[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 146 (2000), Part 18]
[House]
[Pages 25847-25855]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]



     MAKING FURTHER CONTINUING APPROPRIATIONS FOR FISCAL YEAR 2001

  Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Mr. Speaker, pursuant to the provisions of 
House Resolution 662, I call up the joint resolution (H.J. Res. 122) 
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 the House Joint Resolution 122 is as follows:

                             H.J. Res. 122

       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 the date 
     specified in section 106(c) and inserting ``November 2, 
     2000''.

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Pursuant to House Resolution 662, 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, this is another one of those 1-day continuing 
resolutions. Since the President of the United States refuses to sign 
more than a 1-day continuing resolution, this is something that we have 
to do. It is pure and simple. It is no different than what we did 
yesterday and the day before and the day before and the day before and 
the day before.
  Mr. Speaker, as I have said so many times on so many of these CRs 
that I am basically through with presenting this continuing resolution. 
I will be prepared to reserve the balance of my time unless there is 
some reason that I need to respond to a situation that we did not 
anticipate.
  Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 11 minutes.
  Mr. Speaker, as my colleagues know, we are stuck here because the 
major appropriation bill that is yet to be resolved had been brought to 
a compromised conclusion by the conferees Sunday night; and then when 
the majority party leadership reviewed that compromise on Monday 
morning, they said ``No way baby''.
  What blew up the agreement was the objection of the majority party 
leadership to the language in the conference report that would have, 
after a 10-year struggle, finally allowed, after yet one more 6-month 
delay, for the enforcement of a rule by OSHA to protect workers from 
debilitating, career ending workplace injuries caused by repetitive 
motion.

                              {time}  1030

  I want to review for my colleagues the history of OSHA for those of 
my friends on the Republican side who were not here when OSHA was 
created. I was. I want you to know who the sponsor of the OSHA 
legislation was. It was a man by the name of Bill Steiger, who was my 
best friend in the House, a Republican from Wisconsin. We went to 
college together. We were in the legislature together. We served here 
together. And then he, unfortunately, died at age 40.
  It was always my belief that, if he had lived, he would have been the 
first Republican Speaker. He was a wonderful human being and a very 
balanced one, a strong conservative. But he was the sponsor of the OSHA 
legislation. He was the first employer in Washington for a fellow by 
the name of Dick Cheney. So that ought to give you some idea of Bill's 
political philosophy. I think the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Hyde) 
served with him. Some of you will remember Bill.
  When OSHA was adopted, the Chamber of Commerce insisted that the 
standards that were used by OSHA be the consensus standards which had 
been developed by business advisory committees and OSHA simply took 
those standards and enforced them as their own.
  An article on the business page of ``The Washington Post'' this 
morning points out that ``80 percent of all current OSHA health and 
safety standards are the same voluntary standards U.S. businesses were 
using in the late 1960s reflecting a long history of business and 
political opposition to new OSHA standards.'' And that is the case.
  The history on this floor after OSHA was established has been a 2-
decade long effort on the part of the majority party to resist new 
protections for workers. The cotton dust standard. You fought that for 
4\1/2\ years and tried to have it delayed twice by legislative 
limitations. The methychloride standard to prevent leukemia. My 
brother-in-law died of leukemia and was always convinced it was 
workplace related. The standard to prevent that exposure in the 
workplace was resisted, and several times the majority tried to offer 
legislative language forbidding OSHA from proceeding with this 
standard.
  The lead standard. We know what lead does to brain development. We 
know what it does for brain damage. The majority party tried to stop 
that standard. And for a decade they have been trying to stop the 
standard on repetitive motion injuries so that human beings do not go 
around with this kind of problem.
  At first the actions taken by the majority party in the Committee on 
Appropriations in the form of an amendment by the gentleman from Texas 
(Mr. Bonilla) centered around denying OSHA the opportunity to even 
gather information about the occurrence and incidence of repetitive 
motion damage in the workplace.
  Then after they failed to stop the gathering of information, then 
they switched rationales and said, ``Oh, we do not have enough 
information.'' And so, no matter how much information was developed by 
OSHA, they still said, ``Oh, we need more. We need more. Do not know 
enough. Do not know enough.'' And so that standard has been delayed for 
years and years.
  Now, we finally reached, after four successive delays imposed by this 
House and after a promise a year and a half ago that you would impose 
no more delays, the majority leadership is once again trying to promote 
delay of both the implementation and the promulgation of the standard 
to protect people like the woman in this picture.
  And so, what happened? We finally reached agreement after 4 hours of 
going word by word over language. Both sides left the room numerous 
times to consult their lawyers. Senator Stevens did. The White House 
people in the room did. It was scrubbed by lots of lawyers who were 
outside the room, but it was checked repeatedly. We finally had a deal. 
As I said last night, it was even sealed with toasts of Merlot.
  And then what happened? Well, what ``The Washington Post'' reports 
this morning that ``Fierce lobbying by powerful corporate groups with 
considerable sway among the GOP leadership helped kill a deal sealed 
with the Republican negotiators early Monday. Led by the U.S. Chamber 
of Commerce and the National Association of Manufacturers, the 
industries include groups representing trucking companies, bakeries, 
soft drink makers, and parcel delivery companies.''
  And then it goes on to say, ``Business leaders have also bankrolled 
political ads over the workplace rules. In recent weeks, the National 
Association of Manufacturers has been running radio ads in key 
congressional districts.'' So on and so forth.
  The article ends by quoting a 32-year-old woman, Heidi Eberhardt, who 
said,

[[Page 25848]]

``I do not know if I will ever be able to type again. I will always 
have to be careful with my hands. If I had had any kind of ergonomic 
knowledge back then, I would not be injured today.''
  What we are trying to do is to prevent that from happening to other 
Heidi Eberhardts in the future.
  Now, in my view, there is only one reason for what happened that 
night. It was my position, and in that conference, I opposed the 
conference deal that the White House cut with the Republican majority 
because I felt that after all these years there should be no further 
delay, none whatsoever. The compromise that was cut is that it was 
finally agreed to allow a standard to be promulgated but it could not 
be enforced in any way until after July. So that, if a new President 
was elected who disagreed with that standard, he would have time to go 
through the Administrative Procedures Act and repeal it; and he could, 
incidentally, suspend it the day he walked into office. We feel that 
within 45 days, certainly within 60, he could shut it off.
  I am convinced that the only reason the majority party leadership is 
doing this is because, if their party leader wins the White House, they 
want him to be able to stop that regulation without ever having to 
publicly stand up and oppose it.
  Now, as we used to hear when there was a Republican President, we 
used to hear there is only one President at a time. Well, there is only 
one President at a time; and in my view, this President, after over 10 
years of analysis and study and review, he has the right to impose a 
standard which was called for for the first time by a Secretary of 
Labor by the name of Libby Dole. She is the one who started this 
process, and she is the one who initially said that this was needed and 
crucial for the safety of people in the workplace. I would urge you to 
remember, that is why we are stuck here on the CR.
  If the majority party leadership wants to get out of town, there is 
only one thing they have to do. All they have to do is take the D.C. 
bill, the Treasury-Post Office, and the Legislative appropriations bill 
and, by reference in the Labor, HHS bill, put it together, stick to the 
original deal on Labor, HHS, and so far as appropriations are 
concerned, we could be out of here in one day. That would leave only 
the Commerce, Justice State bill remaining.
  For the life of me, I do not see how those differences are going to 
be bridged in this short period of time. But all other appropriations 
work could be done. That is what the leadership could do. All it has to 
do is to honor the agreement that was reached, reference those other 
four bills, and we could be out of here in a day and a half going back 
and reintroducing ourselves to our constituents.
  So that is what I would hope the majority leadership would do in the 
interest of ending this session with some degree of comity. But I am 
afraid that the same principle that is operating here to prevent 
helping this woman in the picture is the same principle that had been 
operating here for months on other issues. We have been trying to get 
prescription drug coverage all year long. But in the end, the majority 
party has decided that a tax cut that primarily benefits the top 2 
percent of people in this country outweighs the need for millions of 
Americans to have prescription drug coverage. The same principle.
  Who wins in the end? Money. That is what this is about. It is about 
money.
  Shame.
  Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may 
consume.
  Mr. Speaker, I want to say to my friend who just spoke in the well in 
reference to his statement that the majority party wants to get out of 
town, well, we would all like to get home. But I want him to know and I 
want everybody to know we are here for the long haul, we are here to 
get the job done, we are here to do the people's business however long 
it takes.
  And these 1-day CRs, one after the other after the other after the 
other, use up a lot of time. We could be productive in other ways. We 
are not anxious to get out of town and leave the business undone. We 
are anxious to get out of town when the business is complete, and we 
are not going until we are finished and we have done it in a 
responsible way.
  Now, the gentleman has made a substantial case about this agreement 
on ergonomics. I want to remind the Members what I have reminded them 
of before when the gentleman makes that argument. We reached an 
agreement. We started Sunday about 4 o'clock and we finally ended up 
about 1 o'clock Monday morning.
  The gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Obey) was there and I was there, 
Senator Stevens and Senator Byrd were there. Senator Harkin was there. 
Jack Lew from the White House was there. We negotiated in good faith 
and we reached an agreement, and we have not gone back on that 
agreement.
  Now, the agreement was to allow the new President adequate time to 
make a decision. We do not know for sure how it is going to go either 
way regardless of which Presidential candidate is elected. But that was 
the agreement we reached, and nobody has gone back on that agreement.
  Here is where the difference is. The difference is the language that 
was written that was checked by the White House lawyers. I do not know 
that we left the room. I did not leave the room to consult with any 
lawyers. But we took the word of the White House that that language did 
what they said it did.
  Now, Senator Stevens is a lawyer. The gentleman from Illinois 
(Chairman Porter), the chairman of the subcommittee, is a lawyer. We 
wrote the language at least eight or nine times to try to make sure 
that it did what the agreement said.
  Now for someone to suggest that we are going back on our agreement 
just is not accurate. We are not trying to change the agreement with 
you one iota. All we are trying to do is make sure that the language 
that is finally written actually does what the agreement was supposed 
to do.
  Now, what is wrong with that? That, in my opinion, is being 
responsible to make sure that our actions and our words are the same. 
Actions speak louder than words.

                              {time}  1045

  Actions speak louder than words, and action should at least be the 
same as the words. That is where we have the disagreement. We are 
trying to work it out.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield 6 minutes to the distinguished gentlewoman from 
Connecticut (Mrs. Johnson).
  Mrs. JOHNSON of Connecticut. Mr. Speaker, it is my hope that they 
will be able to work out the language to reflect the agreement that 
they came to so that this House could move forward. But I think it is 
very important, too, for the body to think carefully about what is at 
stake in these ergonomic regulations because this controversy does go 
to very fundamental principles and it is true. Those fundamental 
principles are part of the Presidential election going on around us. I 
do not believe as a Republican, and I am proud of this but I also know 
that there are many Democrat friends of mine who agree with me, that 
the Federal Government should mandate on State governments that 
somebody injured as a result of an ergonomics injury should get 90 
percent of wage replacement and full benefits when someone working 
right beside them but injured by a piece of steel falling on their foot 
and crushing all the bones in that foot gets the State compensation 
under workmen's comp rules, usually about 75 percent, I believe, in 
Connecticut. Why would we mandate inequitable compensation rules? Why 
would we mandate compensation rules that depend on what kind of injury 
you got?
  I have had ergonomic problems. I have had carpal tunnel syndrome in 
both my wrists, and I have had operations on both my wrists and, thank 
you, it worked beautifully. But why when I was home recovering should I 
get 90 percent of wage replacement when my friend severely injured in a 
fall at a construction site would get the State's rate which is always 
in every case at least below that 90 percent? Why would we mandate 
inequity on working people? Why would we do that?

[[Page 25849]]

  Furthermore, one of the plants in my district was a research site for 
these ergonomic regulations, and the researchers from the government as 
well as the workers as well as the management found certain repetitive 
motion problems that they could not find a solution for. Yet under 
these regulations you do not even have to have a pattern of problems. 
You can have one single incident and then you are mandated by law to 
adopt an incredibly costly and burdensome administrative process and 
fix the problem. Now, if we have already seen problems in the research 
process that we do not know the answer to, why would we penalize every 
small business in America?
  This is going to be extraordinarily costly, extraordinarily 
burdensome to small business. This is not only a very good example of 
the difference between the parties on the issue of local control and 
respect for State and local government but it is a very good example of 
the difference between the parties on the issue of small business. 
Small business is the engine of America's economy. It is the job 
creator. It is the inventor. It is our strength. Yet we would lay over 
it this program that would begin to suffocate it. I have to say that 
this President has been absolutely blind to the value of small 
business. He wanted to go in and inspect your home office, have the 
government come in and inspect your home office to be sure that you had 
a correct chair. He has no respect for privacy, no respect for small 
business, and these ergonomic regulations are about fundamental 
principles of the role of the Federal Government and fairness to 
working people in America. They are a big issue.
  Ironically, this President has fought against riders on 
appropriations bills. Riders are legislating on appropriations bills. 
Often I have agreed with him on those riders and said, Let's get the 
riders off the appropriations bills. This is a big issue in 
environmental areas. This is a big issue in choice areas. But now in 
your areas you want riders. You not only want this rider, you want a 
mammoth health program that has received not one single hearing and 
that is going to knock the stilts out from under private sector health 
insurance. Mark my words. Already employers in my district are 
beginning to drop family coverage because now it is $7,000 a year 
because their kids can go into our Huskie program under CHIP. That is 
not a bad solution. But not even to have a hearing on whether your big 
expansion of CHIP to all families in all situations, what impact that 
is going to have on the private insurance system, how much weight that 
is going to transfer from the private sector to a taxpayer-funded 
program is grossly irresponsible.
  Mr. Speaker, this is about principle. It is about the principle of 
local control and State responsibility in our society. It is about the 
principle of a sound legislative practice governing authorizing of 
major programs. It is about the principle that a free market depends on 
that allows small business to be inventive, nimble and strong. I stand 
firmly behind our leadership in negotiating appropriations bills and 
not legislating new programs and creating standards that vary and treat 
working people unfairly.
  I would call on all of us to move forward. We should have overridden 
the President's veto. We should resolve the issues on HHS, and we 
should move forward and go back home and campaign and let this be 
fought out on the level that it should be fought out, on the 
Presidential level.
  Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 3 minutes.
  Let me say, first of all, I do not believe it is the role of the 
Congress to debate the substance of a rule which is not yet 
promulgated, because I think that this body is primarily influenced by 
political decisions rather than on the basis of merit. It is a 
political institution. OSHA does not get campaign contributions based 
on how they rule. A lot of Members of Congress do get campaign 
contributions on the basis of how they vote.
  The gentlewoman is mixing apples and oranges. The fact is that 
States, different States have different standards. Some of them use 75 
percent of gross pay and others use 90 percent of net pay. The fact is 
when OSHA comes down on the side of using 90 percent of net pay, that 
is virtually the same as using 75 percent of gross pay. The gentlewoman 
in my view is simply confusing the issue when she tries to suggest that 
there is a great variance here.
  But what is really at question is this: in the Washington Post 
article this morning, we have a very interesting quote that answers 
what the gentlewoman just said. She said the issue is whether State or 
Fed should rule. That is not the issue here. I want to read what Harley 
Shaiken, labor relations specialist at the University of California 
said. He said,

       The question is whether the best role in this field is to 
     have the government essentially set the rules of the game in 
     some circumstances versus putting a much heavier reliance on 
     corporations to police themselves in an increasingly 
     competitive globalized economy.

  Now, we all know what will happen to workers if the government does 
not serve as an umpire to protect the weak from the powerful. With all 
of the pressure that globalization brings on corporations for a profit, 
with all due respect to my friends on the majority side of the aisle, I 
am not about to trust the self-policing of some of these industries 
given the fact that their self-policing for years has led us to a 
situation where we have 600,000 Americans who suffer from these 
injuries every year.
  Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I yield 5 minutes to the 
distinguished gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Kingston), a member of the 
Committee on Appropriations.
  Mr. KINGSTON. I thank the gentleman from Florida for yielding me this 
time.
  I also appreciate the passion and the sincerity of the Democratic and 
the Republican leadership and the appropriators in trying to work out 
this situation. I know that you have been hard at it, and I know that 
you have worked hard over the weekend. But as I sat there listening to 
you, it was curious to me. I kept hearing about some unelected guy, 
Jack Lew or somebody, and I kept hearing this vague generic reference 
to the White House, but I did not hear about the President, and I am 
concerned. Maybe the gentleman from Florida could tell me. Was the 
President of the United States negotiating with you or not? I will be 
glad to yield to the gentleman from Florida or maybe somebody could 
help me from the Democrat side in these very, very important, high-
level negotiations which the President is keeping Congress in town at 
the cost of millions of dollars to the taxpayers that of course could 
be going to health care or education or worker safety.
  What was the President doing? Was he there Saturday night? He was not 
there, was he? Was he there Sunday night? He was not there again, was 
he? Was he there Monday night? He was not there Monday night. Well, 
surely he showed up Tuesday night. No, wait. He was in Kentucky.
  Mr. HOYER. Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?
  Mr. KINGSTON. I yield to the gentleman from Maryland.
  Mr. HOYER. This President, I will tell you, and I have been here for 
a long period of time, has been more engaged in working with Congress 
than any of his predecessors. Period. The gentleman has not been here 
as long as some of the rest of us have been, but this President is more 
engaged in the legislative process than any President I have had the 
experience of serving with.
  I will tell you further in response to your observations that the 
principals were not in the room. The gentleman from Texas (Mr. DeLay) 
apparently was not in the room. That was one of the problems because he 
is the one that after an agreement was reached apparently took the deal 
back and said, ``I won't agree.''
  Mr. KINGSTON. Let me reclaim my time. The gentleman is right. I have 
not been here as long as some of these in-town government people. I 
know, for

[[Page 25850]]

example, the Vice President is very proud he has been here 24 years. He 
came straight from the hotel room to the floor of the Congress. But to 
a lot of us being in the private sector is a badge of honor, and I am 
glad I have not been here all my life because I am proud that I have 
had private sector experience.
  My question was, is the President who is so engaged, was he here for 
these negotiations Saturday, Sunday, Monday, Tuesday?
  Mr. KOLBE. Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?
  Mr. KINGSTON. I yield to the gentleman from Arizona.
  Mr. KOLBE. Mr. Speaker, yesterday after this deal fell apart and we 
were trying to get it back together, and clearly the President's help 
would have been very essential, the President was unfortunately engaged 
in campaigning in Kentucky in a congressional race and then in New 
York. I believe there is a Senate race there he has some interest in 
that he was fundraising for. So the President has not been available 
throughout this time for these negotiations.
  Mr. KINGSTON. Of course I am saying that I know where the President 
was. He was out campaigning. He was out fundraising. But this is a 
legitimate question. If it is worth the taxpayers to pay millions of 
dollars to keep the Congress, 435 Members and 100 Members of the 
Senate, in town to negotiate, then certainly it is worth his time to be 
here. I do not think you are negotiating in good faith when you are not 
here, when everybody else is coming to the bargaining table to try to 
work something out but the President is in New York campaigning, he is 
in Kentucky campaigning, he is, I understand, on his way to California 
campaigning. Now, if he were in the Middle East, I would say that is 
understandable. If he was in North Korea, I understand that. But, 
instead, he is campaigning.
  Here is where we are on all our bills. This is the appropriations 
rundown. We have come up with levels of spending for Agriculture, for 
Commerce, State and Justice, for Defense, Energy and Water, Foreign 
Operations, Interior, VA-HUD, and we are pretty much where the 
President is. I will say sometimes we are up and sometimes we are down, 
but this is the chart. It is open for public record. We are trying to 
work things out. But it is not enough. It is never enough with this 
President.
  I want to quote and close with a question by 16-year-old Sarah 
Schleck from Albert Lea, Minnesota, to why are we still in town because 
the President wants to spend more money. She said, the 16-year-old 
wisdom, ``Isn't our government big enough already?'' Must we really 
stay in town so that we can spend a couple of more billion to pay off 
one constituency group or another? I do not think we should do that. I 
think that this House, the Democrat and the Republican leadership, 
ought to come to its own conclusion, give it to the President, and then 
maybe we can go back home and tell the folks what we are up to.

                              {time}  1100

  Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself a minute and a half.
  Mr. Speaker, the previous gentlemen has given the most off point 
speech that I have heard on this floor since the last time he addressed 
this body.
  Let me simply say, Mr. Speaker, that the reason the President was not 
in the room is because since the President stole Mr. Gingrich's socks 
the last time they negotiated together, your leadership has refused to 
sit down in an omnibus meeting with him and put it together. That is 
why he was not there. You very well know you would not even let the 
President's representative come into the room until 10:00 at night. You 
first insisted we negotiate all other remaining items. The gentleman 
from Georgia (Mr. Kingston) further ought to know, even if you do not, 
you ought to know there is not a single dollar difference remaining in 
this issue. This has nothing to do with how much we spend. The issue is 
who we spend it on and which side are we on. Big business, big business 
or the working people of America?
  We ought to have a decent balance between the interests of both, but 
you want it all one way for the top dogs in this society. No way. No 
way.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield 4 minutes to the distinguished gentleman from 
Michigan (Mr. Bonior), the minority whip.
  Mr. BONIOR. Mr. Speaker, ``The New York Times,'' considered one of 
the most authoritative papers in the country, even in the entire world, 
and the gentleman over here said oh, right, and laughed, well, I just 
want to remind the gentleman that earlier this year the Vice 
Presidential nominee, Mr. Cheney, even described one of ``The New York 
Times'' reporters as big time.
  Well, today that big time newspaper has offered its opinion of this 
Congress, and I quote, ``the 106th Congress, with little to show for 
its 2-year existence, has all but vanished from public discourse on 
almost every matter of importance: Gun control, patients' bill of 
rights, energy deregulation, Social Security, Congress has done little 
or nothing.''
  Mr. Speaker, it goes on to say, ``if Congress has done a lousy job 
for the public at large, it is doing a fabulous job feathering its own 
nest and rewarding commercial interests and favored constituencies with 
last minute legislative surprises that neither the public nor most 
Members of Congress have digested,'' end of quote.
  But, Mr. Speaker, if one asks me, the story of this Republican 
Congress is not only being written by The New York Times editorial 
page, listen to what others are saying around the country. The 
Baltimore Sun, ``The Republicans in Congress still cannot get their act 
together.'' Roll Call, ``What a mess. House leaders have been utterly 
uninterested in working with House Democrats.'' The Washington Post, 
``Gagging the Senate. It has been a time-serving Congress in which the 
majority, having lost control of the agenda, has mainly tried to give 
the impression of dealing with issues that it systematically has 
finessed.''
  ``The un-Congress,'' The Washington Post, ``the un-Congress continues 
neither to work or adjourn. For 2 years, it has mainly pretended to 
deal with the issues that it has systematically avoided.''
  The Baltimore Sun, ``Republican Gridlock Again in Congress. Whatever 
happened to the fine art of compromise,'' they say. ``It seems to have 
vanished from the lexicon of the Republicans on Capitol Hill.''
  The USA Today, just a couple of days ago, ``This Congress is a 
monument to fiscal irresponsibility.''
  The Los Angeles Times today, ``A Sputtering Finale. It is fitting 
that as it sputters toward an end, this Congress is engaged in an 
unproductive game of political brinkmanship with the President. This 
106th Congress will not be missed.''
  Well, those are people who are looking from the outside and judging 
the catastrophe that has befallen all of us here in this Chamber in 
this Republican-led Congress. If you want the real story of the 106th 
Congress, just talk to the millions of families that the Republican 
leadership has turned its back on. Talk to the older people who 
desperately need prescription drugs. Talk to young parents who want to 
send their kids to safe, modern public schools. Talk to the men and 
working women of this country who work in restaurants and child care 
centers and work to take care of our elderly and our sick; and the 
janitorial crews, all of those folks struggling to earn a decent wage.
  Talk to the patients and doctors and families battling against HMO 
executives for their right to quality health care. That is who is 
paying the true price for the failure and the indifference of this 
Republican Congress; not the K Street lobbyists or the crowd down at 
the country club. It is the American working families, Mr. Speaker. 
That is who we are here to serve, and I would tell my friends on this 
side of the aisle, if the Republican leaders cannot understand that, it 
is high time they step out of the way in favor of us who do understand 
it.
  Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 4 minutes.
  Mr. Speaker, what I am hearing today is a lot of political 
campaigning.

[[Page 25851]]

The problem is the minority does not like the majority. We love them in 
the minority, and we hope that they stay the minority for many, many 
years.
  There is a difference between the parties. There is a reason that one 
party is a majority and the other party is a minority, but here is an 
interesting point. We have come together. There are arguments about 
whether the President was in the room or not. He was represented but he 
was not in the room. He was busy doing other things. We understand 
that. The President is looking for whatever he is looking for out there 
around the country, mostly money for campaigns, but let me say what the 
President thinks about this Congress.
  Some heard me read this last night. I am going to read it again 
today, in view of some of the rather strong diatribes that I have heard 
here. The President said on Monday in his press conference, he said, 
``Again we have accomplished so much in this session of Congress in a 
bipartisan fashion. It has been one of the most productive sessions.'' 
Now, if only we could get to the bipartisanship that he talks about 
here. I am glad he feels that way because on the majority side we have 
tried to be bipartisan. We get really excited when the minority leader 
comes to the floor and says, come on guys, we have to get together. We 
have to be bipartisan and get the work done. But speaker after speaker 
after speaker who followed the minority leader's admonition brought out 
their vicious partisan attacks on the majority party.
  Well, Mr. Speaker, we are the majority; and we have made a decision 
on what we believe is the right thing to do, and we are satisfied that 
we agreed with President Clinton when he said the era of big government 
is over, standing right there in the well of the House.
  The era of big government is over. We are tired of the government 
being everything. There is a responsible role for the government, but 
it is not to run everybody's life. Whatever the government does should 
be done in a responsible fashion, and not one that meets the whims of 
somebody's political campaign. Political campaigns ought to be back 
home on the campaign trail, not here in the people's House. It is our 
job to get the people's work done and put their work ahead of politics. 
People above politics, and that is what we are going to stand for every 
day. We are not going to be stampeded by the political rhetoric that 
comes out of the minority party who is so anxious to become the 
majority party again.
  Well, people of America are going to make that decision. They are 
going to decide whether they want to go back to the old days of decades 
of deficit spending, interest payments on the national debt that almost 
exceed the investment in our national defense; whether they want to go 
back to the days of raiding the Social Security trust fund to spend for 
their big spending programs. We have stopped that. Our majority party, 
the Republican Party, has stopped that. We are not spending money out 
of the Social Security trust fund. We are paying down the debt. We have 
balanced the budget, and, oh, we had a lot of opposition to what we had 
to do to accomplish all of these things, but we stood fast. We are 
going to continue to stand fast for what we believe in, and the ideals 
that the American people agreed with when they made us the majority 
party.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to my friend, the gentleman from 
California (Mr. Thomas), who has an interesting chart that I think will 
demonstrate this.
  Mr. THOMAS. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Florida (Mr. 
Young) for yielding me this time.
  Mr. Speaker, in an attempt to improve the atmosphere here, I do want 
to reach out in a bipartisan way and indicate to the gentleman from 
Maryland (Mr. Hoyer) that he has had extensive legislative experience 
here in this body. He has seen a number of Presidents in terms of the 
way they have performed. He has indicated that this current President 
has been more active, more involved than any other President that he is 
aware of. So I guess I am a little confused, and I would like to reach 
out because why would quotes from third parties then be relied on, the 
liberal fourth estate newspaper folk who have not been in the room, to 
try to characterize the way in which we have operated? Why would the 
quote from the gentleman who has been most involved of any Presidents 
be relied on?
  So instead of looking at what some editorial writer writes, who has 
never been in the room, let us take a look again at what this 
President, who has been the most active President working with Congress 
in the minds of people who have been here a long time, and he said, 
quote, President Clinton, on October 30, just a couple of days ago, 
``we,'' we, kind of an encompassing word, the government, the executive 
branch, the legislative branch, ``we have accomplished so much in this 
session of Congress in a bipartisan fashion.''
  Now I take him at his word, the guy who has been more involved than 
any other President, we have accomplished so much in this session of 
Congress in a bipartisan fashion.
  ``It,'' this Congress, ``has been one of the most productive 
sessions.''
  Now I know he has only been around 8 years, and others who have been 
around longer can grade how productive the sessions are, but if this 
President has been the most active of any President we have seen, I 
will accept his judgment. His judgment is, we have done a lot in a 
bipartisan fashion. This has been one of the most productive sessions 
ever. Why rely on third parties? Go to the horse's mouth.
  Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 1 minute.
  Mr. Speaker, I simply want to congratulate the gentleman from 
California (Mr. Thomas), because that is the largest stretch I have 
ever seen. I want to congratulate them. They have been so desperate to 
find any way to suggest that they have accomplished anything of 
significance in this session of Congress that they even have stretched 
to rely on their old reliable friend, President Clinton, the man to 
whom they have given so much substantive support when in a moment of 
conciliatory weakness he engaged in a little bit of rhetorical 
hyperbole to say something nice about the majority.
  If that is the best that you can find, be my guest. The people who 
serve in this Chamber know what you have accomplished. The people 
waiting for prescription drugs know what you have accomplished. The 
people waiting for a patients' bill of rights know what you have 
accomplished. The people waiting for a minimum wage bill know what you 
have accomplished. On the big stuff, the result unfortunately is zip. 
You passed a lot of stuff through here that would help the very 
wealthiest 2 percent on the Tax Code. Outside of that, you are still 
dragging behind about 8-to-0 in terms of meeting your major 
responsibilities.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield 5 minutes to the distinguished minority leader, 
the gentleman from Missouri (Mr. Gephardt).
  (Mr. GEPHARDT asked and was given permission to revise and extend his 
remarks.)
  Mr. GEPHARDT. Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of this continuing 
resolution, our twelfth in 5 weeks, to keep the government operating; 
but I deeply regret that we have reached this point and I am deeply 
disappointed by what has happened to America's education priorities in 
the last 72 hours.
  On Sunday night, after 3 days of no negotiations, Republicans met 
face-to-face with Democrats on a good faith basis to resolve our 
differences on education. Democrats asked Republicans whether they had 
full authority to negotiate a final deal and they answered, yes. In an 
example of bipartisan compromise, both sides came together and both 
sides sought common ground. Negotiators toiled late into the evening. 
Each side made concessions, as must be done in a bipartisan compromise, 
and consensus was reached through sensible dialogue. I give great 
credit to the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Young), and I give great 
credit to the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Obey), and the Senators who 
were involved. The bill that came out of that room was a bipartisan 
bill that would have lifted up every community and every school in this 
country. This bill included full funding for 100,000 new

[[Page 25852]]

teachers, teacher training, after-school programs and a billion dollars 
for school repair and school modernization.
  Less than 12 hours after the agreement was reached, the leaders of 
the Republican Party ripped this deal apart as a favor to a business 
lobby.

                              {time}  1115

  The Republican leadership bowed to business lobbyists who, according 
to the Washington Post, were making, and I quote, ``urgent calls to the 
Hill to try to block this compromise,'' simply because they did not 
like worker safety provisions that protected workers from repetitive 
stress injuries. This Republican-led Congress scuttled a bipartisan 
agreement that would have provided local districts with the means to 
hire new teachers and build new classrooms so that we could get smaller 
classroom sizes, so that our children could be better educated.
  Mr. Speaker, I guess it is not a surprise, because Republican leaders 
have spent the last 6 years frustrating America's agenda, a bipartisan 
agenda, by giving in to special interests. On every one of these 
issues, the Republican leadership has taken the side of the special 
interests over America's agenda.
  We tried to get an affordable, effective prescription medicine 
program; we forced it on to the agenda with the help of Republican 
members, and it was scuttled in conference; and it is not going 
anywhere, because I guess the pharmaceutical companies did not want it.
  We worked with Republicans to force on to the agenda of this House an 
effective and enforceable Patients' Bill of Rights, and it has been 
stifled in a conference committee because I guess the insurance 
companies did not want it.
  We could have had targeted tax cuts for college and long-term care 
and child care, but instead we passed huge tax cuts for the top 1 
percent of Americans instead of getting something done in a bipartisan 
way that we could have gotten done.
  We fought for sensible gun safety legislation, but it is stifled in a 
conference committee, I guess as a favor to the National Rifle 
Association.
  We have tried to get a sensible increase in the minimum wage; but it 
too is stifled, even though it has strong bipartisan support.
  We forced on to the agenda of this House campaign finance reform, 
which is desperately desired by the people of this country, and it too 
passed by a bipartisan vote in this House, and it has been stifled in a 
conference committee.
  There is a pattern here, Mr. Speaker. There is a pattern. Bipartisan 
efforts, which even passed by bipartisan votes on the floor, are being 
held hostage by the special interests of this country and by the 
Republican leadership that is running this Congress.
  The Speaker said 2 years ago that the trains were going to run on 
time and that we would finish our budget in regular order. Well, it is 
4 weeks into the fiscal year, we are 6 days away from a general 
election, and we have not gotten the work done that we could have 
gotten done if the leadership of this Congress would have simply let 
the bipartisan majority that was trying to break out and do these 
things to be able to do them. And as a result, we have a dysfunctional 
Congress; we have an ineffectual Congress.
  Education is our most important priority. We have schools with 
cracked walls and no air-conditioning and leaky windows. We have 
cornices falling off of buildings. We have kids in temporary 
structures, in movable classrooms, in inadequate facilities in the 
wealthiest Nation on Earth. Our children deserve our help in getting 
them the world-class education that every child in this country 
deserves.
  Let us pass this resolution, let us stay here in these next days, and 
let us get the job done for America's children. We may not be able to 
do the health issues, campaign reform, gun safety or the minimum wage; 
but in the name of common sense, let us get done something in these 
last 2 or 3 days for the children of this country. Let us get them 
better classrooms, let us get them more teachers, let us get them a 
better education.
  Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 3 minutes.
  Mr. Speaker, I would just like Members to know that I have a great 
respect for the minority leader who just spoke, but some of the things 
that he said I do not disagree with. I think there is either a 
misunderstanding about what the situation is, or there is 
misrepresentation of the situation. Now, the items that the minority 
leader just talked about that were in this package that we negotiated 
until the wee hours of Monday morning, the good things that were in 
that package, they are still there. To try to imply that they are not 
there is just not accurate, and it is not fair, because the good things 
that he said were in there are still there.
  What is the major change? We have gone over it and over it and over 
it. We will go over it again. The major change was on the ergonomics 
language. We reached an agreement. We continue to this minute to have 
that same agreement. The difference is, we are trying to make sure that 
the language actually does what the agreement says. But as far as the 
other items that the minority leader said got blown apart, that is not 
true. They did not get blown apart. They are still in the package. So 
either it is being misunderstood, or it is being misrepresented. 
Misunderstanding, we can understand that; but misrepresenting, we are 
not prepared to accept that.
  Mr. TIERNEY. Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?
  Mr. YOUNG of Florida. I yield to the gentleman from Massachusetts.
  Mr. TIERNEY. Mr. Speaker, maybe the gentleman can help me understand 
something.
  Sunday night, you ostensibly had an agreement, and now the gentleman 
tells me it is just some legal language. I practiced for about 22 
years, most of it in business law, contracts, things of that nature, as 
well as others. So I guess what the gentleman is telling us is that all 
night Monday, all day Tuesday, all night Tuesday, and then on 
Wednesday, the gentleman's lawyers have yet to come up with language 
that would be acceptable to accomplish the purposes that are wanted, so 
therefore, we are still here, and we are going on and on. Is that what 
I understand to be the case?
  Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Mr. Speaker, let me suggest to the gentleman 
that their own lawyers at the White House either misunderstood or 
misrepresented. The lawyers from the White House that were checking, 
because Jack Lew called his lawyers, at least he told us he called his 
lawyers, and they said, yes, this language does what the agreement 
says. Now, if their lawyers cannot figure it out, and our lawyers did 
not figure it out, maybe we ought to take a little bit of time to do it 
and to do it right.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from California (Mr. 
Gary Miller).
  Mr. GARY MILLER of California. Mr. Speaker, this is an interesting 
debate today. The gentleman from Georgia, a good friend of mine, stood 
up and asked a simple question: Was the President of the United States 
in the meeting, and he was attacked when he left the podium, because 
that is an unreasonable question to ask. Then the gentleman from 
California, good friend of mine, comes before this honorable body and 
puts a quote before us about what the President of the United States 
said, and he was attacked. I would never stand on this floor and accuse 
the President of the United States of being a liar. Yet, members of his 
own party did that, because they said he did not mean what he said. 
Obviously, we would never impugn what the President said in that 
fashion.
  Then, the Republican leadership was attacked because they are running 
this House. Well, let me read to my colleagues from the Hill newspaper, 
what the Hill newspaper says today: ``Despite President Clinton's 
pledge to stay here with you and fight for his legislative priorities, 
not one House Democrat leader was present last weekend for all 7 votes 
taken on session-ending procedural matters.''
  My Democrat colleagues might attack the Republican leadership, they

[[Page 25853]]

might impugn the Republican leadership; but if it were not for the 
Republican leadership on this floor, there would be no leadership at 
all.
  Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the distinguished 
gentleman from Texas (Mr. Stenholm).
  Mr. STENHOLM. Mr. Speaker, I would like to lower the tenor of the 
debate and accept a couple of offers, correct one statement, and accept 
one offer today to see if we might find a way to take this restless 
herd and not start a stampede, but start it in a slow walk to a 
solution.
  The first thing I hope everybody will understand and stop bringing 
the posters to the floor saying how much is enough when we all should 
know by now, $645 billion is enough. We are not talking about money. 
Anybody that proposes spending more money is going to have to find it 
somewhere else, because the appropriators have got their orders. I 
think the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Young), as chairman of the 
Committee on Appropriations, is doing a good job. My fuss is not with 
him, but it is with the leadership of the House that seems to not be 
willing to bring this thing to a culmination.
  Now, it seems to me, and I have listened today, there is an agreement 
within reach on ergonomics, there is an agreement within reach on 
school construction, in the appropriate places by the appropriate 
leaders. There is an agreement in place on immigration, if we can just 
find that appropriate place. The one area that we do not have an 
agreement though, and it seems from what I have heard said, is in the 
area of Medicare and the BBA fix. That is what we are saying.
  To the gentleman from California, the chairman of the committee that 
made the speech a moment ago, there is a willingness on this side to 
reopen that particular part of the tax bill and do a little better job 
for our hospitals, our rural hospitals, our nursing homes, and others. 
There is some additional knowledge in this House, other than the 
chairman of the committee, the same man that wrote the BBA fix in the 
first place in 1997, that had to be convinced to do more at that time, 
and I see the gentleman from Iowa (Mr. Nussle) on the floor who has 
been a tremendous leader in the Rural Health Care Coalition. We know 
this. We can have a better agreement, and that is one that we must get 
done, or we will not finish by the election, or by January 1, unless we 
can do more.
  So in the spirit of bipartisanship, there is a large number of 
Democrats; in fact, there are 137 on my side of the aisle that said we 
should not spend $645 billion this year, we should only spend $633 
billion.
  Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time 
for a closing statement.
  Mr. OBEY. I yield myself the remaining time.
  Mr. Speaker, when we are in negotiations, the only way that we can 
reach agreement is to reduce those agreements to writing, and that is 
what we did. It took 4 hours to get the language right for both sides, 
because the lawyers who were in and out of the room talked to each 
other, and this was the language that they came up with. The only thing 
that changed was the amount of heat that the majority party leadership 
took from the big business lobbyists in this country. That is the only 
thing that changed.
  It has been clear to me from the beginning that the majority 
leadership did not ever want us to conclude action on this bill, and 
what is going on now to me is very clear. This session is over. This 
session is over. The leadership is going through the pretense that 
something else is likely to happen, but behind the scenes, what they 
are trying to do is to get negotiated a longer-term CR so that they can 
get out of here, leaving undone this issue, so that they do not have to 
face the issue of education funding before the election, and they do 
not have to ever vote on scuttling the deal on protecting workers' 
health, which we had in this bill.
  So what they may do is to send up some meaningless let-us-pretend 
compromise language to the White House, language that has probably 
already been rejected. But the fact is, they want to slip out of town. 
If they cannot do that, then the next best thing to do is to pretend 
that they expect something to happen in the future. It is clear to me 
that the majority party leadership will not let anything further happen 
on this bill if it means antagonizing their big business lobbyist 
friends. That is the problem.
  The solution on this issue that we had in the conference was a 
balanced one. It said, the rule could be promulgated to protect workers 
from repetitive motion injury, but that the future President, if he 
wanted, would have 6 months to repeal it. That was the balance between 
the interests of business and the interests of workers who have no one 
to rely upon but us. It is clear the leadership pulled the plug on the 
deal because they do not want that, and they do not want this bill to 
go forward. That is sad.

                              {time}  1130

  So we will wind up not only with the workers not being protected, but 
we will wind up without the education achievements that we could have 
had in this bill, without the health research achievements we could 
have had in this bill, without the worker protections we could have had 
in this bill.
  This could have been a bipartisan closure for the Congress. Thanks to 
the leadership's genuflecting to special interests, it will now not be. 
That is the saddest thing of all about this session.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.
  Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may 
consume.
  Mr. Speaker, with all of the rhetoric we have heard here this 
morning, the truth of the matter is that it all revolved around one 
issue. That is the issue of the language trying to comply with the 
agreement that we reached early Monday morning, on the issue of the 
language relative to ergonomics.
  Now, the only reference in that negotiating session to having checked 
with a lawyer is from the Office of Management and Budget. They are 
representing the President, who suggested that he had checked with his 
lawyers and that they decided that the language actually did what the 
agreement supposedly did.
  Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?
  Mr. YOUNG of Florida. I yield to the gentleman from Wisconsin.
  Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I would tell the gentleman, I am sorry but 
that is just not true. Both Mr. Stevens and the White House left the 
room on at least two occasions to check the language with their legal 
experts. The gentleman knows that.
  Mr. YOUNG of Florida. I do not know that. I do not know that the 
Senator checked with his lawyers. I do not know that.
  Mr. OBEY. Mr. Stevens said he did. I take his word for it.
  Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I might have been talking to the 
gentleman at the time. I did not hear him say that.
  I did hear the Director of OMB say that he checked with his lawyers 
and that this was their understanding. Misunderstanding is one thing 
and misrepresenting is something entirely different.
  On the issue of ergonomics, just let me suggest one thing. I asked 
the staff of the Committee to give me a dictionary description of the 
word ``ergonomics.'' It goes something like this: ``The science of 
doing the same thing over and over until the simple act of repetition 
causes bodily harm.''
  That is what we have been doing here in the House for the last couple 
of weeks, over and over again, continuing resolution after continuing 
resolution, the same arguments over and over again, most of which do 
not have anything at all to do with this continuing resolution.
  Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, if the gentleman will yield for the last time 
on that, that is a great line. The difference is that, for the workers 
we are trying to protect, it is no laughing matter because it is their 
livelihood.
  Mr. YOUNG of Florida. The gentleman and I, as he knows, while we tend 
to be good friends and I have every confidence in his trustworthiness, 
when he tells me something I know that I can believe it, and

[[Page 25854]]

I think that he feels that he can believe what I say to him, but we 
have some strong disagreements, general philosophical disagreements.
  He knows that and I know that. That is why we have the two political 
parties, rather than just one.
  But anyway, the deal, as the minority leader referred to it as ``the 
deal,'' and I refer to it as a conference report, the conference report 
continues to contain all of the items that the minority leader talked 
about that were in that deal that were so good that fell apart. They 
did not fall apart, they are still there. They are still in the 
package. They are still part of the conference report.
  Mr. Speaker, I have just 2 minutes left, and I do not know if we are 
going to have this argument again tomorrow, though we probably will. 
But something offended me yesterday that I did not really have the time 
to respond to in the way that I wanted to. That was when one of the 
speakers on the minority side accused and referred to our leadership as 
legislative terrorists.
  I thought about that overnight and I really got upset about that, Mr. 
Speaker. Our leadership are not legislative terrorists. They are firm, 
they are strong, they have their commitments, and they have their 
convictions.
  I want to tell Members about the Speaker of the House, the gentleman 
from Illinois (Mr. Hastert). He is a very strong man of great 
integrity. He leads this House the best that he can, realizing that he 
has one of the smallest majorities that has ever existed in this House 
in its entire history.
  The gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Hastert) is not a legislative 
terrorist, by any means. The gentleman from Illinois has done 
everything that he could to keep this House together, to keep it 
moving, to get our job done, while remaining true to the principles 
upon which the majority of this House was elected.
  So I did take offense at that. I try to ignore most of the offensive 
things that I hear in these debates, but I could not let this go 
without having made some comment about this suggestion that our leaders 
were legislative terrorists.
  They are strong and they are determined. They have tremendous 
conviction. They are committed. They are going to do their job 
regardless of the accusations and the rhetoric that comes from their 
opposition.
  I say amen to that, because that is why we are here. We are here to 
do a job for the people of America. We are here to put people above 
politics. We are here to do our job and then go home and do our 
campaigning on the campaign trail, not in the House of Representatives, 
where all of the people should be represented here.
  So Mr. Speaker, I just hope that the House will pass this continuing 
resolution. I hope that we can find a way to get this business 
completed without having to spend hours and hours every day just on one 
more CR because the President of the United States refuses to be 
realistic and sign more than a 1-day continuing resolution.
  Mr. Speaker, we are here to cooperate, we are here to serve in a 
bipartisan fashion, but we are not here to yield or compromise on our 
principles.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. LaTourette). All time for debate has 
expired.
  The joint resolution is considered as having been read for amendment.
  Pursuant to House Resolution 662, 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 371, 
nays 13, not voting 49, as follows:

                             [Roll No. 587]

                               YEAS--371

     Abercrombie
     Ackerman
     Aderholt
     Allen
     Andrews
     Armey
     Baca
     Bachus
     Baker
     Baldacci
     Baldwin
     Ballenger
     Barcia
     Barr
     Barrett (NE)
     Barrett (WI)
     Bartlett
     Bass
     Becerra
     Bentsen
     Bereuter
     Berkley
     Berman
     Berry
     Biggert
     Bilirakis
     Bishop
     Blagojevich
     Bliley
     Blumenauer
     Blunt
     Boehlert
     Boehner
     Bonilla
     Bonior
     Bono
     Borski
     Boswell
     Boyd
     Brady (PA)
     Brady (TX)
     Bryant
     Burr
     Burton
     Buyer
     Callahan
     Calvert
     Camp
     Cannon
     Capps
     Cardin
     Carson
     Castle
     Chabot
     Chambliss
     Chenoweth-Hage
     Clay
     Clayton
     Clement
     Clyburn
     Coble
     Coburn
     Combest
     Condit
     Cook
     Cooksey
     Cox
     Coyne
     Cramer
     Crane
     Crowley
     Cubin
     Cummings
     Cunningham
     Davis (FL)
     Davis (IL)
     Davis (VA)
     Deal
     DeGette
     DeLauro
     DeLay
     DeMint
     Deutsch
     Diaz-Balart
     Dixon
     Doggett
     Doolittle
     Doyle
     Dreier
     Duncan
     Edwards
     Ehlers
     Ehrlich
     Emerson
     Engel
     English
     Eshoo
     Etheridge
     Everett
     Ewing
     Farr
     Fattah
     Filner
     Fletcher
     Foley
     Forbes
     Fossella
     Frank (MA)
     Frelinghuysen
     Frost
     Gallegly
     Ganske
     Gejdenson
     Gekas
     Gephardt
     Gibbons
     Gilchrest
     Gillmor
     Gilman
     Gonzalez
     Goode
     Goodlatte
     Goodling
     Gordon
     Goss
     Graham
     Granger
     Green (TX)
     Green (WI)
     Gutierrez
     Gutknecht
     Hall (OH)
     Hall (TX)
     Hastert
     Hastings (WA)
     Hayes
     Hayworth
     Hefley
     Herger
     Hill (IN)
     Hilleary
     Hinchey
     Hinojosa
     Hobson
     Hoeffel
     Hoekstra
     Holden
     Holt
     Hooley
     Horn
     Hostettler
     Houghton
     Hoyer
     Hulshof
     Hunter
     Hutchinson
     Hyde
     Inslee
     Isakson
     Istook
     Jackson (IL)
     Jefferson
     Jenkins
     John
     Johnson (CT)
     Johnson, E.B.
     Johnson, Sam
     Jones (NC)
     Jones (OH)
     Kanjorski
     Kaptur
     Kelly
     Kildee
     Kilpatrick
     Kind (WI)
     King (NY)
     Kingston
     Kleczka
     Knollenberg
     Kolbe
     Kucinich
     Kuykendall
     LaHood
     Lampson
     Largent
     Larson
     Latham
     LaTourette
     Leach
     Lee
     Levin
     Lewis (CA)
     Lewis (GA)
     Lewis (KY)
     Linder
     Lipinski
     LoBiondo
     Lofgren
     Lowey
     Lucas (KY)
     Lucas (OK)
     Luther
     Maloney (CT)
     Maloney (NY)
     Manzullo
     Markey
     Martinez
     Mascara
     Matsui
     McCarthy (MO)
     McCarthy (NY)
     McDermott
     McGovern
     McHugh
     McInnis
     McIntyre
     McKeon
     McKinney
     McNulty
     Meehan
     Meek (FL)
     Meeks (NY)
     Menendez
     Metcalf
     Millender-McDonald
     Miller (FL)
     Miller, Gary
     Minge
     Mink
     Moakley
     Moran (KS)
     Moran (VA)
     Morella
     Murtha
     Myrick
     Nadler
     Napolitano
     Nethercutt
     Ney
     Northup
     Norwood
     Nussle
     Oberstar
     Obey
     Olver
     Ortiz
     Owens
     Oxley
     Packard
     Pallone
     Pascrell
     Pastor
     Paul
     Payne
     Pease
     Pelosi
     Peterson (MN)
     Peterson (PA)
     Petri
     Pickering
     Pickett
     Pitts
     Pombo
     Pomeroy
     Porter
     Portman
     Price (NC)
     Pryce (OH)
     Quinn
     Radanovich
     Rahall
     Ramstad
     Rangel
     Regula
     Reyes
     Reynolds
     Riley
     Rivers
     Rodriguez
     Roemer
     Rogan
     Rogers
     Rohrabacher
     Ros-Lehtinen
     Rothman
     Roukema
     Roybal-Allard
     Royce
     Rush
     Ryan (WI)
     Ryun (KS)
     Sabo
     Sanchez
     Sanders
     Sandlin
     Sanford
     Sawyer
     Saxton
     Schaffer
     Schakowsky
     Sensenbrenner
     Serrano
     Sessions
     Shadegg
     Sherman
     Sherwood
     Shimkus
     Shows
     Shuster
     Simpson
     Sisisky
     Skeen
     Skelton
     Slaughter
     Smith (MI)
     Smith (NJ)
     Smith (TX)
     Smith (WA)
     Snyder
     Souder
     Spence
     Spratt
     Stabenow
     Stark
     Stearns
     Stenholm
     Strickland
     Stump
     Sununu
     Sweeney
     Tancredo
     Tanner
     Tauscher
     Tauzin
     Taylor (MS)
     Taylor (NC)
     Terry
     Thomas
     Thompson (CA)
     Thornberry
     Thune
     Thurman
     Tiahrt
     Tierney
     Toomey
     Towns
     Traficant
     Udall (CO)
     Udall (NM)
     Upton
     Velazquez
     Vitter
     Walden
     Walsh
     Wamp
     Watkins
     Watt (NC)
     Weiner
     Weldon (FL)
     Weldon (PA)
     Weller
     Weygand
     Whitfield
     Wicker
     Wilson
     Wolf
     Woolsey
     Wu
     Wynn
     Young (AK)
     Young (FL)

                                NAYS--13

     Baird
     Barton
     Capuano
     Costello
     DeFazio
     Ford
     Hilliard
     LaFalce
     Miller, George
     Phelps
     Stupak
     Thompson (MS)
     Visclosky

                             NOT VOTING--49

     Archer
     Bilbray
     Boucher
     Brown (FL)
     Brown (OH)
     Campbell

[[Page 25855]]


     Canady
     Collins
     Conyers
     Danner
     Delahunt
     Dickey
     Dicks
     Dingell
     Dooley
     Dunn
     Evans
     Fowler
     Franks (NJ)
     Greenwood
     Hansen
     Hastings (FL)
     Hill (MT)
     Jackson-Lee (TX)
     Kasich
     Kennedy
     Klink
     Lantos
     Lazio
     McCollum
     McCrery
     McIntosh
     Mica
     Mollohan
     Moore
     Neal
     Ose
     Salmon
     Scarborough
     Scott
     Shaw
     Shays
     Talent
     Turner
     Waters
     Watts (OK)
     Waxman
     Wexler
     Wise

                              {time}  1159

  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.

                          ____________________