C. Cox

Mr. COX of California

Mr. COX of California. I yield to the gentleman from Alabama.

Mr. COX of California. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the last word. Mr. Chairman, the administration's stated intention in funding KEDO was to gain international monitoring and supervision of North Korea's nuclear program and specifically to assist in preventing North Korea from developing nuclear weapons. A further goal of the Clinton administration's support for KEDO was to require North Korea to submit to third-party inspection of its nuclear facilities, to provide an accounting for its plutonium stocks, particularly any highly enriched weapons-grade plutonium, and to minimize the future production of weapons-grade plutonium from its nuclear power plants. I would ask the chairman whether that is the committee's understanding.

Mr. COX of California

Mr. COX of California. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Chairman, I am pleased to be offering this amendment with my colleague from Ohio [Mr. Hall]. I am pleased because this is a completely bipartisan amendment and one that I expect will be supported by Members on both sides. The purpose of the amendment is simple, to ensure that the United States of America, while doing all that it can to assist starving people victimized by the horrifying manmade famine caused by a half century of Stalinist agriculture policies in North Korea, does not empower the dear leader, Kim Jong-il. North Korea is one of the worst pariah states on Earth. North Korea spends over $5 billion a year militarizing itself. It is one of the most controlled societies on Earth, and the starvation caused by its Communist government and by those Communist government policies is horrific. We have, of late, been providing through the United Nations and nongovernmental organizations assistance to starving people in North Korea, but we are distressed to learn that this aid is not reaching its intended beneficiaries all too often. North Korea's chief ideologist, Hwang Jang-yop, defected to South Korea this year, and on July 10 he gave a news conference. He told the world that Kim Jong-il uses food to control people. U.S. taxpayers and the United States of America's policy ought not to support that. What he said at his press conference was that North Korea controls people with food, North Korea controls the entire country and people with food distribution. In other words, the food distribution is a means of control, quote, unquote. Observers report that Kim Jong-il is practicing regional triage, sealing off the hardest-hit regions in the north and northeast and leaving them to starve so that he can feed the elites, in particular the military. Kim Jong-il has spent tens of millions of dollars in a successful effort to develop medium-range missiles. He is spending many millions more to develop long-range missiles. We heard testimony in February of this year that North Korea was on a military shopping spree for aircraft and air defense systems, submarines, landing ships, and automatic weapons. This year he ordered a massive series of war- fighting exercises that consumed huge amounts of food and fuel. General Shalikashvili, the outgoing chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, noted this recent increase in North Korea military exercises and asked, If they are in such great difficulty, and if they are in need of assistance, why are they spending their resources on this kind of exercising? You have to ask yours. Secretary of Defense Cohen recently stated that North Korea is seeking food to keep its citizenry fed while its military continues to function and soak up what limited sources they have. So in the view of the Secretary of Defense, we are indirectly subsidizing the North Korean military. Other expenditures by Kim Jong-il should also give us pause as we ask U.S. taxpayers to foot the bill for assistance that ultimately is controlled by Kim Jong-il: $83 million recently for a mausoleum for Kim il-Sung, the great leader, the great Stalinist; $134 million for the dear leader's own residence, for Kim Jong-il's own humble abode; $6 million to embalm Kim il-Sung; millions more just 2 weeks ago for nationwide ceremonies to honor Kim il-Sung. No wonder Jim Lilley, our former Ambassador to South Korea, has described these massive expenditures which dwarf our food aid as a veritable death cult. It is for these reasons that the gentleman from Ohio, Mr. Tony Hall, and I have developed a bipartisan compromise that permits the administration to continue its policy but safeguards the delivery of this food so that the military may not receive it and the government of North Korea may not deliver it. By cutting them out of this process, the amendment will decrease the risk that Kim Jong-il's military government will succeed in diverting the food the United States sends to North Korea or manipulating its distribution. Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

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

Mr. COX of California

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

Mr. COX of California. I thank the gentleman for yielding just to clarify a point that I think my colleague has already made, and that is that the Cox amendment is made in order by this rule unamended, but that the minority and the concerns especially represented by the gentleman from Ohio [Mr. Hall] have offered a way to improve that that the author of the amendment accepts. And so, out of deference to the minority, I would be happy, on the grounds that it would improve the amendment that is already made in order by the rule, based on suggestions from the other side, to accept a unanimous consent request to make that improved amendment in order. If that unanimous consent request is not accepted, then I would just go ahead and offer my amendment as permitted by the rule, which, to my understanding, is less acceptable to the minority.

Mr. COX of California. My amendment is in order under the rule.

Mr. COX of California

Mr. COX of California. Mr. Chairman, I was necessarily absent for this vote for medical reasons. Amendments En Bloc Offered by Mr. Spence

Mr. COX of California. Mr. Chairman, I was necessarily absent for this vote for medical reasons. personal explanation

Mr. COX of California. Mr. Chairman, I was necessarily absent for this vote for medical reasons.

Mr. COX of California. Mr. Chairman, I was necessarily absent for this vote for medical reasons.

Mr. COX of California

Mr. COX of California. Mr. Chairman, I was necessarily absent for this vote for medical reasons. Amendment Offered by Mr. Talent

Mr. COX of California. Mr. Chairman, I was necessarily absent for this vote for medical reasons. Amendment Offered by Mr. Buyer

Mr. COX of California

Mr. COX of California. Mr. Speaker, does the gentlewoman mean when did the Republicans in the minority not go along with what the Democrats wished to do?

Mr. COX of California. Mr. Speaker, the rules of the 103d Congress state the following.

Mr. COX of California. Mr. Speaker, will the gentlewoman yield?

Mr. COX of California. Mr. Speaker, it is well, as we conclude debate and prepare to vote, that we recall what it is that is contained in the resolution before us. This is a resolution that will grant the staff attorneys, not the staff but the staff attorneys, former U.S. attorneys, of the Committee on Government Reform and Oversight, the ability to conduct depositions in preparation for hearings by the full committee. The previous speaker spoke instead to the issue of subpoenas, and he said, incorrectly, that never before in history has the chairman had the power unilaterally to issue subpoenas. I first point out, that is not what this resolution provides. It does not provide anything about subpoenas. But for the Record, I would also point out that for the entirety of the Democratic control of Congress over a 40-year period that was precisely what was the rule, and for the most recent Democratic Congress, the 103d Congress, let me quote from the Committee on Government Operations, the House of Representatives, rule XVIII: ``The chairman of the full committee shall authorize and issue subpoenas.'' It does not say anything even about consultation with the minority, let alone concurrence. Second, with respect to staff depositions themselves, over and over and over again this authority has been granted by this Congress in precisely this way. This was the rule for the Iran-Contra investigation. Let me quote the rule: ``* * * the chairman, upon consultation with the ranking minority member * * * may authorize the taking * * * of depositions. * * *'' That was the rule for Iran-Contra, and it is the very same rule we are adopting here, with consultation; not a veto, not concurrence, which means agreement, which means if we do not agree, as the minority, then we have to have a full committee vote on every one, but consultation. In fact, in this rule we provide something that the Democratic Party, for all the years they controlled Congress, never provided us when we were in the minority, and that is 3 full business days advance notice and consultation. This rule, therefore, is better than anything that the Democrats had when they were in charge. October Surprise, we have heard that mentioned out here before. Let me read the rule for the October Surprise investigation when the Democrats were in the majority: ``The chairman, upon consultation with the ranking Republican member * * * may authorize the taking of * * * depositions. * * * But that is not the rule they are offering. They wanted a veto power to kick it to full committee. Why should it not be kicked to full committee? Let me read from a leading Democrat, the gentleman from Indiana, Mr. Lee Hamilton, whose statement it seems to me speaks for itself: * * * requiring a majority vote for each subpoena would be extremely time-consuming and difficult to arrange. It would be impractical. It has been common practice in special congressional investigations to give the chairman responsibility for issuing subpoenas. * * * So we need to focus once again on what is in the resolution before us; nothing about subpoena authority, but the authority to take staff depositions. Let me add also that we have an opportunity to cooperate and to make this the kind of bipartisan investigation that so much of the debate has focused on here today. Mr. Speaker, recall what went on in the October Surprise investigation. It was an election year. This is not. The charges were not about Webster Hubbell receiving hush money from the Lippo Group and the Riadys, people that have taken the fifth amendment and fled the country, and whose grievous offenses, apparent grievous offenses have been drawn to the Nation's attention by the New York Times. Rather, it was alleged that President George Bush met secretly in Paris with the Ayatollah and begged that he not release our hostages. That absurd premise was dismissed because we cooperated in that investigation. Please cooperate with us in this one. Vote yes for the resolution.

Mr. COX of California

Mr. COX of California. Mr. Speaker, this past weekend, President Clinton delivered a speech in San Diego criticizing the people of California for enacting the California Civil Rights Initiative [CCRI]. The wisdom of CCRI in outlawing special preferences based solely on race, said Mr. Clinton, should be suppressed in favor of continued race-based classifications by our Government. The following essay, published in the New York Times the same weekend, describes why Californians--and Americans--are indeed wise to abhor Government- mandated racial preferences. [From the New York Times, June 15, 1997] Face the Failure of Racial Preferences (By Newt Gingrich and Ward Connerly; Newt Gingrich is Speaker of the House of Representatives. Ward Connerly is chairman of the American Civil Rights Institute and a University of California regent) In August 1963, the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. gave heartfelt voice to his dream of a world where children are judged by the content of their character rather than the color of their skin. A few months later, in May 1964, President Lyndon Johnson told the graduating class of the University of Michigan, ``The Great Society is a place where every child can find knowledge to enrich his mind and to enlarge his talents.'' Unfortunately, three decades and $5.4 trillion of Federal Government spending later, Dr. King's dream still remains unfulfilled and nearly all of America knows that the Great Society has become an expensive failed tribute to the collective liberal imagination. Over the years, Federal welfare programs for the poor were enacted that created and sustained an illusion of activity but that, in reality, did more harm than good. Even worse, a complicated set of Government rules and regulations were developed in almost every area of life, the intent of which was to eliminate discrimination. Yet the cruel fact has been that Government has brought about nearly as much discrimination as it has eliminated--just in a different form--and has masked the very real problems that still exist. President Clinton's speech on race yesterday in San Diego was actually a missed opportunity to address these issues; there was little indication that his advisory board on race includes anyone who will critically examine the impact of racial preferences on society. But more important, we wish he could have laid out a plan for real education reform that would produce genuine equality of opportunity for all. Let us take a look at the record. Welfare spending is more than eight times what it was in 1965, adjusted for inflation, and it's time to ask, What do our children have to show for it? Well, for starters, over four million more of them are now living in poverty--43 percent of all black children and 41 percent of all Hispanic children. Violent crime has skyrocketed, especially in the inner cities. But for evidence of the Great Society's greatest failure, look no further than the current state of public education and President Clinton's politically expedient but totally indefensible support for racially based ``Band-Aid'' measures. Rather than face up to the catastrophic failure of inner-city educational systems and deal honestly with their essential problems, the President, like others holding on to this failed system, refuses to reform a system that fails morally as well as practically. Like so many whose political fortunes depend on unions and bureaucracy, Mr. Clinton, sadly, refuses to acknowledge that the ill-conceived education policies of the 1960's deserted the children who needed help the most. The education bureaucracy won't concede that, despite spending trillions of dollars on education over the past 30 years, American children are further behind today. It doesn't want to admit that the S.A.T. scores of African-American children, which average 100 points less than the scores of white children, are the direct result of the current policies. The National Education Association doesn't want to bear the blame for the fact that 40 percent of all 9-year- olds can't meet basic literacy standards or that 66 percent of African-American fourth graders fail national geography standards. These are not racial inadequacies, they are education inadequacies. Nor will the education bureaucracy admit that low-income high school students are giving up on school in ever increasing numbers. The fact is that disadvantaged children are not receiving the ``knowledge to enrich their minds and to enlarge their talents,'' as President Johnson promised. Instead, many education and minority leaders cling to a system of racial preferences using the diplomas of an arbitrary few to paper over what has become a national human catastrophe. For the sake of all our children, these people must face the cold, hard truth: Every time we use racial preference to effect change, it is proof that we have failed a child somewhere. President Clinton refuses to face the core of the problem: Money without reform will not educate our children. Look at the spending in inner-city schools today. The District of Columbia spends more money to educate its children than any state in the country--more than $9,000 per student per year-- and yet its children rank at or near the bottom of national test scores. Something is very wrong with the schools of our nation's capital; both the teachers and their students are being shortchanged by a stagnant, uncaring educational bureaucracy. Government-imposed quotas are no substitute for education reform. Racial preferences may offer an illusory way out for a few students, but sadly, the vast majority of children in the inner cities are being deprived by their schools of the opportunity to go to college. We've all seen recently the dramatic drop in minority admissions to the University of California at Berkeley and the University of Texas School of Law, institutions that did away with race-based preferences. This shamefully underscores how much race and race alone has been used instead of merit in our halls of higher education. Supporters of preferences see those numbers as vindication for their claims of racism in America; they are simply wrong. The real villain in this 30-year morality play isn't bigotry or the University of California Board of Regents or the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. The original affirmative action policies were indeed well- intentioned efforts to redress centuries of racial discrimination. Yet they have been perverted over the years. The racial preferences used in their name have been used as masks to avoid real reform. They have become an excuse to perpetuate an inner-city system to cheat those children most in need out of a real future. Failing to save these children should cause shame to all Americans. No one has chosen to help our underprivileged develop their talents. No one has insisted they have schools in which they can succeed. As a country, we all share that shame, but the creation of a small minority professional class through racial preferences to ease elitist guilt is an unacceptable and unconscionable alternative. And applying racial preferences to business practices is no better. Yet the education bureaucracy warns that ``radical'' reform could harm children. It is difficult to imagine that any of the education proposals being offered today could do any more damage than the failed policies of the last 30 years. There are promising solutions: In the 104th Congress, for the first time ever, a legitimate school voucher initiative for the children of the District of Columbia was passed in the House; there were enough votes to pass it in the Senate. Unfortunately, unions, resistant to change, prevented it from coming to a vote. Representative Dick Armey of Texas, the majority leader, has introduced a similar measure this year. Is giving poor parents the same opportunity as wealthy ones to send their children to the school of their choice a risky venture? Is giving poor parents the opportunity to send their children to a safe school truly dangerous or just threatening to those dependent on the status quo? Is it harmful to the future of our children to demand that they be able to read before they are passed on, or do real standards bring too many of the failures of the current bureaucratic system to light? Does lowering the standards of graduate school admissions for certain individuals really address inequality of opportunity or simply give one group a place at the table while trampling on the basic rights of another? Do we bring the people of this country closer together when we reject one of America's most basic principles--the notion that people should be judged individually on merit, not collectively by the color of their skin--or do we breed new resentment and doubt? Education is the key to a productive, healthy citizenship. But our system of racial preferences is the wrong door. The failed Great Society policies have devastated and divided two generations. We have seen how Government-imposed racial preferences actually stand in the way of true educational reform. The President must abandon the misguided belief that our society should ever use discrimination to end discrimination.

Mr. COX of California

Mr. COX of California. Mr. Speaker, the Internal Revenue Service has too much power in Americans' lives. This recent example, from the Associated Press, shows why greater congressional oversight of IRS mismanagement and taxpayer abuse is so vitally necessary. IRS Is Found To Have Retaliated Over an Insult (By Margaret Katz) Denver (AP).--In hindsight, insulting the IRS agent during an audit was probably not a good idea. But Carole Ward, who this week moved to Albuquerque from Colorado Springs, let fly with this gem: ``Honey, from what I can see of your accounting skills, the country would be better served if you were dishing up chicken-fried steak on some interstate in west Texas, with all the clunky jewelry and big hair.'' A short time later, federal agents raided Ward's business and then released confidential information about her taxes to the media in what Ward called ``character assassination.'' This week, a federal judge reprimanded the IRS for its actions and awarded the woman about $325,000 in damages and attorney's fees. ``By this award, this court gives notice to the IRS that reprehensible abuse of authority by one of its employees cannot and will not be tolerated,'' U.S. District Judge William Downes said after the non-jury trial. ``Part of that responsibility requires that you accept criticism, however inaccurate and/or unjustified, in silence.'' Ward, 49, said she is not proud of what she said to auditor Paula Dzierzanowski during the 1993 audit. The meeting was one of several regarding income taxes owed by the children's clothing stores owned by her son, Tristan, then 20. Two weeks later, IRS agents seized and padlocked the stores with a so-called jeopardy assessment demanding $325,000 in back taxes from Ward. Such an order is considered extreme and is normally used when the IRS fears it is in danger of never collecting the taxes, said Ward's attorney, William C. Waller. Ward's family depended on the stores as their sole source of income, and the seizure put them in desperate straits. She said her family even lost their electricity because they were unable to pay bills. Why the IRS targeted Ward rather than her son is unclear, said Dennis Mark, another of Ward's attorneys. ``They took the position that Carole Ward owned the stores,'' Mark said. By July, Ward had hired a tax attorney and the parties had agreed that the actual amount owed by Ward was about $3,500. ``It was over and done,'' Waller said. But then the IRS went public with information about Ward that was the crux of her lawsuit. IRS District Director Gerald Swanson and his assistant Patricia Callahan appeared on a Colorado Springs talk show and disclosed tax return information. They also discussed the original $325,000 dispute and allegations against Ward even though the case had been settled, Waller said. The IRS also disclosed information to TV's ``Inside Edition'' in the form of a fact sheet about the dispute. The IRS agents said that since Ward had already gone public with information about the dispute, they were within their rights. However, the judge found their behavior negligent. Another IRS agent, James Scholan, further disclosed information about the dispute in a letter published in a local newspaper. Scholan said he had obtained that information from newspaper accounts, but the judge ruled that he had obtained it as an IRS employee, committing a ``blatant violation.'' Ward was also upset about notices posted in the windows of the stores during the seizure that she said implied she was a drug smuggler. The judge found that the IRS had caused mental distress, emotional damage and humiliation to Ward. ``Public servants cannot be arbitrarily selective in their treatment of citizens, dispensing equity to those who please them and withholding it from those who do not,'' the judge said. The IRS had no comment on the case. Nor did the Justice Department's tax division. Ward said she is glad to be vindicated. But her son's stores are still struggling, she said, and the fight took a huge toll on her personally. ``When you take on these people . . . it would be wonderful if I felt like dancing on graves, but by the time you get the victory, it doesn't feel like a victory,'' Ward said. ``They take out the joy.''

Mr. COX of California

Mr. COX of California. I yield to the gentleman from New York.

Mr. COX of California. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding time to me. Mr. Speaker, I rise to seek clarification concerning one provision of the bill. Section 6(c) is entitled ``Opposition to Multilateralization of ABM Treaty.'' It states the sense of the Congress that no agreement demarcating the boundary between theater and antiballistic missile defense will be considered until the United States has taken the steps necessary to ensure that the ABM Treaty remains a bilateral treaty between the United States and the Russian federation. It is my understanding that this provision takes no position with respect to whether such a demarcation agreement should be reached after such steps are taken, or, indeed, whether the United States should take steps to continue the ABM Treaty in force even if it is a bilateral agreement limited to Russia and the United States. Section 6(c), according to my understanding, simply makes absolutely clear that the administration's rush to conclude an immediate demarcation agreement must be stopped, and that no such demarcation agreement should be concluded prior to resolution of the question of Russia's successorship under the ABM Treaty; and finally, that, should Russia not be deemed to have succeeded, then no such demarcation agreement should be considered at all. I would ask the gentleman, Mr. Speaker, is that his understanding?

Mr. COX of California

Mr. COX of California. Mr. Speaker, I regretfully must oppose this spending legislation, which commits taxpayers to foot the bill for dozens of special-interest items having nothing to do with disaster relief. First, the House-Senate compromise bill costs $200 million more than the House bill. Second, it includes $262.2 million in nonemergency spending, an increase of $150.4 million over the House passed version. Third, it includes such nonemergency items as: $35 million for the Advanced Technology Program of the National Institute for Standards and Technology under the Commerce Department; $2 million for the Commission on the Advancement of Law Enforcement; $3 million for Ogden, UT, in anticipation of the 2002 Winter Olympics; $650,000 for the National Commission on the Cost of Higher Education; $101 million in education grants; $33.5 million for Botanic Garden Conservatory in DC; $15 million for health research; $1.9 million for the Denver Summit of the G-8, June 20-22, 1997; $16 million to the Customs Service for the Automated Targeting System; $5.383 million to the U.S. Postal Service to subsidize free and reduced rate mail; $12.3 million for a multistory parking lot in a Cleveland, OH, Veterans' Administration facility; $1 million ``special purpose grant'' of which $500,000 goes to a parking lot and $500,000 for renovation of the Paramount Theater in Ashland, KY; and $30.2 million for HUD Demonstration Act purposes. This is supposed to be an emergency measure to help flood and disaster victims. The inclusion of such expenditures indicates it is not. In the exercise of fiscal prudence, I must therefore vote ``no''.

Mr. COX of California

Mr. COX of California. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the requisite number of words. Mr. Chairman, I too have great sympathy for the amendment being offered on the floor and great respect for its author, but I must oppose the amendment, and I must do so because it is unprecedented and in its effect very damaging. We have received letters from the inspector general of other departments, the Departments of Defense, Energy, Justice, Commerce, and the Central Intelligence Agency, expressing the strongest possible concern that this proposal creates a dangerous precedent which could undermine the investigative and oversight capabilities of IG's throughout the Government. It is important for us to recognize that no other IG office in the entire Federal Government is subject to the restrictions that this language would impose. Other departments of the Clinton administration fear that this amendment is a proverbial foot in the door that will undermine their authorities. The bill language would place the State Department's inspector general outside of standard Federal law enforcement policies and procedures and severely undermine the State Department IG's abilities to carry out its investigative function. It would significantly diminish the State Department inspector general's ability to hold departmental employees accountable for criminal wrongdoing. The bill language imposes a reporting requirement on the State Department's inspector general that is itself unwarranted and unnecessary. It would require the State Department's IG to prepare and submit a report to the relevant committees providing detailed descriptions of any instances in which any disclosure of information to the public by an employee of the office of inspector general about an ongoing investigation occurred. I mentioned at the outset that I have great respect for the author of this language. I also have great respect for the author of this amendment, and I think they both intend to achieve the same result, which is that our agencies, and in this case the State Department, will operate free of internal corruption. But it would be unwise, it seems to me, in the extreme to impose requirements on the inspector general's office that frustrate the IG's ability to get to the bottom of corruption within the Federal Government. The bill language, I want to emphasize once again, imposes requirements on the State Department's IG that are not applicable to any other agency's IG. Why we are on a rifle shot basis, on an ad hoc basis trying to change the rule just for the State Department, rather than making sure that we are consistently affording people due process, escapes me. It is possible, by the way, to afford people something that we call due process, that is itself a procedural frustration of all of our rights. All of us here have rights. Taxpayers, for example, have a right to be protected from fraud and corruption within the State Department. Let us assume for the sake of argument that the constable blundered in this case, and I want to point out that the IG is not the constable, the IG is not a prosecutor, the IG is not criminal law enforcement. But let us assume that the IG made a mistake and that the IG behaved improperly in this instance. Is that of itself a reason to make sure that we frustrate every future IG investigation, or is it instead a reason to take this matter up in the context of the events that occurred with that particular department and find out why, if someone's rights were abused, that took place? I want to commend the author of this amendment, because he has done a good job in focusing on what I think is the language surely to give rise to the law of unintended consequences. I think he has quite properly gone after the reporting requirements, the diminution in the IG's authority, the frustration of legitimate investigations of wrongdoing by Federal employees. For that reason, I strongly support the Goss amendment to the Foreign Relations Authorization Act.

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

Mr. COX of California. In this matter, I think we need to pay especial attention to what the Clinton administration Justice Department inspector general is telling us and the U.S. Department of Justice, office of the inspector general has provided us with very explicit advice on this language in the bill.