Howard Berman

Mr. BERMAN

Mr. BERMAN. So essentially there is no time limit on any individual amendment.

Mr. BERMAN. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding, and I think it makes sense. We have a large number of amendments pending, and I think it makes sense to have some modicum of debate. Am I to assume that the committee will be recommending to the Committee on Rules when we come back in a week-and-a-half a time limit on these amendments, or will it be staying under the 5-minute rule?

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

Mr. BERMAN. Does it include a managers' amendment?

Mr. BERMAN. Are the amendments limited to the amendments that have been printed in the Record as of today?

Mr. BERMAN. Is it the plan to then move, assuming that rule passes, to the 6 hours remaining of debate on Wednesday, June 7?

Mr. BERMAN

Mr. BERMAN. Mr. Chairman, I want to add my support for what the gentlewoman said for the McKinney amendment. This is a restrained and sensible set of guidelines which reinvolve the Congress in the way that it used to be in the process of arms transfers before the Supreme Court decision knocked that process out and made us essentially irrelevant. This provides waiver authority. There may be times when a country that is bad on human rights or a country that is not democratic should get some of our assistance for other, larger kinds of considerations. There is waiver authority here. Come to Congress, let us go through that process. I think it is a sensible, restrained approach to try and deal with the causes of regional instability in so much of the world and the fueling of an arms race.

Mr. BERMAN. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the requisite number of words. Mr. Chairman, I rise in support of the Smith amendment to the Bereuter amendment.

Mr. BERMAN. Mr. Chairman, before I make any comments, I yield to my colleague, the gentlewoman from California.

Mr. BERMAN. Mr. Chairman, this is a very complicated and important issue. There is a lot of right on both sides. The fact is the Orderly Departure Program and CPA have dealt with the problem of boat people, dealt with a way to allow people who are in fear of political persecution to leave Vietnam directly to resettle in countries, and have set up a process which, unfortunately, has been too flawed in the camps on the countries of first asylum to resettle in other countries. The gentleman from New Jersey [Mr. Smith], by his amendment, has taken a major step toward ameliorating concerns earlier expressed during committee debate on the language which is in the bill. He has softened the earmark, he has made it clear that the intention of his amendment is not to increase the number of refugees admitted to the United States above those currently permitted. The gentleman from Nebraska [Mr. Bereuter] and the gentleman from Wisconsin [Mr. Obey] are pointing out the potential problems with some of the restrictions in the language of the gentleman from New Jersey [Mr. Smith], or some of the requirements in the language. However, I, at least at this particular point in time, want to focus on energizing our State Department to get the UNHCR and the people in charge of that screening process to take a look at a number of cases where it is clear that people with a well-founded fear of persecution, if they were to be repatriated back to Vietnam, should have a chance to prevent what could be a catastrophe for them. Between now and the conference committee, we can look at how to do this. I do not think every candidate should be rescreened. I do not think we want to end voluntary repatriation. I do not think we want to give the people in the camps false hopes about things that are going to happen. I do not want them to think we want to embark on something which would become politically unsustainable in the United States, but the gentleman from Illinois [Mr. Hyde] and others were right. When you are talking about people who fought on our side, who were imprisoned for 10 years for political acts and now are talked about being sent back, you want to make sure that that is not being done in a fashion that is going to put their lives and their liberty in jeopardy. I think the Smith language in the bill as modified now helps to send the message to the State Department, to the international community about our concerns about the flaws in the rescreening process and in the repatriation process and that between now--I actually hope this bill does not get to a conference committee, but if it were to get to a conference committee, we can deal with some of the problems that people have correctly pointed out.

Mr. BERMAN. I yield to the gentleman from New York. (Mr. NADLER asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. BERMAN. I yield to the gentleman from Minnesota. (Mr. VENTO asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. BERMAN. Mr. Chairman, will the gentlewoman yield?

Mr. BERMAN

Mr. BERMAN. Mr. Chairman, I think the gentleman from New Jersey and the proponents of the Smith approach have some obligation to explain to the body the effectiveness of their strategy. Coercive abortion and coercive policies are going on in China. We pulled out for many years. Nothing changed. Things got worse. Meanwhile, you cut out a whole bunch of positive, important profamily planning programs all over the world. The Morella amendment in this bill reduces the amendment by the amendment they put in to China, requires them not to support any process and allows the other programs to go on. You cannot keep pushing things on rhetorical and ideological basis without some look at the consequences of what you are doing. Your policy did not work. You tried it. China went on, continued to do it, and all you have done is hurt important and good programs all around the world. I urge a vote for the Morella amendment and defeat the Smith amendment.

Mr. BERMAN

Mr. BERMAN. Sure; I yield to the gentleman from Indiana.

Mr. BERMAN. I look at the Brownback amendment and I say we started out with a bill that in fiscal year 1996, $121 million in reductions for [[Page H5454]] USIA, USIA's presence abroad cut by 10 percent, a thousand positions in USIA eliminated. Broadcasting cut by over 10 percent, impairing the agency's ability to broadcast to the Middle East, Eastern Europe, the former Soviet Union, other important areas. Let me just make the last one. Then under the Brownback amendment, we cut an additional $10 million for radio construction. You and I, I thought, were hoping to create a support for Radio Free Asia transmitters, Free Asia transmitters construction expenses, get radio, get information into China, $30 million more in additional cuts, millions for broadcasting. I feel like I hear a mechanistic debate. We talk numbers, only 3 percent, 5 percent.

Mr. BERMAN. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for yielding. We can go through foreign aid budgets and we can talk about any specific program, but I have worked with the gentleman on a number of issues, and, for instance, I know of his support and the importance he gives, unlike some of his colleagues, to, for instance, the surrogate broadcasting, the getting information into countries where there is not either a well-developed institutional free press and broadcasting, or totalitarian states where they block it.

Mr. BERMAN. Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?

Mr. BERMAN. The 150 account covers the items in this bill and the multilateral banks which are all tools of our foreign policy interests and the PL-480 program, which is not authorized in this bill. The 150 function, the most reduced function in the Federal Government over the last 10 years, which accounts for about 1.3 percent of our Federal spending, is being reduced as I understand it by close to $2 billion below last year's spending, $3 billion below the administration's request, and now in fiscal year 1997 we have a further cut. I do not understand, and I would like to hear laid out at some point in this thing just how you think the foreign relations functions of the Federal Government are going to work to serve American interests. I listened during the general debate on this bill to your colleague from Oregon who said functions run by the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency, functions run by the Agency for International Development, functions run by the USIA are irrelevant in the post-cold war era. He does not think that verification and monitoring of arms control agreements has relevance simply because the cold war has ended? The fact that the republics, that Russia in particular has a substantial number of nuclear weapons left, that we are going to try and ratify and enforce a chemical weapons treaty to get rid of these functions, he does not think that radio broadcasts into totalitarian countries which do not allow free press still have some relevance, and world is all safe, the cold war is over? We know that many of you do not believe that because you are concerned, understandably and correctly, about the level of defense spending. We know what history has brought us. We know the end of World War I led to just this kind of dynamic pullout from the world, go back, Fortress America. We heard one member of our committee talk about America First and for once, as if being involved with an active diplomatic agenda was not putting America first, that this was not all about serving America's interests. We know the history of what happened between the wars. We know what happened after World War II. We know that the bipartisan leadership after World War II decided to do it a different way, and the result was that we had a long and difficult and expensive cold war, but ultimately we won it. But we also know that there are threats of terrorism and proliferation and famine and poverty, all of which, apart from the humanitarian interests, undermine our own interests in the strength of future global markets, of regional stability, of controlling the proliferation of nuclear weapons, and I am telling you, I understand your focus on the deficit. I do not share where you want to go in the end, but I really think taking the function of government which has been the most cut for the past 10 years and thinking you can through drastic cuts and micromanagement run foreign policy in a way that maintains America's international leadership is terribly mistaken. I urge this amendment be defeated. I think this is no longer a bill that just constrains the cuts to what were originally proposed. You are now going further, slashing even more than the bill that the committee brought to the floor, and I urge that the Brownback amendment be defeated.

Mr. BERMAN

Mr. BERMAN. One other question. I am confused by the gentleman's comment that AID and ACDA and USIA have taken their share of cuts, but the State Department has not. I thought this bill said there is no more ACDA, USIA, and AID. They are all going to be lumped into the State Department. The authorization is going to be for a new expanded, consolidated State Department, and these cuts are all going to impact on what will become the new State Department. So I am not clear what the gentleman means by disproportionate cuts in agencies that will no longer exist if this bill passes.

Mr. BERMAN. So, on top of--on top of what the committee cut the gentleman is cutting an additional 5 percent in operating expenses for State Department operations.

Mr. BERMAN. I yield to the gentleman from North Carolina.

Mr. BERMAN. Go through this one more time with me: The Brownback amendment, which cuts--the bill, as we know, cuts essentially the Foreign Affairs Committee or the Committee on International Relations' share of $2 billion from existing levels. The Brownback amendment cuts an additional $450 to $480 million from 1997 levels. The gentleman's amendment would cut first how much more in each fiscal year, 1996 and 1997?

Mr. BERMAN. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the last word. I would like to ask the gentleman on my time a question, if I might, the gentleman from North Carolina. Might I ask?

Mr. BERMAN. Reclaiming my time, I just say very quickly it is probably not going to have much meaning in all this thing. I had the privilege of chairing the subcommittee that authorized State Department functions for 4 years, the last 2 years of the Bush administration and the first 2 years of Clinton. We made cuts in operating expenses in the State over and over again. As I indicated earlier, the 150 functions had the most dramatic cuts of any----