Neil Abercrombie

Mr. ABERCROMBIE

Mr. ABERCROMBIE. Further parliamentary inquiry, Mr. Speaker, and the reason I am asking is that it may determine how I will vote and, perhaps, others will vote.

Mr. ABERCROMBIE. I would like to know, Mr. Speaker, whether with the objection the possibility of the two items mentioned by the gentleman from New York [Mr. Solomon] in response to the request from the gentleman from Texas [Mr. Bryant] are now out of the Gingrich amendment with respect to that which appears in the underlying bill.

Mr. ABERCROMBIE. Mr. Speaker, I have a parliamentary inquiry.

Mr. ABERCROMBIE. Mr. Speaker, continuing my reservation of objection, it occurs to me that the ``such as'' may be illustrative, but is it supposed to be illustrative of the amount of money, when we say intrinsic value, are we talking about, is it your understanding, Mr. Solomon, that that has a dollar value, when the phrase intrinsic value is utilized to describe----

Mr. ABERCROMBIE. So if this is accepted, the unanimous consent request is accepted, those two elements that appeared in the underlying bill would now appear in the Gingrich legislation?

Mr. ABERCROMBIE. Mr. Speaker, in the Gingrich legislation that is now before us, it was inadvertently left out; is that correct?

Mr. ABERCROMBIE. Yes. Now, is it the case that by inadvertence this was left out of the bill?

Mr. ABERCROMBIE

Mr. ABERCROMBIE. Mr. Speaker, this is general debate and I will speak again at the time of the introduction of the Burton-Brewster-Clay- Abercrombie amendment, the full disclosure amendment. Mr. Speaker, the previous speaker just mentioned about beating on chests, and I agree with him entirely. I did not come into this institution as the last person to be sworn in by Tip O'Neill before he retired to have people stand here in the well of the House and say that there is only the ``appearance of integrity;'' that it is not an honor and a privilege to serve in this House. Mr. Speaker, I will tell my colleagues if there is a perception out in the country that there are less than honorable people here, it is created by individuals. We cannot account for everybody who comes in here, but the voters see to it whether or not they want those folks to come back in here. There is nothing in this bill presently before us that provides what our full disclosure amendment provides. As a matter of fact, there is no disclosure provision. I would like to know, all those who have come down here and talked about appearance, restoring integrity, the perception; that it is more important to attack the perception of the House, more important to attack that. Mr. Speaker, I would like to know all of those who have stood down here so self-righteously proclaiming that they, of course, are ready to assume the mantle of probity; they would not be guilty, not even the odor of mendacity is about their persons. But for the rest of us, for the rest of us, no disclosure? I would like to know whether any of those Members have [[Page H 13075]] taken any money from any source that they now stand here and say they will take no money from in the form of a meal. How about a campaign contribution? I would like to see now many people who are standing down here saying, ``Not me, I would not take a meal or anything from a lobbyist.'' They would not? Mr. Speaker, then they should come down here and let me see what their campaign contribution form looks like. Now, far be it from me that there is anything wrong with that, but what we are really talking about here is campaign reform, campaign financing. If that is what my colleagues want to attack, attack that. There is an exception. There is an exception for campaign activities, as was pointed out by the previous speaker. Will somebody please explain to me how we are going to have an exemption for campaign activities, but at the same time say that we are actually passing a gift rule? Mr. Speaker, I understand the motivation of someone trying to say that they are cleaning the place up. Yet, every single Member who said that also remarked that they were fully believing that the integrity of the House was intact; it was merely the perception that the House does not have that integrity which was in question. If that is the case, let us be honest. If there is a Member in here that is a thief and a crook, then stand up and say so. That is what we have a Committee on Standards of Official Conduct for and a Justice Department for. Mr. Speaker, I say let us have full disclosure, just as we do with our Federal election campaign reports. That amendment will be before Members. Then my colleagues can go back to their constituents and say to them, ``Yes, you can examine my record, you can examine what I did, and you make a judgment as to whether I am worthy to be in this House.''

Mr. ABERCROMBIE. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Oklahoma [Mr. Brewster] for yielding this time to me. The reason that there is a perception of corruption, or whatever variation of the word is going to be used on this floor, has been used on this floor, is it keeps getting repeated here, and so people hear that in the general public even though the same people say we are all honorable except for the thieves and crooks among us, and then they do not say who the thieves and the crooks are. Now let us get down to what the Burton amendment does, and why I am supporting it, and why a broad spectrum of people are supporting it. This has to do with the charitable events. Now in real life some of us do try not only to do our duty, but to try to justify our existence by our relationship with our fellow human beings. I founded, along with one of the most conservative people in the Democratic caucus, the honorable gentleman from Alabama [Mr. Cramer], who started the Children's Advocacy Center in Alabama; I heard about it, and I brought it to the State of Hawaii. We had the first statewide children's advocacy center, and any of my colleagues have been a probation officer like I have been, anybody who served in the Committee on the Judiciary who knows what sexual abuse is of children, knows what the Children's Advocacy Centers have accomplished. It takes children who have been abused and keeps them from being abused further. Now I am to participate in an event in December. I am going to put on a charitable event for the Children's Advocacy Center, and I have appeared for them in other places around the country. I am going to be there, and I am going to put on a little, one of my famous Blues Brothers, acts. I hope some of my colleagues can catch it sometime. It is terrific, I want to tell my colleagues. If my colleagues think I am good down here, they should see me with my dark glasses and my porkpie hat. Mr. Speaker, a lot of people have a good time when that happens, but the main reason for doing it is to see to it that sexually abused children are no longer molested. And now I am supposed to withdraw myself from that because of some perception that somebody has conjured up as to what kind of person I am or somebody else is? [[Page H 13082]] Now I will tell my colleagues what else we do from Hawaii. We appear for the Aloha United Way, the United Way, that my colleagues have in their community. We have the Aloha United Way, and we went as a congressional delegation to New York City to ask people who do business in Hawaii to help us with the United Way in Hawaii. Now somebody wants to run against me, and that is what I hear from one Member after another, the reason we cannot vote for this amendment is somebody is going to use it in a campaign commercial against us. Mr. Speaker, I invite anybody who wants to use a campaign commercial against me that I am supporting the United Way to please do so because any idiot that is going to run for office is going to use that for an excuse, and anybody here that cannot contend with an opponent that is going to be against them because they are in favor of charitable events, he deserves, or she deserves, to get elected, and my colleague does not. But I am proud to be associated with these charitable events, I am proud to appear anywhere in the country on their behalf, and I am proud to support the Burton-Clay-Brewster-Abercrombie amendment.

Mr. ABERCROMBIE

Mr. ABERCROMBIE. Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the response of the gentleman from Michigan [Mr. Smith] and his kindness in requesting that I come back. Mr. Speaker, I ask the gentleman, so it is a fact that the Republican budget will be taking some $600 billion from the Social Security trust fund in order to achieve its version of a balanced budget? The gentleman did say that during his comments; is that correct?

Mr. ABERCROMBIE. Mr. Speaker, I do not know if the level of the rhetoric has necessarily increased or advanced the case to be made for the Republican side this evening, but whether my colleagues are Republican or Democrat, if they are going to be using the phrase ``balancing the budget,'' I have been down on the floor before and I will be here again, and I am going to ask whether or not these numbers are going to be honest. Are we talking about reducing the deficit or are we talking about balancing the budget? This, after all, is a continuing resolution. It is only going to take us up until December. The fundamentals are what have to be met. Mr. Speaker, I am maintaining that no one has come to the floor yet, to my knowledge, to refute this point: The Republican budget, ostensibly balancing the budget in the year 2002, is going to start next year by taking in the neighborhood of $63 billion from the Social Security trust fund. It is going to take an increasing amount every year until 2002. In the year in which the Republican budget claims that it will have somewhere between a $10 billion to $12 billion surplus, that figure will be achieved by taking $115 billion, approximately, from the Social Security trust fund. At this point at which Republicans claim that the budget has been balanced, we will be some $636 billion in debt, plus interest, to the Social Security trust fund. Mr. Speaker, I am asking the Members to think about it, Democrats and Republicans. If we are going to do a balanced budget, I am willing to work on that along with everybody else. But please do not come down to the floor in a discussion of a continuing resolution and continue to repeat this canard, this misleading approach about a balanced budget. If it is truly in surplus, then give it back. Reduce the amount of funds that have to come in from Social Security, if it is genuinely a surplus.

Mr. ABERCROMBIE. Mr. Speaker, reclaiming my time, I again ask the gentleman is it a fact that this is going to take $636 billion, approximately, for the next 7 years, from the Social Security trust fund? Mr. Speaker, that question will hang in the air.

Mr. ABERCROMBIE

Mr. ABERCROMBIE. I yield to the gentleman from Kentucky.

Mr. ABERCROMBIE. Mr. Speaker, apropos of the remarks of the gentleman from Kentucky, reference has been made again and again this evening and in previous sessions of the House to a balanced budget, and reference has been made to the President. In fact, the President has been castigated for being unwilling, presumably, to move towards a balanced budget in a time certain, generally given to be 2002. What is constantly left out of the equation is that there is no presentation for a balanced budget. Every time I hear that being said very frankly by Members on both sides, but most particularly as a kind of challenge from the Republic side, I would find it amusing if it was not so sad that this is based upon a palpable fraud. I will tell you exactly what it is. It is no great secret. In previous times, Mr. Speaker, in order to mask the deficit that was accumulating, we have gone into what is called something off-budget. It is a bookkeeping trick. That is all it is, the Social Security trust fund. But before, at least we were honest about it with respect that it appeared from both the Republicans and the Democrats when we finally put budgets together that we were, in fact, utilizing the so-called surplus funds in order to achieve a budget. We were not pretending that we were trying to balance the budget at that point. As the gentleman from Texas [Mr. Stenholm] and others who have preceded me have indicated, that has been a goal of both Democrats and Republicans. This is not exclusive to the Republican Party. But the difference has [[Page H 12169]] been that there was not the stench of mendacity in the air as I very sadly detect now. The plain, simple fact of the matter is that in the budget as presented by the Republican Party, we are going to take in the neighborhood of $636 billion out of a so-called surplus in the Social Security fund in order to balance the budget in the year 2002. We start in 1996 with $63 billion. There is $115 billion scheduled to be taken in the year 2002 in order to achieve a balanced budget. Now, this is supposed to be coming from surplus funds. So I put the challenge to those who will say that this is truly going to be a balanced budget as presented by the Republican Party in this House in 2002. If that is a surplus, then give it back. If you do not need to have an IOU to the Social Security trust fund in the year 2002 of $630 plus billion, let us hear it on this floor. I can come down here for special orders any night; I invite anybody to come down now and say that what I am saying is not true. I see a smile on the face of the gentleman from Texas [Mr. Stenholm]. He knows that this is the case. My good friend from Indiana is not smiling, he is grimacing at the moment. But the plain fact is that while there are people in this body who are serious about balancing the budget, they are serious in a way that says that they will not try to fool the American people into thinking, because we have done a bookkeeping trick, namely putting it off budget, that phraseology, a phrase of art with respect to accounting, that we will not owe that money to the Social Security trust fund. There will be no balanced budget in 2002, and I would hope that the next Republican Member who gets up and recites this mantra will at least have the common decency to respect the intelligence of the American people who can add and subtract and read and write the numbers just as well as anybody else and admit that in the year 2002 when they claim, providing nothing goes wrong whatsoever with the projections, when they claim that there will be a balanced budget, on that day, at that moment, they will owe $630 plus billion to the Social Security trust fund. If we are going to balance the budget, I welcome the debate. Let us get to it, let us try and figure our how to do it, but let us be honest about it. Let us not start accusing anybody in this body, particularly on our side of the aisle, of being less than true to their faith, the faith that they have in what they want to do, and come forward with sensible, reasonable, honest figures with respect to the balanced budget.

Mr. ABERCROMBIE

Mr. ABERCROMBIE. Mr. Speaker, if the gentleman will continue to yield, I understand. I am all for it. But how is it possible then for him to make that proposal at this juncture when the budget that has been put forward by the majority does precisely that? It dips into the Social Security trust fund, to the ostensible surplus, to the tune of-- I will tell the gentleman what the numbers are. They start in 1996 with $63 billion. It is in the gentleman's budget document, the gentleman from New York [Mr. Solomon].

Mr. ABERCROMBIE. Mr. Speaker, the gentleman did ask a question; will anybody come down and respond? The reason that I am here is, the gentleman said the point of what he is proposing right now is that we not touch the Social Security trust fund. Why would the gentleman put that in at this stage when the budget that has been proposed for balancing in the year 2002 by the majority does precisely that to the tune of $636 billion.

Mr. ABERCROMBIE. Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?

Mr. ABERCROMBIE. Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the gentleman yielding time to me and conclude by saying that I think the reason that I think we find great difficulty in carrying out what the gentleman requests of us is that it runs exactly contradictory to what the reconciliation budget will present to us.

Mr. ABERCROMBIE

Mr. ABERCROMBIE. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Florida [Mr. Gibbons] for yielding me time. Ladies and gentlemen, let us stop the crocodile tears over the Social Security trust fund. The fact of the matter is and everyover knows it here, there will not be a balanced budget in 2002. The balanced budget that is being put forward very simply steals $636 billion from the Social Security trust fund, a so-called surplus. If it really was a surplus then give it back. I understand that is the program of the majority party. Give back the $636 billion. If nothing went wrong, if nothing went wrong with the budget proposals coming from the Republican Party, in the year 2002 they could announce that there was a budget surplus paid for by $636 billion in Social Security funds. The young people of this country are saying they do not believe Social Security is going to be there when they need it, and it will not be. The day that this comes out, the Republicans are going to own $636 billion, and now they cry crocodile tears in this debt extension about the trust fund and what the Democrats are doing. I defy anyone on the other side to deny my allegations. They should read their own budget bill, and they will see that they are going to take the $636 billion out of a so-called surplus. Finally, may I add, Mr. Speaker, for those who seem confused as to why the habeas corpus bill has been attached to this particular legislation, it is a message. I do not see how the gentleman from Michigan, [Mr. Conyers] and other people can fail to get it. General Powell is getting a message about his ability to broaden the text in the context of the Republican Party with the habeas corpus attachment to this bill. A message has been sent to the General.

Mr. ABERCROMBIE

Mr. ABERCROMBIE. Mr. Speaker and Members, I am reluctant, and I am sorry, and the gentleman from Alaska knows this, that I am reluctant to have to get up on this bill and speak on the issue that the chairman of my Subcommittee on Minerals has just spoken on. In all honesty this was not the intention of the House, and I think the bill that we had before was something, while there were arguments back and forth, we could deal with. But this has been attached to the bill, to the original bill and the intent of the bill, and I want to be consistent on this. I have, as the chairman of our subcommittee, the gentleman from California [Mr. Calvert], knows, and the gentleman from Alaska [Mr. Young] knows, taken a consistent position with respect to the royalty payment. I think it is fair, I think it is straightforward, I think the competition is there. I do not intend to remake all the arguments. I do not believe that the deepwater drilling is going to be inhibited in any way by having the royalty element with it, as it should. I am one who favors drilling for oil in the gulf. I think that the environmental questions have been answered that may have existed in the past. I have no difficulty with that. That is why to see this kind of thing come up now when we have essential agreement about what is being done just to give a holiday when other people have seen their wages stagnate and all the rest of it just seems to me to be incomprehensible as to why we would be doing that. I believe the House is being shoved at this point into something that it is really reluctant to do, and I think the vote previously showed that. So I think if we go with this recommittal, we are not undermining in any respect what the House did before on a bipartisan basis. So I hope this does not come down to, oh, this is Republicans versus Democrats and, as my colleagues know, there is a party line that has to be followed here because that would not accurately reflect either the tenor of our conversations in the Committee on Resources, nor in the House of Representatives, on a bipartisan basis. I think the gentleman from Alaska [Mr. Young] and the gentleman from California [Mr. Calvert] would agree, and I hope, by extension, the gentleman from California [Mr. Thomas], although I have not spoken directly with him about it, that this bill, minus this provision, was fairly well agreed upon in the House by Democrats and Republicans and we came to a fair conclusion on it. I think the Senate is taking advantage of us on this, and that is why I ask to support the recommittal, not to make arguments back and forth about the drilling or not drilling, but rather to assert ourselves as Members of the House who have come to a conclusion on a bill which now contains a provision from the Senate in which I think they are trying to take advantage of us. If we send it back to them with this recommittal, I think then the message will be clear that let us deal with the issues that the gentleman from Alaska [Mr. Young] and the committee brought forward in the first place, [[Page H 11870]] which I think will receive the favorable approbation of this House. So I speak in favor of the recommittal, not as some kind of a contest, not as some kind of confrontation, but as a reassertion of the authority of the House and the Good sense of the original bill. Mr. Speaker, on July 25 of this year, 261 of us expressed our opposition to the creation of a new form of corporate welfare--the deepwater royalty holiday--by voting to instruct the conferees to reject the nongermane rider to S. 395, the Alaska Oil Exports bill, added by the Senate. Yet, today the conference report on that bill still includes the royalty holiday. Why would the House conferees ignore our instructions? The royalty holiday would grant royalty-free oil and gas to corporations that bid on Federal leases in the Gulf of Mexico. The holiday's sponsors maintain that the royalty holiday will raise revenues for the Treasury even though the Congressional Budget Office [CBO] has repeatedly rejected this assertion. The holiday's defenders argue that the earlier CBO cost estimate of a $500 million net loss to the Treasury is overly simplistic because it did not take into account the time value of money. However, in a November 2, 1995, letter, the CBO refuted the ``net present value'' analysis prepared by the holiday's proponents, and found that even using the discounting method preferred by the proponents, the royalty holiday would still be a net loss of about $150 million--not a net gain as asserted by Energy Secretary O'Leary and other defenders of the royalty relief proposal. The CBO has carefully reviewed the royalty holiday several times this year and has remained steadfast in its position that the deepwater royalty will cost the Federal Government revenues in the long term, using either the standard cash basis or the net present value formula favored by the holiday's supporters. Either way it's a net loss. On a cash basis--the holiday will cost taxpayers about a half billion dollars. Using discounted dollars, it will cost about $150 million. So don't be fooled into thinking that this hand-out to the oil and gas industry will raise money. It's a bad deal for the Federal Government and a bad deal for the taxpayers of this country. Vote ``aye'' on the motion to recommit Mr. Miller will offer when the conference report on S. 395 is brought to the floor.

Mr. ABERCROMBIE

Mr. ABERCROMBIE. Mr. Speaker, during rollcall vote No. 769 on Senate Concurrent Resolution 31 I was unavoidably detained. Had I been present I would have voted ``Aye''.

Mr. ABERCROMBIE

Mr. ABERCROMBIE. Mr. Speaker, on October 25, I inadvertently missed rollcall vote No. 735, the conference report on H.R. 2002, the transportation appropriation for fiscal year 1996. Had I been present I would have voted ``yea.''

Mr. ABERCROMBIE

Mr. ABERCROMBIE. Mr. Speaker, the reason that I would like to follow up on the remarks of the gentleman from Virginia [Mr. Moran] is that many of my colleagues here may live closer. They may not have the same situation that I do, where my constituents have a 6-hour time difference. Mr. Speaker, I am here in the evenings that the gentleman from Virginia is referring to when the people are at work in these buildings. Some of my colleagues may be out of here. Maybe they are at the receptions. Maybe they are out with their lobbyist friends. I do not know. But, Mr. Speaker, I spend a good deal of my time here. I just want to point out before, my Republican colleagues take revenge on us, if they think they are taking revenge on us as politicians when they are firing people who have given their loyalty to this institution, there is a veritable army of people working here all night. They are here all night working. I ask my Republican colleagues, please, do not take out the revenge that they want to have on the Congress or on politicians by firing working people who do their jobs; who have been nothing but loyal to this institution; who are here every night; who do the job every day, the working people that keep the institution going.

Mr. ABERCROMBIE

Mr. ABERCROMBIE. Mr. Chairman, I rise in vehement opposition to the reconciliation bill before us tonight, and in particular to the provisions of title IX as reported by the Resources Committee. As I am the ranking Democrat on the Mining Subcommittee, I will restrict my comments to the energy and mineral resources portions of the bill. Let me start by saying that Jesse James never had it so good. The sham mining law reform package included in this bill will make it easier to steal gold--and oil and gas--from the American taxpayer than even Jesse, Butch Cassidy, and the Sundance Kid could have ever possibly hoped for or imagined. Under the Mining Law of 1872, signed by President Ulysses S. Grant, gold miners can gain fee simple title to Federal gold, silver, and other minerals and the land containing them upon payment of a nominal sum: $2.50 or $5 an acre. Supporters of the bill before us will profess that their bill will change this situation. But instead it merely replaces a bad system with 1 which is no better. The Republicans will boast that their proposal will require that mineral-rich lands be priced at fair market value. But, what they won't tell you is that, under their bill, the land will be sold for the value of the surface without consideration for mineral values. It makes no sense to sell our minerals for a pittance of their intrinsic value--it would be like selling a bottle of Dom Perignon for the price of the cork. Under the Kasich substitute, the Department will be forced to fast track approval of the 233 patent applications in the pipeline, and give away as much as 15.5 billion dollars' worth of gold and silver and reserve no royalty whatsoever. To be fair, we should note that the Republican bill would reserve a royalty on hard rock minerals mined on Federal lands for the first time in this Nation's history. Unfortunately, due to the way the Republican majority drafted the bill, it will not raise any money. And, it didn't have to be that way. In the February 1995 budget estimates, CBO scored the 8-percent net smelter return royalty, previously passed by the House with a 3 to 1 margin, as raising $90 million per year; over 7 years, that equals $540 million--with one year for transition. The Republicans will try to tell you that their royalty is the same as the Nevada net proceeds severance tax which raises a lot of money for the State--so their royalty will eventually raise revenues. But, the royalty in their bill is not the same as the Nevada severance tax. The Republican proposal would allow additional deductions to be made from gross revenues; such as engineering costs, costs of support services and support personnel, environmental compliance, permitting and other administrative costs. Obviously, by decreasing the gross, the royalty will be levied on a far smaller net and thus we will collect far less than is fair. The Republicans will try to tell you that their royalty will raise revenues in the long term--that after everybody gets their patents and new claims are being staked on Federal lands, that their royalty will be in place and will raise money. But, they won't tell you that all other Federal royalties are charged on gross revenues because net royalties are notoriously difficult to administer and just don't raise all that much money in return. And they won't tell you that according to a review of the Nevada net proceeds tax report for 1992-1993, royalties paid by the Nevada mining industry to private interests averaged 3 percent of gross revenues and 11 percent of net proceeds. In the bill before you, the American taxpayer is getting the short end of the deal--combining the lowest rate with the least value--3.5 percent of net proceeds. The bill would also change the current $100 rental fee to a sliding scale fee starting at $100 for the first years and ending with $500 for years the claim is held beyond 20 years. But it also allows deduction of up to 75 percent of the costs of developing the claim for mining. In addition, the bill would give away the first year's rental fee. According to CBO, the Republican royalty and holding fee would raise about $14 million over 5 years. By simply extending the $100 holding fee, as the Democrats proposed, we would have raised $33 million in each year--or twice as much in one year as the 5-year total in the Republican proposal. CBO scores the Republican mining proposal--both royalties and holding fees at a meager $14 million over 5-years--that averages out at less than $3 million per year--that's less over 5 years than the royalty we proposed would raise in one year. The mining reform bill passed by the House in 1993 would have raised real money and still protected vested mining rights on those claims that could not qualify for a patent. The Republican mining proposal before you today enables all 300,000 existing claims to get a patent. All claims that are able to qualify for a patent get out of paying any royalty to the taxpayer in the future. It's evident to me that their intent is not to raise funds to meet reconciliation or deficit reduction goals, but rather to pass a sham mining law in order to quell the momentum for responsible reform. federal oil and gas royalties The Republican bill also includes a give-away for big oil. The Santa Fe Reporter said in its October 11 issue: The result--of the Oil and Gas Royalty Fairness proposal-- could be a slashing of untold millions of dollars the state normally uses for schools, highways, and social programs. The Western States Land Commissioners and the conservative Republican Governor of Wyoming have come out against the proposal. It doesn't even raise all that much money--in fact it was a money loser when it came out of the Resources Committee. So why include it? Maybe it has something to do with a fact the bill's sponsors freely admit--that the oil and gas industry had a big hand in writing the bill. The Republican oil and gas proposal is seriously defective. It would drastically modify the existing statute of limitations on the collection of royalties due taxpayers, and would create dangerous precedents that will diminish the government's ability to collect royalties. The bill would limit Federal oversight of the lands companies lease for oil and gas. One section would allow marginal leases to operate without paying any royalties. Also, the bill would change longstanding Federal policy and require the payment of interest to lessees who make overpayments. This change will cost, according to CBO, $60 million over 7 years, hardly a suitable provision for a reconciliation bill intended to reduce, not expand, Federal deficits. helium privatization Finally, the helium privatization section adopted by the committee would terminate the Federal helium program. While the ending of the archaic helium program is generally supported, the committee rejected an important amendment I offered to provide assistance to Federal helium employees such as extending life and health insurance, allowing the use of local employment agencies to help place employees, relocation assistance, and governmentwide priority rather than just departmentwide preference in hiring. CBO advised the committee that the amendment would have had no budgetary effect. Even so, the committee refused to provide this additional assistance to the 200-plus employees and their families who will lose their jobs in Amarillo, TX in the next year. Although there is general agreement that we need to reduce unnecessary functions of government like the helium program, it is unfortunate that the majority was unwilling to provide this assistance to the employees, and their families, who have served their government and taxpayers for many years. In conclusion, I would reiterate that this is a bad bill because it is abusive to the environment, because it deprives the taxpayers of the value of the resources that belong to them, and because it makes a mockery of the reconciliation and legislative processes. These provisions are illustrative of the willingness of the majority to bow to the special interests represented by lobbyist for resource consumptive corporations at the expense of the national interest and the taxpayers. Severe and in many cases irreparable damage will be done to our Treasury, to our Nation's legacy of natural resources, to our fish and wildlife resources, and to our public lands by passage of this legislation. I urge my colleagues to vote ``no'' on H.R. 2517, the budget reconciliation bill.

Mr. ABERCROMBIE

Mr. ABERCROMBIE. Mr. Chairman, last year Republicans in Congress blocked efforts to pass legislation that would have guaranteed health care to all Americans. Now Republicans propose a bill, H.R. 2425, which guts the health care safety net for older Americans. Medicare is our contract with American families, illustrating our commitment to enabling seniors to live in dignity and independence. H.R. 2425 is a direct attack on this contract and reneges on our commitment to older Americans, leaving them to face the high cost of health care alone at a time when they are at their most vulnerable. H.R. 2425 cuts the Medicare Program by $270 billion over the next 7 years. The Republicans in Congress state that these cuts are necessary to save the Medicare Program, but the cuts are far too deep and would create increased uncertainty and instability. The Medicare Trustees' Report states that Medicare will become insolvent in 2002, a fact that we must seriously address. However, by reducing Medicare funding by $90 billion, we can assure the Medicare trust fund's viability through 2006. H.R. 2425, despite the massive $270 billion cut, would still only assure Medicare solvency through 2006--the same year. Instead of saving Medicare, Republicans are more interested in providing a $245 billion tax-giveaway for the wealthiest Americans. Clearly, without the tax break, a smaller and more reasonable reduction in Medicare spending would be possible. However, Republicans refuse to acknowledge the recklessness of their actions and insist on maintaining a tax windfall for their wealthy friends. My commitment, I can assure you, remains with senior citizens, not these fat cat contributors and I intend to oppose H.R. 2425. The Democrat's substitute, addresses the real issues facing Medicare. By reducing funding by $90 billion over the next 7 years, we will shore up the Medicare trust fund through 2006. This gives us more than a decade to work on significant and sensible reforms to assure Medicare will always be there for those who need it. In addition, a major component of the Democratic proposal would combat fraud and abuse which costs Medicare $18 billion each year. The Republican plan does not adequately address this issue and in fact makes it easier for fraud to go undetected. I prevail upon my colleagues to stand up for America's senior citizens. Vote against H.R. 2425. Do not abandon your commitment to their health and security in old age.