C. Cox

Mr. COX

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

Mr. COX. Yes. That is true if the underlying State legislation is itself consistent with the 21st amendment and the interstate commerce clause.

Mr. COX. Yes. The State law itself is authorized, to the extent it is authorized, by the 21st amendment to the Constitution. And because the United States Supreme Court has interpreted the 21st amendment to mean that it does not empower States to pass laws that favor local liquor industries by erecting barriers to competition and that State laws that constitute mere economic protectionism are not entitled to the same deference as laws enacted to combat the perceived evils of an unrestricted traffic in liquor. We are simply restating those constitutional principles in the statute.

Mr. COX. Mr. Chairman, I continue to yield to the gentleman from Georgia.

Mr. COX. That is correct. What we are trying to do is restate in simple, easy to understand language the balance that the courts, I think, have properly struck between vindicating the purpose of the 21st amendment and at the same time making sure that we do not subtract in any way from the interstate commerce clause. They are both parts of the Constitution, both read together. I think that the current case law that we have cited and that we repeat in the statute expresses it as elegantly and simply as it can be expressed.

Mr. COX. Yes, and the reason we hope that this is a belt-and- suspenders operation, that this is surplusage, but perhaps not because States and localities have been very aggressive about taxation and regulation of the Internet. We want to make sure that no State confuses its power to tax or regulate alcoholic beverages with a new one found in this statute or anywhere else to tax or regulate the Internet or the means of interstate communication or sale.

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

Mr. COX. Yes, the language in section 1 is now written as section 3(b) on Line 17 of the amendment, as reported, states that no State may enforce under this act a law regulating the importation or transportation of any intoxicating liquor and with some additional language interpolated that constitutes mere economic protectionism, and that is the existing Supreme Court test, and we wish simply to conform our statute with that Supreme Court test.

Mr. COX. Yes, I think that that is correct. In addition, when combined with the preceding section, we make it clear that the goods that we are talking about letting States regulate and tax are alcoholic beverages and those things covered by the 21st amendment, so that it is also true what we are not doing in this legislation today is opening up new vistas of taxation and regulation of products that move across the Internet. We are restricting ourselves only to the four corners of the power that States have under the 21st amendment.

Mr. COX of California

Mr. COX of California. Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?

Mr. COX

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

Mr. COX. Yes, the purpose of the Internet Tax Freedom Act was to prevent new taxes on the Internet and discriminatory taxes that prayed upon the Internet.

Mr. COX. Again, Mr. Chairman, if the gentleman from Florida will yield?

Mr. COX. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman. That is correct. Amendment Offered by Mr. Conyers to the Amendment Offered By Mr. Goodlatte

Mr. COX

Mr. COX. Mr. Speaker, we are here today to debate the President's waiver of the Jackson-Vanik law, which, by its terms, requires that in order to get low tariff treatment, the People's Republic of China must have fair immigration policies. Yet, having listened to the debate, I have not heard the substance of Jackson-Vanik come up at all; neither the supporters nor the opponents of this resolution have even mentioned the PRC's immigration policies. Instead, this debate has been cast by the opponents of the resolution as a debate about free trade, and by the supporters of the resolution as a debate about political, economic, religious, civil and other human rights concerns in the People's Republic of China. If this resolution really were about free trade, if this debate were really about free trade, then I would vote in support of free trade, because it is in America's interests and it is in the interests of all of our trading partners. It is at least arguable that human rights violations are a separate issue from the question of tariff rates on beanie babies being imported into the United States. Yet, sadly, in order to assure the defeat of this resolution, its opponents are whitewashing the government's record, making extravagant, that is to say the People's Republic of China's record, making extravagant claims about the progress of democracy in China; there is none, or the liberal limbs of certain of China's Communist rulers. That certainly requires a double standard. Or the more favorable economic standards that some Chinese find themselves in now as compared to, say, the time of the cultural revolution. That is a fact, but it is also a fact that the Communist portion of China has an economic product per person that is less than Guatemala's, while the democratic government and people and society in Taiwan buy far more from the United States than all of the PRC and have one of the highest standards of living in the world. Whitewashing human rights abuses in the PRC, which is what this debate has come to symbolize is not in our Nation's interests, nor in the interests of the people of China. It is for this reason, especially on a vote that is largely symbolic, because the President has already granted this waiver and everyone knows that there will not be a two- thirds vote in the Senate or the House or both to override, so especially on a symbolic vote, I cannot join with the opponents. The PRC really does deny freedom of speech; the PRC really does deny freedom of thought. The Communist government really does persecute religious groups that it cannot control, and it really has jailed millions of people, prisoners of conscience, in the notorious laogai slave labor camps that Harry Wu has so courageously documented. Last year, President Clinton signed a law passed by this Congress that required the Secretary of Defense to send us a list of People's Liberation Army-controlled companies operating in the United States. The administration is in violation of that law; they have been for half a year. What that means is that the extension of Normal Trade Relations to the People's Republic of China is also an extension of normal trade relations to the People's Liberation Army. I know of no responsible U.S. corporation that wishes this. This debate and this vote is not about tariff rates. It is about sending a signal to Beijing. I cannot rubber stamp the Clinton policy towards China, and I am heartened that a big number of Republicans and Democrats today will not do so either.

Mr. COX

Mr. COX. Mr. Speaker, I am pleased today to support the conference report on H.R. 775, the Y2K Act of 1999. This bill seeks to promote Y2K preparedness and prevent a crushing, $1 trillion lawsuit tax on American workers and families--the cost of litigation predicted to result from the Y2K bug. The 1st Y2K lawsuits were filed in mid-1997, two and half years before the millennium. Some unethical lawyers are now holding workshops on how to start Y2K class actions. They are planning for abusive class actions on an unprecedented scale, which will--unless Congress acts-- injure virtually every sector of the economy. This bill will prevent extortion suits against deep-pockets defendants. It will protect consumers with meritorious claims by requiring lawyers to act for their clients' benefit rather than their own. It will guard against unethical lawyers raking off hundreds of millions, and even billions of dollars in fees that should go to redress real injuries. Far too long, the fear of litigation has seriously impeded remediation of Y2K problems. Small and large businesses are too often limiting their own internal reviews, and their external disclosure and cooperation, so that they can avoid being accused of making inaccurate statements about their Y2K readiness, or of ``misconduct'' or ``negligence'' when they are actually trying to fix the problems that someone else created. This bill will ensure that America does everything possible to fix Y2K problems before January 1, 2000. Inevitably, some Y2K failures will occur; and when they do, the innovative procedural reforms in this bill will encouraged alternatives to unnecessary litigation. And the bill's pro-consumer class-action reforms will ensure fair treatment of every individual, even in enormous, nationwide Y2K cases. As an original cosponsor of this important, common-sense reform legislation, I am pleased to join in this effort to help consumers and preserve our country's high-tech edge in the global economy.

Mr. COX

Mr. COX. Mr. Speaker, currently, California is arbitrarily limited to no more than 10% of the funds under the Clean Air Act's section 105 grant program. (Nationally, that program will provide $115 million in state and local clean air grants in 1999.) Yet our state represents more than 12% of the nation's population and pays more than 12% of total federal taxes. What's more, our state is home to the only ``extreme'' clean air designation in the country--the Los Angeles basin. Today, I am introducing legislation to end this inequity, under which California generally, and Los Angeles specifically, are significantly underfunded by Clean Air Act air pollution planning formulas. The bill eliminates the 10% maximum level of funding for any one state under the section 105 state and local clean air grant program. The bill does not authorize or compel more funds to be appropriated under the section 105 grant program. It simply states that California should be able to receive its fair share of those funds that Congress does choose to appropriate. This legislation is supported by the South Coast Air Quality Management District, who recently came to Washington to speak to members of our state's delegation about the need to end this arbitrary statutory limit, which directly injures California.

Mr. COX

Mr. COX. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to commemorate the July 2, 1999 closing of United States Marine Corps Air Stations Tustin and El Toro, and to pay respect to the many thousands of dedicated Marines and Orange County civilians who served their country at these two military facilities over the past 50 years. Commissioned in 1942 as a U.S. Naval Lighter-Than-Air Base, MCAS Tustin was originally home to a fleet of helium-filled airships which conducted anti-submarine patrols off the Southern California coast. The site was decommissioned in 1949 but reactivated in May 1951 with the onset of the Korean War. The facility subsequently became a helicopter base, and in 1970 the facility was annexed by the City of Tustin and renamed Marine Corps Air Station Tustin. From World War II through the Persian Gulf War, the Marines at MCAS Tustin have played a critical role in protecting our national security. From 1962 to 1971, elements of Tustin's Marine Aircraft Group 16 were deployed to South Vietnam and Thailand, becoming the largest Aircraft Group in the history of the Corps. In August 1990, MAG-16 began deploying what eventually became five squadrons to Saudi Arabia for participation in Operations Desert Shield and Desert Storm. In all, MAG-16 flew over 11,000 sorties and 24,000 flight hours in support of the liberation of Kuwait. Commissioned in 1943, MCAS El Toro was originally established as a training field for Marine pilots as part of the escalating war in the Pacific theater of World War II. In 1955, the Third Marine Aircraft Wing was moved to El Toro from Florida. Between 1968 and 1974, MCAS El Toro served as President Nixon's arrival and departure point to his ``Western White House'' in San Clemente. In 1975, the air station made history as part of ``Operation New Arrival'' by serving as the initial point of arrival into the U.S. for 50,000 refugees fleeing the repressive communist government of Vietnam. During Operations Desert Shield and Desert Storm, the Third Marine Air Wing flew more than 18,000 sorties and delivered approximately 30 million pounds of ordnance against enemy targets. El Toro Marines also participated in Operation Sea Angel in Bangladesh in 1991, Operation Restore Hope in Somalia in 1992, and Operation Nobel Response in Kenya in 1998. It has been an honor to represent these fine Marine bases during my career in Congress. The Marines stationed at El Toro and Tustin have been the best of neighbors. Their service to the Orange County community has been an invaluable asset to a wide variety of groups including needy children and the homeless. Their annual air show raised funds for many outstanding local charities and provided a wonderful outreach to millions of people from throughout Southern California. Most of all, the Marines' service to our country from these bases has helped to ensure freedom and liberty for all Americans. I know my colleagues will join with me in marking the close of an era, and in honoring the outstanding men and women of El Toro and Tustin for their half-century of dedication and commitment to safeguarding our nation's security.

Mr. COX

Mr. COX. Mr. Chairman, may I inquire how much time remains on each side?

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

Mr. COX. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. I am delighted that the amendment that the gentleman from Washington (Mr. Dicks) and I are offering today has, like the report of our select committee itself, been brought to the floor in a bipartisan fashion, endorsed in this case by every Republican and Democratic member of our select committee. In addition, the amendment is supported by the representatives of the congressional districts in which our national weapons laboratories are located: the gentlewoman from New Mexico (Mrs. Wilson), the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Thornberry), the gentleman from Tennessee (Mr. Wamp) and the gentlewoman from California (Mrs. Tauscher). The amendment is also supported by the gentleman from New York (Mr. Gilman) and the gentleman from South Carolina (Mr. Spence) of the Committees on International Relations and Armed Services as well as by the gentleman from California (Mr. Dreier) of the Committee on Rules. All of these people have contributed in important ways to fashioning the amendment that is before us. Last year, this House created the Select Committee on U.S. Security and Military/Commercial Concerns With the People's Republic of China to investigate efforts by the PRC to acquire American high technology for military purposes. It was my privilege to chair that committee and to serve with leaders on national security and foreign policy from both sides of the aisle, in particular our ranking Democratic member the gentleman from Washington (Mr. Dicks), at the time the ranking Democratic member also of the Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence. The vice chairman of our select committee was the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Goss), who was then and is now the chairman of the Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence. The gentleman from Nebraska (Mr. Bereuter), who serves as the chairman of the Subcommittee on Asia and the Pacific of the Committee on International Relations, was also a leader on the select committee, as were the gentleman from Utah (Mr. Hansen) and the gentleman from South Carolina (Mr. Spratt), senior members of the Committee on Armed Services, and the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Weldon), who on the Committee on Armed Services is the chairman of the Subcommittee on Military Research and Development. The gentlewoman from California (Ms. Roybal-Allard) and the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Scott) were strong contributors to our committee and to the fashioning of this amendment. I want to pay tribute to these of my colleagues who are hardworking and patriotic members who spent months on a very difficult and grueling investigation essentially behind closed doors without any notice by the rest of our colleagues. During that period of time we heard 150 hours of testimony from 75 different witnesses and reviewed over half a million pages of evidentiary material. The amendment that we are bringing to the floor today is a start on the implementation of the 38 recommendations of this select committee. Most of the legislative recommendations that our select committee has made fall within the jurisdiction of standing committees of the House of Representatives and of the other body, and for that reason are not being offered today, notwithstanding that we had half a year of hearings on our recommendations before reaching them. We are deferring at the request of those committees to their jurisdiction, but we hope and expect inasmuch as our recommendations were laid at their feet on the 3rd of January of this year that very shortly we will be back on the floor with the lion's share of the recommendations that our select committee has made. What we have prepared for consideration today as a start on that process is an amendment that will require the Department of Defense to prepare the Technology Transfer Control Plans for satellite launches in the People's Republic of China, a very significant substantive matter into which the select committee inquired. The amendment will also require that the Department of Defense have highly trained employees to provide round-the-clock monitoring and security for these foreign launches that we have thought was always being provided ever since this program was adopted a decade ago. The amendment will require improved controls over information transmitted to the PRC during the course of launches. It will require the President to report on how he is implementing a key reform already adopted by the Congress last year, the transfer of satellite export control authority from the Commerce Department to the State Department. Our select committee also recommended an improved intelligence community focus on the People's Republic of China's intelligence efforts directed against the United States, including reports to the Congress on PRC espionage and on technology transfers to the PRC. And we have recommended and called for in this amendment a five-agency inspectors general counterintelligence review of countermeasures against PRC technology acquisition. This amendment directly implements a recommendation in that respect of the select committee. Our report also calls for stronger multilateral governance of exports of certain militarily useful goods and technologies. We found that the United States should insist on PRC compliance with the MTCR, the Missile Technology Control Regime, and this amendment calls for follow-up on that. We found that the United States should work to revive the strong multilateral proliferation controls that were dismantled in 1994. Our amendment responds by requiring the President to submit a full report on PRC compliance with the Missile Technology Control Regime, including a list of violations, and any remedial actions that he has taken. We require the President to work for new binding international controls on harmful technology transfers, so that when the United States controls an export, as in many cases we already do, we do not go it alone and we find that only our producers and our workers are injured with no national security benefit because someone else is rushing in to make the sale. We had a system just like this in 1994. It was allowed to dissipate and we need to show international leadership and put that system back together. In furtherance of that goal, this amendment creates a new Office of Technology Security in the Department of Defense, dedicated exclusively to support of these efforts. Our report unanimously concluded that no adequate verification exists that high-powered computers, what used to be called supercomputers, now high-performance computers, that are exported to the PRC are being used for civilian rather than military purposes. We have called for the establishment of an open transparent system, an effective verification regime in the PRC by September of this year as a condition for export licensing and the continued sale of the current speeds of computers and even faster ones in the future. We have also called for a comprehensive annual assessment of the national security implications of such exports. We direct the President in this amendment to revise the existing verification agreement with the PRC to include real on-site inspections. We have agreed in a bilateral with the PRC already in principle that this should occur but that bilateral is shot full of holes and we need to make it work. We need to have end use verification without notice, on demand, negotiated simply as a term of trade, not in any way calling into question the national sovereignty of the PRC. And we further require in this amendment a comprehensive annual report on the national security implications of these exports. These are important improvements, but I want to emphasize this represents, even after we pass this amendment, unfinished business by this Congress. We have much work to do. Some additional hearings undoubtedly will be required but most importantly markups and the movement of legislation through our standing committees of jurisdiction to the floor so that we can do the heavy lifting that is called for in the full 38 of our recommendations, some 26 of which are touched upon although not implemented in full in the amendment that is before us today. In that regard, I am very happy that the gentleman from New York (Mr. Gilman) of the Committee on International Relations has assured me that his committee will move legislation addressing these recommendations in the immediate future. Our report found wholesale inexcusable security weaknesses at our Nation's national weapons laboratories, among the most sensitive national defense sites in our country. Our report recommended a battery of urgent reforms, and this amendment comprehensively implements them. We establish offices of foreign intelligence and counterintelligence within the Energy Department, reporting directly to the Secretary of Energy, as well as counterintelligence programs at each national laboratory. We require a DOE counterintelligence polygraph program, something that should have been in place frankly for a long time. We establish a moratorium on foreign visitor programs with a national security waiver that the Energy Secretary can issue until such time as there is certified and in place a program with adequate security measures. We bar access by foreigners to classified areas and information at Department of Energy facilities until they have been cleared, until the foreign visitors have been cleared for security. And we clarify and confirm that the Federal Government has every right, has now and in fact always has had every right to search defense-related computers throughout the DOE complex. In conclusion, this is a balanced response to an urgent problem. It is a first of several important steps that we need to take. I want in closing to thank again the staff of the committees of jurisdiction that have worked with us in bringing this amendment to the floor and the staff of our select committee, including in particular our select committee staff director Dean McGrath, special counsel Mike Sheehy, the policy committee's executive director Ben Cohen and Jonathan Burks, Walker Roberts of the Committee on International Relations staff, Robert Rangel of the Committee on Armed Services staff, Andrew Hunter with the gentleman from Washington (Mr. Dicks) and Hugh Brady with the gentleman from South Carolina (Mr. Spratt). Their hard work has served the national interest. Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. COX of California

Mr. COX of California. Mr. Chairman, I yield 4 minutes to the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Goss), Chairman of the Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence and the Vice Chairman of the Select Committee. (Mr. GOSS asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. COX

Mr. COX. Mr. Chairman, I yield 3 minutes to the gentlewoman from New Mexico (Mrs. Wilson). (Mrs. WILSON asked and was given permission to revise and extend her remarks.)

Mr. COX. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Weldon). (Mr. WELDON of Pennsylvania asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. COX. Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Thornberry).