[Congressional Record Volume 157, Number 111 (Friday, July 22, 2011)]
[House]
[Pages H5378-H5381]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
LEGISLATIVE BRANCH APPROPRIATIONS ACT, 2012
General Leave
Mr. CRENSHAW. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members
have 5 legislative days in which to revise and extend their remarks and
include extraneous material on the further consideration of H.R. 2551,
and that I may include tabular material on the same.
The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Daniel E. Lungren of California). Is
there objection to the request of the gentleman from Florida?
There was no objection.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Pursuant to House Resolution 359 and rule
XVIII, the Chair declares the House in
[[Page H5379]]
the Committee of the Whole House on the state of the Union for the
further consideration of the bill, H.R. 2551.
{time} 0913
In the Committee of the Whole
Accordingly, the House resolved itself into the Committee of the
Whole House on the state of the Union for the further consideration of
the bill (H.R. 2551) making appropriations for the Legislative Branch
for the fiscal year ending September 30, 2012, and for other purposes,
with Mrs. Biggert (Acting Chair) in the chair.
The Clerk read the title of the bill.
The Acting CHAIR. When the Committee of the Whole rose on Thursday,
July 21, 2011, amendment No. 11 printed in the House Report 112-173
offered by the gentleman from Arizona (Mr. Flake) had been disposed of.
Amendment No. 12 Offered by Mr. Holt
The Acting CHAIR. Pursuant to the order of the House of Thursday,
July 21, 2011, it is now in order to consider amendment No. 12 printed
in House Report 112-173.
Mr. HOLT. Madam Chair, I have an amendment at the desk.
The Acting CHAIR. The Clerk will designate the amendment.
The text of the amendment is as follows:
At the end of the bill (before the short title), insert the
following:
Sec. 211. There is appropriated, for salaries and expenses
of the Office of Technology Assessment as authorized by the
Technology Assessment Act of 1972 (2 U.S.C. 471 et seq.),
hereby derived from the amount provided in this Act for the
payment to the House Historic Buildings Revitalization Trust
Fund $2,500,000.
The Acting CHAIR. Pursuant to House Resolution 359, the gentleman
from New Jersey (Mr. Holt) and a Member opposed each will control 5
minutes.
The Chair recognizes the gentleman from New Jersey.
Mr. HOLT. Madam Chair, for 23 years, Congress had the benefit of a
really excellent organization, the Office of Technology Assessment. The
OTA helped Congress look at the policy implications of new
technologies. Then 16 years ago, OTA was defunded. When Congress turned
out the lights, they argued that other organizations would provide what
OTA did--think tanks, academies, universities.
We now have 16 years of evidence that we have not gotten from these
other sources what we got from OTA. We need OTA now more than ever, and
my amendment would shift a mere $2.5 million into OTA to breathe life
back into this important agency that had a great record of improving
congressional decisionmaking, preventing tax dollar waste, and
generally improving the debate on many policy issues.
OTA is still on the books; it was simply defunded and, with this
amendment, can be funded again. The money comes from a well-funded,
little used trust fund for Capitol building revitalization.
The OTA produced thorough, balanced nonpartisan studies on a huge
variety of policy-relevant subjects. Listen to some of the reports, all
produced by OTA in the years before it was defunded 16 years ago:
Adverse Reaction to Vaccines, Retiring Old Cars to Save Gasoline and
Reduce Emissions, Environmental Impact of Bioenergy Crop Production,
Testing in Schools, Treatment of Alzheimer's Disease.
Think about it; these studies, a few of the many on issues of great
concern to us today, were written before 1995. The OTA was the best
tool Congress has had to deal with our inability to look forward, to
recognize and comprehend trends, to find perspective in problem
solving--in other words, our congressional attention deficit disorder.
Sixteen years ago, Congress hoped to save money by cutting OTA, and,
in the process, we lost one of our best opportunities to save money by
avoiding costly mistakes. It is documented that OTA saved taxpayers
several hundred million dollars by understanding the best IT system for
use by the Social Security Administration, millions of dollars of
savings through better Agent Orange programs, billions of dollars by
avoiding a poorly constructed Synfuels Corporation.
Now, not every OTA project found favor with everyone. Some in
Congress did not like to hear OTA call into question some of the
extravagant claims of the missile defense contractors. But history
shows OTA was right, and the missile defense folks at the Pentagon have
spent a decade working around the problems uncovered.
Some in Congress complained that OTA reports did not have the quick
turnaround of, say, CRS, but that is just the point. OTA is the
antidote to the myopia that comes from our very short attention cycle.
OTA never advocated policy solutions; it didn't play politics. These
are our jobs, but we need help. OTA was of Congress and for Congress.
They knew our language and our decisionmaking framework. That's why our
organizations never really filled the void created by the defunding of
OTA.
If we had a functioning OTA in recent years, I think there's little
doubt that we could have been more aware of and better prepared to deal
with looming shortages of vaccines, to incorporate new designs for
flood control levees, to extend high quality medical care to rural
regions, to employee effective techniques for oil spill cleanup, or to
reduce the risks of cell phone hacking, to name just a few issues of
current interest.
The Office of Technology Assistance is not, and never was, a panacea.
However, it is the best institutional tool we have had to recognize the
policy implications of technology trends, to digest arguments involving
technology, to expose some of our own blind spots--in other words, to
illuminate and inform our legislating.
We in Congress have not distinguished ourselves in recognizing and
comprehending trends and implications of technology. Now, most of our
colleagues here in this body do not know OTA ever existed. Most Members
do not miss it. This shows, I think, just how badly we need it. Always
the first step in dealing with a shortcoming is acknowledging that we
have it. We badly need OTA.
I reserve the balance of my time.
{time} 0920
Mr. CRENSHAW. Madam Chairman, I rise in opposition to the amendment.
The Acting CHAIR. The gentleman from Florida is recognized for 5
minutes.
Mr. CRENSHAW. Madam Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may
consume.
I appreciate very much the gentleman from New Jersey's passion for
this program. He mentioned that they turned out the lights in 1996,
some 15 years ago, and I can't help but wonder why the lights haven't
been turned on in the last 15 years.
I talked to the gentleman yesterday, and I didn't know much about the
OTA, but I couldn't help but wonder why, in the midst of the financial
mess that we find our country in, he would pick this time to try to
resuscitate a program that has lay sleeping for 15 years. I don't know
whether he has tried every year to resuscitate this program and nobody
was listening. I hope he has tried before. There were probably times
when money was more plentiful and he might have had a better chance of
bringing back a new program, a little more government, but I think this
is just bad timing.
I told him that if he wants to continue to try to educate the Members
and tell them what a wonderful program this was up until 1996, there
may be some day that it would be resuscitated. But the Members should
know that in 2008 we gave $2.5 million to the Government Accountability
Office to do these kind of technological assessments, and they've been
doing that for the last 4 years.
Mr. HOLT. Will the gentleman yield?
Mr. CRENSHAW. I yield to the gentleman from New Jersey.
Mr. HOLT. In answer to your two questions, the first is, as I said,
the fact that this body doesn't know that it lacks OTA is the strongest
argument of how badly we need it.
Mr. CRENSHAW. Well, reclaiming my time, if this was simply a question
of education, I hope the gentleman has been working diligently for the
past few years as hard as he worked for the last 24 hours to make
people aware and to crank this thing back up. But again, this is the
wrong time to try to start a new government program.
Mr. HOLT. Will the gentleman yield further?
Mr. CRENSHAW. I yield to the gentleman.
Mr. HOLT. As for the funding, there is an offset from a little-used
fund, a
[[Page H5380]]
trust fund for building revitalization that is unlikely to be spent in
the coming year.
Mr. CRENSHAW. Reclaiming my time, that's an interesting question too.
I appreciate that question. And that $30 million is there to use to
make sure that we protect the health and safety of people in our
buildings here.
So I understand it won't cost any more money, but it's just a brand-
new Federal program that I think is not a good time to be trying to do
that. Again, if you've been trying to do that for the last 15 years and
no one has been listening, then it must not be all that great a
program. But once again, I appreciate your being a champion of that,
and maybe someday it will come back to life.
I reserve the balance of my time.
Mr. HOLT. Madam Chairman, I yield such time as he may consume to the
gentleman from California (Mr. Honda), the ranking member of the
subcommittee.
The Acting CHAIR. The gentleman from California is recognized for 30
seconds.
Mr. HONDA. Madam Chair, to answer the question about whether it's a
new program, it isn't. It was defunded back in '96.
Since 2008, through GAO, we have been trying to fund it through their
end and build it up since then, but still a lot of folks didn't
understand that this body really does need the kind of technological
development in the public and private sector and harness outside
experiences in the form of advisory panels and peer review, something
that GAO and CRS cannot do, and we can do it through this program.
The Acting CHAIR. The time of the gentleman has expired.
Mr. CRENSHAW. Madam Chairman, I would just simply say, as I urge my
colleagues to vote ``no'' on this, again, I thank the gentleman for
bringing it to our attention. It seems strange that it hasn't been
funded for the last 15 years. I think this is not the year to crank it
back up, resuscitate it. I think we have plenty of bipartisan research
that's available to the Members. And maybe there are some private and
nonprivate corporations, big foundations that might want to do this on
a voluntarily basis. But again, I urge a negative vote.
Madam Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time.
The Acting CHAIR. The question is on the amendment offered by the
gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Holt).
The question was taken; and the Acting Chair announced that the ayes
appeared to have it.
Mr. CRENSHAW. Madam Chair, I demand a recorded vote.
The Acting CHAIR. Pursuant to clause 6 of rule XVIII, further
proceedings on the amendment offered by the gentleman from New Jersey
will be postponed.
Mr. DICKS. Madam Chairman, I move to strike the last word.
The Acting CHAIR. The gentleman from Washington is recognized for 5
minutes.
Mr. DICKS. I yield to the gentleman from Vermont (Mr. Welch).
Mr. WELCH. I thank the gentleman.
Madam Chair, I want to speak about an amendment Mr. Moran is about to
offer. This is about the use of Styrofoam in our cafeterias. You may
remember that in 2007, then-Speaker Nancy Pelosi established the
Greening the Capitol program, and the goal was to make the U.S. House
of Representatives a national leader in resource stewardship and
sustainable business practices, and we made significant progress.
One of the places where we made progress was we replaced the
Styrofoam in the cafeteria and used recyclable dishware. We are now
back to Styrofoam. McDonalds doesn't use Styrofoam. Years ago,
McDonalds and other fast food restaurants replaced Styrofoam with
recyclable paperboard containers. There is no reason we can't do that.
There is no reason we shouldn't do it.
Polystyrene is practically unrecyclable. Most polystyrene containers
end up in landfills and incinerators. There are cancer-causing
chemicals that are used during its manufacture. In 1986, the EPA report
on solid waste named polystyrene manufacturing the fifth largest
creator of hazardous waste.
We should adopt the Moran amendment and do it the right way.
Mr. DICKS. Madam Chair, I yield back the balance of my time.
Amendment No. 9 Offered by Mr. Moran
The Acting CHAIR. Pursuant to the order of the House of Thursday,
July 21, 2011, it is now in order to consider amendment No. 9 printed
in House Report 112-173.
Mr. MORAN. Madam Chairman, I have an amendment at the desk.
The Acting CHAIR. The Clerk will designate the amendment.
The text of the amendment is as follows:
At the end of the bill (before the short title) insert the
following:
limitation on use of funds for polystyrene containers
Sec. 211. None of the funds made available in this Act may
be used to obtain polystyrene containers for use in food
service facilities of the House of Representatives.
The Acting CHAIR. Pursuant to House Resolution 359, the gentleman
from Virginia (Mr. Moran) and a Member opposed each will control 5
minutes.
The Chair recognizes the gentleman from Virginia.
Mr. MORAN. Madam Chairman, at the beginning of the year, the House
did away with the composting program that had been part of the Green
the Capitol Initiative. It has been a success. People around the
country were watching it and in fact following the example that we set.
But at the beginning of the year, as I say, the House of
Representatives instituted the use of polystyrene containers instead of
clean, biodegradable material.
My amendment would limit the use of funds made available by this
Legislative Branch appropriations bill to obtain polystyrene products
in our food service facilities. We should show our commitment to the
health of our visitors and our employees and to the future of our
environment. We should lead by example. That's the program that we had
in place until this January.
The House should be using recyclable and biodegradable products and
should be avoiding polystyrene foam packaging. We should be a model
institution for others to follow. As the gentleman from Vermont said,
over 20 years ago, McDonalds and other fast food restaurants replaced
polystyrene foam with recyclable and paperboard containers. Making that
our standard is the least we can do.
The House of Representatives is the only member of the Capitol
Complex to revert to foam packaging. Neither the Senate, the Library of
Congress, nor the Capitol Visitors Center food service centers use
polystyrene products. Congress should be setting the standard for
sustainability in the 21st century. We should be leading by example.
And my amendment provides a way through which we can show that
leadership to the thousands of constituents who visit our offices each
year.
Polystyrene is practically unrecyclable. Most polystyrene containers
end up in landfills or incinerators; and problems with polystyrene
include cancerous chemicals that are used during its manufacture,
minimal recyclability, enormous bulk during disposal, and toxic
byproducts that are released during incineration.
A 1986 EPA report on solid waste named the polystyrene manufacturing
process the fifth largest creator of hazardous waste, and toxic
chemicals leak out of these containers into the food and drink they
contain and endanger the human health and reproductive systems of the
people who visit the Capitol and who work in the Capitol.
{time} 0930
105 Members have sent a letter to House leadership asking that they
eliminate polystyrene from House food service operations. My amendment
would do just that by limiting the funds made available in this act
from being used to obtain polystyrene containers.
I reserve the balance of my time.
Mr. CRENSHAW. Madam Chair, I rise to claim the time in opposition.
The Acting CHAIR. The gentleman from Florida is recognized for 5
minutes.
Mr. CRENSHAW. Madam Chair, I yield myself 1 minute simply to give you
three good reasons why we should defeat this amendment.
Number one, it really doesn't do anything because we don't spend any
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money in this bill for House restaurant services. They are funded
through a revolving trust fund, and that money comes from another
source. So it wouldn't have any impact in the first place.
Number two, if it did have any impact, all it would do is raise the
cost of everything in the restaurants, which would be passed on to the
folks. That's not a great thing, to spend more money.
Number three, my last good reason, the gentleman mentioned that this
year there was a bipartisan letter from the chairman of the House
Administration Committee along with the ranking member to say we tried
this program and we're going to end it.
So for those three reasons, I think it is appropriate to vote ``no.''
I reserve the balance of my time.
Mr. MORAN. Madam Chair, with regard to the argument that the
gentlemen makes, first of all it seems to me that we should set
ourselves on record, and the appropriations bill is the ultimate source
of funding for the Capitol complex. But the argument that this will
save money it seems to me is deficient when we are talking about human
health. I mean, we could choose not to spend money on purifying our
water. We'd save a lot of money. Just let people drink out of the tap
or get their water wherever. But we feel that the health of our
employees and our constituents who visit us is important enough that we
should spend that extra money.
Science is telling us that, in fact, toxics leak from this material
into the food and the drink that our employees and our constituents are
using. We may not be as fully aware of that, but we know that
polystyrene is a toxic material. It seems to me we should err on the
side of caution, particularly when the health of our employees and our
constituents is concerned.
I reserve the balance of my time.
Mr. CRENSHAW. Madam Chair, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from
California, Chairman Lungren, the chairman of the House Administration
Committee and the author of the letter that ended the program in
January.
Mr. DANIEL E. LUNGREN of California. I thank the gentleman for
yielding.
Let me just reiterate, this came to my attention as chairman of the
House Administration Committee when we received a letter from the
Democratic side of the aisle as part of the transition team
recommending that we discontinue this part of the greening initiative
process, Greening the Capitol process; that is, this one did not work.
It was a Democrat who told us we ought to get rid of it.
So once I heard that, I also heard complaints from both Democratic
and Republican Members of the House and their staffs that the
recyclable utensils we had didn't work--didn't work--and they asked for
something that did work. And so we cancelled the program.
This idea about Styrofoam being a real health hazard, Linda Birnbaum,
who is the toxicologist who heads the government agency that declared
styrene a likely cancer risk, said this: Let me put your mind at ease
right away about Styrofoam. In finished products, certainly styrene is
not an issue.
The gentleman has said, and the other gentleman from Vermont said,
that we ought to follow McDonald's. They no longer have this product.
Well, yesterday my staff went out and got this product from McDonald's,
which is Styrofoam; and got this product from McDonald's, which is
Styrofoam; and got this product from McDonald's, which is Styrofoam. So
I don't know where they get this information.
Lastly, they should understand that polystyrene is approved as safe
for use in food service by the FDA. Anything that contains food product
that comes into contact with individuals must be approved by the FDA.
This is approved by the FDA.
Also, this week we are receiving bids back from our request for
proposal on trying to get a waste energy recycling program to get rid
of the waste that we have here on the Hill. This is to turn it into
energy by way of heat energy and capture any of the offensive by-
products that may be produced. This is what we are doing.
Look, you can have good science and you can have bad science. You can
have smart science and you can have dumb science. You can have science
or you can have no science. Now, I'm not sure which of the latter
categories this proposal falls into, but it's not science. Science
suggests that this is something that ought to be appropriate.
There are any number of producers of polystyrene in Members'
districts around this country. There are 2,100 users of it. This
amounts to billions of dollars and thousands of jobs, tens of thousands
of jobs, 8,000 just in California alone.
So once again, we are using bad science to scare people. And what's
the impact? It's going to cost more money. I approved of this program
because it saves a half a million dollars in a single year--half a
million dollars. It will save energy, and we will have literally no
residue when we move from waste to energy production. It's a win/win/
win situation.
By the way, members of our staffs have thanked me for doing this.
They now have utensils that actually are usable.
Mr. MORAN. Madam Chair, first of all, the letter that was sent did
not request polystyrene products by any means. It was referring to
another product that was corn based. Certainly Mr. Brady was not
recommending dangerous Styrofoam material.
The Acting CHAIR. The time of the gentleman has expired.
Mr. CRENSHAW. Madam Chairman, I yield the balance of my time to the
gentleman from California (Mr. Calvert), a member of the subcommittee.
Mr. CALVERT. Madam Chairman, before I came here to Congress, I was in
the restaurant business. We had to please the customers that we served.
We certainly couldn't give them an inferior product. Only in
Washington, D.C., would we spend more and get less. The gentleman from
California has referenced $500,000 a year more in cost, and if you did
a survey of the people who used those products, it would be dismal.
I had the experience of putting a fork in a hot piece of meat one
day, and it melted. That is ridiculous. We in Congress should not give
inferior products to people who work here and serve here, and spend
more money for it.
So with that, Madam Chairman, let's just do the commonsense thing
here and get a product that works and spend less money.
Mr. CRENSHAW. I yield back the balance of my time.
The Acting CHAIR. The question is on the amendment offered by the
gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Moran).
The question was taken; and the Acting Chair announced that the noes
appeared to have it.
Mr. MORAN. Madam Chair, I demand a recorded vote.
The Acting CHAIR. Pursuant to clause 6 of rule XVIII, further
proceedings on the amendment offered by the gentleman from Virginia
will be postponed.
Mr. CRENSHAW. Madam Chairman, I move that the Committee do now rise.
The motion was agreed to.
Accordingly, the Committee rose; and the Speaker pro tempore (Mr.
Daniel E. Lungren of California) having assumed the chair, Mrs.
Biggert, Acting Chair of the Committee of the Whole House on the state
of the Union, reported that that Committee, having had under
consideration the bill (H.R. 2551) making appropriations for the
Legislative Branch for the fiscal year ending September 30, 2012, and
for other purposes, had come to no resolution thereon.
____________________