[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 145 (1999), Part 3]
[House]
[Pages 3640-3644]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                  ISSUES AFFECTING THE PEOPLE OF GUAM

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Pease). Under the Speaker's announced 
policy of January 6, 1999, the gentleman from Guam (Mr. Underwood) is 
recognized for 60 minutes.
  Mr. UNDERWOOD. Mr. Speaker, I take the floor today in the course of a 
special order to try to draw some attention to issues which affect the 
people I represent, the people of Guam.
  Mr. Speaker, Guam is a small island about 9,000 miles from here. It 
has 150,000 proud U.S. citizens and offers the United States a transit 
point through which military power is projected into that part of the 
world. It is a cornerstone of America's projection of its military 
strength in Asia and the Pacific.
  Guam has a $10 billion military infrastructure. Our island is 
primarily influenced by Asian economic trends, and we have a fair-sized 
economy for a population of 150,000.

                              {time}  1530

  We have a $3 billion economy that is fueled primarily by tourism. We 
had over 1.2 million tourists last year, we anticipate, and we 
certainly hope that we will get more.
  In the course of trying to represent a territory of the United 
States, the furthest territory from Washington, D.C., and in the course 
of trying to represent some very special and unique conditions which 
affect the people I represent, it becomes necessary to try to get some 
time to enter into the record and to provide some information for those 
people who happen to be watching some information about the kinds of 
issues that affect the people of Guam.
  I certainly would like to take the time to start off by talking about 
a very special congressional delegation that went to Guam last month. 
In February, there was a Pacific congressional delegation headed by the 
gentleman from Alaska (Mr. Young), who is the chairman of the Committee 
on Resources. He took a delegation which included the gentleman from 
California (Mr. Rohrabacher), the gentleman from California (Mr. 
Doolittle), the

[[Page 3641]]

gentleman from Minnesota (Mr. Peterson), the gentleman from California 
(Mr. Calvert), the gentleman from American Samoa (Mr. Faleomavaega), 
the gentlewoman from the Virgin Islands (Ms. Christensen), and myself 
through a four-stop trip in the Pacific.
  The Committee on Resources, of which the gentleman from Alaska (Mr. 
Young) is chair, is the committee of jurisdiction and responsibility 
over the insular areas.
  I want to take the time to thank the members of the congressional 
delegation for taking time from a very busy schedule in order to go out 
to the Pacific. I think sometimes people think of these as trips that 
are taken at a very leisurely pace and that not much is learned. But 
inasmuch as there is a great deal, perhaps, of misinformation or a lack 
of understanding or firsthand knowledge about the insular areas, I took 
it as a great opportunity to do a little teaching about the Pacific. I 
can testify that flying all over the Pacific, in which time is measured 
in hours of flight time, cannot be very pleasant when you make 
basically six stops in the course of 10 days.
  In the course of the CODELs, the congressional delegation trips, they 
happened to stop, of course, on Guam. They went to American Samoa, 
Guam, Saipan in the Commonwealth of the Northern Marianas, and Majuro 
in the Republic of the Marshall Islands.
  In the course of stopping in Guam, I would like to say publicly that 
I certainly appreciate the work of Governor Guiterrez and many of the 
people on Guam who made the visit most pleasant, I think, for the 
CODEL, the Members, the spouses that attended, as well as the staff 
that went.
  Politics on Guam is very different than politics here. Sometimes when 
we try to deal with issues, we run into roadblocks of misunderstanding. 
It is very difficult to try to get the sense or try to explain the 
sense of the kinds of situations that we confront.
  Yet, in the course of the congressional delegation visit, we did have 
the opportunity to have a forum between locally elected leaders, the 
Governor, members of the Guam legislature and Members of Congress to 
have a dialogue, a roundtable discussion on some major issues. I would 
like to simply address a few of those issues.
  One is political status. Guam is an unincorporated territory of the 
United States. This goes back to a distinction made and rulings made by 
the Supreme Court called the insular cases in which a distinction was 
made between so-called incorporated territories and unincorporated 
territories.
  Unincorporated territories are those areas over which the United 
States has sovereignty but which are not destined or are not promised 
or there is no implied promise for becoming States. This is to make a 
distinction of what was going on in the 19th century with areas of 
Oklahoma or Arizona or New Mexico which were territories almost always 
seen as States in waiting.
  The problem with unincorporated territories is, realistically, as it 
stands now, unless we are able to conceptualize a new model for 
governance and participation in the system, unincorporated territories 
have very few options, particularly the smaller ones have very few 
options, in order to be able to participate in the making of laws which 
govern their lives.
  Unincorporated territories are territories that are represented here, 
one is not even represented here, the Commonwealth of the Northern 
Mariana Islands, represented here by individuals like myself who are 
not voting Members of Congress.
  Consequently, the people that we represent have no real meaningful 
participation in the making of laws which apply to the territories. 
Most of the laws apply to the territories in the same way that they 
apply to other areas.
  Moreover, even though the President is our president as much as any 
other American citizen, we do not vote for president. And, of course, 
the executive branch of the Federal Government and all its various 
agencies issue regulations which in the main are applicable to the 
territories in the same way that they are applied to the 50 States and 
the District of Columbia.
  As a consequence, it is always an issue to try to figure out what is 
the long-term process for resolving this situation, because it is a 
situation which every American citizen must come to grips with at some 
time. That is, how do you extend the meaning of the phrase concept of 
the governed to some 4 million Americans for whom that phrase is not 
fully implemented? It is easy to say to aspire to statehood. Perhaps, 
Puerto Rico, because of its size and its proximity and the relative 
numbers that are at work there, it is easy to say that statehood is an 
option.
  But for an area like Guam or the Virgin Islands or American Samoa or 
the Northern Mariana Islands, that is not often seen as an option. Yet, 
there is no alternative given in order to find a fuller way to 
participate in the American body politic. So, as a consequence, these 
are issues that are always just below the surface on any given issue.
  It comes to the surface on some very difficult things, like the 
establishment of a fish and wildlife refuge on Guam to deal with 
endangered species. This was a law that was passed in the U.S. Congress 
and applied to Guam in the same way that it applied to the 50 States, 
even though the people of Guam may not want the refuge. And in this 
instance, they do not, even though the source of the problem is the 
application of a law in which the people of Guam have no meaningful 
participation.
  So there are a number of issues which were raised. First of all, we 
dealt with political status, and we hope that we can continue the 
dialogue on this. We hope that the Committee on Resources will see fit 
to try to establish new models for governance, new ways in order to 
establish meaningful participation for citizens who do not participate 
in the formation of laws which govern their lives. They do not elect a 
president who is, nevertheless, their president in every sense of the 
word.
  One of the main issues that is always raised in the context of Guam 
is excess lands. These are military lands. The military condemned 
approximately 40 percent of the land in Guam in the immediate post-
World War II era in order to establish a network of military bases 
which were subsequently used to prosecute further World War II, to 
fight the Korean War, to win the Cold War.
  But, basically, those lands were condemned by military officials 
under authority of this Congress when there were no representatives 
from Guam at that time, not even a nonvoting representative.
  If there was anyone who wanted to contest that process of 
condemnation, they had to take their case in front of a military court. 
It was a closed system. It was a closed system, a very un-American 
system, but a system that was specifically authorized by Congress. It 
could be authorized by Congress because, under the Constitution, 
Congress could pass virtually any kind of law it sees fit with respect 
to the territories.
  So one of the issues is that today, as the military downsizes, as it 
changes its needs, is how to get as many lands back to the government 
of Guam at no cost, back to the people of Guam at no cost.
  This is very different than any other circumstance that may be 
experienced in any other area of the United States. These lands were 
condemned by military courts primarily for a military purpose. Now that 
they no longer serve a military purpose, they should go back to the 
people of Guam.
  Moreover, the government of Guam should be granted the option, if 
feasible, to return some of the land that they do get back to the 
original land owners. And this is a much contentious issue across a 
number of lines, because there are many bureaucracies in Washington who 
fear that this will create some precedence which would make it 
difficult to deal with excess lands in other parts of the United 
States.
  But, again, given Guam's unique experience, given the fact that we 
must do what is right for the people of Guam and that we must do what 
is right in correcting this historical injustice, I think we should 
draft a provision which allows for that.
  Another item which has surfaced also in the course of the discussions 
is the

[[Page 3642]]

rate of illegal immigration into Guam, primarily from China. I would 
like to discuss that at length a little bit later in this special 
order.
  Lastly, compact-impact aid. It is useful to have a little geography 
lesson about Guam. Guam is roughly 3,500 miles west of Hawaii, about 7 
hours flying time. It is in the middle of a group of islands that 
geographically are called Micronesia. Most of Micronesia was under a 
trust territory arrangement from the United Nations called the Trust 
Territory of the Pacific Islands.
  Emerging out of that old Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands are 
three new independent nations that are in free association with the 
United States. These new nations are called compact states. They are 
called FAS, Freely Associated States. These are the Republic of Palau, 
the Federated States of Micronesia, and the Republic of the Marshalls.
  They have their own representation in the United Nations. They have 
ambassadors who are here in Washington, D.C. The United States has 
ambassadors that are in those three areas of Micronesia.
  Yet, because they share a very special relationship, they are the 
only independent countries in the world that are allowed free migration 
into the United States. I believe that that is a good policy. In 
general, it is a good policy. But because of the proximity of Guam, 
most of these migrants end up either in Guam, the vast majority end up 
in Guam. Some end up in Hawaii. A few go on to the U.S. mainland.
  As part of this treaty between the Freely Associated States and the 
United States of America, which is a freely negotiated treaty, the 
United States basically granted these nations the right to freely 
migrate. The people of Guam were not a party to those negotiations. In 
fact, because of their status as an unincorporated territory, they 
could not vote on that in the full House proceedings that occurred 
here.
  So, as a consequence, one can say that the obligation, the 
fulfillment of this promise made by the United States Government falls 
on the people of Guam. Today, as we speak, approximately 10 percent of 
the population of Guam are these migrants who come to Guam, who have no 
restrictions, no visa requirements, no monitoring, and they are simply 
allowed.
  When the compacts were passed, the U.S. Congress did put a statement 
in there that the social and educational costs of the migration of 
these people into the territories like Guam, they were mindful that 
something like this would happen, would be reimbursed by the Federal 
Government.
  Well, guess what? The first compacts were negotiated and implemented 
in 1985 and 1986. It has gone on almost 15 years. The government 
annually estimates that these social and educational costs, because of 
the disparity in medical treatment opportunities between Guam and the 
other areas, because of the disparity in educational and health 
services, that we estimate that this figure is about anywhere between 
$15 million and $20 million a year since 1986. But, today, the U.S. 
Government only reimburses the people of Guam $4.5 million.
  So we are very concerned about this. We took the opportunity to 
explain it to the Members of Congress who took the time to come to Guam 
and also took the time to recognize the work in this process and the 
fulfillment of a long-time commitment by the gentleman from Alaska (Mr. 
Young) to go out to Guam and personally listen to the problems.

                              {time}  1545

  I am also pleased to note that the gentleman from Alaska (Mr. Don 
Young), the chairman of the Committee on Resources, has agreed to try 
to work with me on some legislation, a kind of an omnibus bill for 
Guam.
  In that omnibus bill there are some provisions that we would like to 
put in. One is to correct an anomaly in Guam's Supreme Court. Because 
the territories are governed by an organic act, or an organizing act, 
this is the basic law that governs the government of Guam or the 
government of the Virgin Islands.
  These organic acts are passed by Congress. They are not passed by the 
people in those territories. And so if we want to seek a change to 
them, we have to come to Congress to make those changes.
  Guam was allowed to have its own Supreme Court, but because of the 
way it was worded, it ends up that a lower court, the Superior Court, 
actually has control over the court system. This is a good-sense 
measure. It violates most of the ways that the States and other 
territories run their court systems. If my colleagues can imagine that 
a district court or one of the Federal circuit courts would have more 
control over the court system than the U.S. Supreme Court, that is the 
situation we have on Guam, and we can correct that with a change in the 
organic act.
  Also in a proposed omnibus bill we want to put the government of 
Guam, the people of Guam, at the head of the line when excess land is 
declared by the Federal Government. As it stands now, and as it stands 
in most areas, when there is Federal excess lands which the Federal 
Government no longer needs, they offer it to other Federal agencies 
first. So if the Department of Defense had a runway that they no longer 
needed, they would simply check out all the other Federal agencies. 
Obviously, when they do that, to be sure, one or more Federal agencies 
are going to find a use for it.
  So what our legislation would do and what we would like to put into 
the Guam omnibus act is legislation which would treat the government of 
Guam as a Federal agency and put them at the head of the line whenever 
any Federal agency declares that land is to be excess.
  Given the nature of how this land was originally taken, condemned by 
military authorities under a grant of authority by Congress and 
condemned by military authorities and adjudicated in courts presided 
over by people in uniform, a closed system, it is only fair that we 
provide the opportunity for the people of Guam to have first crack at 
the return of excess lands.
  In addition, another provision we would like to put in an omnibus 
bill, a bill to correct many of these inequities which the people of 
Guam experience, we would like to put in a requirement in which the 
Department of Interior will make a report and provide statistical 
information and monitor the flow of migrants from the Freely Associated 
States. And that, moreover, in fulfilling this requirement, they make 
an estimate about the costs that are involved in terms of providing 
these migrants who come to Guam, and who come to other places inside 
the United States, the cost of taking care of their social needs and 
their educational needs.
  The other item which I would like to talk about and take some time on 
is about the rash of illegal immigration which has come to Guam. Guam 
is approximately, if one were to take a flight direct to Hong Kong, is 
approximately 4 flying hours to Hong Kong, but that represents a great 
expanse of ocean.
  Last year in particular, and this year already, Guam has experienced 
a surge in Chinese illegal immigration. As a result, ironically, of 
some liberalization in internal policies inside China as well as the 
economic problems they are experiencing and a very skillfully organized 
crime syndicate inside China, there has been a rash of Chinese illegal 
immigrants coming into Guam.
  The rundown of events is shocking to a place that has only 150,000 
people. Last year, we estimated that about 700 illegal Chinese 
immigrants found their way to Guam, and this year the Coast Guard 
estimates that anywhere between 1,200 and 1,700 will find their way to 
Guam in 1999.
  Last year, on May 11, 10 Chinese illegals were dropped off at Ylig 
Bay. On May 20, two people were arrested in connection with the Ylig 
Bay incident. On May 22, 24 Chinese illegals and three smugglers were 
apprehended off of Guam's eastern shore. On June 8, 75 Chinese 
nationals were apprehended off of Tanguisson. On June 18, a federally 
funded report on the Commonwealth of the Northern Marianas, our 
neighbors

[[Page 3643]]

to the north, found that some 200 Chinese citizens were smuggled from 
Saipan to Guam and are in various stages of a political asylum process. 
On June 26, 12 of the Chinese nationals caught at Tanguisson on June 8 
were discovered to have hepatitis B. On September 15, 48 Chinese 
illegals were apprehended off Mangilao. On December 25, Christmas day, 
11 suspected Chinese illegals were apprehended near Guam Reef Hotel, 
which is a big hotel, and it is in the middle of a tourist area. It has 
become even more brazen as times goes on.
  It is important to understand that this rash of Chinese illegal 
immigrants is very unlike what we normally think of as a source of 
illegal immigration. Most of us think, and, quite honestly, I myself am 
very sympathetic with many illegal immigrants who come to this country, 
because they usually come as people who are in economically destitute 
situations, who are simply trying to find a new way of life, trying to 
find a way to economically improve themselves. If they find a way to 
cross the border to our southwest and they find a way to get a job, 
eventually, many of them, if they find a way to live through all of 
that, become quite successful in living inside the United States.
  Now, I am not advocating illegal immigration, but that is what we 
normally think of as the kind of illegal immigration.
  The kind of illegal immigration that is occurring in Guam from China 
is very different. This is part of a well-orchestrated, highly-
organized criminal network operating inside Fujian Province, inside 
China, in which the people will go out and buy a very decrepit fishing 
boat that will barely survive an extended journey, which takes anywhere 
between 18 to 22 sailing days to get to Guam. They will load these 
people up, take them off to a point off of Guam, and then, through some 
coordination with people onshore, they will ferry them in by smaller 
boats and then, hopefully, once they get caught, and almost all of them 
do get caught, they will claim political asylum. Then the process of 
adjudicating these asylum requests ensures that, by and large, most of 
them will stay on.
  These people who are coming to Guam's shores in this way are 
responsible for coughing up anywhere between $8,000 and $10,000 each. 
If they are taken all the way to North America, they are responsible 
for coming up with about $35,000 each. A boatload, a decrepit fishing 
boat that can take and move them from the coast of China illegally.
  The People's Republic of China is not encouraging this. They are a 
little embarrassed by it, frankly, but this is the work of criminal 
organizations.
  They will take that boat and move them to Guam. But they barely get 
to Guam or they barely get near the coast of Guam, and they are usually 
diseased by that time or diseased to begin with. Many of them are 
beaten. Many of them are living in holds that are meant for catching 
tuna, and so they live in some shocking conditions.
  I got a complete briefing on this by the U.S. Coast Guard, and it is 
a scandal as to how these people are being treated.
  Most of them are men in their 20s. And the reason why most of them 
are men in their 20s is because they really do become indentured 
servants once they get in the United States because they have to pay 
off an enormous debt. So this is a planned criminal activity which 
preys upon human hope and practices human misery.
  And then, at the other end of it, once they get in the United States, 
there is planned indentured servitude which goes on for year after year 
after year. So this whole stream of criminal activity that affects my 
constituency on Guam is part of a planned criminal network.
  In order to deal with it, I have introduced legislation which will 
take Guam out of the INA, the Immigration and Naturalization Act, for 
purposes of easy political asylum. Now, what that means is that if, for 
example, the Chinese illegal immigrants come to Guam and they are 
caught, and invariably all of them will be caught in one way or 
another, because Guam is not a very large place. And if an individual 
is Chinese and does not speak much English, someone will notice. When 
they are caught, they are then instructed to claim some kind of asylum. 
Under existing INA laws, the immigration officers are very limited in 
their flexibility to deal with that.
  I am not proposing that we eliminate political asylum all together, 
because there is a minimum standard which we must adhere to as a 
country no matter where political asylees come from. And there may be, 
in the future, legitimate claims for political asylum. But what we have 
to do is pass a law which gives the INS officers the flexibility to 
say, no, this individual is part of a criminal process trading in human 
misery, and what we are going to do is we are going to detain this 
individual until we find a way to get them back to China.
  And if we do that, even if we are allowed to do that with one 
boatload, then that will be enough deterrence for the people who are 
making money off of this human misery to know that that route for them 
is closed.
  It is a very sad commentary on what goes on in that part of the 
world, but it is important to understand that the loophole that we are 
trying to close is not borne out of an opposition to political asylum. 
Rather it is the utilization of political asylum to advance a criminal 
agenda. The only people who make money off of this enterprise are not 
even the individual illegal immigrants themselves but rather the 
criminals who organize this network.
  If they can get a decrepit fishing boat for $100,000 and charge this 
human cargo of misery and get them to Guam, they can make $5 million on 
that as they go through that process. And the inducement to that, the 
incentive to that, the conduit for that is basically existing 
immigration and naturalization, the existing INA Act as applied on 
Guam.
  Now, the reason, going back to Guam's status as an unincorporated 
territory, that we can make a change in the law which gives INS 
officers this kind of flexibility on Guam but not that kind of 
flexibility in other areas, is because Guam is not part of the United 
States for all purposes. So trying to utilize that flexibility in order 
to deal with an immediate situation is something that I think is widely 
supported on Guam and certainly widely supported even by the law 
enforcement agents that are working on this.
  It is important to understand that sometimes many of us do not think 
of the U.S. Coast Guard as particularly hazardous duty, but the Coast 
Guard has to interdict these vessels and they are facing some very 
rough situations.

                              {time}  1600

  They are dealing with some criminal organizations and people who are 
very desperate and there has been some very serious, violent incidents 
at sea as a result of this. I want to publicly acknowledge the work of 
the Coast Guard and also call on the Coast Guard to devote more 
resources to the Pacific area in order to deal with this. As part of a 
package which I am not sure of its current status here in the House but 
there is an emergency package, the Central American and Caribbean 
Relief Act which is supposed to be marked up today, I am not sure that 
it was, but in that they are hoping to give some money to INS in order 
to deal with the immigrant situation which occurred as a result of 
Hurricane Mitch in Central America. A little part of that funding is 
going to go to deal with the Guam situation and so I am hopeful that 
that package passes here in the House and eventually in the other body. 
What INS has done on Guam is with one group of 80 Chinese illegal 
immigrants found in Guam in January, is because INS had no more funds 
to adjudicate them, to prosecute them, no more funds to detain them, 
they decided to turn them loose on Guam. Many of these people have 
hepatitis, many of these people suffer from tuberculosis and almost all 
of them test positive for tuberculosis, so all of them have had contact 
with TB. Because of our concern on Guam, the government of Guam has 
willingly taken up the cause for detaining them.
  That is our situation with the illegal immigrant problem. I want to 
stress

[[Page 3644]]

again so that this legislation which I have proposed not be 
misunderstood. There is a minimum threshold which is internationally 
recognized, how nations are supposed to deal with people who make 
political asylum claims. The United States in its wisdom has a more 
generous threshold on that. And so when INS officers are confronted 
with this claim, they have limited movement, limited freedom of action 
in order to deal with it. In our case, because these illegal immigrants 
are basically part of a network of criminal activities, they are all 
men in their 20s, they are carefully selected because these men will 
work for many, many years and will continue to pump money back into the 
crime syndicate which brought them over, it is important that we remove 
that incentive for the time being in order to deal with this and to end 
this problem. I would add that this is a growing problem not only in 
Guam although Guam is the first part but even as far away as the Virgin 
Islands, there are incidents once in a while in which there are people 
being smuggled in from China by criminal organizations. This is a 
widespread problem. In our case I think it makes sense to try to deal 
with it in the way that I have just outlined.
  Lastly, I would like to address a problem very briefly which affects 
everyone, and, that is, the Y2K problem. I think our contemporary world 
is ever more dependent on computers to assist with and manage our daily 
lives. From the ATM machine to the desktop PC, to the pacemaker, to air 
traffic control systems, computers and their myriad of programs all 
work in concert to make our lives better and more productive. On my 
home island of Guam, computers have improved mass communication with 
the U.S. mainland and overseas areas in all facets of life, law, 
business, government, commerce, military, trade, transportation and 
perhaps most important for us, staying in touch with our families 
wherever they may be throughout the world. Because our lives on Guam 
are so intertwined with computers, the year 2000 or the Y2K problem may 
pose quite a crippling problem to many communities. I want to point out 
that the year 2000 will first be experienced on Guam, 15 hours before 
it will be experienced here. So if we are going to get some computer 
glitches, we are going to feel them in Guam right away.
  The Y2K problem was created by a programming oversight. As a result 
of an archaic, two-digit dating system in computer software and 
hardware, vital systems may be knocked off-line on January 1, 2000, 
creating cyber-havoc for many. This concern has led the General 
Accounting Office to elect the Y2K problem to the top of the ``high 
risk'' list for every Federal agency.
  There exists a Congressional Research Service report, requested at 
the behest of Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan over 3 years ago, dealing 
with the implications of the Y2K problem. The report states, among 
other things, that the year 2000 problem is a serious problem and the 
cost of rectifying it will indeed be rather high.
  Now, the Federal Government, and we have heard about this and read 
about it almost on a daily basis, has become rather proficient in 
getting its agencies and its departments to comply with the inevitable 
reprogramming that is required to fix this bug. But not without some 
effort. Both the Senate and the House have truly taken the lead on this 
pressing issue. Under the gentle prodding of Senators Moynihan, Bennett 
and Dodd as well as the gentleman from California (Mr. Horn), the 
President appointed a Y2K Council to get the government, the U.S. 
Government, the Federal Government, focused on this issue. They have 
done well enough that many citizens do not fear the end of the year 
despite the rhetoric of many doomsayers. That said, to paraphrase 
Robert frost, we have many miles yet to go before we sleep.
  Up until today, States, territories and local authorities have been 
left to their own devices in terms of fixing the year 2000 problem. 
While most of the Federal Government's critical services may be Y2K 
compliant by January 1, 2000, many of the States and local 
jurisdictions will not be. This includes Guam and other territories. In 
Guam, for example, the local Office of the Public Auditor recently 
released a study outlining the territorial Y2K problem. While some of 
the government of Guam's departments are Y2K compliant ahead of 
schedule, many are not. Guam's Department of Public Works and 
Department of Public Health and Social Services, both lifeblood 
agencies for both Guam's public infrastructure and poor and 
handicapped, do not have enough money or are behind in scheduling and 
performing Y2K conversions. The story is the same throughout the 
country in many cities, counties, towns and territories: time is 
running out or the money has already run out.
  The bill which I have introduced today will establish a program that 
will allow States and territories to apply for funding to initiate Y2K 
conversions of State computer systems which distribute Federal money 
for vital welfare programs such as Medicaid, food stamps, supplemental 
nutrition program for women, infants and children, better known as WIC; 
child support enforcement, child care and child welfare, and Temporary 
Assistance for Needy Families, better known as TANF. Through the 
application of Y2K technical assistance funds for these programs, we 
can ensure that the lifeblood of many of the poorest Americans will not 
be disrupted by the turn of the calendar.
  This vital legislation, which I have introduced today, is the House 
companion bill to the Moynihan-Bennett-Dodd bill, S. 174 as introduced 
in the Senate. We have modified the original Senate vehicle to ensure 
that the territories and the District of Columbia will not be excluded 
from this important program, an apparent and accidental oversight of 
the Senate version. I will not tell my colleagues how many oversights 
we have experienced similar to those, but certainly those of us from 
the territories are always cognizant of the fact that many legislative 
items do not address our needs until we take specific action to take 
care of that. I urge all of my colleagues to support this bipartisan 
and fiscally responsible and necessary legislation. I would like to 
thank the gentlewoman from the Virgin Islands (Mrs. Christian-
Christensen), the gentlewoman from the District of Columbia (Ms. 
Norton), the gentleman from Puerto Rico (Mr. Romero-Barcelo) and the 
gentleman from American Samoa (Mr. Faleomavaega) for lending their 
support as the representatives from non-State areas of the United 
States. Finally, I want to especially thank the gentleman from 
California (Mr. Horn) and Senators Moynihan, Bennett and Dodd for 
taking the lead on educating all Americans on the Y2K problem as well 
as legislating wise solutions to ameliorate its potentially harmful 
effects. This is good legislation. I think it deserves careful scrutiny 
in order to assist local governments that deal primarily with Federal 
programs to make sure that there are no glitches in the system as we 
celebrate the end of 1999.
  Again I want to reiterate, I want to express my personal gratitude to 
the gentleman from Alaska (Mr. Young) and all the Members of Congress 
who went on the congressional delegation to the Pacific areas to try to 
deal with some of the problems, to understand some of the problems 
experienced by Guam, the Northern Marianas, American Samoa, and the 
Republic of the Marshalls, which was kind of a State visit. These 
islands represent a marvelous part of the world, a part of the world 
that is frequently romanticized and sometimes misunderstood. These are 
real people with real-life stories and compelling stories to tell. All 
of them have made an enormous contribution to the United States in one 
way or another and are deserving of the respect and dignity of human 
beings and U.S. citizens everywhere.

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