Tom Davis

Mr. DAVIS

Mr. DAVIS. Sure.

Mr. DAVIS. I would like the gentleman to respond to a couple of concerns that I have. First of all, it is my understanding that the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency and the Office of Thrift Supervisor have never issued safety and soundness regulations on an emergency basis. If the gentleman has different information, I would be happy to hear that----

Mr. DAVIS. Would the gentleman yield?

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

Mr. DAVIS. Mr. Chairman, again, the frustration. Everything, every amendment that comes up, is an emergency, it is a crisis. It is something that this bill is somehow going to take away the flexibility of this body or the regulators to address. I just do not think that is the case. But I would just note that the same people have been arguing for all of these other exemptions, the Clean Air Act; wastewater treatment; aviation airport security; licensing, construction, and operation of nuclear reactors; disposal of nuclear waste and toxic substances; operation of nuclear reactors; health of individuals with disabilities; child labor; minimum wages; OSHA; protection of children; help for people with disabilities; and then this. It is the same arguments and attempts to weaken this bill. Many of these items have valid points, but I think they can all be addressed within the flexibility of this act, given this body can still go ahead with unfunded mandates after they are costed out and the regulators reach what those costs are before they act.

Mr. DAVIS. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the requisite number of words. I just want to be very brief and say to my friend from Pennsylvania that I was a county commissioner as well. This is one program where the States actually make money. Currently, this bill will in no way preclude the current system. It is not in jeopardy at all. This would apply to future efforts by the Federal Government to send the bill for these programs of course down to the State and local governments. I believe this should be a partnership. I think the Federal Government needs to be involved in this. I agree with the gentleman on this. I do not think that we should let any of these dollars go uncollected. But I also believe that we should have this cost in front of us before we send new mandates to the State and local governments. That is all we are asking for. It is for that reason that I oppose this amendment, but certainly share the same concerns for collecting these costs, which total into the billions of dollars across this country, and hope that we can join in perhaps another way, when waiving a point of order or having a dialog with the State and local governments, as future issues of this sort come before this Congress.

Mr. DAVIS. Yet.

Mr. DAVIS. Mr. Chairman, that is not in the bill.

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

Mr. DAVIS

Mr. DAVIS. Mr. Speaker, I rise this morning to pay tribute to one of our outstanding citizens in Virginia's Eleventh Congressional District, Carol Lynn Kelley of Lake Barcroft. Carol, known as ``Kari'' to her friends, was born 40 years ago in Woonsocket, RI, to Margaret and Stacia Klara. A 1972 graduate from Woonsocket High School, she graduated from Vassar College in 1976, and obtained her law degree from Case Western University School of Law in Cleveland in 1979. She practiced law in Cleveland until 1985, when she moved to Fairfax County, VA. After being admitted to the Virginia Bar she practiced law in Northern Virginia from 1986 to 1992. At that time Kari decided to devote more time to her two young daughters, Elizabeth (Lizzy) and Allison and the community where she and her husband Tim make their home. Kari has been active in the PTA's at Ellen Glasgow Middle School and Pinecrest School. She is an active Brownie leader in Falls Church and a member of St. Anthony's Catholic Church. Last year Mrs. Kelly was appointed to the Fairfax County Civil Service Commission, a body which adjudicates disputes in the Fairfax County government and makes recommendations on civil service policy. Mr. Speaker, I know my colleagues join me in honoring Kari Kelley, an outstanding mother, attorney, civic activist and civil service commissioner as her friends and community leaders honor her on Saturday, January 28, 1995, at the Morse Estate in Falls Church.

Mr. DAVIS

Mr. DAVIS. Mr. Speaker, I rise this morning to pay tribute to one of our outstanding citizens in Virginia's 11th Congressional District, Carol Lynn Kelley of Lake Barcroft. Carol, known as Kari to her friends, was born 40 years ago in Woonsocket, RI to Margaret and Stacia Klara. A 1972 graduate from Woonsocket High School, she graduated from Vassar College in 1976, and obtained her law degree from Case Western University School of Law in Cleveland in 1979. She practiced law in Cleveland until 1985, when she moved to Fairfax County, VA. After being admitted to the Virginia bar she practiced law in northern Virginia from 1986 to 1992. At that time Kari decided to devote more time to her two young daughters, Elizabeth (Lizzy) and Allison and the community where she and her husband Tim make their home. Kari has been active in the PTA's at Ellen Glasgow Middle School and Pinecrest School. She is an active Brownie leader in Falls Church and a member of St. Anthony's Catholic Church. Last year Mrs. Kelly was appointed to the Fairfax County Civil Service Commission, a body which adjudicates disputes in the Fairfax County government and makes recommendations on civil service policy. Mr. Speaker, I know my colleagues join me in honoring Kari Kelly, an outstanding mother, attorney, civic activist, and civil service commissioner as her friends and community leaders honor her on Saturday January 28, 1995 at the Morse Estate in Falls Church.

Mr. DAVIS

Mr. DAVIS. Of course. We have the flexibility under this act to go ahead with that, but we would have the costs in front of us. And we would have to affirmatively waive the point of order.

Mr. DAVIS. I yield to the gentlewoman from New York.

Mr. DAVIS. Mr. Chairman, if a mandate is required and we believe the costs should be allocated to someone else, why not vote on it? Why not overrule a point of order and take some responsibility for our actions as we send that dollar down to the States and localities. Let us remember this: unfunded mandates are basically a cost shift from a progressive income tax to more regressive property taxes. I believe it is in everyone's interest to know these costs before we pass them onto States and localities in taxes.

Mr. DAVIS. Mr. Chairman, reclaiming my time, let me try to sum up, if I may. Keeping these items in the bill does not mean Congress will pass no more laws on these matters or even any unfunded mandates. What it does is nothing in this act nullifies any existing law or regulation. But in this case, child molestation laws and regulations, they can still move forward on a prospective, and any act that is currently, of course, in effect, is not affected. But we will either pay for it or know what the costs we are putting on to our States and localities will be before we can proceed and have all of that information in front of us. The real issue is not the relative merit of any single mandate; the issue is who should pay, and if Congress does not pay, what will the costs be to those with whom we are passing the bill. What is wrong with obtaining the cost to the States and localities before we act. What are we afraid of?

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

Mr. DAVIS. Mr. Chairman, I rise on behalf of the committee to oppose this bill and move to strike the last word. Mr. Chairman, for reasons that we have opposed other amendments to this section, we would oppose this amendment at all. I think we are all against rape or all against child molestation, and as a father of three, I do not want to have sexual predators go free either. But I will tell you what, there is nothing in this bill that prohibits this data base from going forward and that is going to cripple our efforts in these areas. Mr. Chairman, I am just becoming increasingly frustrated at the pace and content of the debate on this Unfunded Mandate Reform Act. Over the past several days there has been large amount of disinformation on the bill coming out from its opponents and many mischaracterizations about the competence of State and local governments to fulfill their duties in a number of areas. The American people know that all knowledge and competency does not reside in Washington, DC, in the Congress. In fact, if you look around, some of the most dynamic and innovative programs for the homeless, for the hungry, for protecting the environment, fighting sexual predators and child molestation, are emanating from local and State governments. The federalist system has traditionally challenged State and local systems to experiment and invent new programs and policies to meet the needs of the citizens. Other levels of the government have a great opportunity to gain insights to benefit from these experiments and from these programs. But there is a certain arrogance in believing that Congress and only Congress has the knowledge of what laws and programs should become public policy. This arrogance is intensified when Congress does not have the guts to put our money where our mouth is. That is, to pass the bill, and then we pass the buck on to States and localities to fund what we feel are the priorities. I keep hearing the argument that Congress is only trying to help and assist State and local governments to provide functions that it otherwise could not. But that is ridiculous. In this particular case the big seven, including the National Governors Association, National Conference of Mayors, National League of Cities, National Association of Counties, and a number of private sector entities, including the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, support this bill and oppose this amendment, because they recognize these amendments are basically gutting the bill. I served in local governments for 15 years prior to any election to this body. What I think Members need to understand is that local and State officials want the same things that Members of this body want. But we were increasingly frustrated at the local level by having the Federal Government take a larger share of our local dollars from our local efforts to cut crime, to sexual predators, to fight the whole crime area, to improve the environment, to house the homeless and feed the hungry, because we had to take those dollars and pay for mandates Congress thought were most important, but not important enough to send the dollars to go with it. As I see exemption after exemption proposed in from the other side of the aisle, it is important to put these amendments into perspective and into context. A core of Members have consistently supported exempting from this bill not just sexual predators in this case in those actions, but also the Clean Air Act, wastewater treatment, and operation of nuclear reactors, disposal of nuclear waste and toxic substances, health of individuals with disabilities, child labor and minimum wages, and OSHA. You put these together, there is no bill. There is no bill if you put that altogether, and this bill would have no teeth at all. Taking these amendments together, the proposals would in fact, the bill would become worthless.

Mr. DAVIS. We would still have that option, but we would have the costs in front of us and identified before we could act on that instead of being automatic. This is not a no-money-no-mandates bill. There may be an amendment offered to that later. This would simply put those costs in front of us, and we would have to affirmatively vote to waive the point of order before we could go forward with an unfunded mandate.

Mr. DAVIS. What would happen with the bill is----

Mr. DAVIS. They do not have an option of opting out of this. We have the same authority we would, but the costs would be identified up front. We would have to affirmatively waive that point of order. The responsibility would still lie with the counties.

Mr. DAVIS. Mr. Chairman, I demand a recorded vote.

Mr. DAVIS. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the requisite number of words. Mr. Chairman, very briefly, I want to clear up some comments that were just made for the record. First of all, nothing in this bill cancels any current mandate or prevents us from passing future unfunded mandates. We would of course have to cost these out if they were over $50 million across the rest of the country, and we could then decide, recognizing those costs that we would pass on the State and local governments, whether we would want to fund that mandate or impose an unfunded mandate on those other jurisdictions. Also this bill does not apply to authorizations, unless in that reauthorization there is a new mandate over $50 million that will be passed on to State and Federal governments or a reduction in funding for existing mandates. I just want to set the record straight on that, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. DAVIS

Mr. DAVIS. In point of fact, does not this legislation specifically require the committee reports to include an analysis of how funding a mandate would affect the competitive balance between the public and the private sector?

Mr. DAVIS. Also it is my recollection that the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the NFIB, the National Association of Home Builders and Browning-Ferris, all private sector entities that could be adversely affected through this public- of aisle are concerned about, are all endorsing this legislation in its present form?

Mr. DAVIS. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman.