[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 149 (2003), Part 2]
[House]
[Pages 2061-2066]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




      APPOINTMENT OF CONFEREES ON H.J. RES. 2, FURTHER CONTINUING 
                    APPROPRIATIONS, FISCAL YEAR 2003

  Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to take 
from the Speaker's table the joint resolution (H.J. Res. 2) making 
further continuing appropriations for fiscal year 2003, and for other 
purposes, with a Senate amendment thereto, disagree to the Senate 
amendment, and agree to the conference asked by the Senate.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Is there objection to the request of the 
gentleman from Florida?
  There was no objection.


                 Motion to Instruct Offered by Mr. Obey

  Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I offer a motion to instruct conferees.
  The Clerk read as follows:

       Mr. OBEY moves that the managers on the part of the House 
     at the conference on the disagreeing votes of the two Houses 
     on the Senate amendment to the joint resolution, H.J. Res. 2, 
     be instructed to agree to the highest level of funding within 
     the scope of conference (1) for the programs within the 
     jurisdiction of the Subcommittee on Labor, Health and Human 
     Services, Education and Related Agencies, including advance 
     appropriations in the Senate amendment, and (2) for veterans' 
     medical care and to insist that, within the scope of 
     conference, no item requested by the President for homeland 
     security (as identified in the OMB submission titled 
     ``Homeland Security Funding'') be funded below the level of 
     the President's request.


[[Page 2062]]


  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under clause 7 of rule XXII, the gentleman 
from Wisconsin (Mr. Obey) and the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Young) 
each will control 30 minutes.
  The Chair recognizes the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Obey).
  Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 10 minutes.
  Mr. Speaker, Article I of the Constitution states that no money can 
be drawn from the Treasury except by act of Congress.

                              {time}  1230

  That is the essence of the separation and balance of power in this 
government. It is the core function of this body. It is what makes this 
a legislative body, not a Soviet-style rubber stamp.
  So let me ask what some Members might find to be a somewhat 
embarrassing question: How did the House of Representatives get through 
an entire session of Congress last year without ever even calling up 
for debate Senate appropriation bills that fund more than three-
quarters of the government outside of the Department of Defense? Now I 
am not asking why we failed to pass the bills. There can be numerous 
answers to that question. I am not asking why we did not complete the 
conference report. That could easily be blamed on the intransigence or 
inaction of the other body.
  What I am asking is how could be we fail to even call up for debate 
on this floor, on this floor, the basic pieces of legislation to fund 
the government when that is our fundamental responsibility as an 
institution.
  Mr. Speaker, this is the 108th Congress. This is the 215th year in 
which this body has gathered to perform our duties under the 
Constitution. As a result, it is quite difficult to do something in 
Congress that has never been done before, but I think this body in the 
last Congress actually succeeded in that respect. The House Republican 
leadership never even let these bills out of committee, never debated 
on the House floor whether the amounts requested or the sums 
recommended by the committee were too much or too little, never allowed 
the elected representatives of the American people to vote on any of 
these matters.
  The result, the party that is oh, so noisy in talking about 
accountability for teachers and schools is oh, so silent when it comes 
to the accountability of Members of Congress. You cannot be held 
accountable for the choices you never make, and that is the game that 
has gone on here for almost a year.
  Mr. Speaker, how can there be a more fundamental breakdown of the 
institution? What a disgrace. What was it that we did all year that was 
so important we could not at least call these bills up?
  I want to make it quite clear, there is one person in this 
institution who I am not referring to, and that is the gentleman from 
Florida (Mr. Young), the chairman of the Committee on Appropriations, 
who has gone to the mat time and time again to try to get this House to 
meet its responsibilities. He has spoken on the subject often and 
eloquently, and it is in spite of his very considerable efforts that we 
find ourselves where we are today.
  In my mind there is one issue at the bottom of this: the majority 
party leadership in this House abandoned its central responsibility 
under the Constitution and to the American people in order to get 
political cover on one issue. They love to talk the talk on education, 
but they are not willing to walk the walk. They are not willing to put 
their money where their mouths are. Oh, yes, they like to visit 
schools. They like to read to children when the cameras are around; and 
oh, they love to make TV ads about how important education is and how 
much they care about it. They like to vote for big, expensive 
authorization programs creating new major responsibilities for local 
boards to meet, and they like to promise huge sums of Federal money to 
pay for them. They love to do all of those things.
  There is only one thing that they apparently cannot and will not do, 
and that is pay the bill afterwards. Now most people have seen a con 
artist in action, at least in the movies. They have the capacity to 
seem in almost every respect to be someone quite different from whom 
they really are. That is what the majority party has done over the last 
several years with respect to education. Of course, the only time they 
get caught at the game is when the appropriations bills are on the 
floor. That is the one point in time when all of the pretty images fall 
apart, all of photo ops, press releases and slick TV ads, that is the 
time when they do not run true; and that is why this day has been 
delayed for almost 8 months, well after the election, well after the 
opportunity of the American people to measure whether the rhetoric 
coming out of the Congress and this administration has anything 
whatsoever to do with the reality as far as education is concerned.
  Unfortunately, even now we do not have an appropriate bill in front 
of us. We do not have specific funding levels proposed for specific 
programs. We have the most confusing hodgepodge of numbers it would be 
possible to concoct, and a motion to go to conference on those numbers. 
That is an open invitation to have a small group of people bring back 
an all-or-nothing omnibus package so big and so complex and so late in 
the year that we can claim that we just had to vote for it, even though 
it is on a program-by-program basis 180 degrees at variance with what a 
large majority of this body claims to support.
  Today I want to give this House an opportunity to send a different 
message to the conference. I want to give Members on the other side of 
the aisle who truly believe what they say about resources in the 
classroom, better teachers, small classes, stronger curriculum a chance 
to stand up and say to Mitch Daniels and their leadership here in the 
House that they are for real, that they insist on a bottom line that is 
much higher for education than the numbers that my friend, the 
gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Regula), has been given to work with.
  Our motion to instruct simply says that the allocation to the bill 
that contains education funding shall not be smaller when the bill 
comes back to the House than the sums contained in the Senate bill. If 
we take all of the increases the Senate says it would like to make in 
that bill, we find ourselves $9.55 billion over the level the House has 
allocated to the Regula bill. Even after we subtract the remarkable 
across-the-board cuts contained in the Senate package, this bill is 
about $5.7 billion above House levels. CBO has not scored it yet, and 
so we do not have precise numbers; but that is about where we believe 
the Senate ends up.
  We are asking that the House direct its conferees to begin this 
conference by agreeing with the Senate on that overall funding level. 
It is not at the level of increase in our schools that we have provided 
in any of the last 6 years. It would mean that the result of all of the 
time and debate we spent in enacting No Child Left Behind would be to 
scale back the funds that we are sending to schools. It is not the 
level that we can and should provide, but under the rules we are 
working under it is the best we can do; and it is without any question 
the least we should do. I would simply note, by the way, that the 
bludgeoning-nature of the across-the-board cuts provided by the Senate 
has resulted in unacceptable damage to a number of other crucial 
activities in areas such as health and science.
  There are two other parts to this motion. One is that the level of 
funds for homeland security activities in this package shall not fall 
below the levels requested by the President so far as it is possible 
within the scope of the conference. Yesterday, I catalogued just how 
inadequate the President's budget is for homeland security, for port 
protection, for first responders. But the Senate's across-the-board 
cuts have taken more than a billion dollars from homeland security 
activities. Our intent is to restore those funds. It, at the very 
least, will make clear that the education funds will not be coming from 
homeland security.
  Finally, we have a crisis in veterans' medical care. The across-the-
board cuts in the Senate bill significantly exacerbates that crisis. We 
direct in this

[[Page 2063]]

motion the conferees to go to the highest possible level for veterans' 
medical care that is within the scope of the conference.
  I will be very blunt about this instruction. If anyone votes for it, 
they are setting parameters on the conference that do not permit the 
conference to come back within the allocation that Mitch Daniels and 
the gentleman from Iowa (Mr. Nussle) have established. This motion says 
to them that the line that they have drawn in the sand for education 
and other domestic needs is unrealistic. We need to move on and resolve 
these differences, and we need to support local schools. This is not 
the end of the process; this is step one.
  If a majority of this body votes to agree with the Senate that we 
need this $5.7 billion increase for education, and the Congress then 
agrees to a conference report that rejects the position taken by both 
Houses, the American people will then know exactly what is going on 
around here. They are going to know at that point exactly how phony all 
of these press releases and TV ads on education have been.
  Mr. Speaker, no one should vote for this motion if they intend to 
vote for a later conference report that scales back funding for the 
very education programs we are trying to protect by this motion. That 
would be an act of hypocrisy that would be startling even by the 
standards of this town.
  Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may 
consume.
  Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the effort that the gentleman from 
Wisconsin (Mr. Obey) is making here, and I would say that these are 
some of the items that we will definitely be dealing with as we go to 
conference.
  But for those Members who have followed the budget and the 
appropriations process for fiscal year 2003, they will recognize that 
we really have accomplished somewhat of a miracle to be where we are 
today, ready to appoint conferees so we can go to conference with the 
Senate.
  If we agreed with the bill that the other body has sent to us as an 
amendment to our continuing resolution, we could just agree to their 
amendment today and our business for fiscal year 2003 would be 
concluded, and I would tell Members that I do not think the gentleman 
from Wisconsin (Mr. Obey) and I could be happier if that were the case. 
But the fact is, as we study that bill, it is not a bill that we can 
agree with; so it is essential that we go to conference.
  The Senate had to reduce the bills that they had reported from their 
committee by $9 billion just to get to the top number that a majority 
of Members have agreed to. In addition to that, they are going to have 
to make some additional changes because even though they are at the top 
number, there are many things in the bills that our committee reported 
that are not in their bill, and they have included things in their bill 
that were not in our bill, so we have a lot of work to do.
  So as we go to conference, we need flexibility. We need to be able to 
negotiate, to move, to make decisions, and to bring back to this House 
a responsible omnibus appropriations bill, for fiscal year 2003 and 
conclude the business for fiscal year 2003 because fiscal year 2004 is 
approaching us like a runaway train, and thus we will be beginning 
fiscal year 2004 activities almost immediately.
  The gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Obey) does not need to have this 
motion to instruct conferees. He and I will lead a very strong 
conference team to meet with our counterparts in the other body. I will 
be speaking for the majority side, and the gentleman from Wisconsin 
(Mr. Obey) will be speaking for the minority side. He and I are 
partners. We will go into this conference knowing where we want to end 
up and knowing what we have to do to end up there.
  We actually do not need a motion to instruct conferees. If for some 
reason the conference committee got bogged down, maybe we would need a 
motion to instruct, but I do not think that is going to happen. I have 
worked very closely with the chairman of the Senate Committee on 
Appropriations, and we believe that we have the ability to reach 
agreements on very difficult decisions. Because of that, I think today 
is not a good time to instruct conferees. I would say at a later date 
if that becomes necessary that maybe I would agree to it. Today I ask 
Members to reject this motion to instruct.
  Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?
  Mr. YOUNG of Florida. I yield to the gentleman from Massachusetts.
  Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Speaker, after listening to the 
gentleman from Florida (Mr. Young), it sounded like the gentleman was 
saying that the conferees would be himself and the gentleman from 
Wisconsin. I want to say if that is the deal, if there are going to be 
two conferees, the chairman and the ranking minority member of the 
Committee on Appropriations, I would urge the gentleman from Wisconsin 
(Mr. Obey) to withdraw the motion to instruct because if those are the 
two Members, as the gentleman said, I would have complete confidence in 
them. Pending that, if the gentleman would just confirm that he said 
the conferees will be himself and the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. 
Obey), I am ready to go home.
  Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from 
Massachusetts (Mr. Frank) for his comments. At one point I actually 
suggested that we keep our side of the conference very, very small, 
meaning the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Obey) and myself, and maybe 
one other be conferees, but that did not work.
  Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Speaker, if the gentleman would 
continue to yield, the ``maybe one other'' just ruined it.

                              {time}  1245

  Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I think I said all that needs to 
be said, and I would like to advise the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. 
Obey), my friend, I really do not have any other speakers on the 
subject; so I am going to reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield 6 minutes to the gentleman from 
Maryland (Mr. Hoyer), the distinguished minority whip.
  Mr. HOYER. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding me this 
time.
  Mr. Speaker, the hollow promises must end. Last night President Bush 
said, and I quote, ``Whatever action is required, whenever action is 
necessary, I will defend the freedom and security of the American 
people.'' That was correct that he said that. Last year he said, 
``Whatever it costs to defend our country, we will pay.'' I think he 
was right to say that. The late fees, however, on those promises are 
piling up.
  My friends on the other side of the aisle, not, by the way, members 
of the Committee on Appropriations, and not under the leadership of the 
gentleman from Florida (Mr. Young), who does an extraordinary job in 
our committee, but some of my friends on the other side of the aisle 
are licking their chops at the smorgasbord of tax cuts that would 
fatten the wealthy and leave scraps for most Americans and force our 
children to pay the bill. But they do not want to spend resources now 
that are needed for Federal agencies to respond to terrorist threats. 
The gentleman from Florida (Mr. Young) and the gentleman from Wisconsin 
(Mr. Obey) tried to bring that to their attention. Nor will they honor 
the bipartisan pledge to improve our educational system.
  Within the limits of parliamentary procedures, we are limited in what 
can be offered in this motion. However, its purpose is critical. It is 
time to leave the hot air behind and the rhetoric behind and to live up 
to our commitment and the expectations of those who sent us here. It is 
time to live up to our commitment to indeed leave no child behind.
  We made a promise to help schools implement reforms to meet higher 
standards. We have asked States and local school districts to do the 
work, and we must show that we were serious, that we meant what we 
said, that we will put the Nation's money where the Nation's heart is. 
The House bill is $5.7 billion less than the other body's

[[Page 2064]]

funding for the No Child Left Behind Act. If we pursue that number, we 
will leave millions of children behind.
  This is simply inadequate, inadequate to help local school districts 
meet the new mandates we insisted upon just last year. Title I is 
intended to help disadvantaged students meet high academic standards, a 
critical objective. Ten million children are eligible for Title I 
services. Again, the House only meets two-thirds of the $16 billion we 
need. I say to my friends, that is saying to over 3 million children in 
America there is no room in this rich inn. The other body provides an 
additional $500 million, and we ought to give them at least that level 
so that we leave no child behind.
  The other body also provides $2 billion more in IDEA grants, children 
with disabilities who seek an education. We promised the States we 
would participate; $2 billion light are we. The House level provides 
less than half of the Federal contribution toward the added cost of 
special education that is authorized under IDEA. Again, we as the 
representatives of the American people need to ensure the fact that 
America lives up to its promises.
  We must not forget our veterans either. Over 310,000 veterans are on 
waiting lists for medical care, and many veterans are waiting as long 
as 6 months for an appointment to see a doctor. To a person last night 
we stood and cheered and clapped with respect and appreciation for 
those who serve us in uniform both here and abroad. Should we do any 
less for them when they are through their active service but need the 
health care we have promised? It is an outrage to not do so. Freedom's 
defenders deserve better. We must fully fund VA medical care. We do not 
do it.
  Finally, with regard to homeland security, the Council on Foreign 
Relations reported last October that we are ``dangerously unprepared to 
prevent and respond to a catastrophic terrorist attack on U.S. soil.'' 
The gentleman from Florida (Mr. Young) and the gentleman from Wisconsin 
(Mr. Obey) pleaded with the President of the United States to respond 
to this vulnerability. The cost of addressing our vulnerabilities is a 
mere fraction of the President's $674 billion tax cut.
  I was elected to State Senate in 1966. Ted Agnew, who was then the 
county executive of Baltimore County, elected Governor that same year, 
and in the inaugural address he said this: That the price of progress 
far exceeds the cost of failure. The billions of dollars that were 
suggested by the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Young) and by the 
gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Obey) could save us tens of billions of 
dollars, as the President said, in preventing just one catastrophic 
event.
  I hope my colleagues will support this motion. I hope my colleagues 
will stand and say we promise and we talk, but this motion says we are 
also prepared to take the walk. I believe Americans are prepared to 
take that walk as well.
  Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield 4 minutes to the distinguished 
gentleman from Massachusetts, the new ranking member of the Committee 
on Financial Services.
  Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for 
yielding me this time. I have to say with respect to the gentleman from 
Florida (Mr. Young) even if the conference was not just himself and the 
gentleman from Wisconsin, if it was just himself, many on our side 
would not be so nervous, but he is for all dedication not autonomous, 
less autonomous, less nearly autonomous than he used to be under the 
current regime, and we fear that the instructions he will be getting 
from the other side of Pennsylvania Avenue will outweigh commitments 
that we think ought to be made to the people we are here to serve.
  I wish we were not dealing with all of these issues in one 
instruction motion, but it must be repeated again. The way in which 
this House leadership has chosen to deal with the appropriations 
process this year has been one of the most thorough degradations of the 
democratic process I have ever seen. And people have said, well, but 
the Senate did not pass a budget. What does that have to do with the 
constitutional right of this body to pass appropriations bills?
  We, in fact, passed two appropriations bills for defense. There was 
no obstacle there, and there was no obstacle with the other 
appropriations bills except the political reality that by the time you 
get through financing two wars with three tax cuts, you do not have 
enough money left to meet fundamental social obligations.
  And what the gentleman from Wisconsin is trying to do and he says, in 
a burst of reasonableness, within the scope of conference, indeed I 
think that might be the part of it to which the other side objects the 
most, because staying within the scope of the conference has rarely 
been their practice in recent years, but the gentleman from Wisconsin 
has correctly in parliamentary terms framed his motion, and he says we 
would have liked even more in some of these areas. At least let us go 
to the level that the Republican-controlled United States Senate voted 
for.
  What happens if we do not do that? Veterans get a good deal of 
rhetoric from this institution. I wish they got 25 percent as much help 
as they get rhetoric. In the New England region Category 8 veterans 
have been shut off altogether because we cannot afford it because we 
have got to do a big tax cut, because we have other priorities. The 
gentleman from Wisconsin's motion is giving a chance to say do that.
  I will say this: If people do not vote for the gentleman's motion, 
and if, as he stressed, even more importantly they do not vote for a 
conference report that reaches that level, if they vote for a 
conference report that has less than that, then any of them who then 
talk about how sorry they are that veterans' medical care is being cut 
are indeed guilty of the grossest form of hypocrisy, as the gentleman 
from Wisconsin said.
  There are other areas we cannot touch here because of the 
unwillingness of the majority to let the normal process go forward. The 
Securities and Exchange Commission even at the Senate level will be 
substantially below what the President said they should get when he 
signed the corporate responsibility bill. The last time we debated 
this, the gentleman from Virginia, who is a subcommittee chairman, said 
to me, ``I am introducing a bill to give them the money.'' He 
introduced the bill. It remains introduced. It has not been voted on. 
It has not been acted on.
  Housing is also significantly underfunded, and there will be terrible 
problems in public housing, in Section 8.
  But in the areas of the gentleman's motion, health care for veterans, 
research at NIH, and education, a failure not simply to vote for this 
instruction motion, because I am not sure that we may not be able to 
rope-a-dope here, in which people will vote for an instruction motion 
and then act contrary to it, and try and get coverage because they 
voted for the instruction motion, if we do not have an appropriation 
that at least reaches these levels for the National Institutes for 
Health, for education, for veterans care, then we will have really 
thoroughly failed in our obligation to the American people.
  We passed an education bill, and we cheered for it, and now we have 
imposed on the localities without giving them the money. We have done 
this time and time again. The gentleman from Wisconsin's motion and its 
being taken seriously by the conference committee is the minimum that 
decency requires, and I wish I was not skeptical that we will achieve 
it.
  I thank the gentleman for yielding me this time.
  Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the distinguished 
gentleman from California (Mr. George Miller), the ranking member of 
the Committee on Education and the Workforce.
  Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California. Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong 
support of the Obey motion because it keeps a promise with the American 
public. It keeps a promise with America's schoolchildren, and it keeps 
a promise with the parents of those children and the teachers that 
teach them. And that

[[Page 2065]]

promise was made by the President of the United States, that promise 
was made by the Congress of the United States, that in the process of 
enacting the most far-reaching reforms in the Federal role in education 
in this country, that we would fully fund the means by which the States 
and localities and school districts could carry out those reforms. But 
almost before the ink was dry, the President submitted a budget that, 
in fact, made cuts in that education promise.
  Last night the President talked about the accomplishments that he had 
had. He talked about setting standards and having young children 
achieve those standards. That is the promise, but it is not happening. 
It is not happening in this country, and now it is even under greater 
threat because of the cuts that are taking place in education because 
of the economic distress in our country and the budgetary distress in 
our States.
  The question for us is whether or not we will help these school 
districts carry out these reforms so that these children can have a 
higher level of achievement, a higher level of accomplishment, and a 
better chance of participating in the American dream. That is what the 
Obey amendment is about. That is what this vote is about. It is about 
whether or not this Congress will redeem that promise on behalf of 
America's schoolchildren.
  We cannot have a freeze on those, as the House appropriations bill 
did. We cannot have the measly increase that the Senate has suggested. 
What, in fact, we need is to add this additional $5.7 billion so that 
the promise of no child left behind is, in fact, a reality. And it is 
important because States are required under this law to do many things 
differently, many things better than they have done in the past, and we 
believe, and most educators believe, that the result will be that 
America's schoolchildren will have a higher level of accomplishment, 
will have a higher level of performance. By the same token, those very 
same independent observers of the American education system understand 
that if the resources are not there, this promise will be hollow.

                              {time}  1300

  The President made the promise, the President should keep the 
promise, and the Congress of the United States should help him to keep 
that promise by passing the Obey motion to instruct.
  Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 3 minutes.
  Mr. Speaker, yesterday this House refused to provide the financial 
assistance necessary to our local firemen and policemen and other first 
responders whose responsibility it is to be our first line of defense 
against terrorist attacks in communities throughout this country.
  Today I would hope that the House would not take action to deny the 
health care resources that American veterans need and deserve. I would 
hope we would not deny them the funds that those veterans need in order 
to avoid the kind of service cutoffs that we have seen the VA announce 
over recent weeks.
  I know the name of the game on the part of the White House and the 
majority party leadership is to preserve every possible dollar on the 
table for tax cuts, a huge percentage of which are aimed at the most 
well-off 1 percent of the folks in our society who make more than 
$300,000. I understand that that is the name of the game. But in my 
view, while I certainly wish those folks well and while I think they 
ought to share in the same tax cuts provided other people, I think that 
veterans need VA health care more than someone who is earning $500,000 
a year needs to have an extra jumbo-sized tax cut.
  So I would simply ask Members of this House, do not, please, pose for 
political ``holy pictures'' by having photo ops at local schools, if 
the only thing you are willing to send those local schools is a new set 
of mandates without the money to help pay for them. Do not do that. 
School districts are in too big a squeeze and State governments with 
their financial problems are in too big a squeeze already.
  All we are asking you to do is, within the possibilities presented by 
this conference report, we are asking you to vote for the maximum 
amount possible in order to come closer than we will otherwise come to 
meeting the promises so far unfulfilled of the No Child Left Behind 
Act.
  I urge a ``yes'' vote on the motion to instruct.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.
  Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my 
time.
  Mr. Speaker, I want to make the case very strongly that a ``no'' vote 
on this motion to instruct does not deny any of the things that have 
been discussed today. It does not approve them; it does not deny them. 
A ``no'' vote allows us to have total flexibility as the gentleman from 
Wisconsin (Mr. Obey) and I lead this conference committee into a final 
solution for fiscal year 2003.
  I listened to the debate, and I have a hard time disagreeing with 
things that I have heard. But as I said, a ``no'' vote does not deny 
any of that.
  So, Mr. Speaker, I would ask my colleagues to reject this motion to 
instruct. Let us go to conference, and let us bring the best bill that 
we possibly can back here for consideration by the House.
  Mr. Speaker, I have no further requests for time, and I yield back 
the balance of my time.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Without objection, the previous question is 
ordered on the motion.
  There was no objection.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Isakson). The question is on the motion 
to instruct offered by the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Obey).
  The question was taken; and the Speaker pro tempore announced that 
the ayes appeared to have it.
  Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I object to the vote on the ground that a 
quorum is not present and make the point of order that a quorum is not 
present.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Evidently a quorum is not present.
  The Sergeant at Arms will notify absent Members.
  The vote was taken by electronic device, and there were--yeas 200, 
nays 209, not voting 25, as follows:

                             [Roll No. 17]

                               YEAS--200

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

[[Page 2066]]



                               NAYS--209

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

                             NOT VOTING--25

     Becerra
     Burton (IN)
     Camp
     Combest
     Conyers
     Cubin
     Ehlers
     Gallegly
     Gephardt
     Hastings (FL)
     Herger
     Hoekstra
     Johnson, E.B.
     Kaptur
     Lewis (CA)
     Olver
     Ros-Lehtinen
     Shaw
     Smith (MI)
     Smith (TX)
     Tiahrt
     Towns
     Weldon (PA)
     Wilson (NM)
     Wilson (SC)


                Announcement by the Speaker Pro Tempore

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Isakson). The Chair would advise Members 
that there are 2 minutes remaining on this vote.

                              {time}  1324

  Messrs. KINGSTON, TAUZIN, BARTON of Texas, SAXTON, KING of New York, 
and Mrs. BONO and Mrs. NORTHUP changed their vote from ``yea'' to 
``nay.''
  So the motion to instruct was rejected.
  The result of the vote was announced as above recorded.
  A motion to recommit was laid on the table.
  Stated for:
  Ms. EDDIE BERNICE JOHNSON of Texas. Mr. Speaker, I was unable to vote 
on rollcall No. 17, motion to go to conference on House Joint 
Resolution 2, because I am still recovering from surgery. Had I been 
present, I would have voted ``yea'' on rollcall No. 17.
  Mr. BECERRA. Mr. Speaker, on Wednesday, January 29, 2003, I was 
unavoidably detained, and therefore unable to cast my floor vote on 
rollcall No. 17, the Motion to Instruct Conferees on H.J. Res. 2.
  Had I been present for the vote, I would have voted ``yea'' on 
rollcall vote 17.
  Stated against:
  Mr. WILSON of South Carolina. Mr. Speaker, on rollcall No. 17 I was 
unavoidably detained as my pager did not work.
  Had I been present, I would have voted ``nay.''
  Mr. TIAHRT. Mr. Speaker, on rollcall No. 17 I was unavoidably 
detained and missed the vote.
  Had I been here I would have voted ``nay.''
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Without objection, the Chair appoints the 
following conferees:
  Messrs. Young of Florida, Regula, Rogers of Kentucky, Wolf, Kolbe, 
Walsh, Taylor of North Carolina, Hobson, Istook, Bonilla, Knollenberg, 
Kingston, Obey, Murtha, Dicks, Sabo, Mollohan, Ms. Kaptur, Mr. 
Visclosky, Mrs. Lowey, Mr. Serrano and Mr. Moran of Virginia.
  There was no objection.

                          ____________________