
     percent of African Americans have no insurance at all.
       Our health care system in this country is currently in 
     peril. It is falling short on promise and contributing to the 
     disabling illness and premature death of the people it is 
     supposed to serve. The picture is the worst for African 
     Americans who for almost every illness are impacted most 
     severely and disproportionately--in some cases more than all 
     other minorities combined. Every day in this country there 
     are at least 200 African Americans deaths, which could have 
     been prevented. Today we know that much of it happens because 
     even when we have access to care, the medical evaluations and 
     treatments that are made available to everyone else are 
     denied to us--not only in the private sector but in the 
     public system as well.
       What I am here to try to do today is to leave you with one 
     indelible message: that there are gross inequities in 
     healthcare which cause hundreds of preventable deaths in the 
     African American community everyday and which tear at 
     families, drain the lifeblood of our communities, and breed 
     an escalating and reverberating cycle of despair which this 
     subcommittee has the power to end today if it has the will to 
     do so.
       The choice if it can be considered that, is either to write 
     off human beings--our brothers and sisters--who make up this 
     segment of our population, or to make the requisite 
     investment in fixing an inadequate, discriminating, 
     dysfunctional health care system.
       The current strongly held-to ``cost-containment'' paradigm 
     while it sounds good on the surface, has obviously not 
     worked. We now have double digit increases in premiums in an 
     industry that was to rein in its costs. What it did instead 
     was create a multi-tiered system of care, both within managed 
     care and without. Those at the lowest rungs of the system got 
     sicker, the sicker, ie. more costly, were and still are being 
     dropped, and those who were the sickest were and remain 
     locked out entirely. So not only are health care costs 
     continuing to escalate, the overall health picture in this 
     country is worse than ever.
       What we now have is a system, which continues the failed 
     paradigm in which African Americans and other people of color 
     who because they have long been denied access to quality 
     health care, now experience the very worse health status. Not 
     doing what is needed to change this is to threaten the health 
     of not just African Americans and other people of color but 
     every other person in this country, especially at a time when 
     we live under the cloud of possible bioterrorism.
       Controlling the cost of health care, which can only be done 
     in the long term, will never be achieved without a major 
     investment in prevention, and leveling the health care 
     playing field for all Americans through fully funding a 
     health care system that provides equal access to quality, 
     comprehensive health care to everyone legally in this 
     country, regardless of color, ethnicity or language.
       The funding requests I am outlining today are the bare 
     minimum to ensure that our children have the opportunity for 
     good health, that there are health care professionals who can 
     bridge the race, ethnicity and language gaps to bring 
     wellness within reach of our now sick and dying communities, 
     that states and communities will receive the help to fill the 
     gaps and repair the deficiencies of access and services, and 
     which will enable the affected communities themselves to take 
     ownership of the problems as well as the solutions to their 
     increasing healthcare crisis--a crisis that threatens the 
     health and security of all Americans.
       If we have learned nothing in the last 10 years, we should 
     have learned that cost containment strategies in our unequal 
     system of care can never bring down healthcare costs. We can 
     only insure that quality health care will be within the reach 
     of future generations if we make a major investment in 
     prevention and increasing access to care now.
       On March 20, 2002, the Institute of Medicine (IOM) released 
     a landmark report entitled: Unequal Treatment: Confronting 
     Racial and Ethnic Disparities in Health Care which was 
     requested by Congressman Jackson. Among other key findings, 
     the report documented that minorities in the United States 
     receive fewer life-prolonging cardiac medications and 
     surgeries, are less likely to receive dialysis and kidney 
     transplants, and are less likely to receive adequate 
     treatment for pain. Its first and most telling finding states 
     that ``racial and ethnic disparities in healthcare exist and, 
     because they are associated with worse outcomes in many 
     cases, are unacceptable.''
       And so I urge the committee to give serious and favorable 
     consideration to our funding requests. Because of time 
     limitations let me focus on just a few areas contained in the 
     request.


        $66 million for the office of minority health, os, dhhs

       As the Department of Health and Human Services' (DHHS) lead 
     office for improving the health status of racial and ethnic 
     minorities, the Office of Minority Health (OMH) conducts and 
     supports health promotion and disease prevention programs and 
     activities designed to help reduce the high rates of death 
     and disease in communities of color. OMH also serves as one 
     of the focal points for the Department's initiative to 
     eliminate health disparities. By increasing funding to $20.9 
     million, this office will be able to expand OMH's elimination 
     of health programs in prevention, research, education and 
     outreach, capacity building, and the development of community 
     infrastructure. The increased funding is also needed to fund 
     the State Partnership Initiative Grant Program; Cultural and 
     Linguistic Best Practices Studies; State Health Data 
     Management; Community Programs to Improve Minority Health 
     Grants; Center for Linguistic and Cultural Competence in 
     Health Care; Eliminating Obstacles to Participating in 
     Government Programs; Technical Assistance to Community Health 
     Program; and Community-Based Organization Partnership 
     Prevention Centers.


  $225 million for the national center for minority health and health 
                        disparities (ncmhd), nih

       Funding is needed to develop and implement programs 
     necessary to further address minority health and health 
     disparities and to help improve the infrastructure associated 
     with this research and outreach. In addition, the loan 
     repayment payment must be expanded to include master degree 
     graduates from schools of public health and public health 
     programs to ensure that efforts to build and disseminate 
     research-based health information are intensified. As 
     required, the Center is currently developing a strategic plan 
     to guide the Center's efforts. To be effective, the plan must 
     include and reflect the direct input of the NIH institutes 
     and centers; consumer advocacy groups; the public; 
     researchers; professional and scientific organizations; 
     behavioral and public health organizations; health care 
     providers; academic institutions; and industry. The 
     resulting plan is needed to serve as a fundamental 
     blueprint for the Center's activities, as well as a 
     vehicle for helping to ensure a coordinated and effective 
     response to minority health and health disparities.

[[Page H9164]]

 $120 million for the racial and ethnic approaches to community health 
  (reach), national center for chronic disease prevention and health 
                             promotion, cdc

       The REACH program is a cornerstone CDC initiative aimed at 
     helping to eliminate disparities in health status experienced 
     by ethnic minority populations in cardiovascular disease, 
     immunizations, breast and cervical cancer screening and 
     management, diabetes, HIV/AIDS and infant mortality. The 
     increase is needed to fund additional Phase I planning 
     grants, Phase II implementation and evaluation grants, expand 
     and enhance technical assistance and training, and apply 
     lessons learned. REACH received 211 applications in its first 
     year, but only had enough funding to make 31 awards, leaving 
     a very large number of meritorious projects unfunded. REACH 
     must have the resources necessary to capitalize on the 
     strengths that national/multi-geographical minority 
     organizations can provide the initiative.


 $300 million for the agency for healthcare research and quality (ahrq)

       At a hearing before the Criminal Justice Subcommittee of 
     the Government Reform Committee on May 21, 2002, AHRQ Acting 
     Director Dr. Carolyn Clancy described the initiatives 
     undertaken by her agency to attack health disparities. One of 
     the most important of these is the EXCEED program, which 
     funds Centers of Excellence to eliminate health disparities 
     in nine cities around the country. These include efforts to 
     address diabetes care for Native Americans, health 
     disparities in cancer among rural African American adults, 
     and premature birth in ethnically diverse communities in 
     Harlem, New York. According to Dr. Clancy, ``EXCEED 
     encouraged the formation of new research relationships as 
     well as building on existing partnerships between 
     researchers, professional organizations, and community-based 
     organizations instrumental in helping to influence change in 
     local communities.''
       The EXCEED program exemplifies the type of initiative 
     recommended by the IOM report, which urged ``further research 
     to identify sources of racial and ethnic disparities and 
     assess promising intervention strategies'' (Recommendation 8-
     1). Yet the Administration's 2003 budget would curtail these 
     efforts. In the budget, total AHRQ funding falls from $300 
     million in 2002 to $251 million in 2003. About $192 million 
     of the AHRQ budget is protected from the cutbacks, meaning 
     that $49 million must be trimmed from the remaining $108 
     million of spending, a 46 percent cut. The EXCEED program and 
     other research grants to study and reduce health disparities 
     fall into this vulnerable $108 million.


   Increase of $14 million dollars for the U.S. DHHS Office of Civil 
  Rights (OCR) and a reworking of authorization language to tie it to 
disparity work U.S. DHHS Office of Civil Rights to enforce civil rights 
                                  laws

        Enforcement of regulation and statute is a basic component 
     of a comprehensive strategy to address racial and ethnic 
     disparities in healthcare, but it has been relegated to low-
     priority status. The U.S. DHHS Office of Civil Rights (OCR) 
     is charged with enforcing several relevant Federal statutes 
     and regulations that prohibit discrimination in healthcare 
     (principally Title VI of the 1964 Civil Rights Act), but the 
     agency suffers from insufficient resources to investigate 
     complaints of possible violations, and has long abandoned 
     proactive, investigative strategies.
        Despite an increasing number of complaints in recent 
     years, funding for OCR remained constant in actual dollars 
     from fiscal year 1981 to fiscal year 2003, resulting in a 60 
     percent decline in funding after adjusting for inflation. The 
     decrease has severely and negatively affected OCR's ability 
     to conduct civil rights enforcement strategies, such as on-
     site complaint investigations, compliance reviews, and local 
     community outreach and education. Providing a substantial 
     increase in funding for the Office of Civil Rights is 
     necessary for OCR to resume the practice of periodic, 
     proactive investigation, both to collect data on the extent 
     of civil rights violations and provide a deterrent to would-
     be lawbreakers.


    Increased funding for Initiatives for Health Professions Training

        (1) $40 million for the Health Careers Opportunity Program 
     ($5.2 million increase);
        (2) $40 million Minority Centers of Excellence ($7.4 
     million increase);
        (3) $52 million for Scholarships for Disadvantaged 
     Students ($5.8 million increase); and
        (4) $3 million for Faculty Loan Repayment and Faculty 
     Fellowships ($1.67 million increase)
        Diversity in the health professions offers numerous 
     benefits, including ``increasing the proportion of under 
     represented U.S. racial and ethnic minorities among health 
     professionals''. (IOM Report). Such efforts were supported by 
     HHS in the past, but now are threatened with extinction.
        The spring 1999 issue of the HHS Office of Minority 
     Health's newsletter Closing the Gaps focused on the theme of 
     ``Putting the Right People in the Right Places.'' The 
     newsletter highlighted the startling under representation of 
     ethnic and minority groups within the health professions and 
     stressed the important role of three programs: (1) the Health 
     Careers Opportunity Program, which trains more than 6,000 
     high school and undergraduate students each year and is 
     associated with acceptance rates to health professional 
     schools that are 20 percent higher than the national average; 
     (2) the Minority Faculty Fellowships Program, which addresses 
     the problem that ``just four percent of faculty at U.S. 
     health profession schools are minorities''; and (3) the 
     Centers of Excellence Program, which works with 
     Historically Black Colleges and Universities and Hispanic 
     Serving Health Professions Schools to ``recruit and retain 
     minority faculty and students, carry out research specific 
     to racial and ethnic minorities, provide culturally 
     appropriate clinical education, and develop curricula and 
     information resources that respond to the needs of 
     minorities.''
       Unfortunately, the very same programs highlighted by HHS in 
     1999 as successful have disappeared from the President's 2004 
     budget. In fact, all of these programs received zero funding 
     or are scheduled for elimination.
       To insure that no one is denied necessary health care 
     because of race ethnicity or language, they must have the 
     tools to do their job. Bringing equity into our healthcare 
     system demands a funding increase for this office.


        $50 million territorial hospitals and health departments

       Mr. Chairman, years of Medicaid caps have and continue to 
     create a crisis in the healthcare systems in the offshore 
     territories. To address and resolve this, last year I 
     requested that the sum of $50 million be made available to 
     the secretary for territorial hospitals and health 
     departments to close some of their critical health care gaps 
     and repair infrastructure deficiencies. I repeat this request 
     again for this year's appropriation.
       Because of the Medicaid cap, and a match that is not 
     indexed for average income level, both which are 
     Congressionally set, we are unable to cover individuals at 
     100 percent of poverty--for the Virgin Islands it is closer 
     to 30 percent below that income level. Under the cap, 
     spending per recipient is at best one-fifth of the national 
     average.
       Our hospitals are struggling, because the cap prevents them 
     from collecting full payments for the services they provide, 
     and they are also unable to collect Disproportionate Share 
     payments, despite the fact that about 60 percent of their 
     inpatients are below the poverty level. About one third of 
     these qualify for Medicaid, which as I indicated before, 
     never fully reimburses them. The rest of their patients have 
     no coverage whatsoever.
       Long-term care is limited, and thus unavailable to persons 
     and their families who need it, not because the rooms are not 
     there, but because we do not have enough Medicaid dollars to 
     pay for them, even though the federal funds are matched 2 to 
     1 by local dollars--far above our requirement. While many 
     states are covering women and their minor children well above 
     100 percent of poverty, we cannot even come close.
       Along with my fellow representatives from Guam American 
     Samoa and Puerto Rico, I have introduced bills to both remove 
     the Medicaid Cap as well as, for the first time, provide for 
     the creation of a Disproportionate Share payment to our 
     hospitals.
       Our final request Mr. Chairman once again deals with the 
     Minority HIV/AIDS Initiative. We are here today once again to 
     request funding for the full amount of our request for the 
     MAHI in the amount of $610 million. While our review of the 
     current programs demonstrates the need for increased funding, 
     in light of our other requests which all have the potential 
     to impact this epidemic to some degree, and the budgetary 
     constraints of our government we are requesting a need-based 
     increase over our 2002 request of $70 million. We strongly 
     believe that the $610 million request is absolutely necessary 
     if we are to have any success whatsoever in stemming the tide 
     of this epidemic which continues to ravage our communities.
       Once again, the purpose of the special and targeted funding 
     is to provide technical assistance and to increase the 
     capacity of our own communities to administer programs aimed 
     at prevention and treatment, and to bolster or build the 
     infrastructure needed to make all life saving measures 
     accessible.
       The Minority HIV/AIDS request is not meant to be the total 
     funding for communities of color but should be utilized in 
     such a way to better enable our communities, that are hard to 
     reach and out of the mainstream, to access the $8 billion 
     plus that is available for HIV and AIDs.
       It is also important to point out that as serious an issue 
     as it is, HIV and AIDS is just one symptom of all that is 
     wrong in our communities, many of which come under the 
     purview of this subcommittee. This funding will not only be 
     successful in the fight against long term HIV & AIDS but also 
     in all other areas, if in the long term the underpinnings of 
     our communities are also strengthened.
       There is a critical part of the Minority HIV/AIDS 
     initiative request, which does not involve money. It is one 
     of language.
       Mr. Chairman, the intent of the MAHI is to ensure that its 
     funds, which are only a small part of overall HIV/AIDS 
     funding, are used to build capacity within African American 
     and other communities of color which are the ones now being 
     disproportionately impacted. The current of the language 
     initiative has not maintained that focus. We are therefore 
     requesting that the original FY 1999 language be restored or 
     be mirrored, in your 2004 bill, with the following change 
     which I believe meets the concerns of the Department with 
     regard to discrimination, while

[[Page H9165]]

     empowering our communities which is the only way we can 
     effectively control this and the other diseases which create 
     the disparties.
       In summary, I join my colleagues here this morning to call 
     on this esteemed and distinguished subcommittee to make a 
     commitment to eliminate the disparities that have existed for 
     centuries and are increasing today for African Americans, and 
     to finally ensure equality in health care for us and every 
     one in this otherwise great country.
       The cost in dollars today will be significant, but the cost 
     in lives and to our economy in the future are risks that we 
     must not take.
       There is no question that health disparities are deeply 
     rooted in our medical system and in our culture. Eliminating 
     them is going to take a lot more than one leadership summit 
     or one media campaign. It will take a long-term commitment. 
     It will take a long-term investment.
       This subcommittee and the larger committee have the power 
     to eliminate disparities in health care. This is an important 
     part of the stewardship on which we will all be judged.
       Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. once said, ``Of all the forms 
     of inequality, injustice in health care is the most shocking 
     and inhumane.'' We have a moral obligation to end injustice 
     in health care and health disparities among Americans. I urge 
     my colleagues to support this request.
       On behalf of the Congressional Black Caucus, and 
     personally, I thank you once again for the opportunity to 
     testify.
                                  ____


                             Press Release


   housing and urban development sends funding to the virgin islands

       (Washington, DC, October 2, 2003).--Delegate to Congress 
     Donna M. Christensen is pleased to announce that the 
     following two agencies have received funding from the U.S. 
     Department of Housing and Urban Development.
     University of the Virgin Islands receives F'sted Development 
         Grant
       The University of the Virgin Islands will receive $541,000 
     in the form of a Historically Black Colleges and Universities 
     grant. This grant will be used to address community 
     development needs on the islands of St. Croix, specifically 
     in Frederiksted. UVI and Our Town Frederiksted will 
     revitalize neighborhoods and address critical community 
     development needs. They will work on infrastructure 
     improvements and community reinvestments to stabilize the 
     town and build the economy of the area.
     Housing receives $1.3 million in HOME Investment 
         Partnership's Program
       The Government of the Virgin Islands will receive 
     $1,340,000 for Fiscal Year 2003 HOME Investment Partnerships 
     Program. This program will include activities such as 
     mortgage buy downs through construction of affordable housing 
     and homebuyers assistance.


              u.s. department of commerce delivers funding

       The Delegate is pleased to announce that the Virgin Islands 
     Department of Planning and Natural Resources will receive 
     $481,350 in grants from the U.S. Department of Commerce.
       The first grant in the amount of $131,500 will provide 
     financial assistance for National Centers of Central Coastal 
     Ocean Science. The program will assist in the expansion of 
     coral reef monitoring and resources assessments in the VI, 
     through collaborative efforts among individuals from 
     territorial and federal agencies and organizations. An effort 
     will also be made to develop a Marine Park Monitoring Plan.
       The second grant in the amount of $349,850 will be used for 
     Coastal Zone Management Administration Awards program. This 
     program will provide funding for the VI for our Coral Reef 
     Management projects. This will include the implementation of 
     an enforcement action plan, and education and outreach action 
     plan and a water quality monitoring action plan for newly 
     established East End Marine Park and the development of a 
     research and monitoring action plan for the East End Marine 
     Park.
  Mr. CUMMINGS. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to lend my wholehearted 
support to the motion to instruct the conferees, offered by Mr. Obey 
and spearheaded by Mr. Miller of California, on the Labor, Health and 
Human Services and Education Appropriations bill, which would instruct 
the conferees to recede to the Senate and accept the Harkin amendment. 
This amendment prohibits the Department of Labor from issuing 
regulations that take away overtime protection from employees who are 
currently entitled to receive it.
  Mr. Speaker, the national economy and our working families are 
struggling. This White House administration has the dubious honor of 
having the worst job creation record since the Great Depression. Since 
2001, over 3 million jobs have been lost. The Nation's jobless rate 
hovers around 6.4 percent and is substantially higher in communities of 
color, at over 10 percent.
  Additionally, the administration's rounds of tax cuts are projected 
to cost the Federal treasury $3.12 trillion over the next decade. We 
have gone from a $5.6 trillion surplus to a $4 trillion deficit. While 
real wages continue to fall, simultaneously the income gap continues to 
widen and middle class taxpayers are being asked to sacrifice more each 
day.
  Mr. Speaker, now to add insult to injury, the Bush Labor Department 
is now proposing regulations that will hit as many as 8 million hard 
working American families. If these regulations are implemented the 
Federal Government will reach into the pockets of these hard working 
Americans and cut the overtime pay they depend on to pay their 
mortgages, feed and educate their children, care for their sick and 
elderly parents, and preserve their standard of living. It is estimated 
that overtime pay accounts for roughly 25 percent of the income of 
people who work overtime. Hardest hit will be our first-responders and 
healthcare professionals, amongst others.
  Mr. Speaker, it is irresponsible to grant huge tax cuts to the 
wealthiest 1 percent of U.S. taxpayers while cutting the legs from 
underneath middle-class working Americans. Is this the message we want 
to send to those whom we have asked to sacrifice their sons and 
daughters in Iraq? To those who are sacrificing better schools, safer 
communities and access to healthcare while the Federal deficit grows 
exponentially, meaningful programs are cut and the wealthiest 1 percent 
enjoy an enormous $84,000 tax cut.
  I urge my colleagues to protect middle-class working Americans by 
supporting this motion to instruct. Many American families are already 
struggling to make ends meet with one wage earner. Cutting overtime pay 
will put them in further economic hardship. Let's be fair to our 
nation's most valuable assets--our working men and women and their 
families.
  Ms. EDDIE BERNICE JOHNSON of Texas. Mr. Speaker, the assault on 
overtime pay is nothing less than an attempt to pick the pockets of 
millions of hardworking Americans.
  By stripping 8 million workers of their right to be paid for the 
hours they work, Republicans have issued another callous insult to 
families struggling to make a living. Since many of those who will be 
affected are nursing professionals, police, firefighters and other 
``first responders,'' it sends another stinging message to the people 
we turn to and who routinely undertake the most thankless tasks in our 
times of need.
  Mr. Speaker, over 3 million Americans have lost their jobs since 
President Bush took office, and countless others don't appear in the 
employment statistics because they have given up hope of finding a job.
  Isn't in enough that the Bush administration has presided over the 
loss of 3 million private-sector jobs. It has failed to raise the 
minimum wage. It is allowing millions of older workers to lose half 
their private pension benefits. It has denied unemployment benefits to 
millions of workers who exhausted their Federal unemployment benefits. 
It has gutted worker safety protections, and denied working family's 
tax cuts--including the child tax credit--while showering hundreds of 
billions in cuts to the wealthiest of Americans.
  As an experienced nurse, I want to draw your attention to serious 
dangers posed by this measure which threatens not only the pay of 
millions of nurses and other health care workers, but also the safety 
of patients in our health care facilities.
  Healthcare professionals, particularly nurses, are working an 
increasing amount of mandatory overtime, patient care and contributing 
to the ranks of the over 500,000 trained nurses who have left their 
field.
  Mr. Speaker, the current nursing workforce is aging. The shortage of 
registered nurses in my home State of Texas is becoming more critical. 
Texas will experience a deficit of 10,000 RNs by 2005, 16,000 by 2010 
and 50,000 by 2020, according to a July 2002 report from the Health 
Resources and Services Administration.
  I am afraid that this will lead to drive even more nurses away from 
clinical settings at a time when the Nation is struggling to develop 
policies that will keep today's nurses at the bedside and attract more 
students into nursing for the future. It is unrealistic to imagine that 
nurses will remain in jobs where they have lost the guarantee that they 
will be paid premium wages, or any wages at all, when they are forced 
to work overtime hours.
  Mr. Speaker, what in the world is it about Americans who are working 
hard to provide for their families that this administration just can't 
stand?
  I urge my colleagues to vote ``yes'' on the motion to instruct 
conferees to accept Senate-passed provisions. We must block the Bush 
administration regulations that would deny overtime pay to millions of 
employees.

[[Page H9166]]

   Ms. WOOLSEY. Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of the Obey motion to 
instruct conferees on the Labor-HHS Appropriations bill.
   the Bush administration continues to have a failing record on 
supporting our nation's working families. Instead of giving workers a 
leg up, the administration continues to hold working Americans down. By 
altering overtime regulations this administration is cutting the pay 
for as many as 8 million workers. Among those workers are those 
critical to the safety of our communities: firefighters, police 
officers and nurses.
   In these hard economic times, workers need all the help they can get 
to support their families and their homes. Instead of working to create 
jobs, this administration is working to undermine the jobs that already 
exist. By taking away overtime pay, they would be removing income that 
many of these already underpaid workers have come to rely on to make 
ends meet.
   That's why I support the Obey motion to instruct because it will 
prevent the Department of Labor from issuing any regulations that take 
away overtime protection from workers who already qualify.
   Mr. Speaker, we must show our nation's working families that we 
support them instead of taking away their hard earned dollars. I urge 
my colleagues to support the Obey motion to instruct.
  Ms. PELOSI. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. All time for debate has expired.
  Without objection, the previous question is ordered on the motion to 
instruct.
  There was no objection.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The question is on the motion to instruct 
offered by the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Obey).
  The question was taken; and the Speaker pro tempore announced that 
the ayes appeared to have it.
  Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I object to the vote on the ground that a 
quorum is not present and make the point of order that a quorum is not 
present.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Evidently a quorum is not present.
  The Sergeant at Arms will notify absent Members.
  Pursuant to clause 8 of rule XX, this 15-minute vote on the motion to 
instruct on H.R. 2660 will be followed by a 5-minute vote, if ordered, 
on approving the Journal.
  The vote was taken by electronic device, and there were--yeas 221, 
nays 203, not voting 11, as follows:

                             [Roll No. 531]

                               YEAS--221

     Abercrombie
     Ackerman
     Alexander
     Allen
     Andrews
     Baca
     Baird
     Baldwin
     Ballance
     Becerra
     Bell
     Berkley
     Berman
     Berry
     Bishop (GA)
     Bishop (NY)
     Blumenauer
     Boehlert
     Boswell
     Boucher
     Boyd
     Brady (PA)
     Brown (OH)
     Brown, Corrine
     Capito
     Capps
     Capuano
     Cardin
     Cardoza
     Carson (IN)
     Carson (OK)
     Case
     Clay
     Clyburn
     Conyers
     Cooper
     Costello
     Cramer
     Crowley
     Cummings
     Davis (AL)
     Davis (CA)
     Davis (FL)
     Davis (IL)
     Davis (TN)
     DeFazio
     DeGette
     Delahunt
     DeLauro
     Deutsch
     Dicks
     Dingell
     Doggett
     Doyle
     Edwards
     Emanuel
     Engel
     Etheridge
     Farr
     Fattah
     Ferguson
     Filner
     Ford
     Frank (MA)
     Frost
     Gephardt
     Gonzalez
     Gordon
     Green (TX)
     Grijalva
     Gutierrez
     Harman
     Hastings (FL)
     Hill
     Hinchey
     Hinojosa
     Hoeffel
     Holden
     Holt
     Honda
     Hooley (OR)
     Hoyer
     Inslee
     Israel
     Jackson (IL)
     Jackson-Lee (TX)
     Jefferson
     John
     Johnson (IL)
     Johnson, E. B.
     Jones (OH)
     Kanjorski
     Kaptur
     Kelly
     Kennedy (RI)
     Kildee
     Kilpatrick
     Kind
     King (NY)
     Kleczka
     Kucinich
     Lampson
     Langevin
     Lantos
     Larsen (WA)
     Larson (CT)
     LaTourette
     Leach
     Lee
     Levin
     Lewis (GA)
     Lipinski
     LoBiondo
     Lofgren
     Lowey
     Lucas (KY)
     Lynch
     Majette
     Maloney
     Markey
     Marshall
     Matheson
     Matsui
     McCarthy (MO)
     McCarthy (NY)
     McCollum
     McCotter
     McDermott
     McGovern
     McHugh
     McIntyre
     McNulty
     Meehan
     Meek (FL)
     Meeks (NY)
     Menendez
     Michaud
     Millender-McDonald
     Miller (MI)
     Miller (NC)
     Miller, George
     Mollohan
     Moore
     Moran (VA)
     Murphy
     Murtha
     Nadler
     Napolitano
     Neal (MA)
     Nussle
     Oberstar
     Obey
     Olver
     Ortiz
     Owens
     Pallone
     Pascrell
     Pastor
     Payne
     Pelosi
     Peterson (MN)
     Pomeroy
     Price (NC)
     Quinn
     Rahall
     Rangel
     Reyes
     Rodriguez
     Ross
     Rothman
     Roybal-Allard
     Ruppersberger
     Rush
     Ryan (OH)
     Sanchez, Linda T.
     Sanchez, Loretta
     Sanders
     Sandlin
     Schakowsky
     Schiff
     Scott (GA)
     Scott (VA)
     Serrano
     Shays
     Sherman
     Skelton
     Slaughter
     Smith (NJ)
     Smith (WA)
     Snyder
     Solis
     Spratt
     Stark
     Strickland
     Stupak
     Sweeney
     Tanner
     Tauscher
     Taylor (MS)
     Thompson (CA)
     Thompson (MS)
     Tiahrt
     Tierney
     Towns
     Turner (TX)
     Udall (CO)
     Udall (NM)
     Upton
     Van Hollen
     Velazquez
     Visclosky
     Waters
     Watson
     Watt
     Waxman
     Weiner
     Wexler
     Woolsey
     Wu
     Wynn
     Young (AK)

                               NAYS--203

     Aderholt
     Akin
     Bachus
     Baker
     Ballenger
     Barrett (SC)
     Bartlett (MD)
     Barton (TX)
     Bass
     Beauprez
     Bereuter
     Biggert
     Bilirakis
     Bishop (UT)
     Blackburn
     Blunt
     Boehner
     Bonilla
     Bonner
     Bono
     Boozman
     Bradley (NH)
     Brown (SC)
     Brown-Waite, Ginny
     Burgess
     Burns
     Burr
     Burton (IN)
     Buyer
     Calvert
     Camp
     Cannon
     Cantor
     Carter
     Castle
     Chabot
     Chocola
     Coble
     Cole
     Collins
     Cox
     Crane
     Crenshaw
     Cubin
     Culberson
     Cunningham
     Davis, Jo Ann
     Davis, Tom
     Deal (GA)
     DeLay
     DeMint
     Diaz-Balart, L.
     Diaz-Balart, M.
     Doolittle
     Duncan
     Dunn
     Ehlers
     Emerson
     English
     Everett
     Feeney
     Flake
     Foley
     Forbes
     Fossella
     Franks (AZ)
     Frelinghuysen
     Gallegly
     Garrett (NJ)
     Gerlach
     Gibbons
     Gilchrest
     Gillmor
     Gingrey
     Goode
     Goodlatte
     Goss
     Granger
     Graves
     Green (WI)
     Greenwood
     Gutknecht
     Hall
     Harris
     Hart
     Hastert
     Hastings (WA)
     Hayes
     Hayworth
     Hefley
     Hensarling
     Herger
     Hobson
     Hoekstra
     Hostettler
     Houghton
     Hulshof
     Hunter
     Isakson
     Istook
     Janklow
     Jenkins
     Johnson (CT)
     Johnson, Sam
     Jones (NC)
     Keller
     Kennedy (MN)
     King (IA)
     Kingston
     Kirk
     Kline
     Knollenberg
     Kolbe
     LaHood
     Latham
     Lewis (CA)
     Lewis (KY)
     Linder
     Lucas (OK)
     Manzullo
     McCrery
     McInnis
     McKeon
     Mica
     Miller (FL)
     Miller, Gary
     Moran (KS)
     Musgrave
     Myrick
     Nethercutt
     Neugebauer
     Ney
     Northup
     Norwood
     Nunes
     Osborne
     Ose
     Otter
     Oxley
     Paul
     Pearce
     Pence
     Peterson (PA)
     Petri
     Pickering
     Pitts
     Platts
     Pombo
     Porter
     Portman
     Pryce (OH)
     Putnam
     Radanovich
     Ramstad
     Regula
     Rehberg
     Renzi
     Reynolds
     Rogers (AL)
     Rogers (KY)
     Rogers (MI)
     Rohrabacher
     Ros-Lehtinen
     Royce
     Ryan (WI)
     Ryun (KS)
     Schrock
     Sensenbrenner
     Sessions
     Shadegg
     Shaw
     Sherwood
     Shimkus
     Shuster
     Simmons
     Simpson
     Smith (MI)
     Smith (TX)
     Souder
     Stearns
     Stenholm
     Sullivan
     Tancredo
     Tauzin
     Taylor (NC)
     Terry
     Thomas
     Thornberry
     Tiberi
     Toomey
     Turner (OH)
     Vitter
     Walden (OR)
     Wamp
     Weldon (FL)
     Weldon (PA)
     Weller
     Whitfield
     Wicker
     Wilson (NM)
     Wilson (SC)
     Wolf
     Young (FL)

                             NOT VOTING--11

     Brady (TX)
     Dooley (CA)
     Dreier
     Eshoo
     Evans
     Fletcher
     Hyde
     Issa
     Sabo
     Saxton
     Walsh

                              {time}  1437

  Mr. SOUDER changed his vote from ``yea'' to ``nay.''
  So the motion was agreed to.
  The result of the vote was announced as above recorded.
  A motion to reconsider was laid on the table.

                          ____________________