Roy Blunt

Mr. BLUNT

Mr. BLUNT. If the gentleman will continue to yield, with the exception of suspensions, and barring some discussion with committees, which we will certainly have, as we need to get our work done this month, this looks like it is the schedule for next week.

Mr. BLUNT. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Texas for yielding, and I am pleased to announce that the House has completed its legislative business for the week. There will be no vote in the House tomorrow. The House will next meet on Tuesday, September 12, at 12:30 p.m. for morning hour and 2 p.m. for legislative business, following a pro forma session meeting at noon on Monday. We will consider a number of bills under suspension of the rules, a list of which will be distributed to the Members' offices tomorrow. On Tuesday, no recorded votes are expected before 6 p.m. On Wednesday and the balance of the week, the House will consider the following measures: H.R. 4461, the District of Columbia Appropriations Act; H.R. 4516, the Legislative Branch Appropriations Act Conference Report; And a veto override on H.R. 4810, the Marriage Tax Penalty Relief Reconciliation Act. The schedule will be released tomorrow, and the whip notice will reflect the entire schedule for next week. I thank the gentleman for yielding.

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

Mr. BLUNT

Mr. BLUNT. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman from Connecticut (Mrs. Johnson) for yielding me the time. Mr. Speaker, I also thank the gentlewoman for her commitment and her efforts to get this important bill to the floor, and I am pleased that my friend, the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Cardin), has worked so hard to bring this bill to the floor as well. There is no question that in our society in the last generation, too often fathers have been absent without leave. Too often fathers have not been where they were supposed to be, have not been doing what they were supposed to be doing, and rightly and appropriately, because of that, so much of our effort has been to figure out what we could do to help mothers. Well, one thing we can do to help mothers is to try to help create an environment where fathers really function as fathers, where fathers do more than father a child, they actually play the role of fathers in this society. This bill is a significant step in that direction. This bill is a significant effort to try to make that happen. Education, job training, parenthood training are all skills that fathers need. We are changing lots of communities in America, beginning with welfare reform; and people in those many communities begin to see for the first time a community driven by work, not welfare. They also need an opportunity to see a community driven by two-parent families, not single moms struggling to get by. Too many young men in America have grown up in the last decade, maybe even the last 3 decades in communities where there were no role models of fathers, in communities where we do not just pick up the fatherhood parenting skills by watching what happens next door, because what happens next door is exactly what happened at your house, a single mom struggling to get by, nobody to help her with that process. This bill goes beyond adding the important resources that it does add to collecting child support. It goes beyond that and works hard for the first time in a significant way at a Federal level to help fathers become fathers to do that through faith-based organizations and community-based organizations. And as well intentioned as I know the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Scott) will be with his motion to recommit, of course, I am opposed to that, because I think involving these community-based and faith-based organizations, as this bill does, with the appropriate protections already in the law and in this bill, is a way to deliver these services. How do we deliver services that create guidelines, the role models, the thoughts about parenthood and fatherhood, if we immediately exclude from that people who understand the community, people who work in that community and community-based and faith-based organizations all the time. We need to look constantly for better ways to deliver these messages that make our society more of what we want it to be. Fathers working alongside mothers, raising children in an environment driven by work and values and family is what we need to be trying to build our society on. That can happen more effectively with the implementation this bill. I am for it. I urge my colleagues to vote for it. I am grateful to my colleagues who have worked so hard to bring this important piece of legislation to the floor today.

Mr. BLUNT

Mr. BLUNT. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Sessions), my friend, for yielding the time to me. Mr. Speaker, I must admit I came to the floor partly because I was confused by the debate. This is eliminating a tax on people who receive Social Security. That is what this is about. This tax was not on the books before 1993. It is not a tax that people used to pay. It is eliminating a tax for people who draw Social Security. I came to the floor, as soon as I got here, I heard that the surplus was gone. The deficit in 1995 was $200 billion. The surplus, using those same bookkeeping rules, that we have even moved beyond those rules and do not use those rules any more, is about $250 billion, that is a $500 billion, half a trillion dollar turnaround. We need to rectify these unfair things that have been added to the Tax Code. We do not need to take this as an excuse to come up with new government programs. We need to figure out how to do our business, the business of government, with the least tax dollars possible. And we certainly do not need to take those tax dollars from people who are drawing Social Security, from people, who, until 1993, did not pay this tax, a tax that is now paid by 10 million Americans, over the next decade that number will grow to 17\1/2\ million Americans who receive Social Security will pay this tax that we could eliminate today. We could begin the process today in the House by eliminating this tax. This is a ticking time bomb. We hear our friends talk about the fact that this tax is only paid by the wealthy. Wealthy, or if you are retired, I guess if you make more than $34,000, you are wealthy and that should be penalized, if you have worked your lifetime, if you have saved money, if you have worked for a pension, and if you make more than $34,000, we are wealthy and should be taxed, if you accept that logic. People who worked for that pension, who saved that money, who draw Social Security should not be hit with this tax. This is not an amount of money that is adjusted to inflation, and so each year more and more people are hit by a number that has less and less buying power. We can solve this problem today. We can help seniors on fixed incomes who managed to have a decent income, who would not have paid this tax before 1993, in a way that they do not pay this tax in the future. I support the rule. I support the bill. I am for a long-term discussion of the problems that relate to Social Security. We can solve those, but let us not solve them by saying that that should be paid for by people on Social Security paying a tax that is extreme and unfair.

Mr. BLUNT

Mr. BLUNT. Mr. Speaker, today I congratulate the vision, and commitment of the officers, administrative staff and employees of the Springfield Remanufacturing Corporation in Springfield, Missouri as they attain the highest status available in OSHA's Voluntary Protection Program. The company located in Missouri's Seventh Congressional District employs 370 people in the remanufacturing of diesel engines for trucking, agriculture and heavy equipment industries. With this award from the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, the company joins a select group of only 15 other firms in the state, four in Springfield, with the designation of Star Sites. Nationally there are only 550 sites which have attained this level of commitment to worker safety. The certification was granted after an intensive self study of safety policies, procedures and practices by employees at all levels followed by a rigorous comprehensive review visit by OSHA inspectors who found the workplaces to be fully in compliance with all regulations. According to OSHA this designation means that the health and safety practices and procedures developed by the company are models within their industry, and that the company is achieving the highest levels of health and safety compliance. I would also point out that this outstanding achievement is the result of a cooperative effort between public and private entities rather than a unilateral regulatory effort on the part of a lone federal agency. To quote OSHA ``This concept recognizes that compliance enforcement alone can never fully achieve the objectives of the Occupational Safety and Health Act. Good safety management programs that go beyond OSHA standards can protect workers more effectively than simple compliance.'' Springfield Remanufacturing Corporation, apart from this award, is a success story on its own. In 1983 employees of the Remanufacturing Division of International Harvester purchased the operation from the parent company and established it as an employee owned company. The firm has since established a number of its own subsidiaries and has been named as one of the ``The 100 Best Companies to Work for in America''. I express my appreciation, and that of all my colleagues, to President Jack Stack, Plant Manager Marty Callison and Safety Director Kathy Miller for their leadership in bringing this national recognition to Springfield, Missouri and the Seventh Congressional District.

Mr. BLUNT

Mr. BLUNT. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to publicly congratulate the administrative staff and employees of National Enzyme Company in Forsyth, Missouri for their outstanding vision, dedication and effort in attaining Merit Status in OSHA's Voluntary Protection Program. This honor is conferred on less than 1% of the six million companies overseen nation-wide by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration. The manufacturer of private label enzyme-based dietary supplements located in Missouri's Seventh Congressional District joins over 400 other businesses in our nation in participation in this program. They are only the seventh company in the state of Missouri to achieve this designation. The award was granted after an intensive 9 month-self study by employees at all levels followed by a rigorous comprehensive review visit by OSHA inspectors who found the facility to be fully in compliance with all regulations. According to OSHA this designation means that the health and safety practices and procedures developed by National Enzyme are models within their industry, and that the facility is preparing itself for even higher levels of health and safety compliance. In fact those inspectors noted that the program has ``evolved into a comprehensive process that is an integral part of everyone's daily working procedures, which extends to all levels of the organization.'' I would also point out that this outstanding achievement is the result of a cooperative effort between public and private entities rather than a unilateral regulatory effort on the part of a lone federal agency. To quote OSHA ``This concept recognizes that compliance enforcement alone can never fully achieve the objectives of the Occupational Safety and Health Act. Good safety management programs that go beyond OSHA standards can protect workers more effectively than simple compliance.'' National Enzyme's commitment to an ongoing program of employee safety is demonstrated by their first place award last year from the four- state Safety Council of the Ozarks for Most Effective Safety Committee. I express my appreciation, and that of all my colleagues, to President Anthony Collier, and Manufacturing Manager Jerry Holvick for their leadership in bringing this national recognition to Forsyth, Missouri and the Seventh Congressional District.

Mr. BLUNT

Mr. BLUNT. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for yielding me the time. I would like to start by saying I have no better friend in the House than my friend, the gentleman from Kansas (Mr. Moran). But I think this amendment is ill conceived. It can produce unknown results. We do not change the law, but we do not provide any funds to enforce the law. As the gentleman from California (Mr. Menendez) pointed out earlier, the whole sanctioning process, the whole way to get an ability to work around the sanctions is not available if we cannot enforce the law. It confuses the question of whether or not U.S. credit can be available to Cuba if we cannot enforce the sanction law; does that mean Cuba has access to U.S. Government programs. On our side of the aisle, we have had good-faith negotiations to try to come up with a position that we were comfortable with where both sides gave, where we would in fact deal with the fact that Cuba is handled differently in the law than other countries and clarify that in a way that helps American farmers but does not help Castro. I think this amendment confuses that. I urge my colleagues to vote against it.

Mr. BLUNT

Mr. BLUNT. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Kingston) for yielding the floor to me. Mr. Speaker, just yesterday some of us took the floor in an unanticipated moment to wish the very best and to extend our thoughts and our prayers to Senator Coverdell, his wife, Nancy, and to their family, as they struggled with this unanticipated challenge. Today, just a few hours beyond, almost exactly 24 hours beyond, the time that we were so hopeful in those last moments of Paul Coverdell's life that he would continue to be with us, beyond the time when we thought that if anybody could come back from any challenge it would be Paul Coverdell, beyond the time when we thought that if anybody else could do this, could be back in a year, he could be back in a few months, we are here today with a person who has been so important in this building to both the House and the Senate and so important to the country, gone from us. I was moved by the observation that our friend, the gentleman from Tennessee (Mr. Wamp), just made about how the Lord may take someone at such an inopportune time in their life to challenge the rest of us to meet a new standard in our life, a new standard with each other, a new standard of public service, a new standard of being able to reach out as Paul was famous for to others and say, gee, you have got a lot to do here, can I help you? At the same time, we know that Paul every time he was saying that it seemed that when you would think about it that he surely had more to do than the person he was offering to reach out and help, but his predisposition in life was to help other people. I did not know Paul Coverdell when I came to Congress 3\1/2\ years ago. In fact, I did not really know him except to speak to him in the hallways of the House and the Senate where he was always friendly to me until about a year and a half ago when he and I were both asked to be on the exploratory committee for Governor Bush. That was a 10-person committee. Our jobs were to represent the governor with the House and the Senate in that year and a half. There was not a week that we did not talk on the phone, and many weeks that we saw each other, just to compare notes, just to talk about what was happening. Even in that relationship, he would often say, well, you have 200 people over there that you are talking to and dealing with and I only have about 55 over here. Can I help you do anything to make your job in the House easier? I usually observed that probably it was easier to deal with a couple of hundred House Members than 55 people from the other body. He would always smile. Mr. Speaker, I told somebody not too long ago that there were many good reasons to do that particular job, as the liaison for the Bush Committee, but I would have done it knowing what I knew then, and this was 2 or 3 months ago with no anticipation of this moment, certainly. I would have done it all just to have the chance to work with Paul Coverdell. He was that kind of person. He was the kind of person that all of us who got a chance to work with him I am sure were looking forward to a couple more decades of that relationship, not thinking that each time we saw him might be the last time we saw him; but thinking, now, I wonder what it is that we can next do that allows us to work together, because it was such a joy and a privilege to work together with him. I told someone earlier today that one of the things that one really noticed when one dealt with our friends on the other side of the Capitol was the interesting oil that Paul Coverdell added to the process just to make things work that otherwise you did not quite know during a meeting how they might have worked if Senator Coverdell had not been there. Of course now we are challenged to know how they would work, but we do know the example he set of making things work, the example he set of being willing to reach out to other people, the example he set of always trying his best to appear to be the most humble guy in the room, the person who would be the most likely to take the most difficult assignment, the person who would never show any sense that there was any job that needed to be done that was below or beneath him as an individual. It is a standard that is hard to achieve, frankly, in politics and government, and even hard to achieve in this building; but it is one that he established so well that he made serving others and doing the most menial job seem like that, somehow, that was the most important thing to do. Mr. Speaker, we will miss him in this building. We will miss him in our relationships between this House and our friends on the other side of the Capitol. We will miss his willingness to work, his capacity, his insight. But as the gentleman from Tennessee (Mr. Wamp) observed earlier, maybe there is a challenge here. There is a purpose in most things in life; and if we search for the purpose of this, one of the purposes might be to emulate some of the things that are so easy to say about Paul Coverdell. Mr. Speaker, it is written somewhere, we will miss him tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow.

Mr. BLUNT

Mr. BLUNT. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding me this time and for his great work, as well as the work of the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Cardin) on this bipartisan legislation for retirement security. I also want to thank the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Archer) for seeing that this bill gets to the floor. It makes a difference for the future of Americans. I want to thank the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Bentsen), who joined me 2 years ago to come up with legislation that really tried to fill the gap for small business in America, small business and their employees, who really had been left out of retirement security. Today, as we talk about this bill, 84 percent of all Americans who work for employers with 1,000 or more employees have access to employer-sponsored pension plans. Sixty-nine percent of people who work for employers that have between 100 and 1,000 employees have access to pension plans. Only 42 percent of people who work for employers who have fewer than 100 employees and only 17 percent of small businesses that have fewer than 25 employees have access to a pension plan. As America gets more focused on retirement security, as Americans understand that that has to be a combination of personal savings and Social Security and a pension, they are more and more concerned about working somewhere where that pension is available. We have kept small business, the engine that runs America, out of the pension environment. This bill removes many of the obstacles. This bill makes it possible for employers of a few people to have the same kind of access to long- term retirement security that mega corporations have today. It is unfair for an employer in Joplin, Missouri or Springfield, Missouri that has 20 hard-working employees, the people who work to make that business a reality, to not have access to pensions. That happens with this bill. This is an important bill, and I urge my colleagues to vote for H.R. 1102. This is a giant step for retirement security in America. It is a giant step for small business. It is a giant step for those who would like to see their own IRA have a meaningful annual contribution. This legislation creates significant new opportunities for small businesses and individuals to establish retirement security plans. It does so by expanding small business retirement plans, such as unnecessary regulations and expenses. This bill also increases the limit on IRA's from $2,000 to $5,000, which is a long overdue updating of a limit set almost 20 years ago. I feel fortunate that I've had the opportunity to work closely with Congressman Portman and Congressman Cardin on the provisions of this bill that specifically affect small businesses. In fact, H.R. 1102 includes several key features from legislation I introduced, H.R. 352, the Blunt/Bentsen Retirement Plan. Why do small employers offer retirement benefits so less frequently than their larger counterparts? According to the 1998 Small Employer Retirement Survey conducted by the Employee Benefit Research Institute Research Institute, small businesses do not offer retirement benefits because, among other things, their revenue stream is too uncertain to commit to a plan, because their employees prefer immediate wages or other benefits, and because plans are too complex and expensive to set up and maintain. In exchange for the tax benefits of an employer sponsored retirement plan, current law imposes myriad requirements on employers. Unfortunately, the complexity of these requirements make the cost of administering these plans prohibitively expensive for small employers. H.R. 1102 includes several key provisions that address this problem. Under current law, an employer's contributions are effectively limited to 15 percent of the employer's payroll because contributions in excess of 15 percent are nondeductible and subject to a 10 percent excise tax. H.R. 1102 increases the limit on an employer's deduction for contributions to a defined contribution plan from 15 percent to 20 percent. This will enable employers to provide more generous benefits to employees and reduce the need for complex two-plan arrangements. H.R. 1102 also increases the amount that can be contributed on behalf of individuals to $40,000 or 100 percent of pay and provides regulatory relief to encourage small businesses to offer plans. Employer sponsored retirement plans are good for employees because they are proven to be among the most effective ways for individuals to accumulate retirement savings. They are good for employers because they help them to attract and retain workers they need to remain competitive in the global economy. These statements do not apply only to multi-national corporations and their employees; they are every bit as relevant for the small manufacturer in Joplin or Springfield, Missouri and their 20 hard-working employees. Unfortunately, whether or not a particular individual has access to a retirement plan depends a great deal on the size of his employer. H.R. 1102 is a giant step toward correcting this inequity and I urge my colleagues to support this legislation.

Mr. BLUNT

Mr. BLUNT. Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Collins).

Mr. BLUNT. I yield to the gentleman from Georgia.

Mr. BLUNT. Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Kingston).

Mr. BLUNT. Mr. Speaker, I thank my friends for participating today and the indulgence of the House as we talk about a person who is really of great value to the House. About a year ago, I was given an assignment that allowed me to work with Senator Coverdell every week. I told the person that gave me that assignment several months ago I would have done that job in retrospect if for no other reason than to get to work with Paul Coverdell. He is truly, as the gentleman from New York (Mr. Rangel) said, one of the great gentlemen of this Congress. We need him to get our work done. We wish him well. Our prayers are with him and his family.

Mr. BLUNT. I yield to the gentleman from Georgia.

Mr. BLUNT. I yield to the gentleman from Georgia.

Mr. BLUNT. Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from New York (Mr. Rangel).

Mr. BLUNT. Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Chambliss).

Mr. BLUNT. I yield to the gentleman from Georgia.

Mr. BLUNT. Mr. Speaker, about a year ago I began to work closely on a number of projects with Senator Paul Coverdell from Georgia. I just want to take some time today to express my appreciation for his great work for the House, the Senate, for America, and extend our best wishes to him and his wife, Nancy, as they deal with the challenge to his health right now. Senator Coverdell brings humility to this job, a humility that is rare in public office. He brings dedication, an ability to work hard, a tremendous insight, and certainly those of us in the House benefit more than we know by his hard work in the Senate, his hard work for this process. I would like for him and his wife, Nancy, to know that we are thinking about them as he deals with this health challenge, and that we need him back here. We hope for his speedy recovery. We know that if anybody can meet this challenge in an extraordinary way, Paul Coverdell can.

Mr. BLUNT. I yield to the gentleman from Georgia.

Mr. BLUNT

Mr. BLUNT. Mr. Speaker, I want to join my colleagues in expressing my concern for a lack of an energy policy in the country over the last 7 years. Really, there are three areas that we should have been watching and three areas where we failed to take the necessary steps. We have not done what we should have done to maintain our relationships with the countries we buy oil from. At the same time, we have allowed our country to become more and more dependent on those countries. Somewhere between 56 and 58 percent of all our oil is now imported. We have done everything we could during that same period of time to discourage domestic supply, and we have not done anything to encourage alternative use. Now suddenly, at the end of 7 years of no policy, the Secretary of Energy says we were caught napping. Well, it seems to me the Secretary of Energy has been napping a lot. Whether it was involving our nuclear codes at Los Alamos or our dependence on foreign oil, we cannot afford to have an Energy Department napping. We need to look and see what happened at the same time we need to do everything we can to provide relief to the families that are being caught in this crisis right now.

Mr. BLUNT

Mr. BLUNT. Mr. Chairman, I offer an amendment.

Mr. BLUNT. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Chairman, let me further say that America's farmers and food processors deserve action, not just continued talk as my friend, the gentleman from California (Mr. Dooley) and my friend, the gentleman from Missouri (Mr. Hulshof) have already pointed out, there are many studies going on. We are losing an estimated $200 million a year in corn sales and as many millions in other ag exports. How can we justify spending taxpayers' money, including the tax money that our farmers pay on a process that promises to keep them out of the market or more likely promises to keep them twisting in the wind. Mr. Chairman, the safety of agricultural biotechnology has been firmly established. Our own Agriculture Secretary, Dan Glickman, has stated that, quote, our best science is to search for risk. Without exception the biotech products on our shelves have proven safe, and millions of people worldwide have consumed biotech foods without a single adverse incident. Furthermore, respected scientific and policy-oriented organizations, along with renowned scientists and humanitarians have lined up in favor of agricultural biotechnology. They advocate for a process that is increasing crop yields, creating nutritious crops that promise to improve the health and welfare of millions. These crops are raised in an environmentally safe and friendly way. It means better production on fewer acres with less fertilizer, less chemicals, less pesticides. This is exactly the direction that the environment should be headed, biotechnology is part of that solution. It has now reached a point where reasonable people must ask really the question, is this really about biotechnology or is it about something else? It is an easy conclusion. The European Union nations are clearly trying to protect their farmers from superior products that we can send into that market. Regardless of its motives, the EU has an obligation under the rules of the WTO to act responsibly and establish a science- based system for conducting a risks assessment of biotech products. Added conversation in consulting forums is not going to get this done. Only the resolve of the EU members, a resolve to, at a minimum, incorporate an approval process, will see that this goal and see that it is met. We must move forward. We must open these markets. We must insist that the rules of the free trade, the rules of the marketplace are fairly applied to Missouri farmers and to American farmers, to California farmers, to all of those who can participate in this new and significantly enhanced way.

Mr. BLUNT. Mr. Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time.