C. Cox

Mr. COX of California

Mr. COX of California. In fact it is. I will explain. If the gentleman would permit me, I will explain the reason that we dropped it later in the day than would otherwise have been our desire. After I left the Committee on Rules at midnight or whenever it was last night, I proceeded immediately to legislative counsel where we put into draft form in the legislative language precisely what it was that we discussed. In consultation this morning, in normal working hours, with the ranking member on the Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure, we learned that the minority side had changes that they wished to make to the aviation security portion of this which, as you know, is the centerpiece of what we are doing. In order to accommodate the ranking member, who was very supportive of this legislation, as you know, and in order to accommodate both sides, majority and minority, we made those changes. I am very, very intent on doing so. I told the ranking member that I do not wish to have included in this bill anything that both the majority and minority do not support. Therefore, I think most of the objections that Members will have upon reading this will be about things that they wish were included that are not in it, not what is in that is not acceptable to them. I apologize for that and I apologize to the gentleman from Minnesota, but I thought that it was worthwhile to try and accommodate those concerns.

Mr. COX of California. I think that you have covered them.

Mr. COX of California. Mr. Speaker, if the gentleman would yield, I just inform the gentleman that taggants are in the bill.

Mr. COX of California. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding me this time. Mr. Speaker, let me address first the bulk of the comments that we have heard from the minority side this morning, not all of them, because many of the minority Members, including the ranking member on Transportation, as we heard, were involved in this process, drafted it, and like the bill. But for those people who are getting the bill to read just now, they are in the same position as are the Members on the majority side. The bill is only ready today in legislative form for them to review and determine whether you can support it or not. But that is not because this is not an effort at bipartisanship. That is not because this is not an effort to cooperate between Republicans and Democrats, in fact, between the House and the Senate, and, in fact, between the Congress and the administration. To the contrary. This week, not a month ago, not 6 months ago, not last year, but this week, just a few days ago, the President of the United States asked the Congress, not just the House, but the Senate, not just Republicans, but Democrats, to act before we left this weekend. I notice the gentleman from Michigan [Mr. Conyers] here. He and I sat together for several days, several hours, odd hours, working with Representatives of the administration, including the White House chief of staff, Leon Panetta, working with representatives of the FBI, the State Department, the CIA, all with one common objective, doing what can be done before we go home, with the strong sense that we will keep it up even over the recess and when we are gone. What the White House, what the President asked us to do is the following, and this was the President's own request: He said, Give me a bill before you go home. Do it in a process that permits it to come up by unanimous consent in the Senate. Do it in a process that permits us to bring the same bill up in the House, so that you can send me a bill. That means, since we are adjourning today, that there cannot be an amendment. This is not a process that I like and I would not have designed it. Neither do the Republican Members wish to have so little time to read a bill that the Democrats are complaining they would like to have more time to read. But that is how it worked. As to what is in the bill, everything that is in this bill has been agreed to by the White House, by your leadership, in the Senate on the Democratic and Republican sides, and by your leadership in the House of Representatives on the Democratic and the Republicans sides. That includes the provision with respect to the full implementation of the 1996 terrorism act, which we have not yet implemented, to be sure. That language, too, was signed off on by the administration. The truth is that the administration wanted wiretapping language in this bill and, as the Washington Post points out in its editorial today, we have not included it because caution and deliberation are necessary on that topic. But we have included everything else that they wanted. Mr. Speaker, it has been said that this does not address Flight 800, but, frankly, if Flight 800 was not mechanical failure but was a bomb, then all of the provisions in here on airport security, all of the provisions giving the FBI authority to do background checks, to supervise airplane security, to look at the baggage that goes into the hold, all of these things and more that we hard the chairman of the Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure support and the ranking member of the Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure support-- and they feel the same way in the Senate--all of these things are directed precisely to that problem. It is true that we can do more, but what we can do now, we must do. Then we should come back. We shall do more, because the war on terrorism is one of the grisly realities of the 21st century. We have to be at it perpetually, and we shall do so.

Mr. COX of California. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Florida for yielding. What we just heard the gentleman from New York tell us is essentially true; that if we had included in this bill everything that is before us and one other thing, and that is multipoint and warrantless wiretaps, then there would have been agreement. And the truth is that because wiretaps are not in this bill, the gentleman is disappointed. I have to say that this gentleman is disappointed because there is not a good faith exception to the exclusionary rule in this bill, something that would have helped us in the Oklahoma City prosecution. We passed it through this House five times. It ought to be acceptable to our body, but it was objected to by the Senate. Now, imagine our predicament if we had brought this bill with everything in it; the only difference was it also had warrantless wiretaps and multipoint wiretaps. That is a very serious issue I think Members deserve more time to consider. And for that reason, above all, it is not put in a bill that is coming to us under a suspension of the rules that we have not had an opportunity to read. I hope we revisit this issue, and I think we must do so. As I have said, we cannot rest against the war on terrorism. It is one of the grizzly realities of the 21st century. We have to be back at this. But just because we cannot do a subject so complicated as that before we leave this August does not mean that we cannot do all of the rest of this bill, which the gentleman from New York has agreed to, which the Democratic leadership and the Republican leadership have all agreed to, which the Senate has agreed to and which they can pass and send to the President because the administration has agreed to it, and it can be signed into law.

Mr. COX of California

Mr. COX of California. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that the gentleman from Pennsylvania [Mr. Shuster] be permitted to control 6 minutes and that the gentleman from Illinois [Mr. Hyde] be permitted to control 6 minutes of the time allocated to me.

Mr. COX of California. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my time. I will be brief in closing, because I know that several of our colleagues wish to catch airplanes. We had been long scheduled to adjourn today, but just a few days ago the President of the United States asked the Congress, not just the House but the Senate as well, not just Republicans but Democrats to do what we can before we go. As a consequence, a task force of us comprising our leaders, committee chairmen, ranking and majority members in the Senate and in the house, representatives of the administration, including the President's chief of staff, including the deputy attorney general, including representatives from the FBI, the Department of State, and many executive branch agencies worked here in this Capitol for long days and long nights. Much has been said about what we disagreed about. In truth, we did disagree about two major items: This House sought to include in this terrorism package a good-faith exception to the exclusionary rule so that the evidence that will convict terrorists makes it into the courtroom. We passed it five times on the floor of this House, but it was not acceptable to our colleagues in the minority, on the Senate side. So notwithstanding that the good-faith exception to the exclusionary rule that would permit evidence of terrorism to make it into the courtroom has passed this House five times, it is not included in this legislation; neither is wiretapping legislation that has passed the Senate but has not passed this body. We were charged with a very specific task, and that is to do as much as we can agree upon before we leave and to do so, obviously, under procedures that require unanimous consent in the other body and require us to bring it up under suspension of the rules here. Rather than dwell upon the two things that we disagreed on, we ought to dwell on the score of things that we did agree upon, because there is much good in this legislation. As a result of this bill, the Federal Aviation Administration will have immediate authority to put in place performance standards for security personnel at our airports. The FBI does not presently do threat and vulnerability assessments at our riskiest airports such as JFK in New York, but as a result of this bill they will have the immediate authority to do so. As a result of this bill, airport improvement funds are authorized to be used to fight terrorism and to provide security in our air transport against terrorism. As a result of this bill, we will now give our criminal prosecutors in our Federal courts the same tools to fight terrorists they use to fight racketeers and organized crime. I want to thank my colleagues, Democrats and Republicans, in the House and in the Senate, and in the administration for the hard work that we have done to bring us to this point. This is amazing good work. It comes after long hours and late nights. Yes, it comes after the imposition of virtually an unreasonable deadline. But we persisted and we should be proud of this result. Let us also say as we go out to campaign, in some cases against one another in very partisan races, that in this we are united, because this is as close as the 104th Congress will come to dealing with real war. This is America's war against global terrorism. Is this the last time we will address it? Absolutely not. It will require persistence and eternal vigilance. Is this the best that we can do today? Absolutely. We have every right to be proud of it and every reason to vote for it. I urge my colleagues to vote ``aye'' on this Aviation Security and Antiterrorism Act of 1996.

Mr. COX of California

Mr. COX of California. Mr. Chairman, the immigrant experience is central to our national character. It epitomizes the intergenerational improvement inherent in the American Dream. Americans by choice add to the cultural and ethnic diversity we have always celebrated. It is America's unique national trait that from such diversity springs unparalleled unity and strength of purpose. For nearly four centuries, natives of other lands have come to America to build a better future. But unlike their predecessors, today's immigrants are met with Government policies allegedly concerned with the preservation of their ethnic separateness. Chief among these misguided policies is the mandate of a multilingual government. By discouraging immigrants and their children from using the English language, this policy has erected a linguistic barrier that keeps many immigrants from becoming full participants in the society they have chosen to join. Whatever its putative intentions, a policy of governmental insistence on a multitude of official languages works insidiously to harm the very people it was meant to help. The use of English is indispensable to immigrants and their children who wish to participate fully in American society and realize the American Dream. As we seek to promote the rich and varied traditions new Americans bring, we must simultaneously work to ensure that all of us share some basis for common understanding. Securing both these important goals requires overcoming the divisive influence of linguistic separatism. English should be and remain the official language of our National Government. English, our common language, provides a shared foundation which has allowed people from every corner of the world to come together to build the American Nation. Without it, we might never have achieved the cohesion that permits Irish-American and African-American, Asian- American and Hispanic-American, to live in peace and prosperity together as in no other nation on earth. The experience of two other immigrant nations--Canada and Israel-- offers us clear lessons on just how powerful a force language can be in either uniting or dividing a people. These are lessons we cannot fail to heed. Canada, our neighbor to the north, bears much in common with the United States. Our settlement, founding, and national growth share the same time and place in world history. Our peoples emigrated from the same native lands. But unlike America, Canada has struggled with the divisive issue of language since its earliest days. Though the British won control over French Canada more than a decade before the American Declaration of Independence, they failed then to conquer the destructive force of linguistic separation. The French and English settled throughout North America, but the lesions of language that live on in Canada are healed in our country. Today, centuries after the French settlement of Quebec, the French language serves as a reason for the Quebecois refusal to become integrated into a Canadian nation. The continued existence of Canada as we know it is very much in doubt. Canada chose to make both English and French its official languages. It has striven for decades to foster unity through official multilingualism. The evidence is clear: that experiment is a horrid failure. Linguistic differences have not promoted national harmony, but rather have dramatically increased Canada's cultural and communal divisions. Twice in recent years, Quebecois have demanded and won the right to vote on whether they should separate from Canada. And when they did so most recently, in October 1995, only the barest majority-- 50.6 percent of Quebec voters--managed to save the country from the kind of disintegration that we ourselves avoided in the Civil War. A third vote could be held as soon as next year. Multilingualism has become a dagger pointed at the heart and soul of the Canadian nation. The largest immigrant-absorbing nation on earth, in percentage terms, is Israel. Millions of emigres from around the world, speaking as many tongues as Babel, have been welcomed there. Israel's founding fathers, in contrast to Canada, have long recognized the centrality of language to their quest to reestablish a Jewish state in their historical homeland. The Jews who have returned to the Holy Land shared a common history and religion, but they brought with them enough different native languages to threaten all hope of a cohesive nation. While Yiddish, the German-Jewish dialect spoken by East European Jews, at least overcame that group's experience with Russian, Polish, or Hungarian, Yiddish was as alien to the Arabic and French-speaking Jews of the Middle East as was Spanish. And Spanish was just one of the many other languages brought to Israel by immigrants from Spain and Latin America. Israel has shown the world that the key to uniting a polyglot people is to establish a language of mutual understanding. Unlike America, where our British colonizers left us with an English language that is preponderant throughout the world, Israel had no obvious choice from among the languages of its varied citizenry. So its founders revived a tongue whose heritage they all shared, but which none of them spoke. Hebrew--the language of the Old Testament which had survived as the medium of prayer and religious study, but which had virtually disappeared from secular use--became once again the vernacular of Israel. Israel did, and continues to do, much more than simply declare Hebrew to be the country's common language. The Israelis put in place an infrastructure to ensure that each and every immigrant will be able to speak this common tongue to his or her new countrymen, and thus become quickly integrated into Israeli society. New arrivals, whatever their age, are strongly encouraged to take an ulpan, the intensive Hebrew- language course typically taught by the immersion method. As soon as possible after their arrival, immigrant children are placed in regular Hebrew-speaking classrooms, and given extra Hebrew-language instruction to help them catch up with their classmates. Those arriving to take degrees at Israel's universities must prove their Hebrew proficiency before graduation, even if their degrees are in subjects--such as French, Russian, or English--that may be taught in their mother tongues. Just as in America, those immigrants who arrive later in life inevitably remain more comfortable with their mother tongue. And just as in America, the culture and society of Israel is hospitable to such people: The Israeli press includes newspapers published in German, Russian, French, Yiddish, and many other foreign languages. Although none of these foreign languages is the official language of Israel, their use is welcomed in a free society. But Israel's insistence on Hebrew as the national language insures that the children of immigrants quickly become Hebrew speakers first, and speakers of their parents' language second. Although a parent might wish for her children to speak English as well as an American, this does not come at the expense of embracing Israel's language and customs. Immigrants need not abandon their ties to the country of their birth. But if they truly wish to become part of the country of their choice, the linguistic bonds to their new country soon strengthen. Because Canadians have been unable to overcome the linguistic differences that separate them into distinct Anglophone and Francophone communities, they may not long remain as members of a single nation-- despite the essential homogeneity of their population. By stressing a single, unifying language, Israel has built a strong, cohesive society--despite the amazingly diverse composition of its people. The lesson for America should be clear. Fortunately, the United States already has a common language. We do not need to overcome centuries of linguistic separation, or to find a national tongue to bring our diverse population together. English is our common language, which has enabled us to become and remain the United States of America. We need only ensure that we do not lose it by neglect or inaction. Many people do not realize that, while English is our common language, government at all levels is actively undermining its unifying function. All of the benefits our Nation reaps from our linguistic harmony will be lost if ill-advised government policies continue to forment linguistic separatism. Today, American taxes are being spent so that people who cannot understand or communicate in English can nonetheless receive ballots to vote in Filipino, Vietnamese, or Chinese. Federal Government job announcements frequently invite applications from people with limited English skills. Immigrants have even been sworn in as new citizens at a U.S. Government ceremony conducted almost entirely in Spanish. And bilingual education, which purports to aim at bringing students into full participation in our society, has instead condemned them to what the New York Times calls a ``bilingual prison.'' Under these doctrinaire and disruptive bilingual policies, in too many U.S. schools children who wish to learn English are given only a few minutes of English instruction each day. Ignoring the time-tested wisdom that practice makes perfect, children are taught all day long in the foreign language they already speak, rather than in English. And children who should be moved quickly into mainstream classes are kept in language separation for 7 or more years. Immigrant parents who have expressed serious concerns about this practice have no recourse. Despite parental fears that bilingual programs do not bring their children fully into the fold of American society, nothing is done to help their kids. That's why dozens of Latino parents at the Ninth Street School in Los Angeles recently pulled their children out of school to protest the education bureaucracy's refusal to teach their children in English. Bilingual education programs often require teaching children in their native language and discourage the learning of English. These programs are a shameful example of the damage to our society caused by official multilingualism. They are wasteful, discriminatory, and too often produce children who are illiterate in any language. Yet they are perpetuated by a requirement that 75 percent of Federal bilingual education grant money be used for instruction in a child's native language rather than finding the most effective means to assist the transition to English. Instead of helping immigrants and their children achieve the American dream, these policies are condemning generations to isolation--cut off from the boundless opportunity our country offers to those who share the common bond of speaking and writing the same language, and being understood by their fellow citizens. A 1995 study by Ohio University economists Richard Vedder and Lowell Galloway finds that a lack of English skills has trapped almost 1.5 million immigrants in poverty. And the Department of Labor has found that while 98 percent of Asian males who are fluent in English participate in the labor force, fully one-quarter of Asian males who lack English fluency are jobless. The simple truth is that those who cannot function in our country's predominant language are less able to find jobs. As a result, they are cheated of the opportunity for improvement and happiness that America promises to millions. Even when non-English speakers are able to find jobs, they can expect to earn a fraction of what others earn. In 1989, immigrant men who lacked English skills earned $233 a week on average, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Those who spoke other languages but were proficient in English earned $449, and those who spoke primarily English earned an average of $584 a week. A 1995 study by the Latino Institute has confirmed that the ability to speak English can make the difference between a low-wage job and a high-wage managerial, professional, or technical job. These facts paint an unmistakable picture. Immigrant communities themselves recognize what must be done: According to the U.S. Department of Education, 42 percent of new enrollees in adult education are signed up for classes in English as a foreign language. Almost all of those enrollees--97 percent of them--were born outside the United States. The drive for self-improvement these students demonstrate reflects an understanding of what America itself must not take for granted: that language is the foundation on which all human interaction rests. In America, where the principal language of interaction is English, its use and active promotion through Government policy can pave the way for unprecedented opportunity and national prosperity. But just as a common language opens the door to communication, so too the lack of it erects a barrier not easily overcome. If the common bond of a national language is neglected and denigrated long enough, experience teaches that the Nation itself will ultimately suffer. Such an important key to realizing the American dream ought not be kept from those who come to the United States. As we continue to welcome new Americans to our shores, we must ensure that misguided national policies do not undermine the important role of a common language of national understanding. English as the official language of our Government encourages its use by all Americans, so as to secure brighter opportunities and a better future for us all.

Mr. COX of California

Mr. COX of California. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman for yielding time to me. Also, I thank the members of the minority for their kind comments and, more importantly, their hard work in support of a very worthwhile venture. I think it is also important to underscore that almost to a person on the Committee on Science, and I think throughout our House of Representatives and the other body, we are supporters of the eventual conversion of the United States to the metric system. This is a decision taken by Congress in 1975. It is a course to which we are committed. It is an irrevocable course. But it has been 8 years since Congress evaluated our progress in converting to the metric system: how well it is going, where are the shortcomings, and what is our long suit. We have found some successes, but also some problems. This bill, I think, will help the conversion to the metric system and deal with a significant problem. Mr. Speaker, while many of us in Congress, and I think, as I said, almost all of us in Congress do support this conversion to the metric system, I should also point out that there are opponents. There are people who for reasons of history, heritage, or perhaps even romance are more attached to the system of pounds and ounces and inches and feet that we all have become so accustomed to here in America. It is, in fact, very personal. I define myself as a person who weighs 170 pounds. I am 5 feet 10 inches tall. I took a run for 4 miles. These are parts of our daily experience. It is a very personal matter. The truth is, almost the entire world outside of the United States would not define me that way. They are using a more efficient system, frankly, of meters and grams. This is a good thing. We can learn from history. Back when the Moors in Spain were introducing what we now call Arabic numerals to Europe, there was great resistance to that, because Roman numerals were in use everywhere. The trouble was, you could not add up Roman numbers. You could not put them in columns the way you can with Arabic numerals. Despite the great convenience of the new system of Arabic numerals, there was great suspicion. The change was resisted, indeed for centuries, by European society. Some quarters thought Arabic numerals were, in fact, the work of the devil. But it was the shopkeepers, the traders, and the merchants who had to add up the numbers every day who eventually caused society to convert. That is the lesson of history that we need to be mindful of here today. It will be our market system, our global trading environment, that will succeed in converting American industry and American consumers, eventually, to the metric system. It will not be sheer government edict. Today with this legislation, the Savings in Construction Act, we are not at all backing away from the metric system. We are saying that we still want people who bid on Federal construction jobs to offer their bids in metric, but we are taking advantage of one of the features of the metric system that makes it so superior to our old system of feet and inches and so on that work on different bases than base 10. If we have a base 10 system like the metric system, you can work marvelously well in fractions. The government, up until today, was telling some bidders on Federal contracts not only do they have to use the metric system but everything had to be in a round number. So every block, every board, every shingle, every tile, every fixture, every window would have to be in a round metric unit. What business is it of government whether the American people in their commerce use round numbers or not for every measurement? It is good enough that they are using metric measurements as well as the old system of pounds and ounces and feet and yards, and so on. Rather than require whole plants to retool, to remanufacture these blocks and tiles and lighting fixtures, and so on, we are letting the government say, as purchaser, if it will save the taxpayers a lot of money not to have a wholesale retooling, then we are going to save the money. We had an experience with a Federal courthouse where out of roughly $100 million, 20 percent was going to be added cost from having building supplies furnished in round metric units. So today we are saying occasionally you can use fractions. As over time our industries are more and more competitive in the global environment, when they discover that their customers in France or in Germany or Japan will not buy things unless they are manufactured in metric, then of course that conversion will be brought about through the market. The government here is being very wise for a change. We are correcting significant government errors and mistakes that have occurred and cost jobs in many, many industries. I would just like to draw to my colleagues' attention one example of a firm in Wilmington, MA, a small company called Lightolier of Wilmington that has manufactured light fixtures for 70 years. They employ about 200 people. The general manager of the plant told a local newspaper that their equipment could not produce fixtures in round metric units unless they retooled it at a cost of about $4.5 million. But they did not have $4.5 million in a plant of 200 workers. So their alternative was not to bid at all on these jobs. Because they would lose the work, they also would lose the jobs. Of course, our foreign competitors do not have this problem over in Germany or Japan. So what government was doing was giving foreign competitors an advantage over our United States firms. This was a mistake. It is a mistake that we will fix with our legislation today. We will save a great deal of money in the process. Mr. Speaker, I want to commend once again our chairman, our ranking member, and all of the people who worked so hard on this, but most of all the gentlewoman from Maryland [Mrs. Morella], for making this corrections day bill such a success. I expect that it will pass with flying colors.

Mr. COX of California

Mr. COX of California. Mr. Speaker, I thank the chairman for yielding. The collapse of the Soviet empire is the most significant geopolitical event of the second half of the 20th century. It marks an enormous victory in the global struggle for freedom. Its direct beneficiaries are the liberated peoples of Europe and Asia that comprise the former captive nations so long dominated by the Warsaw Pact. Unlike NATO, which was organized to protect and defend its members from Soviet expansionism, the Warsaw Pact subjugated its own member states, as we saw when Warsaw Pact troops invaded Hungary and Czechoslovakia to depose their governments and snuff out the people's freedom. The captive nations, whose people fought and struggled against communism for so many dark years, deserve membership in NATO more than any other people on earth. NATO membership will accelerate the growth of their democracies and the pace of their economic reforms, and it will make our own world more secure. History demonstrates that democracies and free people do not threaten their neighbors. This legislation is necessary now because action by the Clinton administration is long overdue, because the window of opportunity will not remain open forever. It has been 5 long years since the collapse of the Soviet empire. Let us begin this process now, in Poland, Hungary, and the Czech Republic, and let us work with the Baltic nations and the other former captive nations of central and economic Europe to expand the family of democracies and the respecters and promoters of free enterprise on our planet so that our world will indeed soon be a safer place.

Mr. COX of California

Mr. COX of California. Mr. Speaker, within the hour the President of the United States has waived sanctions on Fidel Castro that he himself, Bill Clinton, signed into law just 5 months ago. This latest flip-flop is an extraordinary appeasement of the Communist dictator that will not work. Since Castro began his sadistic and pathologically anti-American rule in 1959, he has denied civil rights and political liberties at home and exported revolution throughout the hemisphere. Indeed, beyond assisting dictators and dictatorships, in our own hemisphere he has fielded soldiers and troops in no less than 14 African countries in 1 moment. Cuba has not one independent newspaper, not one independent school, not one independent labor union. Castro continues to execute and imprison political prisoners, and has driven 1.3 million Cubans into exile in this country. The fall of the Berlin Wall and the collapse of the Soviet Union should have choked off Castro's rule, but he still is alive, in large part because of sustenance from the Clinton administration. Having signed the Libertad Act 5 months ago and said that he was for sanctions on Castro, Bill Clinton is now using his Presidential authority to waive those very sanctions. Appeasing Castro is the wrong way for America to proceed. This latest flipflop of Bill Clinton's is more than a broken promise to the American people and the world. It is, in fact, capitulation that will endanger the world's security. Bill Clinton should be ashamed of himself.

Mr. COX of California

Mr. COX of California. Mr. Speaker, the recent passage by the House of H.R. 248, the Traumatic Brain Injury Act, gives me occasion to recognize several individuals in Orange County, CA, who have dedicated their lives to raising awareness and improving our understanding and treatment of traumatic brain injury. Prior to the redistricting that took place prior to the 1992 elections, it was my pleasure and honor to be able to directly represent the citizens of Huntington Beach, CA, in the U.S. Congress. It was back then that I first met Mike Lee, a resident of Huntington Beach who suffered severe head injuries in 1991 in a tragic bicycle accident. Both before and after the accident, Mike has lived life to the fullest. In the 1980's, he cofounded a $10 million roofing business. He's a certified life insurance agent. And from 1961 to 1971, he worked for Rockwell, the prime contractor for the Apollo Space Program. He served as pad leader for three of the Apollo moonshots--the first Earth orbital Apollo flight, Apollo 7, a lunar orbital, Apollo 9, and the first lunar landing, Apollo 11. While the 1991 accident caused severe brain damage, greatly reducing cognitive ability and affecting short-term memory, Mike has made tremendous strides in his own recovery program to overcome his injury, and his never-give-up spirit for life has been an inspiration to the many people he's come into contact with since his accident. He's also done much to heighten public awareness and understanding throughout Orange County of traumatic brain injury. One of the organizations that's been of help to Mike, and many others with severe brain injuries, is the nonprofit National Cognitive Recovery Foundation, which is headquartered in Irvine, CA, and on whose honorary board of advisors I am pleased to serve. Thanks to the active leadership of Dr. Dan Levinson, the foundation has garnered national attention for its role in helping to establish programs across the country to provide low-cost and effective cognitive rehabilitation, retraining, and special education for brain-injured adults. Hundreds of persons have been helped through the foundation's community college rehabilitation courses. Coastline Community College in Costa Mesa, CA, was the first such institution to offer classes to re-educate and assist in the recovery of persons with brain injuries. Today, three community colleges in southern California offer the same innovative program, and the National Cognitive Recovery Foundation plans to expand this program to colleges nationwide. Thanks to support from charitable and private sources, Coastline is able to offer its program at an approximate cost of $50 per semester; other brain injury rehabilitation programs offered in other parts of the country can cost a person up to $15,000 per year. The Traumatic Brain Injury Act approved by the House last week is aimed at promoting precisely these kinds of creative and worthwhile programs. This legislation will authorize the National Institute of Health to conduct research into the prevention and treatment of traumatic brain injury. It will also authorize grants to groups like the National Cognitive Recovery Foundation for innovative demonstration programs that can help improve access to rehabilitation, health care, and other service for persons suffering from severe brain injuries. Mr. Speaker, now that the House has approved the Traumatic Brain Injury Act, I urge my colleagues in the U.S. Senate to act swiftly on this legislation. I ask them to keep in mind the daily struggles and challenges faced by Mike Lee and the thousands of other Americans with severe brain injuries. This legislation will do much to further progress in improving our understanding of traumatic brain injuries, in reducing the incidence of head injuries through public awareness and prevention efforts, and in promoting the development of effective, low- cost rehabilitation and treatment programs.

Mr. COX of California

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

Mr. COX of California. Mr. Chairman, is it the case that because we cannot know everything, which was the burden of Alan Greenspan's comment, we must, therefore, know nothing? This is a very sound amendment. It would permit us some additional information only. Are we so frightened of information that we do not wish to know it? Right now under our current arrangements, the Congressional Budget Office makes macroeconomic estimates of gross domestic product, unemployment, interest rates. And then the Joint Committee on Taxation, when it takes a look at our revenue legislation, finds that these things are fixed and immutable like the old stars in an Aristotelian firmament. Nothing that we do with revenues can affect unemployment. Nothing that we do with tax legislation can affect interest rates or gross domestic product. Those things are fixed. Yes, we can take behavior into account, but only within this box that is already fixed in advance by CBO. We know this does not work. We know it produces false results. When I was on the Committee on the Budget, I had a chance to ask the director of CBO, Robert Reischauer why it was that on average CBO's estimate of the deficit were in error by over 100 percent. That kind of estimating error would get you fired anywhere in the private sector. His answer was, we are not as far off as OMB, as the White House budget estimators. There is no way in the world that anyone can say that what presently we do makes sense or appreciates reality. When we increased the rate of tax on capital gains by 40 percent in 1986, revenues to the Treasury dropped by a third. But CBO, using this model, and joint tax, using this model, told us that revenues were going to go up but we increased that stated rate. We have a lot of real world evidence that tells us that the flat earth econometric model, if we can call it an econometric model, simply does not work as in use around here. So what my colleague, the gentleman from California [Mr. Campbell], is telling us is, let us experiment, yes, by looking at this for informational purposes only. We will not use it. It will not supplant our current scoring system, but we can have the information. If Members want to bury their heads in the sand and follow flat earth economics forever into the future, vote no. But if they want an honest evaluation and new information, vote yes on this very sound amendment.

Mr. COX of California. Mr. Chairman, if the gentleman will yield further, I thank the gentleman for his explanation, and I applaud his efforts in ensuring that the Books for the Blind Program continues to provide services so desperately needed by the Nation's blind and visually impaired citizens.

Mr. COX of California. Mr. Chairman, I rise to applaud the committee for its work in promoting the Books for the Blind Program. The Books for the Blind Program is funded through the Library of Congress and ensures that our blind and visually impaired populations will have continued access to printed reading materials. This past week I had the pleasure of addressing the national convention of the National Federation of the Blind, an organization representing those members of our society who must rely almost exclusively on the Books for the Blind Program for reading materials of all kinds, whether educational, informational, or for the latest best seller. I therefore wish to commend my colleagues on the committee for increasing funding for this worthy program to nearly $45 million. Due to the tremendous role this program plays in the lives of our blind and visually impaired fellow citizens, I would like to inquire of the gentleman from California what effect, if any, would section 208 of the measure have on the Books for the Blind Program.

Mr. COX of California

Mr. COX of California. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume to say in response to my colleague and friend from Massachusetts, who normally is one of the most attentive during debate, that he must have missed the debate earlier on this because no one who has spoken in favor of this resolution, from the gentlewoman from California [Ms. Pelosi] to the gentleman from California [Mr. Miller] to myself, in any way meant for this resolution to be a substitute for the previous vote. To the contrary, I voted, as perhaps did the gentleman, I do not know how he voted, but certainly as did Ms. Pelosi and Mr. Miller, and the others who have spoken, as did the chairman of the Committee on International Relations, as did the chairman of the Committee on National Security, and that is to be serious in the one and only way we were given an opportunity to be serious, and that is with the resolution offered by the gentleman from California, Mr. Rohrabacher. What we now have an opportunity to do, having faced obvious defeat on the scoreboard, having seen the vote tally, is what we have not done before, and that is to go beyond the jurisdiction of the Committee on Ways and Means, to the Committee on National Security, to the Committee on International Relations, to the Committee on Banking and Financial Services, and again to the Committee on Ways and Means, and have not only hearings, because that is not all this resolution says, but also legislation dealing with the very topics laid out in the resolution so that we are on the floor here no later than September 30. I have spoken personally with the chairmen of these committees, and this is not just a hortatory injunction resolution. These chairmen are committed to bringing legislation forward. The chairman of the Committee on National Security was himself here on the floor, the chairman of the Committee on International Relations was himself here on the floor.

Mr. COX of California. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, as a result of the vote we have just taken, the question we are faced with is, if not MFN, then what? What is our policy? Our current policy towards China, if it can be called a policy at all, is woefully out of date. Blind tolerance of Chinese communism comes from an era of Richard Nixon and Leonid Brezhnev, when the Government of the United States played the China card as a check against Soviet communism. Embracing communism in China was a superior alternative, because Chinese communism in that era was not expansionist. It did not have global designs. But today the Soviet Union is no more. In place of the generals who served under Brezhnev, we have General Alexander Lebed, who says that he would permit Chechen independence, who says that NATO expansion is not a threat to Russia, who says that he would not oppose the United States assisting Taiwan in constructing an anti-missile defense to protect against attack from Communist China. Where is the policy for a Lebed instead of a Brezhnev? Where is the policy for a newly expansionist China that has arisen in the wake of the collapse of the Soviet Union? Mr. Speaker, since we voted ``yes'', I did not, the House did, to continue most-favored-nation status for China, is our intended message that this is a reward for China's Communist rulers? Is the message that, on balance, their offenses against human rights, global peace and security, and the international norms of behavior are tolerable? Or, to put it the other way, if we had just now denied MFN, would we even then have believed that our security problems are solved, that the Communist government would permit a free press all of a sudden; that they would stop brutalizing Tibet; or perhaps, because we were to deny MFN, they would let the Tibetans select their own Panchen Lama, in accordance with religious custom and law? Maybe then we might think they would honor their agreements on nuclear nonproliferation, on trade tariffs and trade barriers, on the theft of intellectual property. But I do not think so. I do not think, independent of how we might vote here on MFN, that the result would cause the Communists in Beijing to let Wei Jing Sheng go free, or in any way to permit democracy in place of a one-party state. I do not think that they would renounce the use of force against Taiwan. A carefully tailored policy toward China, suited to the 1990's and to the next century, must do more than simply turn on the light switch of MFN, a binary choice, yea or nay, on or off, we love you--we hate you. We should reward progress and resist military aggression, trade violations, and human rights abuses. For example, if Taiwan is merely part of China, then we should reward that part of China for ending its human rights abuses, for permitting a free press, for holding free and fair and democratic elections for Parliament and for President, and for lowering its tariff barriers. Taiwan should be admitted to the World Trade Organization forthwith. They are willing to meet its requirements. Keep in mind that membership in the WTO does not connote sovereignty. Hong Kong is already a member of the WTO, and when it is absorbed by Communist China next year, it will retain its independent membership, because it was admitted only as a special customs region, the same basis on which Taiwan is now applying. The People's Republic of China, which does not meet the requirements for WTO admission and is not near to doing so, should not be allowed to keep Taiwan out. Another example, we should end the charade of so- called trade with the People's Liberation Army. We all know that the Peoples Liberation Army is the largest military force on Earth. Communist China's military budget has more than doubled since the collapse of the Soviet empire. They have been buying SS-18 intercontinental ballistic missiles from Moscow. They have fired nuclear-capable missiles toward Taiwan, seizing territory from the Philippines, and expanding into the South China Sea. Where does the money come from for all of this military expansion? It comes from what the Washington Post has referred to as ``PLA, Inc.''; the People's Liberation Army, Inc.: over 50,000 companies controlled by the Peoples Liberation Army as commercial fronts, with combined earnings in excess of 5 billion U.S. dollars annually. If the People's Liberation Army were judged in this capacity as a commercial enterprise, it would fit neatly into the top fifth of the Fortune 500. Money from huge illegal arms deals is laundered by PLA commercial fronts which are subsidized by the Communist government, in violation of every rule of free trade, to make more money through nominally commercial enterprises for even more off-budget financing for more threatening arms for the People's Liberation Army. This is not defense conversion, my friends. This is not turning swords into plowshares, this is turning swords into golf clubs and shoes and circuit boards so that the People's Liberation Army can make more money to buy more weapons. The two most notorious are the People's Liberation Army's commercial fronts, Poly Technologies and Norinco. Poly Technologies, you remember, has sold over 1 billion dollars' worth of arms to the military thugs who dictate Burma. Norinco has sold the chemicals necessary to construct chemical weapons to Saddam Hussein in Iraq, and in my home State of California these two outfits, Poly Technologies and Norinco recently had their representatives indicted for seeking to smuggle into the United States not just AK-47's, as we read, but also over 300,000 silenced machine guns, 60-millimeter mortars, hand grenades, and heat-seeking missiles capable of taking out of the sky a 747. The United States should not embrace money laundering by the People's Liberation Army. We should pass the Gilman bill, sponsored by the chairman of the Committee on International Relations, and end this dangerous policy of so-called trade with commercial fronts of the Communist Chinese military. We should pass the Solomon bill that would end United States taxpayer subsidies for China through the World Bank and the Asian Development Bank until the so-called loans to China no longer subsidize the arms buildup that I have just described. Finally, we should enunciate an explicit and clear vision for our policy toward China. We should state clearly and the President should state clearly that we oppose communism in China. We seek an end to Communist one-party rule, and an institution of democracy, a restoration of human rights, an observation of the rules of free enterprise. This we can do. When we pass this resolution, the committees of jurisdiction, not just Ways and Means, but Banking, International Relations, and National Security will be instructed to hold immediate hearings on the issues that I have raised and all of the issues spelled out in this resolution, and to report out responsible legislation promptly; in any event, no later than September 30, so that we can deal with these problems directly on the House floor. It may well be that today's vote marks a watershed. Yes, we have once again permitted MFN to go forward, but this time the debate will not stop there. This time, in recognition of the fact that MFN can no longer bear the weight of all our policy disagreements in our bilateral relationship with the People's Republic of China, we will move on and do the right thing and create a new China policy for the next century. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. COX of California. Mr. Speaker, pursuant to House Resolution 463, I call up the resolution (H. Res. 461) regarding United States concerns with human rights abuse, nuclear and chemical weapons proliferation, illegal weapons trading, military intimidation of Taiwan, and trade violations by the People's Republic of China and the People's Liberation Army, and directing the committees of jurisdiction to commence hearings and report appropriate legislation, and ask for its immediate consideration in the House.

Mr. COX of California. Mr. Speaker, I yield the balance of my time, 7 minutes, to the gentleman from New Jersey [Mr. Smith], the distinguished chairman of the Helsinki Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe, the chairman of the Subcommittee on International Operations and Human Rights, who has held nine hearings on China's abuse of human rights and the national security issues that the military buildup by the Communist Chinese poses to the United States.

Mr. COX of California. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from California [Mr. Hunter].

Mr. COX of California. Mr. Speaker, I object to the vote on the ground that a quorum is not present and make the point of order that a quorum is not present.

Mr. COX of California. Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the support of the gentlewoman from Texas. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Illinois [Mr. Porter], the distinguished chairman of the Congressional Human Rights Caucus.

Mr. COX of California. Mr. Speaker, I yield 4 minutes to the distinguished chairman of the Committee on International Relations, the gentleman from New York [Mr. Gilman]. (Mr. GILMAN asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. COX of California

Mr. COX of California. Mr. Speaker, I thank both of my colleagues for yielding time to me. Mr. Speaker, much of the debate has centered around whether most- favored-nation trade status is capable of addressing issues beyond trade. The implicit notion is that once we stop talking about things like theft of intellectual property, once we stop talking about facts, such as that the average tariff levels on United States goods maintained by Communist China are more than 15 times higher than United States tariffs on Communist Chinese imports to our country, that we have gone beyond trade qua trade, that we therefore have extended into the realm of something else; perhaps national security, perhaps international relations, but surely not MFN. Mr. Speaker, it is true that we do have a great deal of concern with China's policies that apparently deal not with trade but other things, like the torture of religious figures. Chen Zhuman was hung upside down in a window frame as his personal torture. The brutal occupation of Tibet is not apparently about trade. The fact that Communist China is a one-party state which is capable of imprisoning for 28 years now a democracy activist like Wei Jing Sheng is not, I suppose, technically about trade. Maybe even the Laogai forced labor camp system, the Chinese gulag that comprises over 3,000 such camps, maybe that is not technically about trade. Maybe the live shelling of Taiwan's shipping lanes earlier this year when Communist China sought to intimidate the nascent democracy on Taiwan, which was then holding the first Presidential election, democratic Presidential election, not only in Taiwan's history but in 4,000 years of Chinese history, maybe that was not exactly about trade. Maybe even the sale of M-11 missiles illicitly, capable of delivering unclear warheads, to Pakistan, or the sale to the same country of ring magents for the purposes of enriching uranium, or of selling the ingredients for chemical weapons to Iran, maybe that is not trade, although clearly it is trade in illicit arms. But in fact, Mr. Speaker, we are not talking about trade in the usual sense. We think of trade as independent commercial entities acting with a profit motive and responding to market forces. The People's Liberation Army is not such an independent entity, but the People's Liberation Army is engaged in trade. How much? The People's Liberation Army controls, according to not just the China Business Review, which printed this, but the Defense Intelligence Agency of our country, over 50,000 companies, commercial fronts generating moneys for the largest armed forces on Earth. They are into pharmaceuticals, real estate, bicycles, cleaning supplies. When we trade with these entities, we are in fact benefiting the very Peoples Liberation Army that is responsible for the internal oppression and the external proliferation of nuclear and chemical weapons. This is not trade, it is not commercial activity. It is off-budget financing for the Peoples Liberation Army. So MFN is not just about trade, either. It is about financing communism. Let us stop pretending otherwise.