John Conyers

Mr. CONYERS

Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 1 minute. I greet my dear colleagues on the other side, the distinguished members of the Committee on the Judiciary, with a question or two that makes this anticounterfeiting act a little bit suspect. Now, there is nobody in the Congress supporting counterfeiting, but this legislation and its claim to help consumers by assisting in the recall of defective merchandise falls on its face, because the problem is, not only is this information already protected by current law, but the bill is not limited to products which implicate public health, nor is it limited to recall information. Instead, it covers any product sold in the country from books to perfume, and I think it is quite broad. Mr. Speaker, I yield such time as he may consume to the gentleman from New York (Mr. Forbes) who, along with the gentleman from New York (Mr. Schumer), has worked on this matter.

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

Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the gentleman for his very thoughtful introduction into this discussion, pointing out that we are all against counterfeiting, that there are all kinds of laws which I am going to point out to my friends on the other side, and suggest a way that we could remedy this.

Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. CONYERS. These items.

Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, this discussion on the floor is tracking the same discussion that we had in the Committee on the Judiciary, and so perhaps we are so absorbed with the presidential scandal that maybe the members on the committee just cannot focus on this subject. What is the matter, I say to my colleagues? We already told my colleagues that there are six Federal food, drug and cosmetic laws already on the books regulating for public inspection, plus the Federal Meat Inspection Act, the Tariff Act of 1930, the Lanham Act, Anticounterfeiting Consumer Protection Act of 1996, and the Consumer Product Safety Act. My colleagues get on the floor, and I do not want to say they are taking advantage of the lack of knowledge of the rest of the Members of the House, but my colleagues know that there are dozens of bills fighting counterfeiting and that the real problem, I say to my colleague from Virginia (Mr. Goodlatte), is that they are not being properly enforced; and that if the gentleman would have tailored his bill in a reasonable way to limit recall information, to protect the bar code issue, but just to open it up, I am going to have to say something here as politely as I am able to. What the gentleman is doing is attacking the parallel market. The gentleman is going after the wholesalers, and wait until the citizens find out about this. What the gentleman is saying is that all the companies that sell below the wholesale houses, the pharmaceuticals, the TJ Maxxes, the RiteAids, all of them are going to be wiped out by a very cute way that the gentleman is handling this, because I think there is a motive here. If the gentleman was really after counterfeiting, the gentleman would tailor it so that we can all get it. What the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Goodlatte) is doing is protecting the high end retailers in America. I think we went through this in the Committee on the Judiciary. Why does the gentleman not come clean and say it? They deserve congressional representation, but to mask it into an anti-counterfeiting act, where we pick up designer jeans, cameras, perfumes, and all of these items that are sold in cut rate and wholesale situations, the gentleman knows that that is what the goal of this is. So why do we not just call it for what it is? I am protecting the people in America that want to go to the malls and get a good deal. I am protecting the people that want to buy at discounted prices. What the gentleman is doing is putting the parallel market out of business. Why does the gentleman not come clean and admit it, or concede it, or maybe we will stipulate it? But do not talk about this as an anticrime issue. It is simply not that. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, does the gentleman know what I am going to do? I am going to see that the gentleman does not get two-thirds on the vote today, that is what I am going to do for this bill, because the gentleman is misrepresenting the fact that there is no protection against trademark counterfeiting. May I refer the gentleman to the law? The gentleman has been on the committee some number of years now. The Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act, 21 United States Code, annotated Section 301. Section 331 deals with adulteration and misbranding. How can the gentleman say there is nothing protecting us against counterfeiting? Section 333 provides for seizure of adulterated drugs or cosmetics. Has the gentleman ever heard of the law? Section 342 addresses false or misleading labels. Section 350-A regulates infant formula. The gentleman did not come to the floor not knowing this. The gentleman knew this, because the gentleman from New York (Mr. Schumer) took 30 minutes explaining it, and the gentleman said we would work it out. We have not worked anything out. That is why I am opposed to it. By the way, since the Chamber of Commerce supports this, the discount drugstores do not support it, the Price Club does not support it, Rite Aid does not support it. The discounters and the parallel market are going to get wiped out, and the gentleman knows it. The gentleman knows it. We have got all of these counterfeiting laws. Sections 351 and 352 govern adulterated or misbranded drugs or devices. Section 361 and 362 addresses cosmetics that are adulterated or misbranded. We have a Federal Meat Inspection Act, a Tariff Act, an anti-counterfeiting Consumer Protection Act of 1996. The gentleman was in on it. The gentleman helped pass it. Now the gentleman is coming here arguing that this is for the benefit of the good guys, and the gentleman does not want me helping the bad guys. I want to suggest to the gentleman that it may be just the opposite. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, let me say to my good friend, the gentleman from Virginia, I have never been, nor my staff, invited to participate in one single negotiation. If the gentleman from New York (Mr. Schumer) has, that would be almost unbelievable. I know he has not, either. Does the gentleman say he has?

Mr. CONYERS. No, not at this point.

Mr. CONYERS. Does the gentleman remember what he told me earlier, that he has time that he can yield to himself? Mr. Speaker, the point that I am making is that I have never been in any negotiations. I voted against this measure. It is a funny thing about this big rush on the bill, and there was not much notice about this bill. It came up at the last minute with no notice. There has been no opportunity to amend the bill, I say to the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Goodlatte). Why not? Because the gentleman does not think he needs to, because he can get two-thirds. I have news for the gentleman. The fact of the matter is that this bill will allow all kinds of manufacturers to terminate distributors who sell their goods at a deep discount. We know that is what is behind it. And citing the Chamber of Commerce and my friends in labor, and by the way, I would love to compare my labor record with the gentleman's some day off the floor, we have groups of consumers, working people, discount organizations, that do not think we need a bill with this latitude. We have been through this, so the gentleman is going to railroad it through on a suspension: perfume, cameras, designer jeans, jewelry, watches, shirts. I ask the gentleman to tell me, why do those items need to be covered?

Mr. CONYERS. I yield to the gentleman from Virginia.

Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Speaker, how much time remains?

Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Speaker, could we even up the time a little bit.

Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Speaker, I would like to introduce myself to the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Goodlatte). I am the ranking member of the committee. I had no notice that the bill was being brought up. The information was delivered through the minority leadership of the House. So to tell me that I should have been following my colleague all along is a little bit odd. What we are trying to say here is that we never had a chance to amend the bill. And to tell me that there is a manager's amendment at the desk that I never participated in now shows that the bill was amended without me is not insulting, but it almost suggests that I don't understand the process.

Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 2 additional minutes. The problem is this, why do we need the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Goodlatte) to apply anticounterfeiting provisions to general items like jeans and perfume? Could the gentleman tell me what health problems he has discovered that makes them to be included. It is not a crime to sell these goods in the parallel market. The gentleman knows the case law on this as well as I. Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Goodlatte).

Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Speaker, reclaiming my time, we had hearings, and there were no cases like these hypotheticals cited. So what is the gentleman doing? I mean, is this reality legislation or what? Can the gentleman tell me the jeans and perfume, one might be adulterated and the other might be flammable? I have the transcript of the hearings, and there is nothing in them about that. Now, maybe yes; but in reality, no. So I think there is an economic motivation that is not going to be good for the parallel market. Is the gentleman's constituents not like mine? They like to go and shop for discounts sometimes. What is the gentleman telling them?

Mr. CONYERS. I yield to the gentleman from Virginia.

Mr. CONYERS. Then why is the gentleman doing this to the parallel market? Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, I am in a state of exhaustion now. The rational processes have taken flight in this discussion. We get no notice. We found out about it this morning. The bill is too broad. That was complained of in the committee. The gentleman has introduced a manager's amendment and said, well, we amended the bill. We gave our colleagues a unilateral manager's amendment. Are they not happy? This bill would make it easier for manufacturers to terminate discounters. That is the economic question underneath it. Let us not fool ourselves. There is no question this bill would lead to less discounting. I hope the gentleman's constituents would be happy to find that out in the event that this bill becomes law. Let us send the bill back to committee so that we can get a narrow bill that will really be good for the consumers. Mr. Speaker, I yield such time as he may consume to the distinguished gentleman from New York (Mr. Forbes) for any closing comments if he has any.

Mr. CONYERS

Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Speaker, Social Security is the single most popular federal program ever conceived. It provides millions of seniors with retirement income. But it does more than just pay out retirement benefits. Social Security is a retirement program, a life insurance program and a disability insurance program all in one. Social Security provides benefits to more than forty-three million Americans each year, only thirty million of whom are retirees. Seven million Social Security beneficiaries receive survivors benefits--one and one-half million of those survivors are children. Five and one-half million Americans receive Social Security disability benefits. Social Security has paid these benefits on time, month after month, like clockwork, for the past sixty years. Social Security has always been there when we have needed it and its our responsibility to ensure that it will always be there in the future. But now, the part of Social Security which Americans are most worried about is its retirement portion, and with good reason. Since Social Security was created six decades ago, Americans have depended on the ``three-legged stool'' model of retirement planning. The first leg of the stool is personal savings; the second leg of the stool is the employer provided pension plan; and the third leg of the stool has always been Social Security. Social Security has rightly been considered the bedrock upon which retirement security rests for all Americans. No matter what damage vagaries in the stock market might have on personal savings, no matter what damage employer carelessness or dishonesty might have on pension plans, people have always believed that Social Security would be there, the strongest and most important leg of the stool. Unfortunately, over the years, the stool has weakened. As income stagnated in the 1970's, Americans had to dip into their retirement savings to pay for their children's education, or put a down payment on a house, or pay for increasing medical costs, thus weakening the first leg of the stool. Employer provided pension plans are also dwindling with the loss of secure jobs with reliable benefits. Nowadays, less than half of all workers have employer provided pension plans, and those that do are receiving less and less in contributions from their employers, thereby weakening the second leg. Now, when people are beginning to depend on it the most, some people want to weaken or even saw off that third leg of the stool. Those people say that Social Security will go bankrupt in the next century, that Social Security doesn't pay beneficiaries a high enough rate of return. They believe that instead of fixing Social Security by saving the surplus, and sitting Americans' retirement security firmly on the three-legged stool, Americans would be better off trying to balance their futures on only two legs. I wouldn't try to sit on a two-legged stool, and I wouldn't recommend anybody trying to balance their retirement future on one either. Right now, some Republicans in this House are mounting an attack on Social Security. Not a direct attack, though they have tried that in the past, but an indirect attack. These Republicans are planning to spend our budget surplus, the first budget surplus we have had for 30 years, on tax cuts. Tax cuts are not necessarily a bad idea. In fact, I would seriously consider supporting some of these tax cuts, if we really had any money to spare. But the fact is that we do not. The ``surplus'' that some in this House so desperately want to spend on tax cuts is in fact needed to support Social Security once it begins running a deficit early in the next century. The only reason why a surplus exists at all is because the Social Security trust fund is taking in more money than it is spending. But that will change in 2013. That year, Social Security starts paying out more money than it takes in. That year, we will need the money which we should be saving from the surplus to pay for the baby boomers' retirement. The surplus that exists now, and with good economic luck will exist for the next several years, is nothing more and nothing less than our and our children's future. But there are those who believe that Social Security is not worth saving because its return rate is too low. Social Security is not meant to provide workers with a big bonanza. It is intended to provide an income floor, a minimum below which we will not allow beneficiaries to fall. And it has worked. When Social Security was created, senior citizens were the most poverty stricken group in America. Now only 12% of older Americans are poor. Without Social Security, 42% of older Americans would be poor. Some may think that Social Security is too conservative. It may not pay out as high a rate of return as more risky and speculative investments. But it is that caution which guarantees that Social Security will be there for all of us when we retire or are injured or the person we depend on to provide for us dies. So if the stock market fails us, if our savings are eaten up by illness, if our pension plan disappears, we will be still able to live with dignity. When you are already at retirement age, there are no second chances. There is no time to build up a new nest egg. There is no time to play the stock market for big returns. You retire with what you've got, and if there is no Social Security, and you've made a mistake in the stock market and your employer took the pension money and ran, you've got nothing. Nothing at all to fall back on. Our mothers, our fathers, our brothers, our sisters, our sons and our daughters, all of us deserve better than that. Don't let the short term gratification of a fleeting tax cut distract us from saving for our future. Before we consider cutting taxes, save Social Security first.

Mr. CONYERS

Mr. CONYERS. I am opposed to this bill to grant ``fast track'' negotiating authority to the president. The failed record of the North American Trade Agreement should have taught this body that it is time for us to remake our trade policy. NAFTA has hurt workers in America, increased poverty in Mexico and accelerated environmental destruction along the border. The NAFTA disaster demonstrates not that we shouldn't be making trade agreements, but that we need a fully participatory policy making process that protects the interests of consumers, workers and the environment. That process should put Congress, a body devoted to responsiveness to people back home, at the center of the trade debate. In my own state, NAFTA has been devastating to the auto industry. In 1997, the trade deficit with Mexico was $13.9 billion for autos and automobile parts alone! This figure is expected to go up a bit this year because from January through July of 1998, the trade deficit was $8.7 billion, compared to $8.3 billion for the same period last year. And keep in mind that before NAFTA, in 1993, the United States only had a $3.6 billion overall deficit with Mexico. I visited the low-wage maquiladora factories in Mexico in 1993. All the foreign-owned corporations told us that this business sector would shrink. Instead it has increased by half since NAFTA. This means that polluted corridor along the US border is growing uncontrollably and NAFTA's weak environmental protections give us almost no redress. So Americans are not better off and Mexicans are not better off. According to Mexico's National Autonomous University, the number of people living in extreme poverty has gone up from 31 percent in 1993 to 50 percent in 1996. This is not a fair deal for anyone except the greedy few who have profited from slashing American jobs and suppressing American wages. I know we can negotiate a better trade agreement. But the first step is to keep Congress and the American people involved by rejecting the failed fast-track approach to trade. I urge a ``no'' vote on this bill.

Mr. CONYERS

Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Speaker, today I rise to honor Dr. Billy Taylor--one of the greatest pianists ever, who has touched the lives of many during his fifty years plus in jazz, not only as a pianist, composer, author, activist, teacher, lecturer, and actor, but also as a radio and television personality. Though Dr. Billy Taylor is seventy-seven years old, he's more than young at heart. His current schedule is chock full of performances while he also serves on the faculty at the University of Massachusetts, where he received one of fifteen other honorary doctorates. His series Jazz at the Kennedy Center, an ongoing series of demonstrations-discussions of the history of jazz, is wonderful. He hosts intimate sessions of performance and conversation which enables participants to gain insight into jazz by hearing the music, memories and unique philosophies of some of the greatest musicians jazz has produced. In 1971, Billy Taylor became the first African American to lead a band on a talk show when he fronted an ensemble of all-stars on the David Frost Show for four years. I know from personal experience, that aside from being a stupendous musician, he's also an incredible human being. He has great respect for other people, and has a wonderful aura of niceness and gentility. Dr. Taylor founded Jazzmobile, which brings free performances to hundreds of thousands of people. His awards include two Peabodys, an Emmy, and the first Certificate of Recognition given by the U.S. Congressional Arts Caucus and it is with immense pleasure that in this tribute I join the ranks of those saluting the great Dr. Billy Taylor.

Mr. CONYERS

Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Chairman, I was unavoidably detained for rollcall vote 441. Had I been present, I would have voted ``yes.''

Mr. CONYERS

Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Speaker, there was much discussion, in the media and in the halls of Congress, about how Congress would handle Independent Counsel Kenneth W. Starr's report on President Clinton. While members on both sides of the aisle agreed to work on a bipartisan basis, there remained an important area of contention. The failure to resolve that issue resulted in a process that is fundamentally unfair to the subject of the report, the President. The President's private attorney, David Kendall, requested from Mr. Starr that he allow the President's legal team to see a copy of the report before transmitting it to Congress. Mr. Starr denied Mr. Kendall's request and delivered the report to Congress without including the President's views. There was, however, another opportunity for the President to be given a chance to read the report and submit any additional views. Speaker Gingrich claimed repeatedly that there was no precedent for letting the President review the report even before it is released to the public. I respectfully disagree. There are several precedents for granting the targets such a period of review. First, in August of 1993, the judges who supervised Special Prosecutor Lawrence Walsh's Iran-Contra investigation gave the targets of the investigation 30 days to read the report and submit comments. After releasing to the public in unclassified portions of the report and the subjects' comments, the court sent the classified portions of the report and the comments to Congress. The subjects' rebuttals to the allegations in Mr. Walsh's report were, in fact, twice as long as the report itself. Second, when the Speaker was charged with filing inaccurate and misleading information that resulted in his paying a fine of $300,000, he received an advance copy of the statement of allegations. In addition, the Speaker was quoted as saying that Investigator Cole's report should be made public only after the Speaker had time to review it. Also, in 1985, during the Judiciary Committee's investigation into the Justice Department's withholding of EPA agency documents from Congress, the Committee permitted the persons whose conduct was being investigated to review the draft and submit rebuttal information. Even in Watergate the Judiciary Committee received grand jury evidence in closed-door hearings for seven weeks with the President's lawyer in the same room. The materials received by the Committee were not released to the public until the conclusion of this evidentiary presentation, well after the White House had full knowledge of the material being considered by the Committee. Three of the examples above concerned matters of a magnitude far less than an impeachment inquiry. Even in those instances, the subjects were given the opportunity to include their comments in the report before the report went to Congress. I find it highly objectionable that the President would not be given rights that were given to other targets in less historic investigations. I urge my colleagues to be fundamentally fair to all of the parties involved in this matter, including the target.

Mr. CONYERS

Mr. CONYERS. Regular order. Mr. Speaker, is the gentleman on his own time?