[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 150 (2004), Part 11]
[House]
[Pages 14644-14668]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




DEPARTMENTS OF COMMERCE, JUSTICE, AND STATE, THE JUDICIARY, AND RELATED 
                   AGENCIES APPROPRIATIONS ACT, 2005

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. King of Iowa). Pursuant to House 
Resolution 701 and rule XVIII, the Chair declares the House in the 
Committee of the Whole House on the State of the Union for the further 
consideration of the bill, H.R. 4754.

                              {time}  1629


                     In the Committee of the Whole

  Accordingly, the House resolved itself into the Committee of the 
Whole House on the State of the Union for the further consideration of 
the bill (H.R. 4754) making appropriations for Agriculture, Rural 
Development, Food and Drug Administration, and related agencies for the 
fiscal year ending September 30, 2005, and for other purposes, with Mr. 
Hastings of Washington in the chair.
  The Clerk read the title of the bill.
  The CHAIRMAN. When the Committee of the Whole rose earlier today, the 
bill was open for amendment from page 2, line 6, through line 22.
  Are there further amendments to this paragraph?
  The Clerk will read.
  The Clerk read as follows:

                     joint automated booking system

       For expenses necessary for the nationwide deployment of a 
     Joint Automated Booking System including automated capability 
     to transmit fingerprint and image data, $20,000,000, to 
     remain available until September 30, 2006.


         integrated automated fingerprint identification system

       For necessary expenses for the planning, development, and 
     deployment of an integrated fingerprint identification 
     system, including automated capability to transmit 
     fingerprint and image data, $5,054,000, to remain available 
     until September 30, 2006.


                   legal activities office automation

       For necessary expenses related to the design, development, 
     engineering, acquisition, and implementation of office 
     automation systems for the organizations funded under the 
     headings ``Salaries and Expenses, General Legal Activities'', 
     and ``General Administration, Salaries and Expenses'', and 
     the United States Attorneys, the United States Marshals 
     Service, the Antitrust Division, the United States Trustee 
     Program, the Executive Office for Immigration Review, the 
     Community Relations Service, the Bureau of Prisons, the 
     Office of Justice Programs, and the United States Parole 
     Commission, $50,000,000, to remain available until September 
     30, 2006.


                       narrowband communications

       For the costs of conversion to narrowband communications, 
     including the cost for operation and maintenance of Land 
     Mobile Radio legacy systems, $100,000,000, to remain 
     available until September 30, 2006: Provided, That the 
     Attorney General shall transfer to the ``Narrowband 
     Communications'' account all funds made available to the 
     Department of Justice for the purchase of portable and mobile 
     radios: Provided further, That any transfer made under the 
     preceding proviso shall be subject to section 605 of this 
     Act.


                   administrative review and appeals

       For expenses necessary for the administration of pardon and 
     clemency petitions and immigration-related activities, 
     $202,518,000.


                           detention trustee

       For necessary expenses of the Federal Detention Trustee, 
     $938,810,000, to remain available until expended: Provided, 
     That the Trustee shall be responsible for managing the 
     Justice Prisoner and Alien Transportation System and for 
     overseeing housing related to such detention: Provided 
     further, That any unobligated balances available in prior 
     years from the funds appropriated under the heading ``Federal 
     Prisoner Detention'' shall be transferred to and merged with 
     the appropriation under the heading ``Detention Trustee'' and 
     shall be available until expended. Provided further, That the 
     Trustee, working in consultation with the Bureau of Prisons, 
     shall submit a plan for collecting information related to 
     evaluating

[[Page 14645]]

     the health and safety of Federal prisoners in non-Federal 
     institutions no later than 180 days following the enactment 
     of this Act.


                      office of inspector general

       For necessary expenses of the Office of Inspector General, 
     $63,813,000, including not to exceed $10,000 to meet 
     unforeseen emergencies of a confidential character.

                    United States Parole Commission


                         salaries and expenses

       For necessary expenses of the United States Parole 
     Commission as authorized, $10,650,000.

                            Legal Activities


            salaries and expenses, general legal activities

       For expenses necessary for the legal activities of the 
     Department of Justice, not otherwise provided for, including 
     not to exceed $20,000 for expenses of collecting evidence, to 
     be expended under the direction of, and to be accounted for 
     solely under the certificate of, the Attorney General; and 
     rent of private or Government-owned space in the District of 
     Columbia, $639,314,000, of which not to exceed $10,000,000 
     for litigation support contracts shall remain available until 
     expended: Provided, That none of the funds made available in 
     this Act shall be used in any way whatsoever to support or 
     justify the use of torture by any official or contract 
     employee of the United States Government: Provided further, 
     That of the total amount appropriated, not to exceed $1,000 
     shall be available to the United States National Central 
     Bureau, INTERPOL, for official reception and representation 
     expenses: Provided further, That notwithstanding any other 
     provision of law, upon a determination by the Attorney 
     General that emergent circumstances require additional 
     funding for litigation activities of the Civil Division, the 
     Attorney General may transfer such amounts to ``Salaries and 
     Expenses, General Legal Activities'' from available 
     appropriations for the current fiscal year for the Department 
     of Justice, as may be necessary to respond to such 
     circumstances: Provided further, That any transfer pursuant 
     to the previous proviso shall be treated as a reprogramming 
     under section 605 of this Act and shall not be available for 
     obligation or expenditure except in compliance with the 
     procedures set forth in that section.

                              {time}  1630


                 Amendment Offered by Mr. King of iowa

  Mr. KING of Iowa. Mr. Chairman, I offer an amendment.
  The Clerk read as follows:

       Amendment offered by Mr. King of Iowa:
       Page 5, line 22, strike ``expended:'' and insert 
     ``expended, and of which $1,000,000 shall be available for 
     enforcing subsections (a) and (b) of section 642 of the 
     Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act 
     of 1996 (8 U.S.C. 1373):''.

  Mr. WOLF. Mr. Chairman, I reserve a point of order.
  Mr. KING of Iowa. Mr. Chairman, I offer this amendment today to 
enforce existing Federal law that prohibits localities from refusing to 
allow their officers to report aliens who commit crimes to the 
immigration authorities. My amendment would provide funding for the 
Department of Justice to enforce current law, which is section 642 of 
the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigration Responsibility Act of 
1996.
  Section 642 of the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigration 
Responsibility Act of 1996 does not allow localities to prevent their 
police officers from reporting immigration information to the Federal 
Government. However, some cities have continued to refuse to allow 
their officers to provide information to the Federal Government. 
Without this information, the Federal immigration authorities cannot 
take steps to remove these criminal illegal aliens from American 
streets. Under these so-called sanctuary policies in certain cities, 
the police cannot report the illegal aliens who commit crimes to the 
immigration authorities for deportation.
  As a result, taxpayers pay to incarcerate illegal alien prisoners who 
are later released back on to the streets rather than being deported. 
This sanctuary policy has disastrous consequences for future victims.
  Repeat offenses by criminal illegal aliens are preventable crimes. 
These offenders should have been removed from the United States as soon 
as their first crime was discovered. Their prompt removal prevents 
future crimes. We can act to prevent crime by funding enforcement of 
section 642 by the Department of Justice.
  An unfortunate situation that occurred in New York City, a crime that 
could have been prevented by enforcement of section 642, indicates the 
urgent need for our action. On December 19, 2002, a 42-year-old mother 
of two was seized and brutally assaulted in a shanty near railroad 
tracks in Queens. She and her boyfriend were robbed by a group who then 
took the woman to the woods, leaving her boyfriend unconscious. During 
the 2-hour attack, she was abused and her life was threatened. A police 
canine unit rescued her before her attackers could carry out their 
deadly threats. In response, the New York Police Department arrested 
five aliens, four of whom had illegally entered the country and three 
with extensive arrest warrants in New York City.
  This crime could have been prevented. Four of the five suspects had 
entered the country illegally. Three of these had prior arrests and 
convictions, and always they were released. Even so, the INS was never 
contacted about these individuals prior to the 2002 attack. New York 
City's sanctuary policy prohibited a New York police officer from 
contacting information authorities about these attackers when they 
committed their previous crimes or were discovered to be in the United 
States illegally. As a result, the immigration authorities could not 
remove these aliens because they did not know that they were illegally 
present in the United States.
  Sanctuary policies tie the hands of local law enforcement officers 
and keep illegal aliens who commit crimes in our country rather than 
deporting these criminals according to U.S. law.
  My amendment will ensure enforcement of the Federal law that can 
prevent additional heinous crimes by illegal aliens with criminal 
records. We must not allow criminal illegal aliens whose presence was 
never reported to Federal immigration authorities due to illegal 
sanctuary policies to continue to commit brutal crimes.
  We must not provide sanctuary to criminals. Please support my 
amendment, which funds enforcement of section 642 and reestablishes and 
supports current law.
  Mr. WOLF. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the last word.
  My concern is on the germaneness of the amendment. The function that 
this is involved with has been transferred to Homeland Security, and so 
I rise in opposition to it. It would earmark funding for litigation 
support contracts, really earmarking just the Department of Litigation 
Support Contracts, but I believe all this function has been transferred 
also to the Department of Homeland Security out of the Justice 
Department.
  Mr. KING of Iowa. Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?
  Mr. WOLF. I yield to the gentleman from Iowa.
  Mr. KING of Iowa. Mr. Chairman, I looked into this argument; and to 
transfer this authority to Homeland Security, there is no existing 
precedent for enforcement of this law by Homeland Security. It is a 
legitimate function of the Department of Justice to enforce Federal 
law; and, in fact, this would be bringing an action against local 
government. And that is something that there is a precedent for under 
the Department of Justice, but no precedent for that under Homeland 
Security. So if this were all transferred to Homeland Security, we 
would not have action that could be brought by the Department of 
Justice in many other cases as well as this.
  I thank the chairman for yielding to me.
  Mr. WOLF. Mr. Chairman, I continue to reserve a point of order.
  Mr. SERRANO. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the last word.
  As I understand this amendment, this brings us into an area that we 
have discussed before, and it is this whole issue of local law 
enforcement involved in immigration activities.
  This is interesting. When we took this up before on different 
occasions, we were able through this amendment to unite law enforcement 
throughout the Nation because local police departments continue to tell 
us that it is in their best interest not to appear to the immigrant 
population to be involved in enforcing immigration law. In other words, 
what the police departments at a local level want more than anything 
else is to be able to speak to residents

[[Page 14646]]

of that community, be they citizens, legal residents, or undocumented 
aliens, needing their information, needing their support, in dealing 
with crime in the community.
  There are many things that are wrong with this amendment. But the one 
that I single out is that one because what that does is immediately 
create a wall between local law enforcement and the immigrant 
community, saying if I go to him to tell him I know who stole that car, 
if I go to him to tell him I know who robbed the local grocery store, I 
am then being faced by a local official who has to by law, in these 
cases, if these amendments are approved, has to turn me in on my 
immigration status. And that is totally unacceptable.
  So if anything else, I would hope that we fully understand that this 
does not enjoy the support of local law enforcement and should not be a 
burden. It is, in fact, and I cannot believe I am actually going to say 
this in one of my conservative moments, it is, in fact, an unfunded 
mandate because we are telling them to engage in activities that we are 
not paying for.
  For that reason, I rise in strong opposition and hope the amendment 
is defeated.
  Mr. WEINER. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the requisite number of 
words.
  I will not take the full 5 minutes. I just want to join the leaders 
of the communities in expressing strong opposition to this amendment. 
This is not an academic issue in New York City. We had a circumstance 
after September 11 where FBI agents fanned out into the neighborhoods 
doing interviews at corner stores in Arab American communities. And the 
FBI was required to notify the INS anytime they found anything 
untoward. The word spread within hours, and I think the gentleman from 
the Bronx would acknowledge this, spread within hours, do not 
cooperate, do not give the information. The FBI in the City of New York 
turned to the NYPD and said since they have a trustful relationship 
with many of these recent immigrants, can they go conduct these 
interviews.
  And a lot of the information that was gathered, including some about 
threats to blow up the Brooklyn Bridge, was gathered that way. So from 
a law enforcement perspective, this amendment has no merit. Proof of 
that is I can read a list as long as my arm of police departments and 
police organizations who are opposed to this type of initiative. As the 
gentleman from New York said, they do not want their officers in the 
position of breaking down what is often years and years of trust 
because of this type of thing. It is demagogically very appealing to 
say the minute they find out someone has violated the immigration laws, 
let us turn them in. But from a realistic, real life, particularly 
antiterror amendment, one could not imagine a worse amendment.
  Mr. KING of Iowa. Mr. Chairman, I ask unanimous consent to withdraw 
my amendment.
  The CHAIRMAN. Without objection, the amendment is withdrawn.
  There was no objection.
  Mrs. JOHNSON of Connecticut. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the last 
word.
  I rise to strike the requisite number of words because I want to 
thank the chairman and the ranking member for the funding that they put 
into the MEP program, the Manufacturing Extension Partnership program, 
and I was not able to be here earlier.
  The Members of the House talk constantly about how important 
manufacturing is to a strong economy, that indeed we cannot have a 
strong economy if we do not have a strong manufacturing sector. Mr. 
Chairman, we cannot have a strong manufacturing sector if we do not 
have strong small manufacturers. The big global manufacturers simply 
cannot compete if they do not have U.S. small suppliers who are ISO 
9000 certified, who are lean and mean, who are high quality, who are 
high productivity. And if you are one of those small manufacturers like 
I represent, and so many of the rest that my colleagues represent 
throughout the country, that have 25 to 60 employees who are struggling 
hard to meet payroll every single month and facing health care costs 
increases of 20 percent, who are out there finding customers and orders 
and dealing with delivery problems, those people just cannot mobilize 
the time, the focus, the expertise to improve productivity and quality 
at the pace that our modern economy demands it.
  So these Manufacturing Extension Partnership programs are located 
throughout all 50 States. There are about 400 locations. In Connecticut 
they are called CONNSTEP. They are one third Federal, one third State, 
and one third fee based. Our program in Connecticut now is even more 
fee based. But nationally they have created 35,000 jobs over the year 
2002, increased sales by $953 million, retained sales of almost $2 
billion, realized cost savings of almost $700 million; and invested 
$940 million in plant equipment, workforce training, extremely 
important, and information management systems.
  In fact, experts from these centers simply come into a plant, onto 
the floor with the owner, and help that owner understand, whether he 
needs to rearrange equipment or make other changes. Does he need to buy 
new equipment? Is it new manufacturing equipment? Is it new information 
technology? Is it new energy efficiency capability? Is it a different 
communications system? And, in fact, they analyze what that small plant 
can do to do one of two things: improve the quality of the product they 
are making, improve the productivity.
  Without them, the infrastructure that our global manufacturers depend 
on in America would have disappeared a number of years ago. Without 
them, lean manufacturing would not have been able to permeate those 
small manufacturers who day in and day out are struggling to meet 
payroll in a way that none of us here have to take responsibility for.
  So they are important to our very existence as a strong economy. They 
are important to our global competitiveness. In manufacturing we have 
developed this remarkable partnership capability to bring to the 
service of the small manufacturing the engineering expertise, the 
machinery and equipment expertise, the systems expertise, the ISO 9000 
certification expertise, certain expertise in getting European 
certifications so the small guy can export.

                              {time}  1645

  All together, this partnership program has acted exactly like the 
partnership program we have through our great agricultural extension 
programs at our Land Grant colleges to help agricultural producers, 
that is, the farm community, have the expertise they need to develop 
conservation plans, deal with waste management issues and improve 
quality of product and productivity in the agricultural area.
  We have done very well in agriculture, we have done very well in 
manufacturing, but we do not know it about ourselves. So this program 
is always under fire. That is why I have come to the floor to talk 
about it and to congratulate my friend, the gentleman from Virginia 
(Mr. Wolf) for standing up for it.
  I see my friend, the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Ehlers), who knows 
a lot about it and represents a manufacturing community in Grand 
Rapids, is here to speak also.
  This is as important a program, it is as important a partnership, as 
any single partnership the Federal Government is a part of, bar none, 
because it not only does the things I have described, but it has helped 
train workers on more sophisticated machinery, it has helped train 
workers in language skills, on systems issues and all kinds of things.
  I am very proud that our free Nation has understood there is a 
public-private partnership that strengthens the entrepreneurial 
manufacturing community and enables us to make good on that promise to 
our kids, that they will have an economic opportunity equal or better 
than that of my generation.
  This, combined with the Department of Commerce's recent in-depth 
study on the problems of manufacturing and the issues they are 
addressing, are

[[Page 14647]]

going to assure that we will be competitive and strong in the global 
economy, because we will have a strong manufacturing sector.
  Mr. EHLERS. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the last word.
  Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentlewoman from Connecticut for her astute 
comments on the Manufacturing Extension Partnership and the role it 
plays. I have worked extensively on this issue, because it is under my 
jurisdiction as chairman of the Subcommittee on Environment, Technology 
and Standards of the Committee on Science. We have spent a considerable 
amount of time over this past year working on this issue and have 
developed a bill which will be on the floor tomorrow which will deal 
with this.
  Everything that the gentlewoman from Connecticut has observed about 
the program is absolutely true, and it has always puzzled me why there 
is some opposition to this program.
  Just to give an example of the benefits of this type of program, I 
think one of the finest programs we have had in the Agriculture 
Department for a number of years is the Cooperative Extension Program, 
which has been invaluable in getting research out of the laboratory and 
into the field. It has always amazed me that we have an amazing 
technology transfer rate in the agriculture arena, because of that 
program. A laboratory researcher at a university can discover something 
new one year and the farmers are actually using it in the field the 
next year, a tremendous accomplishment in terms of transferring 
technology from the lab to actual operations. We certainly do not do 
that well in most other fields. We do not do that well in 
manufacturing.
  I find it interesting that we, as a Federal Government, spend $441 
million per year for the Agriculture Cooperative Extension Program, and 
yet we seem to fuss and muss a lot about $100 or $110 million for 
essentially the same program for manufacturers. At the same time, there 
are only about 1.5 percent of Americans employed in farming, and there 
are roughly 14 percent employed in manufacturing. So clearly our 
priorities are wrong if we think we are spending too much in assisting 
manufacturers.
  The MEP program, Manufacturing Extension Program, is designed to help 
small- and medium-sized businesses, and particularly provides 
technology transfer from the lab to the marketplace. In addition to 
that, it also provides business expertise, as the gentlewoman from 
Connecticut observed, to assist in exporting, and to assist in getting 
permits from other countries to export. The MEP program has been a 
very, very valuable program for small- and middle-sized businesses and, 
in many cases, has allowed them to increase and become large 
businesses. So it is an excellent program.
  I certainly want to support what the gentlewoman has said. This is a 
good program for us to do, and I hope that tomorrow we will have the 
support of a large number of Members as we consider the bill which will 
reauthorize the program. I certainly support what the chairman of this 
Appropriations subcommittee has done in allocating money for that 
program.
  Mr. NEY. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the last word.
  Mr. Chairman, earlier today the Committee on House Administration, 
which I chair, along with our ranking member the gentleman from 
Connecticut (Mr. Larson) and our members, held a hearing on electronic 
voting system security. A diverse group of technology specialists and 
election administrators testified before the committee regarding issues 
relating to the reliability of electronic and computer-based voting 
systems and discussed what is needed to ensure the integrity of the 
latest generation of voting systems.
  Though a wide range of opinions were offered throughout the course of 
the hearing, everyone agreed that well-written standards and a rigorous 
testing and certification process are absolutely necessary for 
maintaining the integrity of electronic voting systems under the Help 
America Vote Act of 2002, known as HAVA, of which I am proud to have 
been a principal author with the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Hoyer) 
and also the gentleman from Missouri (Mr. Blunt) and others in the 
House. That bill is an important bill for voting in the United States, 
and again, I am proud that that bill has passed.
  In that bill, NIST plays a crucial role in both the standards setting 
and testing and certification processes. First of all, HAVA tasks the 
director of NIST with chairing the Technical Guidelines Development 
Committee, known as TGDC, which HAVA created to assist the Election 
Assistance Commission, known as EAC, in crafting standards to ensure 
the security and reliability of voting technologies used in our Federal 
elections.
  NIST is also tasked with evaluating testing laboratories and 
providing recommendations to the EAC as to which laboratories should be 
accredited for voting systems testing and certification.
  Now that jurisdictions across the country are beginning to upgrade 
their voting systems, the American people demand and deserve to know 
that the latest generation of voting equipment will cast and count 
their ballots accurately and will be tamper-proof and free of technical 
malfunctions, for the purpose of HAVA was to make it easier to vote and 
harder to cheat.
  The successful achievement of this objective of the bill will depend 
in great part upon the ability of NIST to fulfill its responsibilities 
under the Help America Vote Act, which in turn will hinge on whether 
NIST receives sufficient funding specifically allocated for its HAVA-
related obligations.
  Therefore, I believe it is urgent, and I want to stress urgent, that 
we get the needed resources to NIST as quickly as possible. I am 
joining today with my colleague, the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. 
Hoyer), in support of the report language for this bill that urges NIST 
to devote funds for these functions.
  I want to thank the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Ehlers), who has 
always supported the idea of NIST. I want to thank the gentleman from 
Virginia (Chairman Wolf) for his attention to this issue and for his 
consideration today. I also have been in contact with the gentleman 
from Oklahoma (Chairman Istook) to see if the money dedicated to NIST, 
via the EAC, can be included in the Transportation-Treasury 
appropriations bill.
  The vehicle for the funding is not of greatest importance. What is 
important is that the funding be absolutely provided. Regardless of the 
vehicle, we need to see that NIST will receive the money it needs to 
carry out its important statutory obligations.
  I would like to note that the White House recently submitted 
amendments to its fiscal year 2005 budget that would provide an 
additional $10 million for the Election Assistance Commission. Perhaps 
funding for NIST to meet its obligations under HAVA could be taken from 
this amount. I will be talking again to the gentleman from Oklahoma 
(Chairman Istook).
  I want to thank the gentleman from Virginia (Chairman Wolf), and 
express appreciation for the diligence of our colleague the gentleman 
from Maryland (Mr. Hoyer) on this issue and the bill.
  Mr. HOYER. Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?
  Mr. NEY. I yield to the gentleman from Maryland.
  Mr. HOYER. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for his statement. I 
thank the gentleman from Ohio (Chairman Ney) for his leadership on the 
Help America Vote Act. Without his leadership and strong support, it 
would not have passed. Indeed, the gentleman from Illinois (Speaker 
Hastert), the gentleman from Florida (Chairman Young) of the Committee 
on Appropriations and others were critically important in its passage 
and funding.
  I want to rise with the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Ney) in strong 
support of report language that was offered by the gentlewoman from 
Ohio (Ms. Kaptur) during the June 23 markup of the bill before us 
today. I applaud the Committee on Appropriations for including it in 
the report. I want to thank the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Wolf)

[[Page 14648]]

and the gentleman from New York (Mr. Serrano) for their leadership and 
attention to this very important matter.
  That report language reads: ``The committee strongly urges NIST to 
give priority consideration to Help America Vote Act outreach to the 
election community; expediting work on a new voting standards 
accreditation program; and its work with the Technical Guidelines 
Development Committee working with the Election Assistance Commission. 
NIST is directed to provide in advance of the fiscal 2006 hearings a 
report detailing what steps must be taken to bring its activities in 
line with the timetable established by the act.''
  The gentleman from Ohio (Chairman Ney) indicated that the gentleman 
from Michigan (Mr. Ehlers) had worked with us. In fact, of course, the 
gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Ehlers) was the principal sponsor in 
assuring that NIST was included as an integral part of the Help America 
Vote Act.
  Obviously, technology is one of the critical issues in the HAVA 
proposal, which funds new technology for voting around the country. The 
gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Ehlers) correctly said that we ought to 
have the best possible advice regarding technology, and NIST was the 
agency to provide that.
  The CHAIRMAN. The time of the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Ney) has 
expired.
  (On request of Mr. Hoyer, and by unanimous consent, Mr. Ney was 
allowed to proceed for 4 additional minutes.)
  Mr. NEY. Mr. Chairman, I continue to yield to the gentleman from 
Maryland (Mr. Hoyer).
  Mr. HOYER. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for yielding.
  Mr. Chairman, under the Help America Vote Act of 2002, of which I and 
the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Ney) were sponsors, NIST is required to 
conduct several important research and technical projects connected to 
election reform. NIST is already busy working with the new Election 
Assistance Commission to advance HAVA's objectives. However, much more 
must be done if NIST is to fulfill its important role.
  As we learned in the controversial 2000 election, voting systems in 
many parts of the country are antiquated and obsolete. There continues 
to be controversy about various technologies. NIST can make a critical 
difference.
  As the 2004 election fast approaches, there are concerns in some 
quarters about the security and reliability of some voting systems. 
Properly directed, NIST will make a significant contribution, ensuring 
that new voting systems are rigorously tested, easy to use and 
maintain, and secure.
  I strongly urge NIST to follow the spirit and substance of the report 
language and give priority consideration to the Help America Vote Act 
in fiscal year 2005.
  Mr. Chairman, I would follow up with the gentleman from Ohio 
(Chairman Ney) that I look forward to working with him and the 
gentleman from Oklahoma (Chairman Istook) as we consider the 
Transportation-Treasury bill and the additional appropriations for the 
Election Assistance Commission to attempt to get some of the money that 
NIST needs for 2005 out of the funds that are authorized for the 
Election Assistance Commission.
  Again, I want to thank the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Wolf), the 
chairman of this subcommittee, and I want to thank the gentleman from 
New York (Mr. Serrano), the ranking Democrat, for their leadership and 
assistance in this effort, and I thank the gentleman for his leadership 
and for yielding me time.
  Mr. NEY. Mr. Chairman, reclaiming my time just to close on this 
issue, let me just say that this funding is a critical component. The 
entire funding where we get to the $3.9 billion, which we have gotten 
some money and have a little more to go, the gentleman from Illinois 
(Speaker Hastert) has been assisting on that funding. We worked with 
the gentleman from Florida (Chairman Young), as the gentleman from 
Maryland (Mr. Hoyer) mentioned. Originally when this started we went to 
the Democratic leader, the gentleman from Missouri (Mr. Gephardt) at 
that time. Everybody along the way has been very good on providing the 
money.
  We still have some more components to go, but this particular aspect 
right now is just so important, to provide this for NIST to be able to 
really do its job and to interact with the EAC.
  Mr. HOYER. Mr. Chairman, if the gentleman will yield further, I want 
to thank him for his continuing comments and again express, this was 
probably the most substantive bipartisan bill that passed in the last 
Congress. The Speaker indicated that and others have as well. If we, 
however, fail to fund it properly, it will be a promise unfulfilled, 
and our democracy will not be as well served as all of us hoped when we 
supported the Help America Vote Act.
  Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for his time.
  Mr. NEY. Mr. Chairman, reclaiming my time, I agree with the 
gentleman.
  The CHAIRMAN. Are there further amendments to this paragraph?
  If not, the Clerk will read.
  The Clerk read as follows:

       In addition, for reimbursement of expenses of the 
     Department of Justice associated with processing cases under 
     the National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act of 1986, not to 
     exceed $6,333,000, to be appropriated from the Vaccine Injury 
     Compensation Trust Fund.

                              {time}  1700

  Mr. GREEN of Texas. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the last word.
  Mr. Chairman, I will not take my 5 minutes; I just want to put a 
statement in the Record.
  I rise in support of this bill for the Subcommittee on Commerce, 
State, Justice, the Judiciary, and Related Agencies and to say 
congratulations to both the chairman and ranking member for their 
efforts. I know there are particular projects, and I would like to put 
a special word in for NOAA's Coastal and Estuarine Land Protection 
Program.
  Mr. Chairman, I rise today in support of this bill to fund the 
Departments of Commerce, Justice, State and the Judiciary.
  In crafting this legislation, our appropriators faced the difficult 
task of adequately funding many national priorities. On balance, they 
did a remarkable job and have produced a bill worthy of our support.
  For sure, there are programs that we would all like to see funded at 
higher levels. One of particular interest to me and my constituents in 
Houston is NOAA's Coastal and Estuarine Land Protection Program. This 
program exists to protect important coastal and estuarine areas that 
have significant conservation, recreation, ecological, or historical 
values and are threatened by development or conversion.
  In Houston, we are involved in an effort to preserve the Buffalo 
Bayou, which is the historic waterway on which the Allen Brothers 
founded Houston in 1836.
  NOAA's Coastal and Estuarine Land Protection Program has allowed us 
to partner with the Trust for Public Land to conserve critical tracts 
of land along the Buffalo Bayou in order to further our conservation 
efforts.
  Ultimately, we seek to revitalize the Buffalo Bayou in a manner that 
balances the need to conserve the Bayou's wetlands and waterways with 
the recreational and business development needed to transform the 
Buffalo Bayou into an active and vibrant urban waterfront center.
  While the House bill provides only $3 million for the Coastal and 
Estuarine Land Protection Program, I am hopeful that our appropriators 
will see it fit to raise that funding level during conference.
  An increased funding level would allow the federal government to 
continue its investment in areas like the Buffalo Bayou that have been 
recognized by this Congress and conservation groups alike as nationally 
and historically significant areas worthy of preservation.
  The CHAIRMAN. The Clerk will read.
  The Clerk read as follows:


               salaries and expenses, antitrust division

       For expenses necessary for the enforcement of antitrust and 
     kindred laws, $135,463,000, to remain available until 
     expended: Provided, That, notwithstanding any other provision 
     of law, not to exceed $101,000,000 of offsetting collections 
     derived from fees collected for premerger notification 
     filings under the Hart-Scott-Rodino Antitrust Improvements 
     Act of 1976 (15 U.S.C. 18a), regardless of the year of 
     collection, shall be retained and used for necessary expenses 
     in this appropriation, and shall remain available until 
     expended: Provided further, That the sum herein appropriated 
     from the general fund shall be reduced as such offsetting 
     collections are received during fiscal year 2005, so as to 
     result in a final fiscal year

[[Page 14649]]

     2005 appropriation from the general fund estimated at not 
     more than $34,463,000.


             salaries and expenses, united states attorneys

       For necessary expenses of the Offices of the United States 
     Attorneys, including inter-governmental and cooperative 
     agreements, $1,535,000,000; of which not to exceed $2,500,000 
     shall be available until September 30, 2006, for: (1) 
     training personnel in debt collection; (2) locating debtors 
     and their property; (3) paying the net costs of selling 
     property; and (4) tracking debts owed to the United States 
     Government: Provided, That of the total amount appropriated, 
     not to exceed $8,000 shall be available for official 
     reception and representation expenses: Provided further, That 
     not to exceed $10,000,000 of those funds available for 
     automated litigation support contracts shall remain available 
     until expended: Provided further, That, in addition to 
     reimbursable full-time equivalent workyears available to the 
     Offices of the United States Attorneys, not to exceed 10,238 
     positions and 10,361 full-time equivalent workyears shall be 
     supported from the funds appropriated in this Act for the 
     United States Attorneys.


                   united states trustee system fund

       For necessary expenses of the United States Trustee 
     Program, as authorized, $172,850,000, to remain available 
     until expended and to be derived from the United States 
     Trustee System Fund: Provided, That, notwithstanding any 
     other provision of law, deposits to the Fund shall be 
     available in such amounts as may be necessary to pay refunds 
     due depositors: Provided further, That, notwithstanding any 
     other provision of law, $172,850,000 of offsetting 
     collections pursuant to 28 U.S.C. 589a(b) shall be retained 
     and used for necessary expenses in this appropriation and 
     remain available until expended: Provided further, That the 
     sum herein appropriated from the Fund shall be reduced as 
     such offsetting collections are received during fiscal year 
     2005, so as to result in a final fiscal year 2005 
     appropriation from the Fund estimated at $0.


      salaries and expenses, foreign claims settlement commission

       For expenses necessary to carry out the activities of the 
     Foreign Claims Settlement Commission, including services as 
     authorized by 5 U.S.C. 3109, $1,220,000.


         salaries and expenses, united states marshals service

       For necessary expenses of the United States Marshals 
     Service, $752,070,000; of which $17,472,000 shall be 
     available for 106 supervisory deputy marshal positions for 
     courthouse security; of which not to exceed $6,000 shall be 
     available for official reception and representation expenses; 
     and of which $4,000,000 for information technology systems 
     shall remain available until expended; of which not less than 
     $8,221,000 shall be available for the costs of courthouse 
     security equipment, including furnishings, relocations, and 
     telephone systems and cabling, and shall remain available 
     until September 30, 2006: Provided, That, in addition to 
     reimbursable full-time equivalent workyears available to the 
     United States Marshals Service, not to exceed 4,578 positions 
     and 4,404 full-time equivalent workyears shall be supported 
     from the funds appropriated in this Act for the United States 
     Marshals Service.


                              construction

       For construction of United States Marshals Service 
     prisoner-holding space in United States courthouses and 
     Federal buildings, $1,371,000, to remain available until 
     expended.


                     fees and expenses of witnesses

       For fees and expenses of witnesses, for expenses of 
     contracts for the procurement and supervision of expert 
     witnesses, for private counsel expenses, including advances, 
     $177,585,000, to remain available until expended; of which 
     not to exceed $8,000,000 may be made available for 
     construction of buildings for protected witness safesites; of 
     which not to exceed $1,000,000 may be made available for the 
     purchase and maintenance of armored vehicles for 
     transportation of protected witnesses; and of which not to 
     exceed $7,000,000 may be made available for the purchase, 
     installation, maintenance and upgrade of secure 
     telecommunications equipment and a secure automated 
     information network to store and retrieve the identities and 
     locations of protected witnesses.


           salaries and expenses, community relations service

       For necessary expenses of the Community Relations Service, 
     $9,833,000: Provided, That notwithstanding any other 
     provision of law, upon a determination by the Attorney 
     General that emergent circumstances require additional 
     funding for conflict resolution and violence prevention 
     activities of the Community Relations Service, the Attorney 
     General may transfer such amounts to the Community Relations 
     Service, from available appropriations for the current fiscal 
     year for the Department of Justice, as may be necessary to 
     respond to such circumstances: Provided further, That any 
     transfer pursuant to the previous proviso shall be treated as 
     a reprogramming under section 605 of this Act and shall not 
     be available for obligation or expenditure except in 
     compliance with the procedures set forth in that section.


                         assets forfeiture fund

       For expenses authorized by 28 U.S.C. 524(c)(1)(B), (F), and 
     (G), $21,759,000, to be derived from the Department of 
     Justice Assets Forfeiture Fund.


         payment to radiation exposure compensation trust fund

       In addition to amounts appropriated by subsection 3(e) of 
     the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act (42 U.S. Code 2210 
     note), $72,000,000 for payment to the Radiation Exposure 
     Compensation Trust Fund, to remain available until expended.

                      Interagency Law Enforcement


                 interagency Crime and Drug Enforcement

       For necessary expenses for the identification, 
     investigation, and prosecution of individuals associated with 
     the most significant drug trafficking and affiliated money 
     laundering organizations not otherwise provided for, to 
     include inter-governmental agreements with State and local 
     law enforcement agencies engaged in the investigation and 
     prosecution of individuals involved in organized crime drug 
     trafficking, $561,033,000, of which $50,000,000 shall remain 
     available until expended: Provided, That any amounts 
     obligated from appropriations under this heading may be used 
     under authorities available to the organizations reimbursed 
     from this appropriation.

  Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the 
last word.
  Mr. Chairman, in 1990, in response to more than 100,000 dolphins 
killed each year by the tuna fishermen, Congress passed legislation 
that my colleague, Barbara Boxer, and I authored, creating the popular 
``dolphin safe'' label on cans of tuna. For over a decade, this label 
gave consumers the option to purchase tuna with the confidence that the 
dolphins were not being chased, netted, and killed along with the tuna.
  The dolphin-safe label has been a huge success. Since passage of the 
label, dolphin mortality decreased by 98 percent, to fewer than 2,000 
kills each year.
  But despite the success of this program, the Bush Commerce Department 
issued a finding in 2002 that allowed dolphin-safe labels to be placed 
on tuna harvested through the chase and encirclement method, a manner 
that kills dolphins.
  With this shift in policy, the Commerce Department ignored its own 
scientific information showing the high dolphin mortalities caused by 
this harvest technique. Indeed, this change completely undermined the 
integrity of the dolphin-safe label.
  Now, thanks to evidence uncovered by a lawsuit filed against the 
change, we learn that while the Bush administration was weakening the 
dolphin-safe label, it knew, it knew that observers from the Inter-
American Tropical Tuna Commission on Mexican tuna-fishing vessels were 
being bribed to misreport tuna as dolphin-safe.
  An internal NOAA e-mail states that it ``was common knowledge 
throughout the fleet that the observers were regularly paid off to 
misreport what happened during the cruise.''
  Yet the Commerce Department argues that these allegations are 
irrelevant to its decision to relax restrictions on foreign-caught 
tuna. And the Commerce Department has not provided an explanation for 
its modification of the scientific data, nor has Commerce taken the 
steps that we are aware of to address the bribery issues.
  Meanwhile, the U.S. pays much more for its fair share to the Inter-
American Tropical Tuna Commission, the body allegedly being bribed to 
look the other way during dolphin kills.
  The appropriations bill that we are considering today provides nearly 
a 40 percent increase for the Tropical Tuna Commission. Yet, the 
Commerce Department is apparently doing nothing to ensure that the 
Tropical Tuna Commission is doing its job.
  Without an investigation into these allegations of bribery, and until 
the Commerce Department decides what science will guide its decisions, 
we should not be subsidizing foreign fishing practices that damage the 
dolphin-safe label.
  The dolphin-safe label was created at the urging of hundreds of 
thousands of students from across this country; hundreds of thousands 
of schoolchildren participated in the process and saw the suggested 
improvements to protect dolphins enacted into law.

[[Page 14650]]

  What message is this administration sending to those very same 
children and to the committed scientists at NOAA by cynically 
undermining the dolphin-safe label and failing to investigate the 
allegations of bribery by those who are entrusted to protect the 
dolphins during the harvest of the tuna, and to make sure that the 
consumers are aware that, in fact, this is dolphin-free tuna.
  Mr. Chairman, I am deeply concerned that we have failed to address 
these issues while, at the same time, dramatically increasing the 
funding for the Tropical Tuna Commission.
  Mr. SERRANO. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the last word.
  Mr. Chairman, I would like to engage the chairman in a colloquy on a 
proposal by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission to establish a 
national contact center. Hopefully, we can address the concerns of 
those Members who have expressed misgivings about this proposal.
  Recently, we observed the 40th anniversary of the enactment of the 
Civil Rights Act of 1964. In the years since the enactment of that 
landmark legislation, the EEOC has had a pivotal role in fighting 
discrimination in the workplace and ensuring that all Americans are 
treated fairly. However, despite the important role of the EEOC, it has 
experienced the same budget constraints as most other agencies in this 
bill.
  The EEOC sought the assistance of the National Academy of Public 
Administration in finding ways to streamline its organizational 
structure and use its personnel to continue meeting its missions in the 
21st century.
  Among the NAPA recommendations was a proposal to create a National 
Contact Center using contract employees. The EEOC has proposed to enter 
into a contract to establish a call center as a 2-year pilot project at 
an estimated cost of $2 million. Of this amount, $1 million is 
available through a reprogramming of current-year funding. This bill 
will provide $1 million in fiscal year 2005.
  NAPA made a number of additional streamlining proposals, including 
possible office closures, which might result in personnel reductions. 
Although the administration requested funding for a reposition of EEOC 
resources, the bill does not provide any of the requested increased 
funding for repositioning because a spending plan has not been 
submitted to the committee.
  Many EEOC employees across the country have heard of these proposals 
and are worried about losing their jobs as a result of office closures 
or outsourcing of the call center.
  The commission's reorganization proposals, including specifically the 
National Contact Center, were discussed in detail at a subcommittee 
hearing earlier this year. At that time, both the gentleman from 
Virginia (Chairman Wolf) and I expressed concerns about the possible 
cause of this proposal. Accordingly, we advised the Chair, Cari 
Dominguez, that the subcommittee expected her to come back to us prior 
to entry into a contract to establish the call center. Ms. Dominguez 
made a commitment to us that she would do so. Both the Chair and her 
staff have continued to reiterate that commitment.
  Similarly, Ms. Dominguez has repeatedly reassured the subcommittee 
that EEOC is not planning to close any of its existing offices or cut 
jobs or current employees. This bill provides full funding for the 
commission's current base staffing level.
  So I ask the chairman of the subcommittee, is it his understanding 
that expenditure of any funding in 2005 for the proposed National 
Contact Center is contingent on the EEOC notifying this subcommittee, 
consistent with the long-standing requirement of section 605, prior to 
taking any formal action to obligate the funding?
  Mr. WOLF. Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?
  Mr. SERRANO. I yield to the gentleman from Virginia.
  Mr. WOLF. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman from New York for 
raising this issue, because it is a concern for Members on my side of 
the aisle and for many others, and also for constituents of mine. I 
want to assure the Members and the gentleman that the subcommittee is 
aware of these issues and will do everything we can to protect the 
rights of Federal employees. Ms. Dominguez has promised us, and I went 
back and I looked in the hearing record the other day, that the 
commission has no intention of closing offices or cutting jobs of 
current employees and that she will come to the subcommittee before 
spending any money on the call center or any other reorganization 
proposal.
  So I completely agree.
  Mr. SERRANO. Mr. Chairman, reclaiming my time, I thank the chairman, 
as always, for his support.
  Mr. GILCHREST. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the last word.
  Mr. Chairman, I rise for the purpose of entering into a colloquy with 
the chairman. I would like to draw the attention of the chairman of the 
subcommittee to the proposed reductions in the appropriations for NOAA 
of nearly $400 million.
  The appropriation subcommittee over the years, including this one, 
has been very supportive of the issues dealing with the oceans and 
those issues that surround our oceans, our exploration, and our coastal 
problems. I also understand the delicate balance and appreciate the 
difficulty faced by the subcommittee in allocating limited funds across 
the board when there are so many pressures. Our oceans and coasts 
support over 2.8 million jobs, generate over $54 billion in goods and 
services, and are the most popular destinations for recreation and 
tourism in the United States.
  But I can see next year some major initiatives dealing with the 
oceans in this particular Congress as a result of the Ocean Commission 
Report. Some of the more pressing needs include an integrated ocean 
observing system, ocean science and exploration. We currently know more 
about the Moon than we know about our oceans. It is important for us to 
adopt the principles of ecosystem management for our oceans and coasts 
and focus on control of marine and coastal aquatic invasive species.
  So, Mr. Chairman, I would like to work with the gentleman from 
Virginia (Chairman Wolf) as we move the process along, knowing the 
difficulties of a limited budget, so that we can continue to fund 
adequately the science and the kinds of science that NOAA needs.
  Mr. WOLF. Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?
  Mr. GILCHREST. I yield to the gentleman from Virginia.
  Mr. WOLF. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for yielding.
  In conference last year, the subcommittee worked with the Senate to 
make NOAA appropriations a priority, with a 15.6 percent increase over 
fiscal year 2003 levels. The proposed fiscal year 2005 level, I 
believe, returns NOAA funding to historic levels and allows the 
subcommittee to restore necessary funding to certain Department of 
Justice programs, FBI, and also the MEP program that we did for 
Commerce that were not adequately addressed; also the COPS program, 
local law enforcement programs in the President's request.
  I understand the significance of the coming year, and I saw the ocean 
reports that came out. I look forward to working with the gentleman who 
is really a leader on these issues to ensure that every effort is made 
to maximize funding support for these purposes in this and coming 
fiscal years.
  Mr. GILCHREST. Mr. Chairman, reclaiming my time, I thank the 
chairman. I look forward to working with the gentleman from Virginia 
and his fine staff.
  The CHAIRMAN. The Clerk will read.
  The Clerk read as follows:

                    Federal Bureau of Investigation


                         salaries and expenses

       For necessary expenses of the Federal Bureau of 
     Investigation for detection, investigation, and prosecution 
     of crimes against the United States; including purchase for 
     police-type use of not to exceed 2,988 passenger motor 
     vehicles, of which 2,619 will be for replacement only; and 
     not to exceed $70,000 to meet unforeseen emergencies of a 
     confidential character pursuant to 28 U.S.C. 530C, 
     $5,205,028,000; of which not to exceed $150,000,000 shall 
     remain available until expended; of which $916,000,000 shall 
     be for counterterrorism investigations, foreign

[[Page 14651]]

     counterintelligence, and other activities related to our 
     national security; of which $56,349,000 shall be for the 
     operations, equipment, and facilities of the Foreign 
     Terrorist Tracking Task Force; and of which not to exceed 
     $20,000,000 is authorized to be made available for making 
     advances for expenses arising out of contractual or 
     reimbursable agreements with State and local law enforcement 
     agencies while engaged in cooperative activities related to 
     violent crime, terrorism, organized crime, gang-related 
     crime, cybercrime, and drug investigations: Provided, That 
     not to exceed $200,000 shall be available for official 
     reception and representation expenses: Provided further, 
     That, in addition to reimbursable full-time equivalent 
     workyears available to the Federal Bureau of Investigation, 
     not to exceed 30,078 positions and 29,102 full-time 
     equivalent workyears shall be supported from the funds 
     appropriated in this Act for the Federal Bureau of 
     Investigation.


                              Construction

       For necessary expenses to construct or acquire buildings 
     and sites by purchase, or as otherwise authorized by law 
     (including equipment for such buildings); conversion and 
     extension of Federally-owned buildings; and preliminary 
     planning and design of projects; $10,242,000, to remain 
     available until expended: Provided, That $9,000,000 shall be 
     available to lease a records management facility, including 
     equipment and relocation expenses, in Frederick County, 
     Virginia.

                    Drug Enforcement Administration


                         Salaries and Expenses

       For necessary expenses of the Drug Enforcement 
     Administration, including not to exceed $70,000 to meet 
     unforeseen emergencies of a confidential character pursuant 
     to 28 U.S.C. 530C; expenses for conducting drug education and 
     training programs, including travel and related expenses for 
     participants in such programs and the distribution of items 
     of token value that promote the goals of such programs; and 
     purchase of not to exceed 1,461 passenger motor vehicles, of 
     which 1,346 will be for replacement only, for police-type 
     use, $1,661,503,000; of which not to exceed $75,000,000 shall 
     remain available until expended; and of which not to exceed 
     $100,000 shall be available for official reception and 
     representation expenses: Provided, That, in addition to 
     reimbursable full-time equivalent workyears available to the 
     Drug Enforcement Administration, not to exceed 8,440 
     positions and 8,289 full-time equivalent workyears shall be 
     supported from the funds appropriated in this Act for the 
     Drug Enforcement Administration: Provided further, That not 
     to exceed $8,100,000 from prior year unobligated balances 
     shall be available for the design, construction and ownership 
     of a clandestine laboratory training facility and shall 
     remain available until expended.

          Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives


                         Salaries and Expenses

       For necessary expenses of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, 
     Firearms and Explosives, including the purchase of not to 
     exceed 822 vehicles for police-type use, of which 650 shall 
     be for replacement only; not to exceed $18,000 for official 
     reception and representation expenses; for training of State 
     and local law enforcement agencies with or without 
     reimbursement, including training in connection with the 
     training and acquisition of canines for explosives and fire 
     accelerants detection; and for provision of laboratory 
     assistance to State and local law enforcement agencies, with 
     or without reimbursement, $870,357,000, of which not to 
     exceed $1,000,000 shall be available for the payment of 
     attorneys' fees as provided by 18 U.S.C. 924(d)(2); and of 
     which $10,000,000 shall remain available until expended: 
     Provided, That no funds appropriated herein shall be 
     available for salaries or administrative expenses in 
     connection with consolidating or centralizing, within the 
     Department of Justice, the records, or any portion thereof, 
     of acquisition and disposition of firearms maintained by 
     Federal firearms licensees: Provided further, That no funds 
     appropriated herein shall be used to pay administrative 
     expenses or the compensation of any officer or employee of 
     the United States to implement an amendment or amendments to 
     27 CFR 178.118 or to change the definition of ``Curios or 
     relics'' in 27 CFR 178.11 or remove any item from ATF 
     Publication 5300.11 as it existed on January 1, 1994: 
     Provided further, That none of the funds appropriated herein 
     shall be available to investigate or act upon applications 
     for relief from Federal firearms disabilities under 18 U.S.C. 
     925(c): Provided further, That such funds shall be available 
     to investigate and act upon applications filed by 
     corporations for relief from Federal firearms disabilities 
     under section 925(c) of title 18, United States Code: 
     Provided further, That no funds made available by this or any 
     other Act may be used to transfer the functions, missions, or 
     activities of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and 
     Explosives to other agencies or Departments in fiscal year 
     2005: Provided further, That no funds appropriated under this 
     or any other Act with respect to any fiscal year may be used 
     to disclose part or all of the contents of the Firearms Trace 
     System database maintained by the National Trace Center of 
     the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives or 
     any information required to be kept by licensees pursuant to 
     section 923(g) of title 18, United States Code, or required 
     to be reported pursuant to paragraphs (3) and (7) of such 
     section 923(g), to anyone other than a Federal, State, or 
     local law enforcement agency or a prosecutor solely in 
     connection with and for use in a bona fide criminal 
     investigation or prosecution and then only such information 
     as pertains to the geographic jurisdiction of the law 
     enforcement agency requesting the disclosure and not for use 
     in any civil action or proceeding other than an action or 
     proceeding commenced by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, 
     Firearms, and Explosives, or a review of such an action or 
     proceeding, to enforce the provisions of chapter 44 of such 
     title, and all such data shall be immune from legal process 
     and shall not be subject to subpoena or other discovery in 
     any civil action in a State or Federal court or in any 
     administrative proceeding other than a proceeding commenced 
     by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives 
     to enforce the provisions of that chapter, or a review of 
     such an action or proceeding; except that this proviso shall 
     not be construed to prevent the disclosure of statistical 
     information concerning total production, importation, and 
     exportation by each licensed importer (as defined in section 
     921(a)(9) of such title) and licensed manufacturer (as 
     defined in section 921(a)(10) of such title): Provided 
     further, That no funds made available by this or any other 
     Act shall be expended to promulgate or implement any rule 
     requiring a physical inventory of any business licensed under 
     section 923 of title 18, United States Code: Provided 
     further, That no funds under this Act may be used to 
     electronically retrieve information gathered pursuant to 18 
     U.S.C. 923(g)(4) by name or any personal identification code: 
     Provided further, That no funds authorized or made available 
     under this or any other Act may be used to deny any 
     application for a license under section 923 of title 18, 
     United States Code, or renewal of such a license due to a 
     lack of business activity, provided that the applicant is 
     otherwise eligible to receive such a license, and is eligible 
     to report business income or to claim an income tax deduction 
     for business expenses under the Internal Revenue Code of 
     1986.

                         Federal Prison System


                         Salaries and Expenses

       For expenses necessary for the administration, operation, 
     and maintenance of Federal penal and correctional 
     institutions, including purchase (not to exceed 780, of which 
     649 are for replacement only) and hire of law enforcement and 
     passenger motor vehicles, and for the provision of technical 
     assistance and advice on corrections related issues to 
     foreign governments, $4,567,232,000: Provided, That the 
     Attorney General may transfer to the Health Resources and 
     Services Administration such amounts as may be necessary for 
     direct expenditures by that Administration for medical relief 
     for inmates of Federal penal and correctional institutions: 
     Provided further, That the Director of the Federal Prison 
     System, where necessary, may enter into contracts with a 
     fiscal agent/fiscal intermediary claims processor to 
     determine the amounts payable to persons who, on behalf of 
     the Federal Prison System, furnish health services to 
     individuals committed to the custody of the Federal Prison 
     System: Provided further, That not to exceed $6,000 shall be 
     available for official reception and representation expenses: 
     Provided further, That not to exceed $50,000,000 shall remain 
     available until September 30, 2006: Provided further, That, 
     of the amounts provided for Contract Confinement, not to 
     exceed $20,000,000 shall remain available until expended to 
     make payments in advance for grants, contracts and 
     reimbursable agreements, and other expenses authorized by 
     section 501(c) of the Refugee Education Assistance Act of 
     1980, for the care and security in the United States of Cuban 
     and Haitian entrants: Provided further, That the Director of 
     the Federal Prison System may accept donated property and 
     services relating to the operation of the prison card program 
     from a not-for-profit entity which has operated such program 
     in the past notwithstanding the fact that such not-for-profit 
     entity furnishes services under contracts to the Federal 
     Prison System relating to the operation of pre-release 
     services, halfway houses or other custodial facilities.


                        Buildings and Facilities

       For planning, acquisition of sites and construction of new 
     facilities; purchase and acquisition of facilities and 
     remodeling, and equipping of such facilities for penal and 
     correctional use, including all necessary expenses incident 
     thereto, by contract or force account; and constructing, 
     remodeling, and equipping necessary buildings and facilities 
     at existing penal and correctional institutions, including 
     all necessary expenses incident thereto, by contract or force 
     account, $189,000,000, to remain available until expended, of 
     which not to exceed $14,000,000 shall be available to 
     construct areas for inmate work programs: Provided, That 
     labor of United States prisoners may be used for work 
     performed under this appropriation: Provided further, That 
     not to exceed 10 percent of the funds appropriated to 
     ``Buildings

[[Page 14652]]

     and Facilities'' in this or any other Act may be transferred 
     to ``Salaries and Expenses'', Federal Prison System, upon 
     notification by the Attorney General to the Committees on 
     Appropriations of the House of Representatives and the Senate 
     in compliance with provisions set forth in section 605 of 
     this Act.


                Federal Prison Industries, Incorporated

       The Federal Prison Industries, Incorporated, is hereby 
     authorized to make such expenditures, within the limits of 
     funds and borrowing authority available, and in accord with 
     the law, and to make such contracts and commitments, without 
     regard to fiscal year limitations as provided by section 9104 
     of title 31, United States Code, as may be necessary in 
     carrying out the program set forth in the budget for the 
     current fiscal year for such corporation, including purchase 
     (not to exceed five for replacement only) and hire of 
     passenger motor vehicles.


   Limitation on Administrative Expenses, Federal Prison Industries, 
                              Incorporated

       Not to exceed $3,429,000 of the funds of the corporation 
     shall be available for its administrative expenses, and for 
     services as authorized by 5 U.S.C. 3109, to be computed on an 
     accrual basis to be determined in accordance with the 
     corporation's current prescribed accounting system, and such 
     amounts shall be exclusive of depreciation, payment of 
     claims, and expenditures which such accounting system 
     requires to be capitalized or charged to cost of commodities 
     acquired or produced, including selling and shipping 
     expenses, and expenses in connection with acquisition, 
     construction, operation, maintenance, improvement, 
     protection, or disposition of facilities and other property 
     belonging to the corporation or in which it has an interest.

                       Office of Justice Programs


                           Justice Assistance

       For grants, contracts, cooperative agreements, and other 
     assistance authorized by title I of the Omnibus Crime Control 
     and Safe Streets Act of 1968, the Missing Children's 
     Assistance Act, including salaries and expenses in connection 
     therewith, the Prosecutorial Remedies and Other Tools to end 
     the Exploitation of Children Today Act of 2003 (Public Law 
     108-21), and the Victims of Crime Act of 1984, $217,000,000, 
     to remain available until expended.


               State and Local Law Enforcement Assistance

       For grants, contracts, cooperative agreements, and other 
     assistance authorized by the Violent Crime Control and Law 
     Enforcement Act of 1994 (Public Law 103-322) (``the 1994 
     Act''); the Omnibus Crime Control and Safe Streets Act of 
     1968 (``the 1968 Act''); the Victims of Trafficking and 
     Violence Protection Act of 2000 (Public Law 106-386); and 
     other programs; $1,255,037,000 (including amounts for 
     administrative costs, which shall be transferred to and 
     merged with the ``Justice Assistance'' account): Provided, 
     That funding provided under this heading shall remain 
     available until expended, as follows--
       (1) $634,000,000 for the Edward Byrne Memorial Justice 
     Assistance Grant program pursuant to the amendments made by 
     section 201 of H.R. 3036 of the 108th Congress, as passed by 
     the House of Representatives on March 30, 2004 (except that 
     the special rules for Puerto Rico established pursuant to 
     such amendments shall not apply for purposes of this Act), of 
     which--
       (A) $80,000,000 shall be for Boys and Girls Clubs in public 
     housing facilities and other areas in cooperation with State 
     and local law enforcement, as authorized by section 401 of 
     Public Law 104-294 (42 U.S.C. 13751 note);
       (B) $15,000,000 shall be available for the National 
     Institute of Justice in assisting units of local government 
     to identify, select, develop, modernize, and purchase new 
     technologies for use by law enforcement, of which not to 
     exceed $1,000,000 shall be for use by the Bureau of Justice 
     Statistics to collect data necessary for carrying out this 
     program; and
       (C) $5,000,000 for USA Freedom Corps activities;
       (2) $325,000,000 for the State Criminal Alien Assistance 
     Program, as authorized by section 242(j) of the Immigration 
     and Nationality Act;
       (3) $15,000,000 for assistance to Indian tribes, of which--
       (A) $2,000,000 shall be available for grants under section 
     20109(a)(2) of subtitle A of title II of the 1994 Act;
       (B) $8,000,000 shall be available for the Tribal Courts 
     Initiative; and
       (C) $5,000,000 shall be available for demonstration 
     projects on alcohol and crime in Indian Country;
       (4) $110,000,000 for discretionary grants authorized by 
     subpart 2 of part E, of title I of the 1968 Act, 
     notwithstanding the provisions of section 511 of said Act;
       (5) $10,000,000 for victim services programs for victims of 
     trafficking, as authorized by section 107(b)(2) of Public Law 
     106-386;
       (6) $883,000 for the Missing Alzheimer's Disease Patient 
     Alert Program, as authorized by section 240001(c) of the 1994 
     Act;
       (7) $50,000,000 for Drug Courts, as authorized by Part EE 
     of the 1968 Act;
       (8) $1,979,000 for public awareness programs addressing 
     marketing scams aimed at senior citizens, as authorized by 
     section 250005(3) of the 1994 Act;
       (9) $10,000,000 for a prescription drug monitoring program;
       (10) $52,175,000 for prison rape prevention and prosecution 
     programs as authorized by the Prison Rape Elimination Act of 
     2003 (Public Law 108-79), of which $2,175,000 shall be 
     transferred to the National Prison Rape Reduction Commission 
     for authorized activities;
       (11) $35,000,000 for grants for residential substance abuse 
     treatment for State prisoners, as authorized by part S of the 
     1968 Act;
       (12) $10,000,000 for a program to improve State and local 
     law enforcement intelligence capabilities including training 
     to ensure that constitutional rights, civil liberties, civil 
     rights, and privacy interests are protected throughout the 
     intelligence process; and
       (13) $1,000,000 for a State and local law enforcement hate 
     crimes training and technical assistance program:

     Provided, That, if a unit of local government uses any of the 
     funds made available under this title to increase the number 
     of law enforcement officers, the unit of local government 
     will achieve a net gain in the number of law enforcement 
     officers who perform nonadministrative public safety service.


                       Weed and Seed Program Fund

       For necessary expenses to implement ``Weed and Seed'' 
     program activities, $51,169,000, to remain available until 
     expended, for inter-governmental agreements, including 
     grants, cooperative agreements, and contracts, with State and 
     local law enforcement agencies, non-profit organizations, and 
     agencies of local government engaged in the investigation and 
     prosecution of violent and gang-related crimes and drug 
     offenses in ``Weed and Seed'' designated communities, and for 
     either reimbursements or transfers to appropriation accounts 
     of the Department of Justice and other Federal agencies which 
     shall be specified by the Attorney General to execute the 
     ``Weed and Seed'' program strategy: Provided, That funds 
     designated by Congress through language for other Department 
     of Justice appropriation accounts for ``Weed and Seed'' 
     program activities shall be managed and executed by the 
     Attorney General through the Executive Office for Weed and 
     Seed: Provided further, That the Attorney General may direct 
     the use of other Department of Justice funds and personnel in 
     support of ``Weed and Seed'' program activities only after 
     the Attorney General notifies the Committees on 
     Appropriations of the House of Representatives and the Senate 
     in accordance with section 605 of this Act.

  Mr. WOLF (during the reading). Mr. Chairman, I ask unanimous consent 
that the remainder of the bill through page 26, line 16 be considered 
as read, printed in the Record and open to amendment at any point.
  The CHAIRMAN. Is there objection to the request of the gentleman from 
Virginia?
  There was no objection.
  The CHAIRMAN. Are there amendments to this portion of the bill?
  If not, the Clerk will read.
  The Clerk read as follows:


                  COMMUNITY ORIENTED POLICING SERVICES

       For activities authorized by the Violent Crime Control and 
     Law Enforcement Act of 1994 (Public Law 103-322) (including 
     administrative costs), $686,702,000, to remain available 
     until expended: Provided, That funds that become available as 
     a result of deobligations from prior year balances may not be 
     obligated except in accordance with section 605 of this Act: 
     Provided further, That section 1703(b) and (c) of the Omnibus 
     Crime Control and Safe Streets Act of 1968 (``the 1968 Act'') 
     shall not apply to non-hiring grants made pursuant to part Q 
     of title I thereof (42 U.S.C. 3796dd et seq.). Of the amounts 
     provided--
       (1) $113,000,000 is for law enforcement enhancement grants 
     pursuant to the amendments made by section 253 of H.R. 3036 
     of the 108th Congress, as passed by the House of 
     Representatives on March 30, 2004;
       (2) $25,000,000 is for the matching grant program for law 
     enforcement armor vests as authorized by section 2501 of part 
     Y of the 1968 Act: Provided, That not to exceed 2 percent of 
     such funds shall be available to the Office of Justice 
     Programs for testing of and research relating to law 
     enforcement armor vests;
       (3) $60,000,000 is for policing initiatives to combat 
     methamphetamine production and trafficking and to enhance 
     policing initiatives in ``drug hot spots'';
       (4) $20,000,000 is for Police Corps education and training: 
     Provided, That the out-year program costs of new recruits 
     shall be fully funded from funds currently available;
       (5) $130,000,000 is for a law enforcement technology 
     program;
       (6) $50,000,000 is for grants to upgrade criminal records, 
     as authorized under the Crime Identification Technology Act 
     of 1998 (42 U.S.C. 14601);
       (7) $175,788,000 is for a DNA analysis and backlog 
     reduction program;
       (8) $40,000,000 is for the Southwest Border Prosecutor 
     Initiative to reimburse State,

[[Page 14653]]

     county, parish, tribal, or municipal governments only for 
     costs associated with the prosecution of criminal cases 
     declined by local United States Attorneys offices;
       (9) $15,000,000 is for an offender re-entry program, as 
     authorized by Public Law 107-273;
       (10) $30,000,000 is for Project Safe Neighborhoods to 
     reduce gun violence, and gang and drug-related crime; and
       (11) not to exceed $27,914,000 is for program management 
     and administration.


                    Amendment Offered by Mr. Weiner

  Mr. WEINER. Mr. Chairman, I offer an amendment.
  The Clerk read as follows:

       Amendment offered by Mr. Weiner:
       Page 26, line 20, after the dollar amount, insert the 
     following: ``(increased by $106,850,000)''.
       Page 27, line 4, after the dollar amount, insert the 
     following: ``(increased by $106,850,000)''.
       Page 47, line 8, after the dollar amount, insert the 
     following: ``(reduced by $106,850,000)''.

  Mr. WOLF. Mr. Chairman, I ask unanimous consent that the debate on 
this amendment and any amendments thereto be limited to 40 minutes to 
be equally divided and controlled by the proponent and myself, the 
opponent, except that the chairman and the ranking minority member may 
each offer one pro forma amendment for the purpose of debate.
  The CHAIRMAN. Is there objection to the request of the gentleman from 
Virginia?
  Mr. WEINER. Mr. Chairman, reserving the right to object, the 
gentleman will be offering a secondary amendment to the amendment? I 
did not understand.
  Mr. WOLF. No, we are not.
  Mr. WEINER. Mr. Chairman, I withdraw my reservation of objection.
  The CHAIRMAN. Is there objection to the request of the gentleman from 
Virginia?
  There was no objection.
  Mr. WEINER. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
  Mr. Chairman, I also want to offer my thanks and gratitude to the 
chairman and ranking member of the subcommittee who, with great grace 
and dignity, often have to find ways to put 10 pounds' worth of things 
into a 5-pound bag.
  This amendment is one that simply argues that in one case, the COPS 
program, we are allowing the program to effectively die in this bill; 
and we must not have that.

                              {time}  1715

  First, some of the facts. The COPS program has been an enormous 
success. From coast to coast, big towns, small cities, police 
departments as few as five members and as many as the New York City 
Police Department of 40,000 have benefited enormously from the COPS 
program.
  Over the course of time, the program has not only shrunk but morphed 
and become more efficient. Many of my colleagues, including in the city 
of New York, have suggested, well, we need less money for hiring, but 
we do need more money for things like radios and equipment and cars. So 
the program has morphed into a block grant. The problem is, it has also 
hemorrhaged to an enormous degree.
  In 1997, there was $1.3 billion allocated by this Congress just for 
hiring. In last year's bill, we were down to $219 million. What we see 
here is how this reorganization happened. We have now block granted the 
entire program into the COPS Enhancement Grant Program, something that, 
by the way, I support; it gives greater flexibility to police 
departments. But the bottom line is, we have reduced this to $113 
million.
  Again, to reiterate, we have taken a program, an enormously 
successful program that at its high-water mark reached $1.3 billion, 
not decades ago but in 1997; we are now proposing to cut that to $113 
million.
  It is so bad, there is so much demand, there are 2,000 applications 
for hiring grants totaling $511 million last year. So far, they are 
only able to provide funding for $385 million of them. That is only 15 
percent of the eligible States and localities that have been able to 
get grant funding, because this program has hemorrhaged so far.
  Everyone agrees that it works. John Ashcroft praised the program. The 
University of Nebraska did a study to show the COPS program in a 5-year 
period resulted in a reduction of 756,000 violent crimes.
  And just a word, a brief word, about the offset. We propose to take 
the funds, and here I want to thank my colleagues, the gentleman from 
Florida (Mr. Keller), the gentleman from New York (Mr. Quinn), the 
gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Stupak), the gentleman from Minnesota (Mr. 
Ramsted), the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Andrews), the gentleman 
from Pennsylvania (Mr. Holden) and the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. 
Platts), to take the money from the largest step-up that is in the 
bill, which is the Census Bureau.
  I have no beef with the Census Bureau. They do a difficult job. They 
do it every 10 years, and there is a need to ramp it up, but the 
ramping up that is going on is coming at the cost of the COPS program. 
Fiscal year 2005, I believe we are going to have other opportunities to 
ramp up the Census Bureau.
  In fact, at this point in the last census, the software for the 
census had not even been purchased yet. That is how early we are in the 
process, but I mean no disregard to that bureau. They do an excellent 
job. Unfortunately, I believe the COPS program deserves greater 
attention.
  Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. WOLF. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
  Mr. Chairman, the reduction in the amendment would debilitate the 
2010 census, and the census department said it will be the worst census 
ever in the history of our Nation. Once the cuts are made, there will 
be no opportunity to restart the program. They said the impact of the 
cuts, human costs in the loss of more than 1,000 Federal jobs at the 
U.S. Census Bureau. There is no catching up. The cut wastes the $500 
million already spent and adds another $1 billion to the cost for the 
year 2010 for the census. It would cut the Census Bureau by $106 
million, resulting in, as I said, the loss of thousands of jobs.
  The bill is already $55 million below the request of the 
administration. The census is a constitutional responsibility, 
collected every 10 years to apportion the seats of the House of 
Representatives. The census is one of America's oldest and most 
enduring traditions. The first census was collected in 1790. The 
results were delivered to George Washington during his first term.
  The United States is a rapidly changing and growing country. The 
population has grown by 10 million people since 2000, 10 million since 
2000. By 2010, there will be more than 300 million Americans living in 
America, so we need to keep up and monitor and know about that 
population.
  This population will need more homes, stores, hospitals, roads, new 
schools, and the information is needed to make good decisions. Most of 
the data used by State and local governments and the Federal Government 
have come from the Census Bureau.
  Further, the Census Bureau collects mostly all of the Nation's 
economic data. Gross domestic product is delivered in part by the data 
of the Census Bureau.
  In spite of the unprecedented success of 2000, the General Accounting 
Office, an arm of the Congress, concluded that Census 2000 was 
conducted at a high cost and great risk and recommended extensive and 
early planning for the testing. The funding provided in this bill for 
the Census Bureau is already scaled back from what the Census Bureau 
requested to fully fund the planning and testing for the 2010 census 
and the American Community Survey.
  A current Congresswoman informed me earlier today, the gentlewoman 
from New York (Mrs. Maloney), who was here today expressing concern 
that we were even a little bit lower than what the Census Bureau 
thought was appropriate.
  Should there be any additional cuts to the Bureau, there will be both 
a long- and short-form census that will cost the government upwards of 
$15 billion.
  The budget requests for the Bureau of the Census has already been 
reduced

[[Page 14654]]

by $55 million. Further reduction would be irresponsible, as it would 
endanger our ability to carry out this critical constitutional 
responsibility.
  Regarding the proposed increase to COPS, this bill already 
significantly improves the President's proposals for State and local 
law enforcement accounts by providing $886 million above the request. 
This includes providing an increase of $251 million above the request 
for programs funded in COPS heading, such as $130 million above the 
request for law enforcement technologies, $40 million above the request 
for Meth Hot Spots.
  Other important State and local law enforcement programs funded above 
the request include the Edward Byrne Justice Assistance Grants 
programs, funded at $125 million above the request, SCAAP funding at 
$325 million above the request. In fact, that was zeroed out. Juvenile 
Justice programs are funded at $105 million above the request.
  A further increase above the request is not a high priority, 
particularly if one were taking it from the Census Bureau, which would 
pretty much decimate that.
  So I strongly urge a ``no'' vote on the Weiner amendment.
  Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. WEINER. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
  Mr. Chairman, I would just point out, we in this House authorized $1 
billion for the COPS program. It is authorized this year at $113 
million, and as far as the Census Bureau, I agree they do very 
important work. In 2000, they acknowledge they made mistakes in the 
undercount and refused to adjust, so I am not even convinced, if they 
had the money, they would do it.
  Mr. Chairman, I yield 4 minutes to the gentleman from Florida (Mr. 
Keller), the cosponsor of the amendment.
  Mr. KELLER. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman from New York for 
yielding me time.
  Mr. Chairman, I rise today in strong support of the Weiner amendment 
to restore funding for the COPS program to last year's level.
  Here is the bottom line. At a time when our homeland security threat 
levels are up, does it make sense that our funding for COPS should go 
down? Of course not. Yet this bill cuts the COPS grant programs by 
nearly half. Common sense suggests that cities all across America would 
be expanding, not decreasing, their police forces in the face of 
growing homeland security demands.
  Now, Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge has consistently said that 
homeland security starts in our hometowns. I can tell you firsthand 
that when it comes to making our hometowns safer, there is no Federal 
program more popular with the sheriffs and police chiefs in Orlando, 
Florida, than the COPS program.
  The COPS program has helped local communities in central Florida and 
all across the Nation by hiring an additional 118,000 additional police 
officers. A study by the University of Nebraska found that the COPS 
program is directly linked to the dramatic drop in crime since 1995. 
Literally every single congressional district has received funding and 
has benefited in some way from the COPS program.
  The COPS program is popular because it works and because it allows 
local law enforcement agencies to apply directly to the Department of 
Justice for the money by filling out a simple one-page grant form.
  Now, I have listened to the opponents of the Weiner amendment. They 
are all reasonable, well-intentioned people. And this is essentially 
what they have to say: They say the bill is fine the way it is because 
the $3 billion it provides for State and local law enforcement is over 
the President's budget request, and that the offset of $106 million 
from the Census Bureau programs is too much of a cut from the Census 
budget.
  On the surface, that argument sounds pretty good, but it is a bit 
misleading in three areas: The amount of the funding, the type of the 
funding, and the supposed cuts from the Census Bureau. In the interest 
of straight talk, I will squarely address each of these three issues.
  First, I will address the amount of funding. The total amount 
appropriated in this bill for local and State law enforcement 
represents a cut of $103 million from last year's level. The threat 
levels are up, yet the law enforcement funding level goes down? No, 
sir, that dog will not hunt.
  Second, I will address the type of funding. While the COPS hiring 
grants have been cut, other types of funding to State and local police 
agencies are inadequate replacements because these other types of 
funding do not go directly to the law enforcement agencies, but rather 
are sent to the States where much of the money is eaten up in 
administrative costs; and there is a long delay in getting the money 
sent to law enforcement agencies. Moreover, even when the local law 
enforcement agencies finally do get the money, it is usually not used 
to hire new police officers because they are based on a 1-year grant.
  In stark contrast, money out of the COPS program goes directly to the 
local law enforcement agencies, using a one-page form, and can be used 
right then to hire new police officers for 3 years without bureaucratic 
delay, red tape and any unnecessary expense.
  The third and final flaw deals with the supposed cuts from the Census 
Bureau. Here is the deal with that: The Census Bureau programs received 
an increase in funding levels by 32.4 percent this year. By cutting 
this dramatic increase down to the more reasonable amount of an 8 
percent increase, it will allow us to still increase the Census budget 
and yet restore the COPS funding levels to last year's appropriated 
level.
  Do our COPS, who are on the front lines of homeland security, not 
need the money more than the bureaucrats at the Census Bureau?
  I urge my colleagues to restore funding to the COPS program and vote 
``yes'' on the Weiner amendment.
  Mr. SERRANO. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the last word.
  First of all, let me go on the record, as I have before and will 
today and will tomorrow, and say that given an opportunity to have more 
dollars available to us, the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Wolf) and I 
would have done more to provide for the COPS program. I know that. That 
is not a statement on my part; that is an understanding of his 
philosophy and what he believes in.
  However, in spite of that problem, in spite of the fact that we do 
not have the dollars in this bill that we want to, because everyone 
could get up here and tell us what section of the bill should be 
increased and just about every section, except for a couple that I will 
mention in a second, could be increased.
  In spite of that, it is interesting to know that local law 
enforcement is $885 million above the President's request in this bill. 
So there has been a serious effort to deal with this issue.
  But here is my problem. My problem is that my colleague from New York 
(Mr. Weiner), whom I respect and admire, tells us that we can take the 
money from the census and he, in the process, will devastate not only 
the Census Bureau but the ability to conduct a census.
  If I was to carry this to an extreme, which I never would do, this 
may be unconstitutional because if there is an issue that is in the 
Constitution, it is to conduct a census every 10 years. So we do not 
make those decisions around here.
  The Census Bureau, those of us who understand the work, they do fully 
understand that this cut, which incidentally and we should know this, 
my colleague, the gentleman from New York (Mr. Weiner), my 
understanding is will come up with yet a second amendment which cuts 
more money from the census, so when it is all over today, he will have 
cut the census by over $225 million.
  Well, first of all, 1,000 people would have to be laid off. No one 
has made a decision in this Congress that those 1,000 people are no 
longer needed. No one in any of the two Houses has decided that those 
folks have to go. Yet, this amendment would immediately and arbitrarily 
decide that those folks have to go.

[[Page 14655]]

  In addition, we are gearing up for the 2010 census. We are already in 
2005, as we speak here today. That means that half the gearing up has 
been done. One could argue that instead of saving money, this would 
waste money because all the money that has been spent up to now will be 
for naught, because obviously the census is not going to be able to 
function or be conducted the way it should for the next 5 years.
  There is a point, however, that is of great interest to me, and that 
is the census count in the inner cities and especially the census count 
in the minority communities.

                              {time}  1730

  For Hispanics and African Americans and other minorities in this 
country, there is at times nothing more important than a proper count; 
and I have been in the past a critic of undercounts, and I continue 
with the gentlewoman from New York (Mrs. Maloney) and the gentleman 
from Virginia (Chairman Wolf) to work with the Census Bureau to get a 
better count. This would not discuss the issue of a better count. This 
would discuss the issue of no count at all.
  When we speak in the minority community, in the poor community of 
what we need to do to grow to become part of the American society, we 
always cite census figures. We say we have grown by this much, and yet 
our educational level has fallen back by this much. We say we have 
grown by this much, and yet our per capita income has gone down.
  Whatever the issue may be, we run to the Census Bureau to get the 
numbers to make our argument to build our case that we need help. I 
would carry this to a point where I say to destroy the Census Bureau, 
to destroy the next census is a frontal attack on the aspirations of 
people in my community who need an accurate count and hopefully a 
better count to make the arguments that we can make.
  Now, a lot of what is happening here today, when we say COPS, the 
program stands for different things, but the short name is COPS, the 
people right away think of a police officer. Well, my staff just spoke 
to the City of New York, which always comes up in these discussions. 
The city folks tell us that because crime is down and the matching 
funds for any new hires are not in place or not available in New York 
City's current economy they are not hiring any new cops. So any dollars 
that supposedly would go to New York would not be available to them at 
this point. They could not use them.
  On the other hand, they say that they look to the census, they look 
to the next count, they look to the American survey as the one chance 
that they have to really move ahead and be able to get the dollars 
necessary for the city in the future, because let us remember, and I 
will conclude with this, that the census also figures in what different 
localities get in Federal help based on the population they have.
  So for those reasons, and a million more that maybe I will get a 
chance to elaborate on, I wholeheartedly oppose this amendment and ask 
for its defeat.
  Mr. WEINER. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. 
I just want to address a couple of the points that have come up.
  First of all, the chairman as addressed many times the level to which 
we exceed the President's request for COPS. Yes, the President proposed 
zero for COPS. He proposed zeroing out the program. This is a 
bipartisan amendment because we think that is bad idea.
  The second point that is made is it is going to cost personnel at the 
Census Bureau. Well, I would just remind my colleagues we do not touch 
the salaries and expenses line of this budget. We only refer to the 
part that is periodic censuses and programs, but I can tell my 
colleagues what eliminating the COPS program has done. It has meant 
that less cops are on the beat. We have fired cops in the real world 
because the COPS program is hemorrhaged.
  Finally, if I can make reference to the final point of the 
distinguished ranking member about how the City of New York does not 
hire cops with its funding anymore. That is exactly right. That is why 
the program is now in a block grant formula that allows police 
departments to buy radios, something the city has done; paid overtime, 
something the city has done; and provided overtime. These are ways that 
the program has become more responsive in response to some of the 
objections that our colleagues have raised about the COPS program. In 
boom hiring times, it hires. Now, we allow it to backfill for overtime 
and other types of programs.
  The City of New York, as we speak, has an application in for the Safe 
Schools Program, which is part of the COPS program. Well, they are 
going to get zero with the budget that is before us now. They will get 
funded with some certitude if the Weiner amendment passes.
  I would make one final point to my friends who are supportive of the 
Census Bureau, particularly my friends, the gentlewoman from New York 
(Mrs. Maloney) and the gentleman from New York (Mr. Serrano). If 
someone comes to this floor right now and says the improved funding 
will lead to a census undercount adjustment in the year 2010, I will 
withdraw my amendment; but that is not going to happen. We provided 
them all kinds of funding, and let me tell my colleagues what happened.
  In 2000, the Census Bureau, not courts, not Congress, decided we are 
not going to do an undercount adjustment. What did it cost? The county 
of the Bronx, $262 million because of that undercount; the county of 
New York, $212 million as a result of that undercount; and here we are 
fighting and scratching to defend their funding. Well, God bless them, 
but they have already showed that money is not their problem. When we 
give them more money, they acknowledge an under-
count and they still do not fix it.
  So I have got to tell to my distinguished colleagues from my hometown 
of New York, at least we know the COPS funding winds up getting to New 
York. We cannot say that about census funding.
  Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. WOLF. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
  I thank the gentleman for his comments. I am ready to yield to the 
gentleman from Florida (Mr. Putnam), the Chairman of the Subcommittee 
on Technology, Information Policy, Intergovernmental Relations and the 
Census; but the account that the gentleman cut with the decennial 
census does have personnel in it. So he does cut 1,000 jobs, boom, they 
are gone; and so whether the gentleman is not Xing the counts, he does 
cut personnel with the amendment.
  Mr. Chairman, I yield 5 minutes to the gentleman from Florida (Mr. 
Putnam), the chairman of the subcommittee that has jurisdiction over 
the census.
  Mr. PUTNAM. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. 
Wolf), the distinguished chairman, for yielding me the time.
  I rise to oppose this amendment, the Weiner amendment. As chairman of 
the subcommittee that has oversight over the Census Bureau, I must 
strongly oppose efforts to take the money needed for the important work 
that the Census Bureau continues to do for our Nation. I want to offer 
my support to the full mark of $774 million that was voted out of the 
Committee on Appropriations.
  It is ironic that a Member from an area that was affected by an 
under-
count, that is a critic of the effectiveness of the Census Bureau, 
would respond by gutting it, by taking boots out of the streets that 
have the effect of making sure that that undercount does not occur, by 
finding all of those additional people, by making sure that there is a 
fair and accurate count. He guts the budget that would correct those 
types of things.
  The Census Bureau is the preeminent provider for the data that keeps 
our Nation running. We have an economy that is information-based. 
Without the information to make good decisions our economy and our 
Nation suffers.
  I support the efforts of the Census Bureau to plan an accurate and 
fair census for 2010, and the planning for

[[Page 14656]]

that is ongoing. It is not something that we ramp up the year before. 
The modernization and early planning for census 2010 is money well 
spent, particularly full funding for the American Community Survey.
  We cannot be shortsighted when it comes to the census. The American 
Community Survey, for example, would give a city like New York that has 
seen a great deal of change since the last census as a result of 
horrible events beyond our control in 2001, it would give New York 
accurate data on an annual basis rather than having to wait an entire 
decade to reflect the change that occurred there on September 11. The 
American Community Survey, at its heart, is designed to give areas like 
New York City, like Washington, D.C., like small Midwestern towns that 
disappear overnight with the fury of a tornado accurate data on an 
annualized basis rather than having to wait 10 ears to have good, 
solid, sound information.
  This amendment, the Weiner amendment, drastically reduces the money 
that the Census Bureau needs to do its valuable work to prepare for the 
2010 census and to implement the American Community Survey. They have 
already sustained a $19 million cut from the President's budget 
request. The money that is needed for the gentleman from New York's 
(Mr. Weiner) amendment, regardless of its tremendously good intent, is 
money that the President and full committee have provided to fund the 
Census Bureau and the implementation of the ACS that will replace the 
long form and provide the detailed demographic and economic data 
annually for areas around the Nation.
  The impact of the cut proposed by the gentleman from New York (Mr. 
Weiner) and the Weiner amendment will stop the American Community 
Survey with no opportunity to restart it. It would mean a loss, as the 
chairman has said, of over 1,000 Federal jobs at the Census Bureau, 
boots on the ground that could provide the gentleman the accurate count 
that he is rightfully concerned about; and it wastes the $500 million 
already invested on the American Community Survey and would add 
significant new costs to the 2010 census.
  The Census Bureau, Mr. Chairman, does important work every day that 
keeps our economy running. It is important work to plan for the 2010 
census and fully implement the ACS. We cannot eliminate this funding, 
and I strongly urge the House to reject this.
  Mr. WEINER. Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?
  Mr. PUTNAM. I yield to the gentleman from New York.
  Mr. WEINER. First, I appreciate the gentleman's expertise on this 
issue. Should I take it from his concerns and comments about the 
undercount in New York that under his leadership he will commit to 
doing something the Census Bureau has refused to do, which is a 
statistical adjustment to take into account the undercount and adjust 
New York accordingly? I mean, I appreciate the gentleman's protests; 
but to be honest with him, it was not a shortage of data. It was a 
shortage of a desire on the part of the Census Bureau to use that data 
to enfranchise those who were disenfranchised.
  Mr. PUTNAM. Mr. Chairman, reclaiming my time, the 2000 census was the 
most accurate census in this Nation's history. In a Nation as large and 
diverse as ours, we will never, ever have a perfect count, and they 
have been doing these since Caesar. There is yet to be a perfect count.
  I acknowledge the gentleman's concern with the undercount; and I also 
acknowledge that gutting their budget, which is what the gentleman's 
amendment does, will not improve the accuracy of the 2010 census.
  Mr. WEINER. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. 
I just want to make a couple of quick points here.
  Look, the problem is not that there is an undercount. The problem is 
they discovered the undercount and steadfastly refused to do anything 
about it. By the way, in the data that we are going to be accumulating 
over the next 10 years, we can include the number 7,300. That is the 
number of employed police officers in the State of Florida today as a 
result of the COPS program. Those are working men and women in my 
colleague's hometown, in the hometown of the gentleman from Virginia, 
in my hometown that are simply not going to be there because we are 
eviscerating the COPS program.
  We have taken a $1.3 billion hiring program, and we propose in this 
budget to make it $114 million, and to say, well, the President said 
nothing, so we should be thrilled.
  Mr. PUTNAM. Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?
  Mr. WEINER. I yield to the gentleman from Florida.
  Mr. PUTNAM. Mr. Chairman, would the gentleman answer, for the purpose 
of enlightening the House, how much additional money local law 
enforcement New York City has received under homeland security grants?
  Mr. WEINER. Under homeland security grants, well, frankly, per 
capita, about one-sixth the amount of Wyoming. Any other question?
  Mr. PUTNAM. Mr. Chairman, if the gentleman would yield, give us the 
bottom line number for those who are not into per capita, how many 
billions of dollars has New York received since September 2001?
  Mr. WEINER. Reclaiming my time, in homeland security funding? 
Actually, let us talk about how much is cut.
  The COPS program at one time funded 7,000 police officers in the City 
of New York; and by the way, I can check for a moment if the gentleman 
gives me his hometown how many funds in his neighborhood and that has 
been steadily slashed.
  John Ashcroft, the Attorney General of the Nation of the United 
States, said that this is the best program to reduce crime. Secretary 
Ridge said homeland security starts in our hometown. What are we doing? 
Slashing the COPS program.
  I can assure my colleagues, Mr. Chairman, they oppose slashing the 
COPS program, not knowing my colleague all that well, but knowing how 
it has been helpful to his community. We are doing it. We are not happy 
about doing it.
  All I am saying is let us bring it to at least last year's level. Do 
not bring it to what we authorized in the House, $1 billion. I am sure 
the gentleman voted for it, $1 billion authorization level, $113 
million half of what it was last year.
  Listen, I do not have any beef with the census; and as I said, the 
chairman and the ranking member have a Herculean task trying to make 
these numbers work. All I am saying is this is one program that is a 
dramatic step up for something that they are trying to ramp up that I 
think they should, but we have to be sure we do not ramp down the COPS 
program into the ground in the process. The COPS program will cease to 
exist effectively.
  As of last year, 15 percent of the States that applied got the 
grants. Effectively, if we cut that in half, do the math, effectively 
the COPS program is dead.
  Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. WOLF. Mr. Chairman, I yield 5 minutes to the gentlewoman from New 
York (Mrs. Maloney).
  Mrs. MALONEY. Mr. Chairman, while I am extremely sympathetic to the 
cause my good friend from New York supports, I cannot support this 
amendment. Taking money from the census planning will cripple that 
effort and have consequences that will damage the census throughout 
this decade.
  All of our representation in this Congress and our local and State 
bodies is based on census numbers. The funding that we receive in 
localities across this Nation are based on census numbers. Working to 
make it as accurate as possible is absolutely fundamental to the 
fairness of our democracy.
  The 2000 census was the most expensive in history and was not very 
much more accurate than the 1990 census. Demographic analysis failed to 
capture the growth in Hispanic migration and, as a result, was of 
little use in measuring the accuracy of the census.

                              {time}  1745

  The census annual estimates of the population were off by almost 8 
million in 2000. These and many other errors

[[Page 14657]]

were the result of a failure of Congress to adequately fund the 
planning for the 2000 census.
  The census is an enormous management undertaking. It is the largest 
peacetime mobilization the government undertakes. The census requires 
planning to mobilize hundreds of thousands of workers for a few weeks. 
In 2000, it took 500 offices and 500,000 workers. The Census Bureau 
opens those offices, hires a staff, and closes those offices all in a 
few weeks. Over 100 million forms have to be printed, labeled, and 
mailed. Those forms have to be returned by mail and the information on 
them tabulated, and all of this must be done in the 9 months between 
April 1 and December 31, when the director must submit to the President 
the State numbers for apportionment.
  The budget for 2005 is essential for a fair and accurate census in 
2010. The cut called for in this amendment will result in a poorly 
executed 2010 census. That, in turn, will result in millions of errors 
that will distort the apportionment of the seats in this House. These 
cuts will result in a more costly or less accurate census or both.
  In this Information Age, we need reliable information in order to 
make good decisions for this Nation. Without good data, we cannot 
administer the laws of this country fairly, and I, for one, will 
continue to do all I can to make sure that the Census Bureau has the 
capabilities to provide the Congress and the Nation with the ability to 
provide all of us with high-quality data needed by the public and the 
private sector and its elected representatives to make informed public 
policy decisions. Therefore, I urge a ``no'' vote on this amendment.
  Mr. WEINER. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
  I have yet to hear a single opponent of the amendment say the words 
``with full funding we will have a statistical undercount adjustment.'' 
And the reason we cannot is that the Census Bureau is not committed to 
that.
  It is not a matter of collecting the information, I say to my 
colleagues. It is a matter of what you do with it. And simply 
collecting the information, as we learned in 2000, is not the problem. 
When you have a Census Bureau that is unwilling to make adjustments, we 
are arguing for the wrong thing.
  I can tell you this though, in the census figures, when they do 
employment, they are going to have less folks for cops. It is what they 
will have as a result of this idea of ending the COPS program.
  Let us try to remember here what we are talking about. We are talking 
about a program that has not only hired over 125,000 cops, not only 
paid overtime in over 4,000 different jurisdictions, not only bought 
radios and repeaters, and Sprint systems for inside cars in dozens of 
police forces, it has resulted in the reduction of at least 150,000 
violent crimes. It is an enormously successful program. Let us keep our 
eyes on the ball.
  We all recognize here that both programs are good. It is just a 
matter of whether one will be ramped up very much at the expense of the 
other. That is all this amendment seeks to do, is to just try to 
restore the COPS program to a barely living, barely heartbeating pace. 
If we restore it with my amendment, I want to just caution my 
colleagues, it will still mean that only 15 percent of the applicants 
are going to get grants. That is all it means. Last year, they did not 
accept everyone's applications because we had strangled the money so 
sharply. They used fiscal year 2003 applications.
  If we continue on this path and halve it again, I am convinced, my 
colleagues, when we come here in future years, the COPS program will 
cease to exist on almost any level that we know it. We must not allow 
the structural reforms that we made here to block grant the whole 
program being an excuse to slash it by 50 percent.
  Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. WOLF. Mr. Chairman, I yield such time as he may consume to the 
gentleman from New York (Mr. Serrano).
  Mr. SERRANO. Mr. Chairman, let me make a few brief comments here. We 
keep talking about full funding and an adjustment to the census count. 
We have all been in support of that. But let us remember that perhaps 
the largest reason why the Census Bureau did not adjust the count was 
for the tremendous congressional pressure that fell upon it when it was 
discussing that issue.
  Now, that is not going to satisfy the sponsor of the amendment. 
However, I would like just to alert the sponsor of the amendment that 
the biggest bump-up this year, or in years past, certainly since 
September 11 of 2001, has not been the Census Bureau. The Census Bureau 
is just an easy target because, supposedly, it does not have a 
constituency, except for poor minorities who want to get counted and do 
not get counted. The big bump-up has been the Department of Justice, 
the Department of State, and the FBI. But no one would dare take money 
from there to pay for cops in the city, because that has big 
congressional, Presidential, administration and local support.
  So if we are going to talk about who to take money from, let us 
sometimes be courageous enough to take it from where it exists, in 
bundles, and not where we could cripple the future count in our 
communities.
  Mr. WEINER. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume 
just to respond to two of the points.
  First of all, it was the Census Bureau, the Secretary of Commerce, 
who decided not to do the undercount. You are absolutely right, some of 
our colleagues opposed it. It was the Census Bureau that took this to 
the Supreme Court, insisting they had the right, and the Supreme Court 
agreed with them. They did it, the administration of the agency that 
you are standing up for did it.
  The second point I would make is that 225 Members of this House 
supported the reauthorization of the COPS program at $1 billion. If you 
think that this program is some fringe program that very few people 
care about, I can show you on the map how many police departments have 
benefited from it. This is an enormously popular program. The 
difference is that these are cops that go directly to our 
neighborhoods, directly to our districts, directly to sheriffs' 
offices. This even bypasses the States, this program is run so well. 
That is what we have reduced to virtually nothing in this, and that is 
what we are trying to at least bump up to last year's level. Not an 
overly ambitious thing, just to last year's level.
  Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. WOLF. Mr. Chairman, I yield such time as he may consume to the 
gentleman from New York (Mr. Serrano).
  Mr. SERRANO. Just one last point, Mr. Chairman. I am, for the record, 
and continue to be a strong supporter of the COPS program. I will be 
working with the chairman to see how we can get better in conference 
and will be working with the chairman next year, hopefully, or should I 
say that next year the chairman will be working with me to make sure 
that we can bump up the COPS program.
  But just for the record, when President Clinton proposed to this 
Congress the COPS program, it was a temporary program to reach 100,000 
new cops. We are at 119,000 cops. So while it is true that we want to 
do more, let us not paint it as a failure or a shortcoming. In fact, it 
has produced and accomplished quite a bit.
  Mr. WOLF. Would the Chairman tell us how much time is available for 
both sides?
  The CHAIRMAN. The gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Wolf) has 5 minutes 
remaining, and the gentleman from New York (Mr. Weiner) has 4 minutes 
remaining.
  Mr. WOLF. Who gets to close?
  The CHAIRMAN. The gentleman from Virginia.
  Mr. WOLF. Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. WEINER. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. 
I want to thank the chairman and the ranking member of the 
subcommittee, both of whom I have profound respect for and the 
difficulty of the job they face. But I think one thing needs to be made 
very clear. We have had a dramatic, precipitous drop in crime in this

[[Page 14658]]

country under Democratic Presidents, under Republican Presidents, under 
Democratic Congresses, under Republican Congresses.
  One thing that has been consistent is that, when that happens, 
although criminologists wring their hands trying to think of reasons, 
the bottom line is very simple. We, the Federal Government, got off the 
sidelines and said this is not just a local problem. This is a national 
priority. And we started systematically helping localities fund a COPS 
program. And it has worked; as hiring has gone up, crime has come down.
  In the midst of all of that, September 11 happened, where we once 
again wrapped ourselves in the dogma of support for local law 
enforcement. We needed to do it. This program is the embodiment of a 
local law enforcement program that works. And what have we done? We 
have, through the course of time, virtually eliminated it. It is not 
hyperbole. We now have a $114 million allocation from a high of $1.4 
billion. That is the fact.
  What I propose to do in this amendment is frankly quite modest. It is 
to raise it up to last year's paltry level of $230-something million. 
And again to reiterate, the Census Bureau, while I have my beefs with 
it and I know other colleagues do, this is not intended to target them. 
This is intended to simply prioritize a program that we are ramping up 
towards a 2010 census and a program that is dying a slow death today, 
and also a program that I think we all agree is the front line of 
defense in our homeland security plan.
  What we need to recognize with this amendment is that we have been 
given a false choice that the chairman did not choose and I did not 
choose. It is to take a bill that is underfunded, indisputably 
underfunded, take programs that are underfunded, even the census line 
is below the President's request, and what we are trying to do is 
trying to make a minor change to this one program which will allow the 
Census Bureau to go on. We do not touch the personnel line at all. But 
more importantly, we will allow the COPS program to continue 
functioning until we can pump some life into it.
  We started that process. This Congress authorized the COPS bill that 
the other body has yet to act on for $1 billion, $1 billion, which is 
down, but it is still, in comparison to the $114 million that we see in 
the chairman's mark, obviously, a dramatic increase.
  What does my amendment do? It does not stop us from counting people. 
It does not do that. What does my amendment do? It does not cause a 
raft of people to be laid off. It says what we are going to do is, we 
are going to take this ramp-up of the census department, make it a 
little slower, and we are going to allow the COPS program to breathe, 
to see another day, in a bipartisan fashion.
  The COPS program is probably the most democratic, with a small ``d'' 
program, that we in Congress act on each year. There is no pattern of 
urban and rural, no pattern of north and south. Just about every 
locality, every city and State, every town and sheriff's department 
gets funds from it. They used to get hiring funds; now they get funds 
to either allow backfill with overtime or provide other resources to 
local police departments.
  If my colleagues go home today and ask your police department what 
program do they care most about that the Federal Government provides, 
they will doubtlessly say, the COPS program, because they have seen it 
work.
  There is a directory the size of a phone book of State, cities, and 
localities that have gotten aid from the COPS program. We are now at 
the point where only 15 percent of all of the eligible applicants are 
getting funding. If we allow this chairman's mark to pass, that number, 
by theory, will reduce in half, 7 percent.
  What are we going to tell our police departments and our sheriffs' 
offices? Well, you are eligible for the grant, you got it a couple of 
years ago, but I am sorry, we cannot because we are funding a ramp-up 
in the Census Bureau. I do not believe they will be very satisfied with 
that.
  I urge a ``yes'' vote on the Weiner/Keller/Ramstad/Quinn/Andrews/Van 
Hollen/Platts amendment.
  Mr. Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time.
  Mr. WOLF. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from 
Maryland (Mr. Hoyer).
  Mr. HOYER. Mr. Chairman, I thank my friend, and I thank the gentleman 
from New York as well. He and I have talked about this amendment.
  I am a very strong supporter of the COPS program, I have been and 
continue to be a very strong supporter of the COPS program. And what 
the gentleman's amendment does is dramatically point out that the 
gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Wolf) and the gentleman from New York (Mr. 
Serrano) do not have sufficient funds to properly reach the levels that 
would be appropriate for funding for some very, very worthwhile 
programs.
  On the other hand, when you are in this position, obviously you have 
to make choices. If you are going to have a zero sum game, that is, add 
no additional dollars, which would not be allowed, you have to take 
from some place if you want to increase in another place. The problem 
with this amendment, as I have told my friend from New York, is not its 
objective, which is an excellent one, but it is the means that it 
employs to attain that objective, which will have very serious adverse 
results, in my opinion.
  Now, the gentleman has indicated that he is confident it will have no 
adverse effect on employment levels. I think that is not the case. It 
is not the information I have. Now, as I have told the gentleman, 
obviously, I, as a matter of fact, went to high school a mile down the 
road from the Census Bureau, so I know something about the Census 
Bureau. It will, according to the Census Bureau, result in possibly as 
many as 1,000 RIFs. Now, that is a lot of people.
  Now, in addition to adversely affecting the people, the gentleman's 
amendment will affect the product adversely. Now, what is the product? 
The product is getting ready for the census of 2010. Now, that sounds 
very simple, but in fact it is a multiyear process. And if you slow it 
down, you can never get back that time.

                              {time}  1800

  Therefore, although I strongly support the gentleman's objective, I 
cannot support and will therefore oppose his amendment, the means he 
employs to obtain that objective. I hope this amendment is defeated not 
because we should not be expanding the COPS program, but because we 
should not be doing it in this particular way.
  Mr. WOLF. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself the balance of my time.
  I thank the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Hoyer) for his comments. He 
is exactly right. Also, the COPS program is not authorized. It has not 
passed the Senate. And as the gentleman from New York (Mr. Serrano) 
said, the goal was to get 100,000 cops; and they are well beyond.
  I think the important points are the reduction, as the gentleman from 
Florida (Mr. Putnam) said, will actually debilitate the 2010 census, 
resulting in the worse census ever. If this amendment were to pass for 
1 year, we would have arguments in the future about how this count is 
not right and Members would be up in arms.
  Secondly, once the cuts are made, there is no opportunity to restart 
the program.
  The impact of this cut in this amendment: 1,000 jobs would be lost, 
no catching up, stops the census and this wastes the $500 million 
already spent and adds another $1 billion to the cost to the census in 
2010. I urge strong defeat of the amendment.
  Mr. STUPAK. Mr. Chairman, I rise in support and as a cosponsor of 
this very important amendment.
  After 9-11, the Federal Government called upon our States and locals 
to be even more vigilant and prepared for possible acts of terrorism in 
addition to their daily responsibilities to protect their communities 
from routine crime.
  However, it doesn't make sense to put a whole lot more on their 
plates and then cut off the resources to help them meet these 
obligations. For example, this bill cuts the COPS program by more than 
50 percent to $113 million.

[[Page 14659]]

  That's why I am a proud cosponsor of this amendment to restore 
funding to the 2004 level--$237 million--for the COPS grant program.
  We're not talking about a lot of money. In fact that's just a 
fraction of the $1 billion authorized that this chamber overwhelmingly 
approved in the DOJ reauthorization bill.
  COPS has been repeatedly slashed over the years.
  Mr. Chairman, I am also disappointed with the lack of funds in COPS 
to provide local and State agencies assistance to upgrade their 
communications systems so they can talk to each other, no matter the 
jurisdiction or agency. The lack of interoperable communications was a 
key factor in why at least 121 firefighters died in the World Trade 
Center's Towers in 2001.
  Last year, Congress provided $84 million in the COPS program for 
interoperability upgrades, That's not much compared to the $10 billion 
estimate to make our Nation's first responders fully interoperable.
  But this year it was zeroed out. And that's exactly what happened in 
the Homeland Security appropriations bill this chamber approved last 
month.
  Meanwhile, we know it will cost between $6 billion and $10 billion to 
make our Nation's public safety agencies and first responders 
interoperable.
  Bottom line: There's an awful lot of talk around here about 
interoperability, but no real, reliable resources to help make that 
happen so agencies can talk to each other in times of a catastrophic 
disaster or terrorist attack.
  So Mr. Chairman, I urge my colleagues to support the Weiner-Keller-
Stupak amendment to at least bring us back to where we were last year.
  A 50 percent cut to the COPS grant program is a slap in the face to 
the millions of police officers who work tirelessly to protect their 
communities every day.
   Mr. QUINN. Mr. Chairman, I rise today on a bipartisan basis to 
support the amendment offered by my fellow New Yorker, Mr. Weiner,  and 
the gentleman from Florida, Mr. Keller, that would increase funds for 
the COPS program to last year's enacted level from what is currently 
more than a 50 percent cut.
   Mr. Chairman, for the past few years, I have worked with countless 
Members on both sides of the aisle to restore and increase Federal 
funding for the COPS program. There are few programs that our 
government funds that work better or more efficiently than the COPS 
program does. Every day, our police men and women are patrolling our 
streets, keeping our constituents safe from crime and drugs, and have 
served as our first responders in times of national crises. Since 
implementation of the COPS program in the 90s, our Nation's violent 
crime rate has plummeted, and at least some of this drop must be 
attributed to the number of officers put on our streets through the 
COPS program.
   The amendment we are offering today is a modest request for 
maintaining last year's funding level of $219 million. While the 
program could definitely use more money, and is actually authorized for 
FY2005 at $1 billion, we must as a Congress put more highly qualified 
men and women on our streets and at least fund COPS at last year's 
level.
   In closing, while these are tight budgetary times, I believe that 
funding law enforcement programs like COPS is a justified use of our 
limited resources.
   Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I urge my colleagues to support the Weiner-
Keller-Quinn amendment.
  Mr. WOLF. Mr. Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time.
  The CHAIRMAN. The question is on the amendment offered by the 
gentleman from New York (Mr. Weiner).
  The question was taken; and the Chairman announced that the noes 
appeared to have it.
  Mr. WEINER. Mr. Chairman, I demand a recorded vote.
  The CHAIRMAN. Pursuant to clause 6 of rule XVIII, further proceedings 
on the amendment offered by the gentleman from New York (Mr. Weiner) 
will be postponed.
  Mr. WEINER. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the last word.
  I have an amendment that I will not be offering, and I just say to 
the Chairman of the Committee of the Whole and Members, I have taken a 
good deal of time on the previous amendment, and I will not offer this 
amendment. But, frankly, it goes to another real weakness that we have 
to address, not only in this bill but across Congress.
  Last year as we pursued the effort to step up the technology of DNA, 
we recognized that some fundamental things have been going on in the 
world for the last 10 years or so. As DNA has become an important 
crime-solving tool, States and localities have begun the process of 
databasing samples of DNA of convicted offenders. All 50 States have a 
program of one size or another, capturing one universe or another of 
convicted offenders; and we need to get all of them essentially in a 
giant Federal database so we can solve crimes.
  But according to data which was collected, a program funded by this 
Congress through legislation that I wrote in the Committee on the 
Judiciary, we have found that hundreds of thousands, in the 
neighborhood of 600,000, victims of crimes at whose crime scenes 
evidence has been collected is sitting on the shelves waiting to be 
analyzed for shortage of only one thing, money.
  No one thinks it is good policy. In fact, many of those victims are 
pressing up against the statute of limitations which means their case 
will not be able to be prosecuted, even if we get around to testing it.
  Included in the report was an assessment that there are not enough 
crime labs, there are not enough facilities to store samples. There is 
not enough money to do tests. In the committee mark, the chairman does 
an excellent job of funding the President's request at $175 million. It 
is estimated we need three times that amount to be able to start to dig 
out of the backlog.
  There is no doubt in anyone's mind that we have a problem. Of the law 
enforcement agencies surveyed nationwide for this study, 61 percent 
said they do not have enough space to store their evidence and had to 
dispose of some of it; 70 percent said the need for more space is 
highly critical, and State crime labs have an average of a 23.9-week 
backlog of analyzing data.
  When a detective is investigating a sexual abuse case or rape, if 
they have to wait 23.9 weeks on average before the evidence is returned 
to them, they will tell you that justice delayed is justice that is 
denied.
  My final point, we have had 154 cold cases solved because of 
additional DNA testing that the City of New York has funded on its own. 
We have leads of 204 more cases. What have they learned as they have 
done these hits, they have learned what we and criminologists already 
know, that rape and sexual abuse is a highly recidivistic crime. 
Someone that goes out and does one, chances are is going to find their 
way back into the system, having committed the crime again and again, 
finding more and more victims.
  In the last exchange, we talked about how crime has plummeted. The 
one statistic that has not dropped, rape; rape has not. That has stayed 
virtually level throughout this decline in crime everywhere in the 
country. One of the ways we can solve six, seven, eight, or perhaps 10 
or 20 crimes is by investing in DNA technology. For those who it 
catches, it obviously finds justice for those victims; and for those 
whom it frees, it allows those of us who are strong law enforcement 
types, like myself, to say that the system is working better.
  I will not offer my amendment today because I do not want to rehash 
the same debate we just had; but I would ask that the chairman and the 
ranking member strongly consider the need for additional increases, and 
express my gratitude to them for fully funding the President's request.
  Mr. WOLF. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the last word.
  Mr. Chairman, I appreciate the gentleman not going through this 
because of the time. I thank the gentleman for that. I did not want 
there to be any misunderstanding. In the subcommit-
tee mark, there is a $77 million increase over the current level. We 
also have gone out of our way to make sure there are earmarks.
  This is the largest increase provided to any State and local law 
enforcement program. It is a 44 percent increase. So I do not want the 
record to indicate that the committee has been slacking. We have really 
increased it quite dramatically, even more so particularly in a tight 
budget. But it is an important program, which I strongly support; and I 
know the gentleman from New York (Mr. Serrano) strongly supports it 
also.

[[Page 14660]]


  Mr. PRICE of North Carolina. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the last 
word.
  I rise to enter into a colloquy with the gentleman from Virginia 
(Chairman Wolf) and the gentleman from New York (Mr. Serrano).
  Before I begin, I would like to thank the chairman and the ranking 
member for their support of the Legal Services Corporation. Legal 
Services funds 143 legal aid programs around the Nation to help poor 
Americans gain access to the judicial system. I appreciate the 
bipartisan full funding of the LSC program, and I hope we can work 
together in the neare future to remove some of the few remaining 
obstacles that are preventing this program from reaching its full 
potential.
  My primary concern is over the ``private money restriction'' in this 
bill that applies to any nonprofit legal services organization 
receiving LSC funding. This restriction precludes these nonprofits from 
using any of their private funds--including individual donations, 
foundation grants, and State and local government funds--for any non-
LSC-qualified services.
  Non-LSC-qualified services include representing many categories of 
legal immigrants, including battered women and children; representing 
mothers in prison trying to maintain visitation and custody of their 
children; filing class actions to stop predatory lenders from preying 
on elderly homeowners; and educating people about their legal rights 
and then offering assistance in enforcing those rights. As a result of 
the private money restriction, most civil legal services providers are 
forced to stop providing non-LSC-qualified services altogether. Many of 
the most vulnerable individuals and families find themselves without 
access to legal services at all.
  LSC recognized that this was a problem, but their attempted ``fix'' 
of this problem--allowing organizations to use their own private funds 
for non-LSC-qualified services only if they create physically separate 
nonprofits with separate staff, offices, and equipment--is 
prohibitively expensive and will result in fewer families being served.
  There is a much simpler and more effective way to address the 
problem. Congress should require LSC grantees to abide by the same 
longstanding rules promulgated by OMB for nonprofit grantees of Federal 
agencies, by the IRS for all nonprofit 501(c)(3) and (c)(4) 
organizations, and by the Bush administration for faith-based groups. 
All of these rules authorize nonprofits receiving Federal funds to 
engage in various privately funded activities--like lobbying and 
praying--without requiring them to do so through physically separate 
entities with separate staff and equipment. I am hopeful that future 
conversations on LSC funding will consider similar rules so that we can 
remove the physical space requirement, which will make our LSC-funded 
providers much more effective.
  My colloquy focuses on the issue of concentrated media ownership 
which has concerned colleagues on both sides of the aisle. Among the 
leaders in this fight is the gentleman from New York (Mr. Hinchey), who 
unfortunately could not join us on the floor here today.
  On June 2 of last year, the FCC voted to further relax the rules on 
media ownership in a move which many felt threatened the core 
democratic values of localism and diversity in the media.
  As troubling as these new ownership rules were, the process by which 
the FCC arrived at them was equally troubling. Despite its mandate to 
include the American public in its rulemaking procedures, the 
commission held just one public hearing as it wrote these new rules, 
and it did not release the rules for public comment until just before 
it voted on them. Our communities were given virtually no say in the 
type of programming they are subjected to by broadcast television and 
radio.
  Mr. Chairman, on June 24, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 
Philadelphia Circuit echoed the voice of the American people and many 
in Congress by reversing most of the FCC's media ownership rules. As a 
result, aside from the national media ownership cap that was adjusted 
by Congress last year, the rules in effect before the FCC's June 2, 
2003, decision are again in place.
  As the commission begins the process of proposing any new rules, we 
must make sure that the process is as open and inclusive as possible. 
Specifically, I believe the FCC should, first, hold a series of public 
hearings across the country to collect and analyze the various 
perspectives raised by citizens.
  Secondly, allow sufficient time for public comment on the specifics 
of any proposed rules before the commission votes on them.
  And, thirdly, take into account any independent studies of the effect 
of media consolidation on the level of indecent programming on the 
public airwaves.
  I would ask my colleagues to comment on these expectations.
  Mr. WOLF. Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?
  Mr. PRICE of North Carolina. I yield to the gentleman from Virginia.
  Mr. WOLF. Mr. Chairman, I appreciate the gentleman's comments. The 
gentleman from North Carolina over the past year has demonstrated that 
the rules governing media ownership are of great importance to the 
American people. I agree that the FCC's new media consolidation 
proceedings should be as open and as inclusive as possible and should 
include full periods of public comment on proposed rules and full 
consideration of any relevant independent studies as part of the 
process.
  Mr. PRICE of North Carolina. I thank the gentleman from Virginia.
  Mr. SERRANO. Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?
  Mr. PRICE of North Carolina. I yield to the gentleman from New York.
  Mr. SERRANO. Mr. Chairman, I also offer my strong support for an 
open, public rulemaking process that includes multiple public hearings, 
sufficient time for public comments, and any relevant independent 
studies.
  The more than 2 million people who contacted the FCC to register 
their opposition to the rules offers clear evidence that we cannot 
rewrite media ownership rules without including the American public in 
the process. I will be monitoring the FCC's activities closely as it 
begins this process, and I urge all of my colleagues to do the same.
  Mr. PRICE of North Carolina. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman.
  Mr. DAVIS of Illinois. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the last word.
  Mr. Chairman, I have an amendment at the desk which I will not offer, 
but I would ask the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Wolf) and the 
gentleman from New York (Mr. Serrano), the ranking member, if they 
would comment at the end of my comments.
  My amendment would have increased money for ex-offender reentry by 
$50 million. It is unfortunate, Mr. Chairman, that our country has 
become the most imprisoned Nation on the face of the Earth per capita. 
We have about 2 million people in jails and penitentiaries in this 
country. Each year more than 600,000 of them return home to 
neighborhoods and communities. Many of them obviously have no place to 
go. Many of them have no programs to access.
  Studies have suggested and have shown that if nothing happens with 
them, about 67 percent of them will have reoffended within a period of 
3 years. About 53 percent of them will be back reincarcerated. In many 
States and localities, they cannot access jobs. For example, in my 
State, the State of Illinois, there are 57 job titles that an ex-
offender cannot hold by State law without some kind of waiver. For 
example, an individual cannot cut hair, cannot get a license to be a 
nail technician, to be a cosmetologist, cannot work around any medical 
facility, cannot wash dishes in a nursing home or a hospital. So many 
of these individuals revert right back to whatever it was that got them 
incarcerated in the first place. That is, they are back on the streets 
in their neighborhoods hauling pills and thrills, nickles and dimes, 
whatever it is they have done to become a part of the underground 
economy.
  It would seem to me that it would be far more cost effective if we 
were to create programs to facilitate their reentry back into society. 
Therefore, there is a need for far more resources to do so. I must 
confess I was hardened when I heard the President give his State of the 
Union address and suggested in that address that we needed to do 
something more for the more than 600,000 people who return each and 
every year from our Nation's jails and prisons.

[[Page 14661]]

  Some communities are far more hard hit than others. Obviously, inner 
city communities that are severely depressed economically and rural 
depressed communities end up with the bulk of these individuals. Other 
communities may not feel them at all, but the reality is that if we 
want to have the opportunity to move freely throughout our Nation, 
throughout our country, then we have to do a more effective job of 
helping reclaim those individuals who have been incarcerated and are 
back trying to make a new life for themselves.
  I would appreciate comments from the gentleman from Virginia 
(Chairman Wolf) and the gentleman from New York (Mr. Serrano), the 
ranking member.
  Mr. WOLF. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the last word.
  Mr. Chairman, I agree with the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Davis) 
100 percent. I was in a program called Man to Man with Charlie Harroway 
before I got elected to Congress. It was a prison reentry program 
helping men out of Lorton.

                              {time}  1815

  And I completely agree with the gentleman. I have been a great fan of 
Chuck Colson in Prison Ministries for that very reason. And the night 
the President offered that, I applauded, although I might tell the 
gentleman I do not think there was an awful lot of applause when he 
made that comment. There is $10 million in here. We have a budget 
problem. There is money in Labor-H. There is also money in VA-HUD.
  I would urge the gentleman to also talk to the gentleman from Ohio 
(Mr. Portman). The gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Portman) and the gentleman 
from Indiana (Mr. Souder) have a very good bill. He may very well be on 
it, talking about re-entry. And I think it is absolutely critical. 
Unfortunately, we are number one in the world in the number of people 
in prisons per capita, and we just cannot put people in prison for 
years and years, no rehabilitation and no training when they come out 
and expect them as they get out to come back and be productive.
  So I completely agree; and as we work through this process, anything 
I can do to help the gentleman. I just want to ask the gentleman one 
question: Why can they not cut hair and why can they not do those jobs 
that he mentioned?
  Mr. DAVIS of Illinois. Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?
  Mr. WOLF. I yield to the gentleman from Illinois.
  Mr. DAVIS of Illinois. Mr. Chairman, in that particular instance, 
State law prohibits it. There are barriers, hundreds of them, to the 
successful re-entry of these individuals because many people have 
thought that the best way to handle crime was to have the most severe 
punishment for individuals that they could come up with. And many of 
those laws are still lingering on the books in many States throughout 
the Nation, and they too need to be revisited.
  Mr. WOLF. Mr. Chairman, reclaiming my time, in the book of Jeremiah 
it talks about justice, and I think the people need justice, but it 
also talks about righteousness and we have to deal with those. And 
perhaps there is an opportunity for the Committee on the Judiciary or 
we would be glad to maybe sometime have a hearing on that issue because 
I agree with everything the gentleman has said. And I have learned most 
of this really through Chuck Colson. We cannot just open the gate, 
allow a man to walk out, and expect him to have the opportunity to make 
it because he goes back to the same neighborhood, the same environment; 
and they need training. So as we move along, if we can work with the 
gentleman and do that. And the Portman-Souder bill, is the gentleman on 
there?
  Mr. DAVIS of Illinois. Yes, Mr. Chairman.
  Mr. WOLF. Mr. Chairman, if we can work with him and help him, we will 
be glad to do that. And I appreciate his bringing up the amendment too.
  Mr. DAVIS of Illinois. Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?
  Mr. WOLF. I yield to the gentleman from Illinois.
  Mr. DAVIS of Illinois. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for his 
response.
  And we are working with the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Portman) and the 
gentleman from Indiana (Mr. Souder). We are all working on that bill.
  Mr. SERRANO. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the last word.
  Let me first say how I continue to be impressed by the gentleman's 
passion and ability to present this issue as he presents other issues. 
He speaks from the heart, and that is something that we always see. And 
he speaks for people who unfortunately in this society sometimes are 
totally forgotten. But he is speaking to the right two individuals.
  First, no one, no one, does more for the concerns of those inmates 
than the gentleman from Virginia (Chairman Wolf). The gentleman from 
Virginia (Chairman Wolf) has through different approaches been careful 
to make sure that there is not a punishment but a rehabilitation of 
people, not a forgetting but perhaps a forgiving and a desire to have 
people be part of the society.
  And, of course, as the gentleman knows, I represent an area of the 
Bronx that has always had an issue of crime and an issue of people 
wanting to come back into the community and at times being accepted and 
at times not being accepted.
  So I assure the gentleman that we will continue to pay attention to 
this matter, continue to pay attention to the dollars allocated in the 
hope that some day this society fully understands the need to 
rehabilitate and welcome back people in a way that says they did what 
they did, they paid for that crime, now we want them to be a productive 
member of society. And I thank the gentleman for his work.
  Mr. WOLF. Mr. Chairman, I ask unanimous consent that the remainder of 
the bill through page 47, line 5, be considered as read and printed in 
the Record and open to amendment at any point.
  The CHAIRMAN. Is there objection to the request of the gentleman from 
Virginia?
  There was no objection.
  The text of the bill from page 28, line 19 through page 47, line 5 is 
as follows:


       Violence Against Women Prevention and Prosecution Programs

       For grants, contracts, cooperative agreements, and other 
     assistance for the prevention and prosecution of violence 
     against women as authorized by the Omnibus Crime Control and 
     Safe Streets Act of 1968 (``the 1968 Act''); the Violent 
     Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994 (Public Law 
     103-322) (``the 1994 Act''); the Victims of Child Abuse Act 
     of 1990 (``the 1990 Act''); the Prosecutorial Remedies and 
     Other Tools to end the Exploitation of Children Today Act of 
     2003 (Public Law 108-21); the Juvenile Justice and 
     Delinquency Prevention Act of 1974 (``the 1974 Act''); and 
     the Victims of Trafficking and Violence Protection Act of 
     2000 (Public Law 106-386); $383,551,000 to remain available 
     until expended, as follows--
       (1) $11,484,000 for the court appointed special advocate 
     program, as authorized by section 217 of the 1990 Act;
       (2) $1,925,000 for child abuse training programs for 
     judicial personnel and practitioners, as authorized by 
     section 222 of the 1990 Act;
       (3) $983,000 for grants for televised testimony, as 
     authorized by Part N of the 1968 Act;
       (4) $176,747,000 for grants to combat violence against 
     women, as authorized by part T of the 1968 Act, of which--
       (A) $5,200,000 shall be for the National Institute of 
     Justice for research and evaluation;
       (B) $10,000,000 shall be for the Office of Juvenile Justice 
     and Delinquency Prevention for the Safe Start Program, as 
     authorized by the 1974 Act; and
       (C) $15,000,000 shall be for transitional housing 
     assistance grants for victims of domestic violence, stalking 
     or sexual assault as authorized by Public Law 108-21;
       (5) $62,479,000 for grants to encourage arrest policies as 
     authorized by part U of the 1968 Act;
       (6) $38,274,000 for rural domestic violence and child abuse 
     enforcement assistance grants, as authorized by section 40295 
     of the 1994 Act;
       (7) $4,415,000 for training programs as authorized by 
     section 40152 of the 1994 Act, and for related local 
     demonstration projects;
       (8) $2,950,000 for grants to improve the stalking and 
     domestic violence databases, as authorized by section 40602 
     of the 1994 Act;
       (9) $9,175,000 to reduce violent crimes against women on 
     campus, as authorized by section 1108(a) of Public Law 106-
     386;

[[Page 14662]]

       (10) $39,322,000 for legal assistance for victims, as 
     authorized by section 1201 of Public Law 106-386;
       (11) $4,458,000 for enhancing protection for older and 
     disabled women from domestic violence and sexual assault as 
     authorized by section 40802 of the 1994 Act;
       (12) $14,078,000 for the safe havens for children pilot 
     program as authorized by section 1301 of Public Law 106-386;
       (13) $6,922,000 for education and training to end violence 
     against and abuse of women with disabilities, as authorized 
     by section 1402 of Public Law 106-386; and
       (14) $10,339,000 for management and administration not 
     elsewhere specified.


                       Juvenile Justice Programs

       For grants, contracts, cooperative agreements, and other 
     assistance authorized by the Juvenile Justice and Delinquency 
     Prevention Act of 1974 (``the Act''), and other juvenile 
     justice programs, including salaries and expenses in 
     connection therewith to be transferred to and merged with the 
     appropriations for Justice Assistance, $349,000,000, to 
     remain available until expended, as follows--
       (1) $350,000 for concentration of Federal efforts, as 
     authorized by section 204 of the Act;
       (2) $84,000,000 for State and local programs authorized by 
     section 221 of the Act, including training and technical 
     assistance to assist small, non-profit organizations with the 
     Federal grants process;
       (3) $70,000,000 for demonstration projects, as authorized 
     by sections 261 and 262 of the Act;
       (4) $80,000,000 for delinquency prevention, as authorized 
     by section 505 of the Act, of which--
       (A) $10,000,000 shall be for the Tribal Youth Program;
       (B) $20,000,000 shall be for a gang resistance education 
     and training program to be administered by the Bureau of 
     Justice Assistance and to be coordinated with the Bureau of 
     Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives and the Office of 
     Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention; and
       (C) $25,000,000 shall be for grants of $360,000 to each 
     State and $6,640,000 shall be available for discretionary 
     grants to States, for programs and activities to enforce 
     State laws prohibiting the sale of alcoholic beverages to 
     minors or the purchase or consumption of alcoholic beverages 
     by minors, prevention and reduction of consumption of 
     alcoholic beverages by minors, and for technical assistance 
     and training;
       (5) $10,000,000 for Project Childsafe;
       (6) $20,000,000 for the Secure Our Schools Act as 
     authorized by Public Law 106-386;
       (7) $10,650,000 for Project Sentry to reduce youth gun 
     violence, and gang and drug-related crime;
       (8) $14,000,000 for programs authorized by the Victims of 
     Child Abuse Act of 1990; and
       (9) $60,000,000 for the Juvenile Accountability Block 
     Grants program as authorized by Public Law 107-273 and Guam 
     shall be considered a State:

     Provided, That not more than 10 percent of each amount in 
     this section may be used for research, evaluation, and 
     statistics activities designed to benefit the programs or 
     activities authorized, and not more than 2 percent of each 
     amount may be used for training and technical assistance.


                    Public Safety Officers Benefits

       To remain available until expended, for payments authorized 
     by part L of title I of the Omnibus Crime Control and Safe 
     Streets Act of 1968 (42 U.S.C. 3796), such sums as are 
     necessary, as authorized by section 6093 of Public Law 100-
     690 (102 Stat. 4339-4340); and $3,615,000, to remain 
     available until expended for payments as authorized by 
     section 1201(b) of said Act; and $2,795,000 for educational 
     assistance, as authorized by section 1212 of the 1968 Act.

               General Provisions--Department of Justice

       Sec. 101. In addition to amounts otherwise made available 
     in this title for official reception and representation 
     expenses, a total of not to exceed $60,000 from funds 
     appropriated to the Department of Justice in this title shall 
     be available to the Attorney General for official reception 
     and representation expenses.
       Sec. 102. None of the funds appropriated by this title 
     shall be available to pay for an abortion, except where the 
     life of the mother would be endangered if the fetus were 
     carried to term, or in the case of rape: Provided, That 
     should this prohibition be declared unconstitutional by a 
     court of competent jurisdiction, this section shall be null 
     and void.
       Sec. 103. None of the funds appropriated under this title 
     shall be used to require any person to perform, or facilitate 
     in any way the performance of, any abortion.
       Sec. 104. Nothing in the preceding section shall remove the 
     obligation of the Director of the Bureau of Prisons to 
     provide escort services necessary for a female inmate to 
     receive such service outside the Federal facility: Provided, 
     That nothing in this section in any way diminishes the effect 
     of section 103 intended to address the philosophical beliefs 
     of individual employees of the Bureau of Prisons.
       Sec. 105. Authorities contained in the 21st Century 
     Department of Justice Appropriations Authorization Act 
     (Public Law 107-273) shall remain in effect until the 
     effective date of a subsequent Department of Justice 
     appropriations authorization Act.
       Sec. 106. Not to exceed 5 percent of any appropriation made 
     available for the current fiscal year for the Department of 
     Justice in this Act may be transferred between such 
     appropriations, but no such appropriation, except as 
     otherwise specifically provided, shall be increased by more 
     than 10 percent by any such transfers: Provided, That any 
     transfer pursuant to this section shall be treated as a 
     reprogramming of funds under section 605 of this Act and 
     shall not be available for obligation except in compliance 
     with the procedures set forth in that section.
       Sec. 107. Section 114 of Public Law 107-77 shall remain in 
     effect during fiscal year 2005.
       Sec. 108. The Attorney General is authorized to extend 
     through September 30, 2006, the Personnel Management 
     Demonstration Project transferred to the Attorney General 
     pursuant to section 1115 of the Homeland Security Act of 
     2002, Public Law 107-296 (6 U.S.C. 533).
       Sec. 109. (a) None of the funds made available in this Act 
     may be used by the Drug Enforcement Administration to 
     establish a procurement quota following the approval of a new 
     drug application or an abbreviated new drug application for a 
     controlled substance.
       (b) The limitation established in subsection (a) shall not 
     apply until 180 days after enactment of this Act.
       Sec. 110. The limitation established in the preceding 
     section shall not apply to any new drug application or 
     abbreviated new drug application for which the Drug 
     Enforcement Administration has reviewed and provided public 
     comments on labeling, promotion, risk management plans, and 
     any other documents.
       Sec. 111. (a) Section 8335(b) of title 5, United States 
     Code, is amended--
       (1) by striking ``(b)'' and inserting ``(b)(1)''; and
       (2) by adding at the end the following:
       ``(2) In the case of employees of the Federal Bureau of 
     Investigation, the second sentence of paragraph (1) shall be 
     applied by substituting `65 years of age' for `60 years of 
     age'. The authority to grant exemptions in accordance with 
     the preceding sentence shall cease to be available after 
     December 31, 2009.''.
       (b) Section 8425(b) of title 5, United States Code, is 
     amended--
       (1) by striking ``(b)'' and inserting ``(b)(1)''; and
       (2) by adding at the end the following:
       ``(2) In the case of employees of the Federal Bureau of 
     Investigation, the second sentence of paragraph (1) shall be 
     applied by substituting `65 years of age' for `60 years of 
     age'. The authority to grant exemptions in accordance with 
     the preceding sentence shall cease to be available after 
     December 31, 2009.''.
       Sec. 112. (a) Subchapter IV of chapter 57 of title 5, 
     United States Code, is amended by adding at the end the 
     following:

     ``Sec. 5759. Retention and relocation bonuses for the Federal 
       Bureau of Investigation

       ``(a) Authority.--The Director of the Federal Bureau of 
     Investigation, after consultation with the Director of the 
     Office of Personnel Management, may pay, on a case-by-case 
     basis, a bonus under this section to an employee of the 
     Bureau if--
       ``(1)(A) the unusually high or unique qualifications of the 
     employee or a special need of the Bureau for the employee's 
     services makes it essential to retain the employee; and
       ``(B) the Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation 
     determines that, in the absence of such a bonus, the employee 
     would be likely to leave--
       ``(i) the Federal service; or
       ``(ii) for a different position in the Federal service; or
       ``(2) the individual is transferred to a different 
     geographic area with a higher cost of living (as determined 
     by the Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation).
       ``(b) Service Agreement.--Payment of a bonus under this 
     section is contingent upon the employee entering into a 
     written service agreement with the Bureau to complete a 
     period of service with the Bureau. Such agreement shall 
     include--
       ``(1) the period of service the individual shall be 
     required to complete in return for the bonus; and
       ``(2) the conditions under which the agreement may be 
     terminated before the agreed-upon service period has been 
     completed, and the effect of the termination.
       ``(c) Limitation on Authority.--A bonus paid under this 
     section may not exceed 50 percent of the employee's basic 
     pay.
       ``(d) Impact on Basic Pay.--A retention bonus is not part 
     of the basic pay of an employee for any purpose.
       ``(e) Termination of Authority.--The authority to grant 
     bonuses under this section shall cease to be available after 
     December 31, 2009.''.
       (b) The analysis for chapter 57 of title 5, United States 
     Code, is amended by adding at the end the following:

``5759. Retention and relocation bonuses for the Federal Bureau of 
              Investigation.''.

       Sec. 113. (a) Chapter 35 of title 5 of the United States 
     Code is amended by adding at the end the following:

[[Page 14663]]



  ``SUBCHAPTER VII--RETENTION OF RETIRED SPECIALIZED EMPLOYEES AT THE 
                    FEDERAL BUREAU OF INVESTIGATION

     ``Sec. 3598. Federal Bureau of Investigation Reserve Service

       ``(a) Establishment.--The Director of the Federal Bureau of 
     Investigation may provide for the establishment and training 
     of a Federal Bureau of Investigation Reserve Service 
     (hereinafter in this section referred to as the `FBI Reserve 
     Service') for temporary reemployment of employees in the 
     Bureau during periods of emergency, as determined by the 
     Director.
       ``(b) Membership.--Membership in the FBI Reserve Service 
     shall be limited to individuals who previously served as 
     full-time employees of the Bureau.
       ``(c) Annuitants.--If an annuitant receiving an annuity 
     from the Civil Service Retirement and Disability Fund becomes 
     temporarily reemployed pursuant to this section, such annuity 
     shall not be discontinued thereby. An annuitant so reemployed 
     shall not be considered an employee for the purposes of 
     chapter 83 or 84.
       ``(d) No Impact on Bureau Personnel Ceiling.--FBI Reserve 
     Service members reemployed on a temporary basis pursuant to 
     this section shall not count against any personnel ceiling 
     applicable to the Bureau.
       ``(e) Expenses.--The Director may provide members of the 
     FBI Reserve Service transportation and per diem in lieu of 
     subsistence, in accordance with applicable provisions of this 
     title, for the purpose of participating in any training that 
     relates to service as a member of the FBI Reserve Service.
       ``(f) Limitation on Membership.--Membership of the FBI 
     Reserve Service is not to exceed 500 members at any given 
     time.''.
       (b) The analysis for chapter 35 of title 5, United States 
     Code, is amended by adding at the end the following:

  ``Subchapter VII--Retention of Retired Specialized Employees at the 
                    Federal Bureau of Investigation

``3598. Federal Bureau of Investigation reserve service.''.

       Sec. 114. Section 5377(a)(2) of title 5, United States 
     Code, is amended--
       (1) by striking ``and'' at the end of subparagraph (E);
       (2) by striking the period at the end of subparagraph (F) 
     and inserting ``; and''; and
       (3) by inserting after subparagraph (F) the following:
       ``(G) a position at the Federal Bureau of Investigation, 
     the primary duties and responsibilities of which relate to 
     intelligence functions (as determined by the Director of the 
     Federal Bureau of Investigation).''.
       This title may be cited as the ``Department of Justice 
     Appropriations Act, 2005''.

         TITLE II--DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE AND RELATED AGENCIES

                  Trade and Infrastructure Development

                            RELATED AGENCIES

            Office of the United States Trade Representative


                         Salaries and Expenses

       For necessary expenses of the Office of the United States 
     Trade Representative, including the hire of passenger motor 
     vehicles and the employment of experts and consultants as 
     authorized by 5 U.S.C. 3109, $41,552,000, of which $1,000,000 
     shall remain available until expended: Provided, That not to 
     exceed $124,000 shall be available for official reception and 
     representation expenses: Provided further, That not less than 
     $2,000,000 provided under this heading shall be for expenses 
     authorized by 19 U.S.C. 2451 and 1677b(c).

                     International Trade Commission


                         Salaries and Expenses

       For necessary expenses of the International Trade 
     Commission, including hire of passenger motor vehicles, and 
     services as authorized by 5 U.S.C. 3109, and not to exceed 
     $2,500 for official reception and representation expenses, 
     $61,700,000, to remain available until expended.

                         DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE

                   International Trade Administration


                     Operations and administration

       For necessary expenses for international trade activities 
     of the Department of Commerce provided for by law, and for 
     engaging in trade promotional activities abroad, including 
     expenses of grants and cooperative agreements for the purpose 
     of promoting exports of United States firms, without regard 
     to 44 U.S.C. 3702 and 3703; full medical coverage for 
     dependent members of immediate families of employees 
     stationed overseas and employees temporarily posted overseas; 
     travel and transportation of employees of the United States 
     and Foreign Commercial Service between two points abroad, 
     without regard to 49 U.S.C. 40118; employment of Americans 
     and aliens by contract for services; rental of space abroad 
     for periods not exceeding 10 years, and expenses of 
     alteration, repair, or improvement; purchase or construction 
     of temporary demountable exhibition structures for use 
     abroad; payment of tort claims, in the manner authorized in 
     the first paragraph of 28 U.S.C. 2672 when such claims arise 
     in foreign countries; not to exceed $327,000 for official 
     representation expenses abroad; purchase of passenger motor 
     vehicles for official use abroad, not to exceed $30,000 per 
     vehicle; obtaining insurance on official motor vehicles; and 
     rental of tie lines, $401,513,000, to remain available until 
     expended, of which $8,000,000 is to be derived from fees to 
     be retained and used by the International Trade 
     Administration, notwithstanding 31 U.S.C. 3302: Provided, 
     That $47,509,000 shall be for Manufacturing and Services; 
     $39,087,000 shall be for Market Access and Compliance; 
     $58,044,000 shall be for the Import Administration of which 
     not less than $3,000,000 is for the Office of China 
     Compliance; $230,864,000 shall be for the United States and 
     Foreign Commercial Service of which $1,500,000 is for the 
     Advocacy Center, $2,500,000 is for the Trade Information 
     Center, and $2,100,000 is for a China and Middle East 
     Business Center; and $26,009,000 shall be for Executive 
     Direction and Administration: Provided further, That the 
     provisions of the first sentence of section 105(f) and all of 
     section 108(c) of the Mutual Educational and Cultural 
     Exchange Act of 1961 (22 U.S.C. 2455(f) and 2458(c)) shall 
     apply in carrying out these activities without regard to 
     section 5412 of the Omnibus Trade and Competitiveness Act of 
     1988 (15 U.S.C. 4912); and that for the purpose of this Act, 
     contributions under the provisions of the Mutual Educational 
     and Cultural Exchange Act of 1961 shall include payment for 
     assessments for services provided as part of these 
     activities.

                    Bureau of Industry and Security


                     Operations and administration

       For necessary expenses for export administration and 
     national security activities of the Department of Commerce, 
     including costs associated with the performance of export 
     administration field activities both domestically and abroad; 
     full medical coverage for dependent members of immediate 
     families of employees stationed overseas; employment of 
     Americans and aliens by contract for services abroad; payment 
     of tort claims, in the manner authorized in the first 
     paragraph of 28 U.S.C. 2672 when such claims arise in foreign 
     countries; not to exceed $15,000 for official representation 
     expenses abroad; awards of compensation to informers under 
     the Export Administration Act of 1979, and as authorized by 
     22 U.S.C. 401(b); and purchase of passenger motor vehicles 
     for official use and motor vehicles for law enforcement use 
     with special requirement vehicles eligible for purchase 
     without regard to any price limitation otherwise established 
     by law, $68,393,000, to remain available until September 30, 
     2006, of which $7,128,000 shall be for inspections and other 
     activities related to national security: Provided, That the 
     provisions of the first sentence of section 105(f) and all of 
     section 108(c) of the Mutual Educational and Cultural 
     Exchange Act of 1961 (22 U.S.C. 2455(f) and 2458(c)) shall 
     apply in carrying out these activities: Provided further, 
     That payments and contributions collected and accepted for 
     materials or services provided as part of such activities may 
     be retained for use in covering the cost of such activities, 
     and for providing information to the public with respect to 
     the export administration and national security activities of 
     the Department of Commerce and other export control programs 
     of the United States and other governments.

                  Economic Development Administration


                Economic development assistance programs

       For grants for economic development assistance as provided 
     by the Public Works and Economic Development Act of 1965, and 
     for trade adjustment assistance, $289,762,000, to remain 
     available until expended.


                         Salaries and expenses

       For necessary expenses of administering the economic 
     development assistance programs as provided for by law, 
     $30,565,000: Provided, That these funds may be used to 
     monitor projects approved pursuant to title I of the Public 
     Works Employment Act of 1976, title II of the Trade Act of 
     1974, and the Community Emergency Drought Relief Act of 1977.

                  Minority Business Development Agency


                     Minority business development

       For necessary expenses of the Department of Commerce in 
     fostering, promoting, and developing minority business 
     enterprise, including expenses of grants, contracts, and 
     other agreements with public or private organizations, 
     $28,899,000.

                Economic and Information Infrastructure

                   Economic and Statistical Analysis


                         Salaries and expenses

       For necessary expenses, as authorized by law, of economic 
     and statistical analysis programs of the Department of 
     Commerce, $78,211,000, to remain available until September 
     30, 2006, of which $2,000,000 is for a grant to the National 
     Academy of Public Administration to study impacts of off-
     shoring on the economy and workforce of the United States.

                          Bureau of the Census


                         Salaries and expenses

       For expenses necessary for collecting, compiling, 
     analyzing, preparing, and publishing statistics, provided for 
     by law, $202,765,000.

  The CHAIRMAN. Are there points of order to the bill?
  If not, are there any amendments to this portion of the bill?

[[Page 14664]]

  If not, the Clerk will read.
  The Clerk read as follows:


                     PERIODIC CENSUSES AND PROGRAMS

       For necessary expenses related to the 2010 decennial 
     census, $399,976,000, to remain available until September 30, 
     2006: Provided, That, of the total amount available related 
     to the 2010 decennial census, $173,806,000 is for the Re-
     engineered Design Process for the Short-Form Only Census, 
     $146,009,000 is for the American Community Survey, and 
     $80,161,000 is for the Master Address File/Topologically 
     Integrated Geographic Encoding and Referencing (MAF/TIGER) 
     system.


                    Amendment Offered by Mr. Hefley

  Mr. HEFLEY. Mr. Chairman, I offer an amendment.
  The Clerk read as follows:

       Amendment offered by Mr. Hefley:
       Page 47, line 8, after ``$399,976,000'' insert ``(reduced 
     by $173,806,000)''.
       Page 47, lines 10 through 12, strike ``$173,806,000 is for 
     the Re-engineered Design Process for the Short-Form Only 
     Census,''.

  Mr. WOLF. Mr. Chairman, I ask unanimous consent that the debate on 
this amendment and any amendments thereto be limited to 10 minutes, to 
be equally divided and controlled by the proponent and myself, the 
opponent, except that the chairman and ranking minority member may each 
offer one pro forma amendment for the purpose of debate.
  The CHAIRMAN. Is there objection to the request of the gentleman from 
Virginia?
  There was no objection.
  The CHAIRMAN. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from Colorado (Mr. 
Hefley).
  Mr. HEFLEY. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
  First of all, I would like to commend the gentleman from Virginia 
(Mr. Wolf) and the gentleman from New York (Mr. Serrano), ranking 
member, for the very conscientious job they have done on this bill. 
They have had a difficult task. There is very much that is good in this 
bill, and I do not take away from that at all.
  Also, I have sat here for an hour listening to the virtues of the 
Census Bureau; and, indeed, that is a very important function of our 
government, and I do not want to attack that.
  But I do rise today to offer an amendment to reduce the budget for 
the Census Bureau by approximately $174 million. And the reason for 
that is that this is a particular thing, and let me read from the bill. 
$173,806,000 is for the reengineered design process for the short-form-
only census. In a time of record or near-record deficits, and at any 
time, one wonders how in the world we can spend $173 million, almost 
$174 million, on redesigning a form, and a short form at that. And I 
think the short form probably does need to be redone, but at what cost? 
And I would suggest to the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Wolf) that 
perhaps they could come back to us next year or the next as we get 
closer, and we are talking 5 years out, that they could come back to us 
with a little more reasonable effort about what it takes to redesign a 
short form. If we do not have people at the Census Bureau, and he 
talked about the thousand jobs lost and all of that, but if we do not 
have people at the Census Bureau that have the ability to redesign a 
form for a whole lot less than $174 million, then we need some new 
people.
  Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. WOLF. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
  I rise in strong opposition to the gentleman's amendment. The 
amendment would strike all funds to conduct a short-form census. In 
spite of the unprecedented success, as the gentleman from Florida (Mr. 
Putnam) said, in 2000, the General Accounting Office concluded that 
Census 2000 was conducted at a high cost and great risk. As a result, 
the GAO recommended extensive and early planning and testing, including 
re-engineering of the process.
  We are already well under way in the planning for 2010 Census. This 
plan relies on the short-form-only census that fulfills the core 
constitutional requirement, a complete and accurate count of the 
population of our country.
  The Census Bureau's redesign distributes the cost of the decennial 
census throughout the decade, rather than lumping the entire cost 
during the decennial year. It ramps up. The gentleman's amendment would 
totally eliminate the funds for the short form. The cost of delaying or 
canceling the 2010 redesign and reverting to the old census method 
would result in higher costs for the taxpayer. The cost of returning to 
the old method would cost a total of $15 billion, $4 billion more than 
the current plan. The White House statement on the bill states clearly 
that the funding provided in this bill is the minimal amount viable for 
the 2010 census. So I urge rejection of the amendment.
  Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. SERRANO. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the last word.
  I have a lot of respect for the gentleman, but I guess today is beat-
up-on-the-census day. But a very short point: it would seem to me in 
saving dollars, as he wishes to do, the net effect is that we cannot 
have a census. We cannot take away that much money from the preparation 
and then conduct the census.
  So I am not going to repeat all of the comments I made about the 
importance of the census. Only one, and that is that the community that 
I represent in the Bronx, the only way that the poorer communities can 
get a piece of the pie, be counted properly, is to continue to improve 
the census in how it is conducted and not devastate it. And, again, I 
do not know and, in fact, I would venture to say that I do not think 
the gentleman's intent is to stop the census from taking place because 
that is a constitutional question; but the effect is that while there 
may be a census taking place, we do not know what kind of a census it 
would be because if we cut out all the moneys for the preparation and 
the setup, there is no way that we can conduct it properly.
  Mr. WOLF. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from New 
York (Mrs. Maloney).
  Mrs. MALONEY. Mr. Chairman, I rise in opposition to this amendment 
for many of the reasons that the gentleman from New York (Mr. Serrano) 
and I gave earlier in support of having an accurate census. It takes 
years of planning for a census, and the funds people would cut today 
are the funds that pay for that planning. These cuts will result in a 
more costly or less accurate census or both. We need to put this 
funding forward now; and if we do not do it now, we will have to pay 
for twice the work next year, and that really does not save money.
  A lot of the questions that are on the American Community Survey and 
on the census forms are questions that are required by law and are 
required by a legislative-mandated program. For example, we collect 
information on income to determine the number of children in poverty, 
and this data is used to distribute the title I education funds, and 
that pays for reading teachers and other specialists.
  I know that every one of my colleagues has heard from their local 
communities when these funds are cut, and all of these funding formulas 
are tied to census numbers. The more accurate the numbers are, the 
fairer our democracy is.
  So those who would cut the funding for this census and offer no 
replacement for the functions that the census serves, they would have 
us do without accurate numbers; and in the absence of accurate 
information, funds get distributed by those who control the purse 
strings, not based on the merit of the programs or the merit of the 
numbers.
  So I would urge my colleagues to oppose the Hefley amendment in favor 
of directing Federal funds to where they can do the most good based on 
accurate census numbers. I urge a ``no'' vote on this amendment.
  Mr. HEFLEY. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
  I do not want to extend the debate on the virtues of the census. We 
have heard the same things over and over again, and all of us agree 
with that. And I have no desire whatsoever, as the gentleman from New 
York (Mr. Serrano) said, to do away with the census. We are supposed to 
do the census, and we need to do it as accurately as we possibly can. 
And we are not with

[[Page 14665]]

this amendment doing away with all the setup for the census. We are 
doing away with the engineering of one form at the expense of $174 
million, the engineering of one form. And we have 5 additional years to 
look at this and determine what is reasonable. There is going to have 
to be some money to do this because the form ought to be redone.

                              {time}  1830

  So we have 5 years for them to come back to us with a reasonable 
figure, and we will grant that figure so they can do it.
  Mr. Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time.
  Mr. WOLF. Mr. Chairman, to close, I yield the balance of my time to 
the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Putnam), the chairman of the Committee 
on Government Reform's Subcommittee on Technology, Information Policy, 
Intergovernmental Relations and the Census.
  Mr. PUTNAM. Mr. Chairman, I thank the distinguished chairman from 
Virginia, and I rise to oppose the Hefley amendment.
  Mr. Chairman, it is important that we preserve the American Community 
Survey for a couple of reasons. One, it is optional. The controversy 
that has arisen over time is with the intrusiveness of the long form. 
The ACS replaces that.
  But, secondly and even more importantly, the ACS gives communities 
and States and businesses and demographers annual data, good, solid, 
accurate annual data, not a snapshot on a decennial basis. If you look 
at the towns that are wiped out by tornadoes in the Midwest, they have 
to wait 10 years for the formulas affecting them to be updated. If you 
look at what has happened to midtown Manhattan since 2001, or northern 
Virginia, or what happened all around the country for a variety of 
reasons, the information is not updated until 10 years after the fact. 
They have to wait until the next big census.
  The ACS replaces that with a shorter version that is a sampling of 
the Nation that is done every year. It is more accurate information, it 
is more helpful to the local governments who depend upon that 
information for the formulas that are generated by our government, and 
frankly, it is less intrusive to the American people.
  Defeat the Hefley amendment. Protect the American Community Survey. 
It is a modernization of the American census.
  Mr. SERRANO. Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?
  Mr. PUTNAM. I yield to the gentleman from New York.
  Mr. SERRANO. Mr. Chairman, just very briefly, for instance, I just 
came across some information, just to give you an idea of what we are 
up against here.
  The Naomi Berrie Diabetes Center of New York Presbyterian Hospital 
plans to use the American Community Survey data to identify Bronx, that 
is my district, neighborhoods with demographic characteristics 
associated with the risk of Type II diabetes in children.
  I bring that up because I have been making the argument you have all 
day long that this information gathered by the census goes beyond what 
people think. It is vital information needed to provide incredible 
services to the community. Once they use those numbers based on the 
census data, they can make their argument before us at a public 
hearing, or at any kind of institutional hearing, saying we need this 
kind of help.
  Who would have thought that Type II diabetes would be an issue for 
the census to be helpful with? That is just one of the countless items 
that they cover. So I say that, and I thank the gentleman for granting 
me this time, in agreement and in support of the gentleman's comments 
and words.
  Mr. PUTNAM. Mr. Chairman, reclaiming my time, the gentleman's point 
is well taken.
  The CHAIRMAN pro tempore (Mr. Isakson). All time having expired, the 
question is on the amendment offered by the gentleman from Colorado 
(Mr. Hefley).
  The question was taken; and the Chairman pro tempore announced that 
the noes appeared to have it.
  Mr. HEFLEY. Mr. Chairman, I demand a recorded vote.
  The CHAIRMAN pro tempore. Pursuant to clause 6 of rule XVIII, further 
proceedings on the amendment offered by the gentleman from Colorado 
(Mr. Hefley) will be postponed.
  The Clerk will read.
  The Clerk read as follows:

       In addition, for expenses to collect and publish statistics 
     for other periodic censuses and programs provided for by law, 
     $171,140,000, to remain available until September 30, 2006, 
     of which $73,473,000 is for economic statistics programs and 
     $97,667,000 is for demographic statistics programs: Provided, 
     That regarding construction of a facility at the Suitland 
     Federal Center, quarterly reports regarding the expenditure 
     of funds and project planning, design and cost decisions 
     shall be provided by the Bureau, in cooperation with the 
     General Services Administration, to the Committees on 
     Appropriations of the Senate and the House of 
     Representatives: Provided further, That none of the funds 
     provided in this or any other Act under the heading ``Bureau 
     of the Census, Periodic Censuses and Programs'' shall be used 
     to fund the construction and tenant build-out costs of a 
     facility at the Suitland Federal Center.

       National Telecommunications and Information Administration


                         Salaries and expenses

       For necessary expenses, as provided for by law, of the 
     National Telecommunications and Information Administration 
     (NTIA), $15,282,000, to remain available until September 30, 
     2006: Provided, That, notwithstanding 31 U.S.C. 1535(d), the 
     Secretary of Commerce shall charge Federal agencies for costs 
     incurred in spectrum management, analysis, and operations, 
     and related services and such fees shall be retained and used 
     as offsetting collections for costs of such spectrum 
     services, to remain available until expended: Provided 
     further, That the Secretary of Commerce is authorized to 
     retain and use as offsetting collections all funds 
     transferred, or previously transferred, from other Government 
     agencies for all costs incurred in telecommunications 
     research, engineering, and related activities by the 
     Institute for Telecommunication Sciences of NTIA, in 
     furtherance of its assigned functions under this paragraph, 
     and such funds received from other Government agencies shall 
     remain available until expended.


    Public telecommunications facilities, planning and construction

       For the administration of grants authorized by section 392 
     of the Communications Act of 1934, $2,538,000, to remain 
     available until expended as authorized by section 391 of the 
     Act: Provided, That, notwithstanding the provisions of 
     section 391 of the Act, the prior year unobligated balances 
     may be made available for grants for projects for which 
     applications have been submitted and approved during any 
     fiscal year.


                   Information infrastructure grants

       For the administration of prior year grants, recoveries and 
     unobligated balances of funds previously appropriated for 
     grants are available only for the administration of all open 
     grants until their expiration.

               United States Patent and Trademark Office


                         Salaries and expenses

       For necessary expenses of the United States Patent and 
     Trademark Office provided for by law, including defense of 
     suits instituted against the Under Secretary of Commerce for 
     Intellectual Property and Director of the United States 
     Patent and Trademark Office, $1,314,653,000, which shall be 
     derived from offsetting collections assessed and collected 
     pursuant to 15 U.S.C. 1113 and 35 U.S.C. 41 and 376, and 
     shall be retained and used for necessary expenses in this 
     appropriation: Provided, That the sum herein appropriated 
     from the general fund shall be reduced as such offsetting 
     collections are received during fiscal year 2005, so as to 
     result in a fiscal year 2005 appropriation from the general 
     fund estimated at $0: Provided further, That during fiscal 
     year 2005, should the total amount of offsetting fee 
     collections be less than $1,314,653,000, this amount shall be 
     reduced accordingly: Provided further, That not less than 584 
     full-time equivalents, 602 positions and $78,450,000 shall be 
     for the examination of trademark applications; and not less 
     than 5,435 full-time equivalents, 5,848 positions and 
     $866,007,000 shall be for the examination and searching of 
     patent applications: Provided further, That not more than 264 
     full-time equivalents, 271 positions and $36,861,000 shall be 
     for the Office of the General Counsel: Provided further, That 
     from amounts provided herein, not to exceed $1,000 shall be 
     made available in fiscal year 2005 for official reception and 
     representation expenses: Provided further, That, 
     notwithstanding section 1353 of title 31, United States Code, 
     no employee of the United States Patent and Trademark Office 
     may accept payment or reimbursement from a non-Federal entity 
     for travel, subsistence, or related expenses for the purpose 
     of enabling an employee to attend and participate in a 
     convention, conference, or meeting when the entity offering 
     payment or reimbursement is a

[[Page 14666]]

     person or corporation subject to regulation by the Office, or 
     represents a person or corporation subject to regulation by 
     the Office, unless the person or corporation is an 
     organization exempt from taxation pursuant to section 
     501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code of 1986.
       Upon enactment of authorization to increase fees collected 
     pursuant to 35 U.S.C. 41, any resulting increased receipts 
     may be collected and credited to this account as offsetting 
     collections: Provided, That not to exceed $218,754,000 
     derived from such offsetting collections shall be available 
     until expended for authorized purposes: Provided further, 
     That not less than 58 full-time equivalents, 72 positions and 
     $5,551,000 shall be for the examination of trademark 
     applications; and not less than 378 full-time equivalents, 
     709 positions and $106,986,000 shall be for the examination 
     and searching of patent applications: Provided further, That 
     not more than 20 full-time equivalents, 20 positions and 
     $4,955,000 shall be for the Office of the General Counsel: 
     Provided further, That the total amount appropriated from 
     fees collected in fiscal year 2005, including such increased 
     fees, shall not exceed $1,533,407,000: Provided further, That 
     in fiscal year 2005, from the amounts made available for 
     ``Salaries and Expenses'' for the United States Patent and 
     Trademark Office (PTO), the amounts necessary to pay (1) the 
     difference between the percentage of basic pay contributed by 
     the PTO and employees under section 8334(a) of title 5, 
     United States Code, and the normal cost percentage (as 
     defined by section 8331(17) of that title) of basic pay, of 
     employees subject to subchapter III of chapter 83 of that 
     title; and (2) the present value of the otherwise unfunded 
     accruing costs, as determined by the Office of Personnel 
     Management, of post-retirement life insurance and post-
     retirement health benefits coverage for all PTO employees, 
     shall be transferred to the Civil Service Retirement and 
     Disability Fund, the Employees Life Insurance Fund, and the 
     Employees Health Benefits Fund, as appropriate, and shall be 
     available for the authorized purposes of those accounts.

                         Science and Technology

                       Technology Administration


                         salaries and expenses

       For necessary expenses for the Under Secretary for 
     Technology Office of Technology Policy, $6,547,000.

             National Institute of Standards and Technology


             Scientific and technical research and services

       For necessary expenses of the National Institute of 
     Standards and Technology, $375,838,000, to remain available 
     until expended, of which not to exceed $8,982,000 may be 
     transferred to the ``Working Capital Fund''.


                     Industrial technology services

       For necessary expenses of the Manufacturing Extension 
     Partnership of the National Institute of Standards and 
     Technology, $106,000,000, to remain available until expended.


                  Construction of research facilities

       For construction of new research facilities, including 
     architectural and engineering design, and for renovation and 
     maintenance of existing facilities, not otherwise provided 
     for the National Institute of Standards and Technology, as 
     authorized by 15 U.S.C. 278c-278e, $43,132,000, to remain 
     available until expended.

            National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration


                  Operations, research, and facilities

                     (INCLUDING TRANSFER OF FUNDS)

       For necessary expenses of activities authorized by law for 
     the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, 
     including maintenance, operation, and hire of aircraft; 
     grants, contracts, or other payments to nonprofit 
     organizations for the purposes of conducting activities 
     pursuant to cooperative agreements; and relocation of 
     facilities as authorized, $2,245,000,000, to remain available 
     until September 30, 2006: Provided, That fees and donations 
     received by the National Ocean Service for the management of 
     the national marine sanctuaries may be retained and used for 
     the salaries and expenses associated with those activities, 
     notwithstanding 31 U.S.C. 3302: Provided further, That, in 
     addition, $79,000,000 shall be derived by transfer from the 
     fund entitled ``Promote and Develop Fishery Products and 
     Research Pertaining to American Fisheries'': Provided 
     further, That, of the $2,337,000,000 provided for in direct 
     obligations under this heading (of which $2,245,000,000 is 
     appropriated from the General Fund, $79,000,000 is provided 
     by transfer, and $13,000,000 is derived from deobligations 
     from prior years), $351,000,000 shall be for the National 
     Ocean Service, $525,700,000 shall be for the National Marine 
     Fisheries Service, $318,500,000 shall be for Oceanic and 
     Atmospheric Research, $698,700,000 shall be for the National 
     Weather Service, $139,500,000 shall be for the National 
     Environmental Satellite, Data, and Information Service, and 
     $303,600,000 shall be for Program Support: Provided further, 
     That no general administrative charge shall be applied 
     against an assigned activity included in this Act or the 
     report accompanying this Act: Provided further, That the 
     total amount available for National Oceanic and Atmospheric 
     Administration corporate services administrative support 
     costs shall not exceed $173,600,000: Provided further, That 
     any deviation from the amounts designated for specific 
     activities in the report accompanying this Act, or any use of 
     deobligated balances of funds provided under this heading in 
     previous years shall be subject to the procedures set forth 
     in section 605 of this Act.
       In addition, for necessary retired pay expenses under the 
     Retired Serviceman's Family Protection and Survivor Benefits 
     Plan, and for payments for medical care of retired personnel 
     and their dependents under the Dependents Medical Care Act 
     (10 U.S.C. ch. 55), such sums as may be necessary.


               Procurement, acquisition and construction

       For procurement, acquisition and construction of capital 
     assets, including alteration and modification costs, of the 
     National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, $840,000,000 
     to remain available until September 30, 2007: Provided, That 
     of the amounts provided for the National Polar-orbiting 
     Operational Environmental Satellite System, funds shall only 
     be made available on a dollar for dollar matching basis with 
     funds provided for the same purpose by the Department of 
     Defense: Provided further, That any use of deobligated 
     balances of funds provided under this heading in previous 
     years shall be subject to the procedures set forth in section 
     605 of this Act: Provided further, That none of the funds 
     provided in this Act or any other Act under the heading 
     ``National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, 
     Procurement, Acquisition and Construction'' shall be used to 
     fund the General Services Administration's standard 
     construction and tenant build-out costs of a facility at the 
     Suitland Federal Center.


                    Pacific coastal salmon recovery

       For necessary expenses associated with conservation and 
     habitat restoration of Pacific salmon populations listed as 
     endangered or threatened, $80,000,000.


                   Fisheries finance program account

       For the costs of direct loans, $287,000, as authorized by 
     the Merchant Marine Act of 1936: Provided, That such costs, 
     including the cost of modifying such loans, shall be as 
     defined in the Federal Credit Reform Act of 1990: Provided 
     further, That these funds are only available to subsidize 
     gross obligations for the principal amount of direct loans 
     not to exceed $30,000,000 for traditional loan programs, 
     fishing capacity reduction programs, individual fishing 
     quotas, aquaculture facilities, reconditioning of fishing 
     vessels for the purpose of reducing bycatch or reducing 
     capacity in an overfished fishery, and the purchase of assets 
     sold at foreclosure instituted by the Secretary: Provided 
     further, That none of the funds made available under this 
     heading may be used for direct loans for any new fishing 
     vessel that will increase the harvesting capacity in any 
     United States fishery.

                        Departmental Management


                         Salaries and expenses

       For expenses necessary for the departmental management of 
     the Department of Commerce provided for by law, including not 
     to exceed $5,000 for official entertainment, $52,109,000: 
     Provided, That not to exceed 12 full-time equivalents and 
     $1,621,000 shall be expended for the legislative affairs 
     function of the Department.


                Amendment No. 13 Offered by Mr. Kucinich

  Mr. KUCINICH. Mr. Chairman, I offer an amendment.
  The CHAIRMAN pro tempore. The Clerk will designate the amendment.
  The text of the amendment is as follows:

       Amendment No. 13 offered by Mr. Kucinich:
       Page 57, line 11, after the dollar amount, insert the 
     following: ``(reduced by $50,000) (increased by $50,000)''.

  Mr. WOLF. Mr. Chairman, I ask unanimous consent that debate on this 
amendment and any amendments thereto be limited to 30 minutes, to be 
equally divided and controlled by the proponent and myself, the 
opponent, except that the chairman and ranking minority member may each 
offer one pro forma amendment for the purpose of debate.
  The CHAIRMAN pro tempore. Is there objection to the request of the 
gentleman from Virginia?
  There was no objection.
  The CHAIRMAN pro tempore. The gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Wolf) will 
control 15 minutes and the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Kucinich) will 
control 15 minutes.
  The Chair recognizes the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Kucinich).
  Mr. KUCINICH. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may 
consume.
  Mr. Chairman, the Kucinich-Visclosky amendment corrects a significant 
flaw in the administration's manufacturing policy.
  Let us review recent history. During President Bush's term, 
manufacturing

[[Page 14667]]

has shrunk, factory jobs have decreased, steel companies have closed; 
13 steel companies and 14.6 million tons of capacity have been shut 
down since this administration took office. Cheap foreign imports are 
up. The trade deficit is up. This was a $549 billion drag on the 
economy last year, and that is a record. In other words, on this 
administration's watch, the manufacturing base of our economy has 
eroded.
  Now, it happens that much of American manufacturing occurs in a few 
States, and we are in an election year when those States get some 
attention. After ignoring the deterioration of American manufacturing 
for most of its term, this administration wants voters to believe that 
it cares, so the President announced just last month the creation of a 
Manufacturing Council.
  The purpose of the Council, according to a news release, is to ``work 
with the Commerce Department to advocate, coordinate and implement 
policies that will help U.S. manufacturers compete worldwide.''
  The Council is comprised of CEOs from a number of industries. 
However, it is marred by the omission of any union representative or, 
surprisingly, steel industry representatives. Apparently, we have to 
remind the administration about the importance of steel.
  Steel makes the railroads, it holds up the buildings of our cities, 
it armors our tanks and ships, but basic steel is completely excluded 
from the President's Manufacturing Council.
  All manufactured goods are made by people. Steel is made by people. 
These people form unions. Union labor built modern America. Union labor 
builds steel. But the President excluded union labor from his 
Manufacturing Council.
  How can this administration be serious about manufacturing, when it 
ignores the basic steel industry and union workers? Does it think that 
buildings build themselves, that cars forge, stamp and assemble 
themselves, and that America can make basic steel appear by magic? Or 
does the administration's manufacturing plan actually consist of 
offshore factories, freely flowing imports and out-of-work American 
steelworkers?
  The Kucinich-Visclosky amendment sends a clear message to the 
President: Congress believes that a manufacturing policy for America 
must include the steel industry and the participation of union labor. 
The amendment accomplishes this by expanding membership on the 
President's Manufacturing Council to include the steel industry and 
America's manufacturing unions. The amendment will cut a nominal amount 
of funding for the President's Manufacturing Council until that 
essential change is made, but it will have no effect on spending levels 
of the bill as a whole.
  The Visclosky amendment is supported by the steelworkers union, and 
at the appropriate point in the record, Mr. Chairman, I will insert a 
letter from the United Steelworkers of America in favor of the 
Kucinich-Visclosky amendment.
  Mr. Chairman, I urge my colleagues to join with me in correcting a 
significant flaw in this administration's vision for America's future. 
A ``yes'' vote on the Kucinich-Visclosky amendment will encourage a 
future for domestic basic steel, a future in which respect, as well as 
good wages, are paid to unionized American workers.
  Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. WOLF. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
  Mr. Chairman, I rise in opposition to the amendment. The reason is, 
the amendment really does not do anything. I just read the amendment. 
It says, ``Page 57, line 11, after the dollar amount insert the 
following: `Reduced by $50,000) (increased by $50,000).''' So I 
understand what the gentleman is trying to do, but this does not do it. 
It just really moves money around.
  I understand the gentleman's concern, and I would like to bring to 
the gentleman's attention to page 46 of the bill, line 22. We put $2 
million in the bill for a grant to the National Academy of Public 
Administration to study the impact of offshoring on the economy and on 
the workforce in the United States.
  I personally believe it is a problem. We have asked the National 
Academy because they are not involved in the political process. We use 
them for the FBI reforms and others. So they will look at that issue.
  But this amendment, if it had been drafted to do what the gentleman 
intends it to do, it would be subject to a point of order. Because of 
that, I object to the amendment and urge a ``no'' vote.
  Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. KUCINICH. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may 
consume.
  Mr. Chairman, before I yield time to my good friend, the cosponsor of 
this amendment, the gentleman from Indiana (Mr. Visclosky), I would 
like to respond to my good friend from Virginia that it is true that 
the amendment reduces the spending for the Council by $50,000 and then 
increases it by $50,000.
  Our amendment is intended to condition $50,000 for the Manufacturing 
Council on the expansion of its membership to correct a serious 
mistake, and that is omitting basic steel and organized labor from 
advising them on manufacturing. The form of the amendment has the 
effect of referring to floor debate to instruct the interpretation of 
the bill. The amendment will literally do what we say it will do.
  I also want to commend the gentleman for the concern that he has 
expressed about offshoring of our industries. I think it is important 
that we pay attention to that. This amendment will help this country 
put a renewed emphasis on a Manufacturing Council which has a glaring 
omission: They do not have the steel industry represented on it.
  Mr. Chairman, I yield 5 minutes to the gentleman from Indiana (Mr. 
Visclosky), who has been an outstanding champion of American working 
men and women and the steelworkers, not only in his district, but all 
across America.

                              {time}  1845

  Mr. VISCLOSKY. Mr. Chairman, I want to thank the gentleman for 
originating the idea for this very necessary amendment; and as my 
colleague mentioned, the purpose is to point out two very serious flaws 
with the President's manufacturing council and to work through the 
adoption of this amendment their correction.
  The President in September of last year comprised his manufacturing 
council theoretically to work with the Commerce Department to advocate, 
coordinate, and implement policies that will help U.S. manufacturers 
compete worldwide.
  As my colleague from Ohio mentioned, however, the domestic steel 
industry is not represented on the council. I would point out that 
since December 31, 1997, 40 companies, more than 40 steel companies, 
have entered into bankruptcy, many of which have never emerged.
  Since December 2000, 35,700 individual workers who were employed in 
basic steel have lost their jobs. During that period of time since 
December 31 of the year 2000, we have also seen a decline in tonnage to 
be produced in the United States by 14.6 million.
  We have an industry that over the last 6 years has been in crisis, 
despite their beginning to come out of that crisis during the last 6 to 
9 months. It was a mistake, and it was wrong for the President and the 
Department of Commerce not to have this very vital industry of our 
national defense included. They should be.
  Secondly, I would note that there is no representative of organized 
labor on the council. The fact is 2.2 million individual American 
workers belong to unions and work in manufacturing. We do have Karen 
Wright, the president of Ariel Corporation, which makes gas compressors 
in Mt. Vernon, Ohio, on the President's council, but we do not have a 
member of the Boilermakers. We have Jim Padilla, who is the chief 
operating officer of Ford Motor Company; but we do not have a member of 
the United Auto Workers. We have George Gonzalez, who is president of 
Aerospace Integration Corporation, which is engaged in aircraft 
modifications; but we do not have a member of the Machinists Union. We 
have Wayne

[[Page 14668]]

Murdy, who is chairman of Newmont Mining Corporation of Denver, 
Colorado; but we do not have a member of the Mine Workers Union. We 
have Charles Pizzi, president of Tasty Baking Company, a baking 
corporation headquartered in Philadelphia; but we do not have one 
member of the Bakery, Confectionery, Tobacco Workers Or Grain Millers.
  We have a lot of people making seven-figure salaries on the 
commission. We do not have people making five figures. We have Daniel 
Stowe, president of R.L. Stowe Mills, Inc., who is engaged in dyed 
yarn; but we do not have any members of the Union of Needle Trades, 
Industrial Or Textile Employees. We have Scott Thiss, who is chairman 
of S&W Plastics that does acrylic displays; but we do not have anyone 
from the Graphics Communications Workers. We do not have anyone from 
the Electrical Workers. We do not have anyone from the PACE Union. We 
do not have Sheet Metal Workers, Steelworkers, Teamsters or anyone from 
the United Food and Commercial Workers.
  I do think it is important, given the fact that it is the workers for 
these very companies who are most at risk who have lost their jobs in 
the tens of thousands be represented on this council; and I would ask 
that the colleagues of this body adopt this amendment.
  Mr. WOLF. Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. KUCINICH. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume 
to read a brief statement.
  Mr. Chairman, I would like to read a brief statement and then yield 2 
minutes to the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Andrews).
  I have here a letter from the United Steelworkers of America, which 
says,

     The United Steelworkers of America urges your support for an 
     amendment that will be offered by Ohio Congressman Dennis 
     Kucinich and Indiana Congressman Peter Visclosky. The United 
     Steelworkers of America strongly supports the Kucinich-
     Visclosky amendment to H.R. 4754, because it corrects two 
     substantial omissions from the Bush administration's recently 
     created Manufacturing Council.

  They go on to point out that no one from Labor is on the council and 
also that no one from the steel industry is on the council.
  Mr. Chairman, I include this for the Record as follows:

                                   United Steelworkers of America,


                                                  AFL-CIO-CLC,

                                     Washington, DC, July 7, 2004.
     House of Representatives,
     Washington, DC.
       Dear Representative: The United Steelworkers of America 
     (USWA) urges your support for an amendment that will be 
     offered by Ohio Congressman Dennis Kucinich and Indiana 
     Congressman Peter Visclosky to amend the Commerce, Justice, 
     State Appropriations bill. The USWA strongly supports the 
     Kucinich-Visclosky Amendment to H.R. 4754 because it corrects 
     two substantial omissions from the Bush Administration's 
     recently created Manufacturing Council.
       The new Council is comprised of CEO's from a number of 
     industries, however, the steel industry was not included; and 
     we can think of no other industry better prepared to offer 
     constructive advice than the newly reconstituted American 
     steel industry. The steel industry has become a national 
     leader in such areas as technological innovation, 
     productivity and labor relations.
       The second glaring omission is that no one from labor is 
     included on the Council. The labor movement has worked 
     closely with all of its manufacturing companies to ensure 
     continuing employment opportunities for American workers. The 
     President's Manufacturing Council is seriously handicapped by 
     not having the expertise of American labor in the important 
     areas of health care, pensions and compensation.
       The Kucinich-Visclosky amendment would cut a nominal amount 
     of funding for the Council, but will have no effect on 
     spending levels on the bill as a whole. We urge you to vote 
     ``YES'' on the Kucinich-Visclosky amendment and help to 
     ensure a manufacturing council that represents a broader 
     cross section of American society.
           Respectfully,
     William J. Klinefelter,
       Assistant to the President, Legislative and Political 
     Director.

  Mr. Chairman, I would like to say if someone has steel in their 
State, if they have a mill that was closed down, if they have workers, 
steelworkers that have been laid off or who face layoffs, if they have 
a mill which is at risk of closing, if they have retirees whose 
benefits have been adversely affected by changes in the economy with 
respect to steel, this amendment is something that they are going to 
care about because it says that it is time to give steel full status in 
the direction of America's manufacturing economy.
  Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. 
Andrews), an outstanding voice for workers in this Congress and in 
America.
  Mr. ANDREWS. Mr. Chairman, I thank my friend from Ohio for yielding 
me this time. I rise in strong support of his amendment.
  When I was a child, the three largest employers in my district were a 
shipyard, a soup factory, and an electronics plant that made radios and 
television sets. Today, the three largest employers in my district are 
a mortgage company, a hospital, and the State government. I have seen 
what it means when your manufacturing base erodes and blows up and 
shrivels away.
  When the country tries to solve this very important problem, we need 
all voices heard; and it disappoints me that the administration is 
trying to tackle this problem belatedly, without hearing the two voices 
that are so very importantly added by this amendment: the steel 
industry, without which the country cannot defend itself and cannot 
continue as an industrial power; and the collectively bargained, duly 
elected voice of organized labor through labor unions.
  Now, I know that sometimes the steel industry disagrees with the 
administration and, often, organized labor disagrees with the 
administration. But in our country, we do not just listen to people 
with whom we agree; we welcome all points of view, all interests so 
that we can come up with the best policy solution for the country.
  The Kucinich amendment adds two very important voices: the steel 
industry and organized labor. Even if one does not agree with their 
positions on these issues, their positions ought to be heard as we 
approach the manufacturing atrophy of the United States of America.
  So I would urge everyone who wants all voices to be heard to vote for 
this amendment which is so very much in the tradition of good 
government in this country. I urge a ``yes'' vote.
  Mr. KUCINICH. Mr. Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time.
  Mr. WOLF. Mr. Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time.
  The CHAIRMAN. The question is on the amendment offered by the 
gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Kucinich).
  The question was taken; and the Chairman announced that the noes 
appeared to have it.
  Mr. KUCINICH. Mr. Chairman, I demand a recorded vote.
  The CHAIRMAN. Pursuant to clause 6 of rule XVIII, further proceedings 
on the amendment offered by the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Kucinich) will 
be postponed.
  Mr. WOLF. Mr. Chairman, I move that the Committee do now rise.
  The motion was agreed to.
  Accordingly, the Committee rose; and the Speaker pro tempore (Mr. 
Isakson) having assumed the chair, Mr. Hastings of Washington, Chairman 
of the Committee of the Whole House on the State of the Union, reported 
that that Committee, having had under consideration the bill (H.R. 
4754) making appropriations for the Departments of Commerce, Justice, 
and State, the Judiciary, and related agencies for the fiscal year 
ending September 30, 2005, and for other purposes, had come to no 
resolution thereon.

                          ____________________