[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 146 (2000), Part 15]
[House]
[Pages 22355-22360]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]



          FURTHER CONTINUING APPROPRIATIONS, FISCAL YEAR 2001

  Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Mr. Speaker, pursuant to House Resolution 627, 
I call up the joint resolution (H.J. Res. 111) making further 
continuing appropriations for the fiscal year 2001, and for other 
purposes, and ask for its immediate consideration in the House.
  The Clerk read the title of the joint resolution.
  The text of House Joint Resolution 111 is as follows:

                             H.J. Res. 111

       Resolved by the Senate and House of Representatives of the 
     United States of America in Congress assembled, That Public 
     Law 106-275, is further amended by striking ``October 13, 
     2000'' in section 106(c) and inserting in lieu thereof 
     ``October 20, 2000''.

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Pursuant to House Resolution 627, the 
gentleman from Florida (Mr. Young) and the gentleman from Wisconsin 
(Mr. Obey) each will control 30 minutes.
  The Chair recognizes the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Young).
  Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may 
consume.
  Mr. Speaker, the continuing resolution before us is the third one for 
this fiscal year. It would continue the original CR until October 20.
  I might say and remind my colleagues that the House has passed all of 
the appropriations bills earlier this year, but because of conference 
meetings that needed to be taken care of and meetings with the White 
House, we have not concluded that business.
  However, I am also happy to report that there is considerable 
movement, I believe, in the other body that we will see today, and 
hopefully we will be able to conclude this appropriations business next 
week in the House and in the other body.
  So I merely ask the support of the Members to conclude this CR today 
so we can pass it on to the Senate and then get about our business.
  Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 13\1/2\ minutes.
  Mr. Speaker, what I say is meant in no way to criticize the gentleman 
from Florida, because he has been one of the few realistic voices on 
the other side of the aisle trying to point out what the realities are.
  But the fact is, this is, what, the third continuing resolution that 
we have had. The budget is supposed to be done on October 1. We are now 
getting much closer to November 1 than we are to October 1. What have 
we seen? We have seen bill after bill emerge from conference which have 
wound up spending much more money than is in the President's budget.
  Those bills have virtually no relationship whatsoever to the budget 
resolution which was laid out at the beginning of the year. Yet, we 
have no real progress in meeting the needs that we feel on this side of 
the aisle with respect to the most crucial issue remaining in the 
budget, which is education.
  We also have seen, although one of the appropriation bills tries to 
provide a fig leaf on this issue, we have seen this Congress take no 
action on prescription drugs. We have seen this Congress take no action 
on the Patients' Bill of Rights. Both of those issues are still pending 
in one form or another in various appropriation bills. Yet, none of 
them have any real prospect of being dealt with by this Congress before 
we adjourn.

[[Page 22356]]

  Now we are being asked to support another week's extension of the 
deadline for finishing our business. Frankly, I have about had it. I 
think the White House has, too. I do not expect to stand on this floor 
and support any further continuing resolutions for more than one or two 
days at a time. I do not believe it makes sense for us to continue to 
drift along in this fashion.
  What I sense is happening is that there is apparently a slow but 
nonetheless stealthy plan to avoid our ever facing the hard votes on 
education or on the Patients' Bill of Rights or on meaningful reform of 
Medicare to include a prescription drug benefit. I do not believe that 
this Congress should leave this city until we have dealt with all 
three.
  I do not say that because these happen to just be pet issues of mine. 
I say that because America has always been, to me, defined by two 
things. We have been defined by our passion for individual liberty, and 
we have also been defined by our determination to see to it that the 
experiences that we have in this country are shared experiences, and 
that whether we are in good times or in troubled times, we are all in 
it together.
  That is why we have had traditionally such strong support for 
American institutions and for the American democratic process by each 
and every one of our citizens.
  Mr. Speaker, the reason that education is important and the reason 
prescription drugs are important and the reason the Patients' Bill of 
Rights are important is because without actions like that, large 
segments of our population feel that they have been and are being left 
out of the blessings and benefits of this society.
  There is no society in the world more blessed than is the society of 
the United States. We have been given more riches, more natural beauty, 
more geographic insulation from the trouble spots of the world than any 
other Nation in the history of the globe.
  Yet, in my view, this Congress is failing to live up to the 
traditions of some of the great Congresses in the past in seeing to it 
that we take these benefits and make certain that everyone has a decent 
share.
  The problem that we have, and it is why I voted against the energy 
bill, for instance, is because that bill spent a lot of money, but it 
spent it in no context. There are no rules that describe at this point 
what will be spent or how far we can go in spending. But we wind up, we 
wind up still refusing to act on the administration's education 
priorities.
  Now, the majority party has decided that in two areas of education, 
they are going to put a significant amount of money. One is special 
education, and the other is Pell grants.
  I applaud those two actions. I am fully willing to embrace those 
priorities. I just wish that the other side would be willing to embrace 
our priorities.
  I would call the attention of Mr. Bush to the actions of this 
Congress. Mr. Bush in debates the past 2 weeks has talked a lot about 
education, and he has talked about the bipartisan leadership that he 
would like to extend to this place. I think bipartisan leadership 
starts by having effective control of one's own party.
  It seems to me that right now we could use some help from Mr. Bush, 
because this Congress, while it is providing large amounts of money 
across-the-board in many areas, is continuing to resist the necessary 
actions to really make progress in reducing class size, to really make 
progress in training our teachers, to really make progress in providing 
a significant number of additional after-school centers so that our 
young children, if they are in a family where they have two parents 
working outside the home, so they have someplace to go after 2:30 or 3 
in the afternoon where they can be under adult supervision and be in an 
atmosphere where they can learn.

                              {time}  1045

  All of these things ought to be embraced by both parties, but we are 
not seeing them embraced by the majority party in this House.
  And so I stand here this morning frustrated because we have a lot of 
rhetoric that tries to place everyone on the side of education, but 
this Congress, having a record, under the majority party's leadership, 
having a record the last 6 years of trying to cut billions of dollars 
out of previous years' expenditures for education. They are now 
building on that record by trying to block a further expansion of 
education initiatives that reflect needed national priorities which the 
administration has taken as its own. To me, that is the major problem 
with this continuing resolution today.
  I do not see any purpose in kicking the can further down the road on 
these continuing resolutions if we are not going to get the two or 
three major things that we need to get out of this Congress in order to 
call this a successful Congress; one being education, another being a 
real, rather than a fictional, attack on the problems of our seniors 
who need prescription drugs, and the third being the passage of a real 
patients' bill of rights rather than the passage of a bill of goods 
that masquerades as a patients' bill of rights.
  So I will support this continuing resolution, but I do not expect to 
stand here supporting any further long-term continuing resolutions 
because, at this point, they do not seem to be doing any good in terms 
of moving this place forward to recognizing our health care, our 
Medicare and our education priorities that, above all, this Congress 
ought to be addressing.
  Mr. Speaker, how much time is remaining on each side?
  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Pease). The gentleman from Wisconsin has 
19\1/2\ minutes remaining.
  Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield 6 minutes to the gentleman from 
Missouri (Mr. Gephardt), the distinguished minority leader.
  Mr. GEPHARDT. Mr. Speaker, here we are again on another continuing 
resolution some 11, 12, or 13 days into the fiscal year; and we have 
not begun to finish our work. I am very disappointed that we come to 
the floor again to debate another continuing resolution simply to keep 
the government going. We should have had all of the appropriation bills 
done 12 days ago.
  This Republican Congress has been so busy throwing money at things, 
helping candidates, and our time and our energy have been so taken up 
by the contrived 90-10 scheme put out by the other side, that we have 
been unable to do our most basic work. My biggest fear is that in all 
of this, education, which is the most important challenge and issue 
facing our country, is being shortchanged. We should not be taking 
another full week in which we drift aimlessly and squander, as 
Republicans would have us do, key opportunities on education.
  So we are going to vote for this resolution, but we are putting the 
Republican leadership on notice. Until we have an opportunity to deal 
with education, this is the end of the line on comfortable stop-gap 
measures that keep the government open week by week. Democrats believe 
that education is priority number one, two and three.
  I know that many of my colleagues believe that we are talking about 
the bare minimum on education; much more important an agenda than we 
have had on any other issue. We need to give every child the time and 
attention they need from adults and the life opportunities they 
deserve. The three items that Democrats believe are the keys to 
education are the following: tax cuts for school construction, hiring 
new teachers and reducing class size, and funding key programs like 
after-school and Pell Grants.
  This is the bare minimum of what we need to do. And, unfortunately, 
while Republicans have been on their spending spree, coming up with 
false budgets to reduce the debt, education has been shoved to the side 
by this Congress with a set of priorities that are skewed, to say the 
least. We want a reasonable, bipartisan tax credit for school 
construction, and we want funding for emergency repairs. But 
Republicans are starving that priority because, while they talk about 
their commitment to education, they do very little

[[Page 22357]]

to back up that commitment with the proper resources and the proper 
commitment to those resources.
  We want in Labor-HHS funding that is dedicated to hiring new 
qualified teachers and reducing class size. But our friends on the 
other side have created loopholes in the bill so big that the money 
could be spent for anything.
  Finally, as part of this first step this year, we support funding for 
after-school programs so that our children can get the time and 
attention they need to become productive, functional law-abiding 
citizens. Listen to this. We have over 2 million people in jail in this 
country. They do not pay taxes, they do not vote, they do not raise 
their families, they do not give to charity. They are not functional 
citizens. They cost us about $40,000 per person per year to hold them.
  At the same time, we have 2 million jobs in this country that we 
cannot fill. We are about to pass an H-1B law that would let more 
foreign immigrants come into the country to fill these high-tech jobs, 
and all of us support the legislation because we need to fill the jobs.
  The answer to those two stark contradictory facts is that we are not 
doing a good enough job with educating and raising our children so we 
prevent them from going to jail, so we get them to take these jobs and 
give them the education and the mental ability that they need to do it. 
We have to do better and we cannot wait until next year to do better. 
The opportunity is in front of us now, by giving our public schools and 
our families the resources and the incentives that they need to lift up 
every child.
  So let us stop squandering our opportunities and let us work together 
in a bipartisan fashion in these next few days on the most important 
priority for the American people. Let us get our work done, but let us 
do it in a bipartisan way. Let us stop spending our time on naming post 
offices and passing resolutions that have little import or meaning. Let 
us stop spending our time buying another week of time so that we can do 
work that we should have done 3 months ago. Let us get to work in a 
bipartisan way and serve the needs of the education of our children in 
this bill.
  Democrats will no longer support continuing resolutions to keep the 
government running for weeks on end. We will support a bipartisan 
education bill that finally helps the children of this country.
  Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from New 
Jersey (Mr. Pallone).
  Mr. PALLONE. Mr. Speaker, let me follow up on what our Democratic 
leader just said. I have to say, as one Member, that I am tired of 
coming down here and passing these continuing resolutions, in this case 
for another week, without getting our work done.
  The fiscal year began for 2001 on October 1. We do not have a budget. 
We have the majority of the appropriation bills out there, somewhere, 
certainly not on the President's desk, that have not been resolved. 
This Congress, under the Republican leadership, is simply not doing the 
job.
  There is time left. There is no reason why we have to go home or we 
have to sit here and dilly dally over naming post offices, for example, 
as the leader said. There are a number of important issues that need to 
be addressed and that my constituents and the average American care 
about: health care needs, a patients' bill of rights.
  The Republican leadership keeps talking about how they want to deal 
with the HMO abuses, but we do not see any legislation coming forward 
that would solve the problem and get something done so that those 
people who are being denied care or who are being denied a particular 
operation or are having problems with access to health care have their 
problems addressed.
  We see the Republican presidential candidate talk about prescription 
drugs, but there is nothing happening here in this Republican Congress 
to address the problem of prescription drugs. The Democrats have put 
forward a Medicare prescription drug proposal that would guarantee that 
every senior citizen, every disabled person would get their 
prescription drugs under Medicare; but we do not see any action here. 
The Republicans are in charge. They do not bring this legislation up. 
They do not sit down in a conference and try to resolve it so that we 
can actually accomplish something so that our seniors have access to 
prescription drugs.
  Certainly on the education issue, I think the most important for many 
Americans who are worried about their children and their children's 
ability to get a quality education in the public schools, the Democrats 
have put forward proposals saying that we want to spend some money for 
school modernization, to reduce class size by hiring more teachers, but 
the Republicans do not respond. Let us get our work done.
  We have proposals out there on education. We know that the public 
schools need help. We know that our local towns need some extra funding 
in order to upgrade their schools; or if they are having overcrowded 
classes, to build new schools. We know that by reducing class size kids 
get a better education and they are functioning in a more disciplined 
environment; yet the Republicans refuse to bring this up.
  I am telling my colleagues again, as just one Democratic Member, I 
will not vote for these continuing resolutions for a week any more 
unless the Republican leadership is willing to come down here, get the 
work done, and pass these appropriations bills and bring up the health 
care and education initiatives that the people want. We should simply 
stand here as Democrats, and any Member, saying that we want action. It 
is not enough to just talk. We want action, and there is still time to 
do it and work it out in a bipartisan way.
  Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 6 minutes.
  Mr. Speaker, as I said several times before, the problem with these 
continuing resolutions is not necessarily the time that is being taken. 
There have been other Congresses that have not finished their work on 
time either. But the question is will we do the really important things 
that we need to do with that additional time, important things that we 
should have done a long time ago.
  It is true that over the next week we will pass a few additional 
appropriation bills. After long delay, we have now reached agreement on 
some of those bills, so a lot of the controversy has been leached out 
of them. But in the end, we still face a couple of facts. We face the 
likelihood that if the House proceeds in accordance with the majority's 
plans, we will wind up having passed appropriation bills about $45 
billion above the level provided in the original budget resolution 
which the majority party adopted and which has governed virtually all 
of the turmoil that we have had over the past 9 months on budget issues 
in this House.

                              {time}  1100

  It appears that we will also wind up approaching some $18 billion to 
$20 billion in spending above that requested by the President, much of 
it for congressional priorities and congressional projects; and yet, as 
I said earlier, we will not have responded to the major needs still 
before us in the area of education, we will not see a real prescription 
drug benefit passed for the American people, and we will not see a 
meaningful Patients' Bill of Rights passed.
  We do not want to see this Congress take action on those issues just 
because they are individually important. We want them all to be dealt 
with seriously and positively because they are all a necessary part of 
strengthening the fabric of American society and making this a society 
that we can all be just a little bit more proud of.
  We hear talk about the ``end game'' for this session. Reporters ask 
me every day, what is going to happen with the end game? What is the 
end game?
  I would point out that, for the people we are supposed to be helping, 
this is no game. It is no game for parents who send their children to 
falling down schools, overcrowded classrooms, in some cases teachers 
inadequately prepared for the subjects that they are supposed to be 
teaching and with no

[[Page 22358]]

place where the kids can safely go at the end of the school day because 
the school day does not coincide with parents' workdays.
  That is no game. That for those parents is a serious, serious problem 
that deserves addressing by this Congress.
  It is also no game when you run into the senior citizens who I have 
run into, single women for instance, widows, who may be making about 
$20,000 a year in retirement on a fixed income but shelling out 12 to 
14 thousand dollars of that for prescription drug costs. Those are real 
cases. And to them this issue also is no game. And they would, I think, 
like to think that, with this extra time, we would be producing 
meaningful action on those items. But I do not see the prospect of that 
happening given the agenda of the majority party, and that is the real 
futility in continuing to pass these continuing resolutions.
  So, as I said, in order to keep the Government open, we will support 
this, but no more resolutions of more than 1 or 2 days. If I had my 
way, we would not pass anything more than a 1-day continuing resolution 
for the rest of the year if the work is not done by the time this 
resolution expires. And I do not expect it to be.
  So I want to put the majority on notice that we are going to have to 
operate on a very different set of rules around here if we are going to 
get things done and get the right things done so we can go home with a 
straight face and say we have done some really important things for the 
American people.
  Mr. Speaker, how much time do I have remaining?
  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Pease). The gentleman from Wisconsin 
(Mr. Obey) has 5 minutes remaining.
  Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield the balance of the time to the 
distinguished gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Hoyer).
  Mr. HOYER. Mr. Speaker, I thank the distinguished ranking member for 
yielding me time. I regret that I was late getting here to speak.
  I reiterate my respect, affection and empathy for the chairman of the 
Appropriations Committee, who has tried to get this process going. 
During debate of the last two CR's, I talked about that and made 
similar comments. I am not going to spend so much time on the 
appropriations bills. We are late. We have been late in the past, as I 
am sure the chairman has observed earlier.
  I rise today at the occasion of the passage of this CR to lament the 
fact that not only have we not completed the appropriations bills, 
which I know that the ranking member has spoken eloquently about 
already, but we have some outstanding critical agenda items that have 
been discussed in the two Presidential debates and the Vice 
Presidential debate. There has been a lot of talk about how we are 
going to work together and how we are going to have bipartisanship so 
that we can have action.
  There has been a lot of talk about the fact that we have not 
accomplished certain objectives over the past few years. I lament the 
fact that we have not accomplished those objectives, as well. In my 
opinion, we have not accomplished them because we had leadership and a 
majority in this House that did not want to accomplish them.
  The Patients' Bill of Rights. We passed a bipartisan Patients' Bill 
of Rights. Not only has the appropriations process been languishing, 
but Patients' Bill of Rights has been languishing, unpassed, unsigned 
and, as a result, unhelpful to the American public.
  Prescription drugs. The debaters say they are for prescription drugs. 
Some debaters say, well, why have you not gotten it done? Well, for the 
same reason we have not gotten the appropriations bills done and we 
need a CR, because the majority party has not moved them forward.
  We want prescription drugs under Medicare for every senior guaranteed 
them. And by the way, no government HMO, as some ads and the statement 
of the chairman seem to reflect. We have not passed a prescription drug 
bill, just as we have not passed the overwhelming majority of the 
appropriations bills. Why? Because the majority has not sent them to 
the President for signature.
  Education, on everybody's radar screen, is the number one issue in 
America because the public knows that educating our children is 
critical to the future of our Nation.
  The President stood, Mr. Speaker, on the dias in front of us and 
said, we need to provide more classrooms, we need to provide more 
teachers, and we need to provide smaller classes, particularly for our 
young children in kindergarten to third grade. Why? So they can compete 
in a world-class economy and be world-class citizens.
  Both candidates talk about that. But the Labor-Health bill still 
languishes with those provisions. Why? Because the majority has not 
come to grips with passing legislation to ensure there is school 
construction funding for more classrooms, safer classrooms.
  We have not provided for the additional teachers that the President 
asked for in January. Here we are 9 months later. Why? For the same 
reason the appropriation bills languish and have not been signed by the 
President of the United States.
  Yes, the President has vetoed one appropriation bill. He sent it back 
to Congress. That bill is now pending passage in the Senate. But most 
of these bills have never gotten to the President, not because of the 
chairman, but because the other side has not come to grips with 
exercising its majority to pass the needed legislation.
  So whether it is Patients', whether it is prescription drugs, whether 
it is more classrooms for our children and more teachers so that to 
ensure a quality education, those bills have not been passed. Yes, I 
will vote for this CR. And, like the ranking member, I will implore our 
majority to make sure that the next CR is for 1 day only so that we get 
our work done. We must press forward not only with these appropriation 
bills but with the critical agenda put before us by the President of 
the United States 9 months ago.
  Mr. Speaker, let's hope that the third time is a charm. Let's hope 
that this third continuing resolution gives us the time we need to 
finally complete our work on the fiscal year 2001 appropriations bills.
  Let's hope the majority leader, Mr. Armey, is correct when he says 
that we are within ``an inch or two from closure'' of the 
appropriations process.
  Because from where I'm standing--and I think the vast majority of 
members might agree with me on this--we've still got a mile to go, it's 
an uphill hike, and we've got legislative riders dragging us back down.
  The President has signed only three appropriations bills into law.
  He is expected to sign two others--agriculture and transportation. 
But that leaves eight bills undone, including energy and water, which 
was vetoed.
  Now, I appreciate the Majority Leader's optimism. You might call it 
irrational exuberance. However, I think most Members of this body tend 
to agree with my friend from South Carolina, Mr. Sanford.
  He is quoted in Rollcall this morning as saying: ``Anarchy reigns at 
the moment. Nobody is quite sure what comes next.''
  Over on the other side of Capitol Hill, Senator McCain didn't mince 
words either. He commented: ``It's just what I predicted--the biggest 
train wreck in history.''
  Mr. Speaker, as I've said repeatedly, the blame for this budget 
debacle does not lie at the feet of the Chairman of the Appropriations 
Committee, my friend Mr. Young. I empathize with the Chairman. He has 
done a very good job under trying circumstances.
  But his hands have been tied in this process, specifically by the 
GOP's unrealistic budget resolution that made a mockery of our 
appropriations process this year.
  And today, we're living with the fallout.
  As my friend, Mr. Spratt, the ranking Member of the Budget Committee, 
noted earlier this week, this Republican Congress--which pretends to be 
fiscally disciplined--has already appropriated $10.6 billion more in 
budget authority in five bills sent to the President than the President 
requested for those bills.
  Our sticking point continues to be the substantive riders, which are 
a staple of GOP budget strategy:
  Barring the EPA from issuing stricter limits on arsenic levels in 
drinking water;
  Preventing the EPA from requiring polluters to clean up the 
contaminated sediments that they have deposited on river bottoms; and

[[Page 22359]]

  Blocking the Interior Department from imposing new environmental 
controls on the hard-rock mining industry.
  I completely agree with Chairman Young, who was quoted on the hill 
yesterday as saying: ``The thing that is holding us up are the non-
appropriations issues that should have been taken care of in 
authorizing committees. If we only dealt with appropriations issues, we 
would have been finished.''
  Yes, we would.
  But instead we are in a situation where the majority whip, Mr. DeLay, 
says he doesn't ``have a clue'' when we will adjourn. This morning, he 
is quoted as saying that this budget fight could ``go to the end of 
October. It could go up to November 6.''
  Mr. Speaker, the Republican majority has shown time and again that it 
would rather block than lead. On a patients' bill of rights. On a 
Medicare prescription drug benefit. On a minimum wage increase.
  The American people have a right to demand more than the bare 
minimum.
  And, with yet another continuing resolution, this Republican majority 
proves that it can't even give them that.
  Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself the balance of the 
time.
  Mr. Speaker, I am really interested in this lengthy debate about all 
kinds of things other than the CR. I appreciate the support that has 
been indicated for passage of the CR because we need to do this. It 
will give us the additional time that we need to complete the work.
  But I want to remind my colleagues, who are my friends, Mr. Speaker, 
the House did its job. Three months ago we completed our work on the 
appropriations bills. But that is only part of the process. The other 
part of the process is reconciling the differences between the House 
and the Senate. That is the constitutional system. And then we have to 
reconcile the differences between the Congress and the President.
  Now, we have seen the President sign some of our appropriations bills 
and we have seen him veto an appropriations bill, and we worked with 
the administration closely to try to repair that bill to the point that 
he would be willing to sign it. And I think in a matter of several days 
that will happen and we will have the opportunity to pass that 
legislative package back to the President.
  The minority party and the majority party at the Member level and the 
staff level have worked together. They have been at the table at the 
staff level and Member level on all of these issues between our body 
and the other body and including the White House. We had 
representatives from the Clinton-Gore administration sitting with us to 
try to work out the differences. And, Mr. Speaker, there have been many 
differences. But slow but sure, we are resolving those differences.
  But I am not going to take the time to respond to all of the 
political statements that we have heard today because I listened to the 
very distinguished minority leader, the gentleman from Missouri (Mr. 
Gephardt), stand there in the well and appeal for a bipartisan, work-
together attitude.
  Well, I am all for that. And I think that the gentleman who just 
spoke would admit that my entire effort here as chairman is to work 
together with both parties to get the best product that we can get. So 
I want to stick with the gentleman from Missouri (Mr. Gephardt).
  I am not going to become partisan. I am not going to be political. I 
am just going to say we need to pass this CR today and we need to get 
serious about resolving these differences that exist between the 
Congress and the President.
  And then I would like to close on this thought, Mr. Speaker: It is 
not that I do not enjoy a good political debate, because I do. I really 
like politics. And outside of the House, where we are here to do the 
people's business, people above politics, back in the campaigns I 
really enjoy the political debate and the political exchanges. But I am 
in a different mood today. Because early today, America came under 
attack from terrorists.
  An American naval ship was attacked by a suicide mission that blew a 
gaping hole in the side of the USS Cole, an Arleigh Burke class 
destroyer. It flooded the main engine room. At least four American 
sailors lost their lives. There are 12 additional sailors missing or 
unaccounted for, and there are more than 30 wounded. Some of them are 
critically wounded.
  America came under attack from terrorists. It is time that we try to 
put aside as much of the partisan politics as we can and come together 
recognizing that America, Republicans and Democrats and Independents 
and whatever the parties might be, America came under attack today and 
we cannot stand for that. We have got to make it known to the world 
that we are not going to allow our country, our military, our sailors 
who are on board those ships to come under attack and not respond.
  And so, that is my mood today, Mr. Speaker. I want to get this CR out 
of here so that we can get to the people's business.
  Mr. HOYER. Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?
  Mr. YOUNG of Florida. I yield to the gentleman from Maryland.
  Mr. HOYER. Mr. Speaker, I want to associate myself with the remarks 
of the chairman, who is one of the real leaders in our House and in 
this Nation on defense policy.
  We lament the loss of those four brave sailors. We pray for the 
injured, the missing, and for their families. And we reiterate what the 
chairman's sentiment that there will be no division, there will be no 
partisanship, there will be no disagreement on standing together in 
defense of our forces around the world to maintain freedom and peace.
  I thank the gentleman for his comments and join with him in that 
sentiment.
  Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Mr. Speaker, reclaiming my time, I thank the 
gentleman for his comments. And I know what is in his heart. The 
gentleman and I have been friends for a long time and have had some 
differences but a lot of agreements. I appreciate the comments that he 
just made. Because when America comes under attack, it is time for all 
of us to come together to recognize that attack and do what has to be 
done.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. All time for debate has expired.
  Pursuant to House Resolution 627, the joint resolution is considered 
read for amendment and the previous question is ordered.
  The question is on the engrossment and third reading of the joint 
resolution.
  The joint resolution was ordered to be engrossed and read a third 
time and was read the third time.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The question is on the passage of the joint 
resolution.
  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.
  The vote was taken by electronic device, and there were--yeas 407, 
nays 2, not voting 23, as follows:

                             [Roll No. 527]

                               YEAS--407

     Abercrombie
     Ackerman
     Aderholt
     Allen
     Andrews
     Archer
     Armey
     Bachus
     Baker
     Baldacci
     Baldwin
     Ballenger
     Barcia
     Barr
     Barrett (NE)
     Barrett (WI)
     Bartlett
     Barton
     Bass
     Becerra
     Bentsen
     Bereuter
     Berkley
     Berman
     Berry
     Biggert
     Bilbray
     Bilirakis
     Bishop
     Blagojevich
     Bliley
     Blumenauer
     Blunt
     Boehlert
     Boehner
     Bonilla
     Bonior
     Bono
     Borski
     Boswell
     Boyd
     Brady (PA)
     Brady (TX)
     Brown (FL)
     Brown (OH)
     Bryant
     Burr
     Burton
     Buyer
     Callahan
     Calvert
     Camp
     Canady
     Cannon
     Capps
     Capuano
     Cardin
     Carson
     Castle
     Chabot
     Chambliss
     Chenoweth-Hage
     Clay
     Clayton
     Clement
     Clyburn
     Coble
     Coburn
     Collins
     Combest
     Condit
     Conyers
     Cook
     Cooksey
     Costello
     Cox
     Coyne
     Cramer
     Crane
     Crowley
     Cubin
     Cummings
     Cunningham
     Danner
     Davis (FL)
     Davis (IL)
     Davis (VA)

[[Page 22360]]


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     Paul
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     Peterson (MN)
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     Petri
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     Pomeroy
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     Pryce (OH)
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     Royce
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     Shows
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     Simpson
     Sisisky
     Skeen
     Skelton
     Slaughter
     Smith (MI)
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     Smith (TX)
     Smith (WA)
     Snyder
     Souder
     Spence
     Spratt
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     Stearns
     Stenholm
     Strickland
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     Stupak
     Sununu
     Sweeney
     Tancredo
     Tanner
     Tauscher
     Tauzin
     Taylor (MS)
     Taylor (NC)
     Terry
     Thomas
     Thompson (CA)
     Thompson (MS)
     Thornberry
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     Upton
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     Weller
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     Whitfield
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     Wilson
     Wolf
     Woolsey
     Wu
     Wynn
     Young (AK)
     Young (FL)

                                NAYS--2

     Baird
     DeFazio
       

                             NOT VOTING--23

     Baca
     Boucher
     Campbell
     Eshoo
     Forbes
     Franks (NJ)
     Green (TX)
     Horn
     Kaptur
     Klink
     Lazio
     Maloney (CT)
     Martinez
     McCollum
     McIntosh
     Meehan
     Mica
     Nadler
     Oxley
     Reynolds
     Stark
     Talent
     Wise

                              {time}  1135

  So the joint resolution was passed.
  The result of the vote was announced as above recorded.
  A motion to reconsider was laid on the table.
  Stated for:
  Mr. MALONEY of Connecticut. Mr. Speaker, I was unavoidably detained 
during rollcall vote No. 527. Had I been present I would have voted 
``yea.''
  Mr. HORN. Mr. Speaker, on rollcall No. 527, Further Continuing 
Appropriations for FY 2001, I was on legislative business and was not 
able to make the rollcall. Had I been present, I would have voted 
``aye.''
  Mr. MICA. Mr. Speaker, on rollcall No. 528, I was unavoidably 
detained. Had I been present, I would have voted ``yea.''

                          ____________________