Tom Davis

Mr. DAVIS

Mr. DAVIS. I am not comfortable with it. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman.

Mr. DAVIS

Mr. DAVIS. I thank the gentleman. I think we just disagree about the best way to get to that. I think the committee reports are going to amplify what the benefits are as they traditionally have done. That will be available to the Congress before they vote on it. What this bill does for the first time is it brings accountability as to who is going to pay for it. That is why it is important. I think this amendment really defeats that purpose.

Mr. DAVIS. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the requisite number of words. Mr. Chairman, I think this is a great day for State and local governments. It is a great day for taxpayers and a great day for a new accountability in Congress. With this passage, we are going to take a giant step in returning local decisionmaking to local and State governments, to returning property taxes to local governments instead of being hijacked by Congress for programs that we in this body feel are more important than what the localities decide. If we believe in a program in this Congress, we should believe in it enough to fund it, not pound our chest and pass the bill and then go ahead and pass the buck on to State and local governments and their taxpayers. When a government that sets the priorities does not find the money within its budget to fund those priorities, we get a completely different set of priorities than if a government that sets the priorities has to find the funds within their own organization and their own budgets. What has happened over the past few years is a proliferation of unfunded mandates going down to State and local governments, layer after layer of unfunded mandates and a significant shifting of costs from a progressive income tax to regressive property taxes and sales taxes. Another consequence is that although there are many fine programs mandated and imposed on local governments, many other fine programs that local governments intend end up having to close shelters, lay off police officers, cut day-care centers. And they have to achieve these to pay for the mandates that we fail to fund. The numerous attempts to exclude and exempt certain areas from this bill, Medicare, Medicaid, health laws, programs for children, environmental laws, labor laws and the like, would have, taken together, gutted this bill, what we are trying to do here. Besides, this bill still gives us the option of sending those mandates to the States but we will have the costs in front of us before we make those decisions and find out what kind of bill we are sending down to the State and local governments. Mr. Chairman, I believe that their inclusion, if we had included those exemptions in this bill, it would have resulted in more imposition of costs on local governments and the end result, as one who has been in local government for 15 years, would be forcing our States and our cities and our counties to continue to close community centers, cut back on public safety, cut education, abandon health care centers, because we in Congress, by unfunded mandates, have redirected their local budgets in a way we felt was better, not often realizing that we forced the local governments to cut good programs so they could fund our programs. passing this bill, even the other body, the most deliberative body in this country, managed to pass this 86 to 10 in a shorter period of time than it took us. I just want to end by saying this has strong bipartisan support. I wanted to thank the gentleman from Pennsylvania [Mr. Clinger] for shepherding this bill through committee and on the floor, my cosponsors, the gentleman from California [Mr. Condit], who has been working on this before I ever came to this body, the gentleman from Ohio [Mr. Portman], who was instrumental in getting this included in the contract, the staffs and other Members, the gentleman from Virginia [Mr. Moran], the gentleman from New York [Mr. Towns], and others who have been working on this for many years, and you, Mr. Chairman, for presiding over these proceedings. This is a great day for State and local governments. I think we have taken a giant first step today, and I urge final passage.

Mr. DAVIS. I yield to the gentleman from Minnesota.

Mr. DAVIS. I understand the gentleman's point. I think we need to get a handle on what the benefits are. I just do not think the CBO is the direction to go. As I looked at the committee reports on bills reported through, the benefits have been outlined fully. The benefits is what have been driving legislation emanating from Congress for the last 50 years, and the costs have really been hidden. There is a balance here, but I think they are going to be clearly underscored in the reports, and we have that ability, the authors of these bills, as they move through in the authorizing committee, to lay out what the benefits are. It is not CBO's job. That is why I oppose the amendment. I think it defeats what we are trying to do.

Mr. DAVIS. We do not. CBO's role versus what is our role.

Mr. DAVIS. I yield to the gentleman from Vermont.

Mr. DAVIS. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the requisite number of words. Mr. Chairman, this amendment, the same supporters are the ones who voted to gut every other provision of this bill in terms of the type of legislative discretion we would have, who it applies to, who is exempted, and if we adopt this today, it will do the same thing. The problem has been all along we have been full of benefits, as these bills come to the floor of the Congress of the United States, finding all the great benefits that are going to result if we pass this bill. What we have failed to look at are what are the costs going to be. What are the costs going to be to the people who ultimately pay these? Because none of these items are for free. Instead of Congress funding them, we are sending them down to the localities. This amendment changes the role of CBO from looking at the costs, of starting to weigh benefits. That is our job as Members. It will already be contained in the committee reports. I think the bottom line is that the American people are tired of the trickle-down taxes that have resulted from our actions here as we look at the benefits which are presented, very ably, by authors of the different mandates, and they are contained very fully in the committee reports. But the costs are not contained, resulting in trickle-down taxes. They are tired of cost-shifting from these mandates from the Federal income tax to local property taxes. They are tired of seeing local governments, which I have been involved with for 15 years before coming to this body, having to cut aid to schools, having to cut aid to, or having to close community centers, having to lay off police officers to fund mandates that emanate from here. It is the costs we are concerned about. The benefits are readily contained already in committee reports. That is what has been driving this car from the inception.

Mr. DAVIS

Mr. DAVIS. Mr. Speaker, it gives me great pleasure to rise today to pay tribute to a woman who is a resident of the Eleventh District of Virginia, Margie Lee. Margie is retiring from the Social Security Administration after 37 years and 8 months of dedicated service. She has held many positions in her 37 years at the SSA, including acting area director for the Washington, DC, metropolitan area, district manager of the Alexandria, VA, Social Security District, assistant district manager in Alexandria, VA, and Wheaton, MD, District, and various other positions in the Washington, DC, and the Chicago area. Her most recent assignment was as special projects coordinator out of the Chief Judges Office, Office of Hearings and Appeals, SSA. In recognition of her work Margie's awards include the Ewell T. Bartlett Memorial Award, 1990 for Humanitarian Service and the Commissioners Citation, the highest award given at SSA after serving as the Federal coordinator of the Combined Federal Campaign. Margie has been a long-time resident of Reston and been very active in her community. She is a charter member of the Reston Chapter of the Links, Inc.; past president of Reston chapter, and serves on area and local committees. She is also a member of Jack and Jill, St. Augustine Catholic Church. Member of Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority. Mr. Speaker, I know my colleagues join me in honoring Margie Lee for her hard work, dedication and many years of service at the Social Security Administration.

Mr. DAVIS

Mr. DAVIS. If the gentleman will yield further, that is correct.

Mr. DAVIS. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for yielding to me. Mr. Chairman, I rise in support of the amendment offered by my friend and neighbor, the gentleman from Virginia [Mr. Moran], on this. I just want to take the opportunity to say I think this puts some teeth into title II. As a former board chairman adjacent to the city of Alexandria, of which Mr. Moran was the mayor, I applaud his leadership in this area. Long before many people were talking about unfunded mandates, the gentleman from Virginia [Mr. Moran] has been a leader in this cause. I think this amendment will strengthen this bill. I just want to applaud the gentleman once again for his efforts in this, and rise in support of it. I hope the amendment will be accepted.

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

Mr. DAVIS. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman from Colorado for yielding to me. Mr. Chairman, I would concur with the gentleman's statement. There is a standard of reasonableness built into this bill in terms of the agencies being able to gather and make the reports.

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

Mr. DAVIS. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the requisite number of words. I just want to be very brief and compliment the authors of this amendment and say on behalf of the committee that we support this amendment.

Mr. DAVIS

Mr. DAVIS. Mr. Chairman, under this bill the Congress will still have the authority to pass the legislation that the gentleman from Pennsylvania wants. We still have that authority. We have not given that up at all. We will simply have the cost in front of us before we move ahead and, before we say to our localities that we are going to pass the bill to them and shift the tax burden from the progressive income tax to local property taxes, we are going to understand what that bill is. Before we say that this amendment is more important than local education projects, than local police protection, we are going to have a cost done so that this body can appropriately consider it. We can still address the clean water that the gentleman is concerned about. This does not affect any existing mandate whatsoever. I think that needs to be clarified. We still have that flexibility, but we are going to know the cost first.

Mr. DAVIS

Mr. DAVIS. Mr. Chairman, I thank my colleague from Pennsylvania for yielding me the time. Mr. Chairman, first of all by defeating this amendment, we do not affect in any way the current law and current regulations affecting lead paint or asbestos. Those regulations, those rules, stay intact. This amendment does not even prohibit this House or this Congress from affecting future mandates and future laws governing these areas as well. We maintain that flexibility. All we do is we get those costs in front of us before we act, so that we can understand what the true costs of the regulations are going to be before we send the bills down to our State and local governments who are going to have to carry them out. Let me give a couple of examples of how sometimes the best intentions from this body end up having the opposite effect that we intend by the time they filter down to the State and local governments who we are supposedly trying to work with and help. On asbestos removal we had a project over in my county and it cost the county $7 million in renovations of an old school because of the asbestos removal, that we had originally hoped to put up as a senior citizens activity center and a home for the elderly. But the costs became very, very high in stretching that out. In one case we were able to build the center. In the other we had to abandon our plans to build housing for seniors. We could not do it because the costs were so great that had been sent down to us. Asbestos removal, unleaded paint, we will have the flexibility under this law to move ahead, but the unintended effects have been that we have put untold costs on localities, we have made construction of homeless shelters, senior housing, community centers too expensive in many cases because of these removal costs that we have put onto the localities. So in an adverse and unintended way, instead of protecting our children, it hampers local and State governments' ability to provide these services. I have been in local government for 15 years, Mr. Chairman. This sounds great but I can tell you it holds so many unintended consequences that have the adverse effects that work contrary to how we want them to by the time it gets down to local governments. I think this is an amendment that should be defeated.

Mr. DAVIS

Mr. DAVIS. Mr. Chairman, I think the frustration here is that no one wants to deny any Member the opportunity to offer an amendment. It is just that with the debate on some of these amendments, we are hearing the same arguments on our side in terms of not opening this up and include the costs of all these items before any kind of unfunded mandate would emanate from this body. The arguments are very similar in most of these areas. Limiting debate would allow everyone to offer their amendments. Members could stay on the floor and listen because the votes would be coming much closer. That is all we are trying to get to, not to deny any Member the opportunity to offer an amendment. We are just talking right now about this one title of the bill. I was in committee along with the gentlewoman, and these amendments were allowed to be offered in committee. In some of the other sections they were not because they were part of the rule.

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

Mr. DAVIS. I appreciate the gentleman yielding. Mr. Chairman, I want to make just one point. First to my colleague from North Carolina, I applaud her sensitivity to this issue. It is an important issue. But I cannot agree with this amendment. Let me just clarify a couple of issues. First of all, there is nothing in this legislation without this amendment that would preclude Congress from either mandating this and funding the mandate for workplace safety or, secondly, putting unfunded mandates on the States. We would just have the benefit first of all of knowing what those costs would be and we would have all that information in front of us. Why is that important? Let me go back to my own experience as the head of a county government in Fairfax County, where just a couple of years ago, we had a case under the Fair Labor Standards Act, in the pay of fire lieutenants and fire captains, a $2 million liability the county incurred for individuals that we had thought were officers and would be exempt from the act. The court came back and this one was added funding that we had to come back and pay. What did that mean to this locality? In order to meet the standards set by the Fair Labor Standards Act and the courts in this case, a $2 million obligation. In that year's budget we were forced to make cuts we had not intended to make originally. What that meant that year was we had to take money for special education--and there have been other amendments here trying to preclude that from the act--the locality had to take money from special education. Money for parents with children with Down's syndrome had to be cut under the Fair Labor Standards Act and we could not afford to pay them. Then we could not afford to properly fully fund our daycare for the families of the working poor, a very successful program we have in the county, where we left over 160 families that were unfunded that year because we had to put this money in something that individuals in Washington thought was a more important priority than we did locally. That is exactly the problem with these kinds of amendments, we are setting the priorities from Washington, we are cost-shifting from a progressive income tax to pay for these items to regressive property taxes at the local level, and in the gentleman's State with Proposition 13, that means cutting community centers and other needed local obligations that we cannot afford because of this. I thank the gentleman.

Mr. DAVIS. Mr. Chairman, if the gentlewoman would continue to yield, I understand the gentleman. I disagree with that. We will argue this later when the judicial review comes up, but there is always judicial review under the Administrative Procedure Act down the road, and we will argue this----

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

Mr. DAVIS. Mr. Chairman, I have nothing further, but I will move to strike the last word to say that we have tried to make an effort to move this dialog along at this point. We are prepared to stay this afternoon until 3 and, I think, on Monday until late in the evening to try to move this bill through. This week I was over at the National Association of Counties with Michael Highsmith, who is the chairman there, from Fulton County, GA. They are very frustrated about the pace of activity in this body. We have the mayors in this week and the Governors in next week. They would like to see some action. We are just trying to move the debate along, but if the other side of the aisle feels they need more time, I guess we ought to just go ahead and proceed and let them offer their amendments and face each one on the merits one by one. amendments offered by mr. kanjorski

Mr. DAVIS. But there is nothing here that stops them from going ahead and doing that now?

Mr. DAVIS. I understand. Mr. Chairman, will the gentlewoman yield?