David Dreier

Mr. DREIER

Mr. DREIER. Mr. Speaker, by direction of the Committee on Rules, I call up House Resolution 283 and ask for its immediate consideration.

Mr. DREIER. Mr. Speaker, I am happy, even though it is reluctant, to have the support of Members of the minority for this rule. But I have to tell the Members that they should be enthusiastically supporting it. Why? Because it is in fact a very fair and balanced rule. In fact, the degree of fairness is greater than what it was when my friends on the other side gave when they were in the majority. This is something called regular order. Now, our regular order, in fact, says that the gentleman from California (Mr. Thomas), as chairman of the Committee on Administration, has allowed to move forward the one substitute that was reported favorably from his committee and have that considered as a substitute. We have also chosen to make two other substitutes in order. As I said in my opening remarks, 26 amendments were submitted to the Committee on Rules. Of those, we have made in order 13. One amendment was offered by a Democrat, and that amendment was made in order. So my Democratic colleagues have had every amendment that they submitted to the Committee on Rules made in order under this measure. So it is a very fair rule. It is what is known as regular order. There is no poison pill involved in here. We are following regular order, which is exactly what Speaker Hastert said when he stood in this well on the opening day of the 106th Congress. So I urge my colleagues to support the rule. I will say that I am one who does believe very, very strongly in the importance of the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. I think that the gentleman from California (Mr. Thomas) is right on target in trying to provide a wide array of information to the American people as they look at the prospect of choosing their leaders. The issue of campaign finance reform is important. It is important for us to make sure that we do everything that we can to protect and nurture that First Amendment to the Constitution. That is the reason that I am supportive of the Doolittle substitute, and I will be supporting the gentleman from California (Mr. Thomas) in his effort. I know there has been a lot of talk about what the level of public interest is in this issue, and clearly there are some people who want to spend a lot of time focused on it. I do not think that we should be legislating based solely on what is the highest rated poll item. But I will say this, the issue of campaign finance reform is not quite as important as some of my colleagues have said. When the gentleman from New York (Mr. Nadler) talked about this being such an important issue, a decisive issue, as we juxtapose it to the Civil War, it seems to me that there are a wide range of important things that have taken place betwixt the Civil War and today, ranking all the way from the Second World War to the civil rights legislation, which was very, very important for our country. As the gentleman from California (Mr. Thomas) has just reminded me, we had a man who walked on the moon 3 decades ago. So there are lots of things that are important. We are, because of the level of interest that exists in this body, proceeding with consideration of this campaign finance reform measure under regular order, and I look forward to a free-flowing and stimulating debate. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time, and I move the previous question on the resolution. The previous question was ordered.

Mr. DREIER

Mr. DREIER. Mr. Chairman, I rise in strong support of this amendment. As a general policy, the Government should not try to control or regulate the Internet, and I think most of the 90 million Americans who send e-mail or surf the Web would totally agree with us on this. Last year we overwhelmingly approved the Internet Tax Freedom Act. We were wise enough to allow commerce on the Web to grow and flourish unfettered by Government interference before trying to tax or control it, and I believe that keeping Government bureaucracies out of the business of regulating political speech on the Web is a very important thing for us to do. This is not a partisan statement at all. In fact, a Democratic commissioner of the Federal Election Commission recently said the Internet changes politics. On the Internet every woman and man is a potential publisher. One need only visit the Web page of a sophisticated high school student to see how slim a technical advantage media giants enjoy. The Government should not involve itself in regulating free speech, and I believe that support of this amendment is the most responsible thing that we can do.

Mr. DREIER

Mr. DREIER. Mr. Chairman, I rise in support of the Rogan amendment to restore funding for NASA's aeronautics, science and technology accounts. While I compliment the Members of the Appropriations Committee for their determination to make the tough choices needed to ensure that the projected budget surplus becomes reality, I believe that H.R. 2684 underfunds NASA's important work. The Rogan amendment will help ensure that NASA has the resources it needs to complete its scientifically-rewarding unmanned research on-time and under-budget. H.R. 2684 provides for a reduction in NASA's budget of $925 million from the administration request. It is worth noting that this represents an increase of $400 million from the funding level initially approved by the VA-HUD subcommittee, and I thank Mr. Walsh and the members of the Committee for restoring these funds. Nevertheless, reducing NASA's budget by nearly $1 billion will threaten NASA's ability to move forward on a number of important projects. It would reduce the number of Space Shuttle missions that NASA can conduct in a given year, cancel comet exploration missions such as Deep Impact, and delay probes of Pluto and the Sun, as well as the international space station. NASA's budget has been reduced in each year since 1992 and NASA has done an admirable job in showing other federal departments how to do more with less. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory, for example, completed the memorable Mars Sojourner/Pathfinder mission for less than it costs to produce some Hollywood blockbusters. However, the reduction proposed in H.R. 2684 could do real damage to NASA's long-term mission. Given our great interest in developing a better understanding of the Solar System and the universe, I believe Congress must ensure NASA an appropriate level of funding. Furthermore, besides the benefits we derive from learning more about the universe, the space program has helped to produce myriad commercial spinoffs that benefit the lives of average Americans every day--from compact computers to CD players to the global positioning system. Mr. Chairman, while I differ with Members of the Appropriations Committee on some of their spending priorities, I want to compliment them for their commitment to spending restraint. When Congress agreed two years ago to limit future growth in federal spending, we knew that it would require fiscal discipline, but it was necessary to bring us the first balanced federal budget in a generation. Now, while Congress is making the tough choices, the President is pretending that we can increase spending on everything and still have a balanced budget. Through their willingness to support spending bills that are sometimes unpopular, Members of Congress are protecting Social Security and reducing the debt burden that we leave for the next generation.

Mr. DREIER

Mr. DREIER. Mr. Chairman, at the dawn of the second millennium it was clear that under the system of feudalism that existed in Europe virtually every single township, community, hamlet was able to embark upon negotiations for trade outside of its area. The tragic thing is that the vision that my friend from Ohio (Mr. Kucinich) has as we are poised for the third millennium is to continue that kind of preposterous policy. This is anti-trade, anti-export at a time when our economy is thriving, because of the fact that we are gaining opportunities in new markets around the world, and the world has access to us. Let us not turn backwards. Vote no on the Kucinich amendment.

Mr. DREIER

Mr. DREIER. Mr. Speaker, I tell the gentleman from New York, keep fighting for those tax increases.

Mr. DREIER. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding me time. Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong support of the resolution. It is really sad to listen to the tried, age-old, and failed argument of class warfare. The previous speaker was just once again getting into that ``us'' versus ``them'' argument. The fact of the matter is we are all in this together, and I think that we need to recognize that, yes, there are some people in this country who have been successful. One of the greatest things about this Nation is that we provide opportunity. We provide opportunity for people to succeed, and we also in this country have an opportunity that some people are not all that successful. But I find that virtually everyone wants to have the opportunity to succeed, and that is what this tax bill is all about. We want to make sure that we maintain the kind of economic growth and expansion which this Nation has seen for the past several years. We have today the highest tax rate in 50 years. The American people are paying more in taxes than they have in 50 years. We have been able to see the great benefits of surpluses that have been building, and what we are saying is that to maintain economic growth, we think it is important for people to be able to keep some of their own hard-earned dollars. Guess what? That, in fact, is what we are going to do, and I hope very much that the President of the United States sees the way, as he has on the Y2K bill, welfare reform, on the National Ballistic Missile Defense bill, on the Education Flexibility Act, to come around to what is the right position, and that is to sign the bill. I know that there are public opinion polls out there that are saying, gosh, we do not overwhelmingly, as the American people, support a tax cut. But we are proceeding with it. Why? It may not right now be the single most popular thing, but we know it is the right thing to do. That is why we are stepping up to the plate and doing just that. As we look at the fact that 100 million-plus Americans are investing in the market, they are people who are often called ``rich'' by our friends on the other side of the aisle, but they consist of people who have maybe a few thousand dollars they are investing. What is it we are doing? We are going to allow them to keep more of that so they can choose to save or invest it by reducing that top rate on capital gains from 20 percent to 18 percent, and the very important provision in 2003 which allows us to see indexation of capital gains. Then, extending for 5 years the research and development tax credit, that is very, very important. Forty-five percent of our Nation's gross domestic product growth in the past 4 years has come in the high-tech industry. Not only have hundreds of thousands of jobs been created by those investors, by new technologies, but we have also dramatically improved the quality of life for people here in the United States and around the world. We must do everything that we can to continue that. Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to support this rule and to support a very, very good bill, and then, Mr. President, please sign it.

Mr. DREIER. Mr. Speaker, that is what we are in the next five years by a six to one ratio.

Mr. DREIER. Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?

Mr. DREIER. Mr. Speaker, I would like to say that, as we look at the prospect of some kind of tax increase, God forbid, I am convinced that there is no better expert at putting together a tax increase bill than the gentleman from New York standing in the well. I want him to know that, Mr. Speaker, if we ever, ever on this side were to consider any kind of tax increase, the gentleman from New York is the first person to whom I would look for direction and advice and counsel on doing just that because he is so expert in it.

Mr. DREIER. Mr. Speaker, they are ready for the gentleman from New York.

Mr. DREIER. They are ready for the gentleman from New York.

Mr. DREIER

Mr. DREIER. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to commend the Chairman of the Immigration Subcommittee, Representative Lamar Smith, for recognizing the important role technology companies play in our nation's economy, and holding a hearing on Thursday to investigate the workforce shortage affecting America's high-tech industries. The high-tech explosion experienced in the U.S. has created over 1 million jobs since 1993 and produced an industry unemployment rate of 1.4 percent. In California alone, this technology explosion has made the Golden State number one in high-tech employment by creating 784,151 jobs and making up 61 percent of California's exports. As a result, our nation's economy has surged and the American people are enjoying the highest standard of living in history. While our economy is strong, we must recognize that if cutting edge technology companies do not have access to growing numbers of highly skilled personnel, it will threaten our nation's ability to maintain robust economic growth and expanding opportunities. For the second year in a row, robust growth in technology in technology industries have placed significant strains on the H-1B visa program. Last year, these visas were increased to ensure that the scarcity of skilled workers not undermine the ability of the economy to grow. Unfortunately, the Immigration and Naturalization Service reached the visa cap in June leaving 42,000 visas outstanding. Additionally, there are currently over 340,000 unfilled positions in the high-tech industry, and the Department of Labor projects that this deficit will increase by 1 million workers in the next decade. I believe that highly-skilled, temporary foreign workers are critical to filling a limited number of positions for which no qualified Americans are available. That is why I introduced the New Workers for Economic Growth Act of 1999 as the House companion for S. 1440 introduced by Senator Phil Gramm. This legislation increases the level of H-1B visas available for highly-skilled scientists and engineers to 200,000 for the years 2000-2002. It is clear that education reform and worker training are essential to ensure that American citizens are able to take advantage of these positions. The fact is, half of the student graduating from American universities with doctorates in science, math and computer programming are foreign-born students. The lack of investment in educating Americans in these subject areas is a serious long-term problem that must be addressed. In the short-term, however, I believe a temporary increase in H1B admissions is warranted. I commend Chairman Smith for exploring the current situation so that a workforce shortage does not threaten our vibrant economy.

Mr. DREIER

Mr. DREIER. Mr. Speaker, I thank my friend from Atlanta for yielding this time to me and congratulate him on this handling of this rule. I rise to begin by complimenting my very good friend and classmate, the gentleman from Kentucky (Mr. Rogers), for the work that he has done on this bill. It has been, as we all know, a very difficult measure dealing with the constraints that have been imposed by the 1997 Budget Act, and I believe that he has done a superb job, and I am happy to report, as Mr. Rogers well knows, that we in the Committee on Rules have done exactly what he requested of him; we provided an open rule plus. We, in fact under this open amendment process, will have every germane amendment allowable to be debated and considered, and we added three additional legislative amendments which address some concerns that a number of Members had raised to it. So I believe that this is a very, very fair and appropriate way in which to deal with this important issue. I also want to congratulate the gentleman from New York (Mr. Serrano) of the minority who came forward and made the exact same request of us that the gentleman from Kentucky (Mr. Rogers) did in his testimony before the Committee on Rules. Let me talk about the bill itself and a couple of provisions that I think are very important. Last week we had a very rigorous debate here in the House on the issue of whether or not to maintain normal trading relations with the People's Republic of China, and during that debate I was happy to briefly raise an issue which is very important in our quest for political pluralism and democratization of the People's Republic of China, and that is the support of the village election process. Now more than 2 decades ago, Mao Tze Tong was a supporter of the idea of village elections, and yet at that time there were only 9 Communist candidates in the People's Republic of China who were running. Today through the efforts of the National Endowment for Democracy, which is funded in this bill and the work of the International Republican Institute, one of the core groups associated with the NED, the National Endowment for Democracy, and I am privileged to serve on their board, we have been very, very key to promoting those village elections in the People's Republic of China. I am happy to say that today, over 500 million people in China have been able to participate in local village elections. That is why I think that while it is a relatively small amount in the big picture, the support for the National Endowment for Democracy is very important, because we have the private sector involved with this and, as I said, several other core groups. So I congratulate my friend from Kentucky for putting that in the bill and maintaining strong bipartisan support for it. I also want to mention one other issue that is of very great importance, and I see my colleague, the gentleman from California (Mr. Condit) to us, and it is dealing with what is known as SCAAP funding. We have in California a problem with the tremendous cost burden imposed on California's taxpayers for the incarceration of illegal immigrant felons, people who are in this country illegally and commit crimes. In fact, one of every five prisoners in state prisons in California happens to be someone who is in this country illegally. So we all recognize that it is not the responsibility of a single state to protect the international borders, it is the responsibility of the Federal Government to do that. That is one of the reasons we have said when we have problems protecting the boarders, the responsibility for the consequences of that should not be shouldered by the State taxpayers of one particular State. That is why this SCAAP funding provision is very important, and, again, it enjoys bipartisan support, and I am very pleased it is included in this bill. So, once again, this is an open rule-plus that we have. All germane amendments will be made in order for consideration. I hope my colleagues on both the Republican and Democratic side of the aisle will join in enthusiastic support of it.

Mr. DREIER

Mr. DREIER. Mr. Speaker, I thank my friend for yielding me time, and I assure him I will reserve time for my friend from Louisiana and will not fill out the entire hour here. Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong support of the rule and congratulate my friend from Buffalo for his super management. We have an expression that we have been trying our doggonedest to successfully implement around here in the 106th Congress, and we call it regular order. We try to, as much as possible, follow regular order. Frankly, that is exactly what the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Chairman Goodling) is trying to do with this legislation. We authorized $1 million for the National Academy of Sciences to come up with some sort of finding before the Occupational Safety and Health Administration proceeds with implementation of its regulations on ergonomics. The fact of the matter is, nothing, as has been said by several of my colleagues, nothing prevents them from moving ahead. But what we are saying is get every bit of information you possibly can so that you come up with good public policy. Now, that will be unique for OSHA in the eyes of many, because a number of us have been very critical of the fact that regulations that they over the years have imposed have been extraordinarily costly to the private sector, and, in turn, to the consumers of this country. But, obviously we are all wanting to deal with the problems of stress-related repetitive actions that people take in their work, so all we are saying is let us do it right. This is a very fair and balanced rule which allows for a free-flowing debate, while at the same time recognizing that most of my colleagues with whom I have spoken over the last few days want us to complete our work by the end of this week so we can go home for August. This rule allows us to have a debate and do it in a fair way, and also get this, and I hope the rest of our work, done. So I urge support of the rule.

Mr. DREIER

Mr. DREIER. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that it be in order at any time on August 4, 1999, or any day thereafter, to take from the Speaker's table H.R. 1664, with Senate amendments thereto, and to consider in the House, any rule of the House to the contrary notwithstanding, a single motion offered by the chairman of the Committee on Appropriations or his designee that the House concur in the Senate amendments; that the Senate amendments and the motion to be considered as read; that the motion be debatable for 1 hour equally divided and controlled among the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Regula), the gentleman from West Virginia (Mr. Mollohan), and the chairman and ranking minority member of the Committee on Banking and Financial Services, or their designees; and that the previous question be considered as ordered on the motion to final adoption without intervening motion or demand for division of the question.

Mr. DREIER

Mr. DREIER. Mr. Speaker, for the purpose of debate only, I yield the customary 30 minutes to my very good friend, the gentleman from Dallas, TX (Mr. Frost), pending which I yield myself such time as I may consume. During consideration of this resolution, all time yielded is for the purpose of debate only. (Mr. DREIER asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks and include extraneous material.)

Mr. DREIER. Mr. Speaker, pursuant to House Resolution 266, I call up the concurrent resolution (H. Con. Res. 168) waiving the requirement of section 132 of the Legislative Reorganization Act of 1946 that the Congress adjourn sine die not later than July 31, 1999, and ask for its immediate consideration in the House.

Mr. DREIER. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Following last November's election, many people predicted that our colleagues on the other side of the aisle, especially here in the House, would focus their energies on partisan attacks rather than legislative accomplishments. Rather than engage in partisan battles, we on this side have focused on a straightforward plan of what we call governing conservatism. It is designed to address the critical national issues such as saving Social Security and Medicare, restoring our national defense, improving public education for our children and providing tax relief to the hardworking Americans who have created a $3 trillion surplus. I am very proud to report that we have in the past 6 months made real progress on each of these important fronts, often with very strong support from our friends on the other side of the aisle. The House has passed, as we all know, Social Security lockbox to make sure that every dollar in payroll taxes is set aside to save Social Security and Medicare. The President recently came on board with his announcement of support of the concept that we have been pushing for quite a while. We passed the National Missile Defense Act, an emergency defense spending bill and legislation to address the lax security at our Nation's nuclear labs, all three of them moving forward on national security and military readiness priority agendas. I am happy to say that the President has been largely supportive of all three of those measures. We have passed the Education Flexibility Act to allow the States to be creative and use Federal education assistance to craft effective local solutions to education needs, and I am very happy that the President signed that into law. Now we are moving forward to provide meaningful tax relief to American families, that question that was raised by my friend from Dallas just a few minutes ago. Just like our Social Security lockbox, ballistic missile defense and education flexibility, we are going to continue to do our doggonedest to work with the President to make sure that we can provide legislation that proceeds with our legislative goals and at the same time gains his signature. Mr. Speaker, while this majority prefers bipartisan accomplishments, we are equally prepared to deal with partisan attack and obstructionism if that does in fact take place. Unfortunately, the minority leader recently made it completely clear that stopping the Congress from getting things done in order to win back the five seats that people have talked about in next year's election is the number one, top priority for our friends. The thing that is troubling is that the idea of writing off the next 15 months in the name of partisanship is both disappointing and surprising. We are going to stick with the people's business, getting things done for the country. In just the past few weeks, we are proud of the historic bipartisan Y2K litigation reform that I and a few of my colleagues had introduced back on February 23, have been working on for over a year. We e-mailed that bill down to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue and the President signed it into law. As we all know, the House, with a very bipartisan majority, passed the Africa trade bill; and just this week, something I have spent many years working on, year after year, and I hope someday we will be able to end the annual battle on maintaining something that the President wanted and we provided even more Republicans for it this year, and, that is, maintaining normal trade relations with the People's Republic of China. We are also on track to meet the pledge of the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Hastert), very close to it at least, by getting 12 of 13 appropriation bills done before we adjourn next Friday. Most of those appropriation bills have passed that we have gotten through so far with again strong bipartisan majorities. So, Mr. Speaker, let me just say that this majority is moving the ball forward on key priorities of the American people. We are very proud of the things that we have been able to do by gaining bipartisan support for what have been our legislative initiatives. Again, whenever we possibly can, we are going to continue to seek support from our colleagues on the other side of the aisle. But remember, if they do, in fact, subscribe to what was outlined by the minority leader in that Washington Post article last week; and they want to obstruct our efforts here, we are willing to fight hard to make sure that we get the people's work done, and with that I will, as we continue with what I hope will only be 1 week beyond the stated goal, at least until we adjourn in August, I will urge support of this rule. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time, and I move the previous question on the resolution. The previous question was ordered.

Mr. DREIER. Mr. Speaker, this rule simply makes in order a concurrent resolution waiving the requirement in section 132 of the Legislative Reorganization Act of 1946 that Congress adjourn sine die no later than July 31. As my friend from Dallas knows, this requirement that Congress adjourn by the end of July is a relic of a bygone era, although many of us wish we actually could adjourn by July 31. The last time that the Congress did it was July 31, 1956. In fact, a decade ago, my friend from Boston, the distinguished ranking minority member of the Committee on Rules, tried desperately to repeal section 132, going so far as to get legislation passed in the House, only to have it not considered by our friends in the other body. I hope we can actually resurrect that effort in a bipartisan way and I hope that we can move ahead with this rule in a very timely manner. I urge its adoption. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. DREIER. Mr. Speaker, by direction of the Committee on Rules, I call up House Resolution 266 and ask for its immediate consideration.

Mr. DREIER

Mr. DREIER. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that when the House adjourns today, it adjourn to meet at 12:30 p.m. on Monday next for morning hour debates.

Mr. DREIER

Mr. DREIER. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that the business in order under the Calendar Wednesday rule be dispensed with on Wednesday next.

Mr. DREIER

Mr. DREIER. Mr. Speaker, I thank my friend for yielding time to me. Mr. Speaker, I am standing here because I think there has been a gross mischaracterization of the medical privacy provisions in this bill. When we had the debate on H.R. 10, legislation which I am very pleased got 343 votes when it was reported out of this House, criticisms that came from many on the other side, and frankly, from many in the media who took advantage of that mischaracterization, I think, make it necessary that we address it. H.R. 10 and the provisions that were included here in fact will not, as we pointed out in the debate at that time, preempt State privacy laws. It does not in any way allow insurance companies to sell medical information to drug companies. It does not, as we found already in this debate, block the Secretary of Health and Human Services from issuing privacy regulations as required by current law. I want to commend my friend, the gentleman from Iowa (Mr. Ganske), who has spent a long time working on this, and at the same time, my colleague, the gentleman from California (Mr. Thomas), the chairman of the subcommittee, does make a very valid point in his call to make sure that we continue to have that pressure point recognized there. I think that the only real, legitimate debate here is whether the medical privacy issue is better addressed in H.R. 10 or in some other fashion. So I think we are going to see what obviously is going to be an interesting challenge here. I think it is important for us to clarify exactly what the gentleman from Iowa (Mr. Ganske) was trying to do. Clearly we want to make sure that privacy is recognized and is in no way jeopardized.

Mr. DREIER

Mr. DREIER. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that it be in order at any time on August 3, 1999, or any day thereafter, to consider in the House the joint resolution (H.J. Res. 58) disapproving the extension of the waiver authority contained in section 402(c) of the Trade Act of 1974 with respect to Vietnam; that the joint resolution be considered as read for amendment; that all points of order against the joint resolution and against its consideration be waived; that the joint resolution be debatable for 1 hour, equally divided and controlled by the chairman of the Committee on Ways and Means in opposition to the joint resolution and a Member in support of the joint resolution; that pursuant to sections 152 and 153 of the Trade Act of 1974, the previous question be considered as ordered on the joint resolution to final passage without intervening motion; and that the provisions of section 152 and 153 of the Trade Act of 1974 shall not otherwise apply to any joint resolution disapproving the extension of the waiver authority contained in section 402(c) of the Trade Act of 1974 with respect to Vietnam for the remainder of the first session of the 106th Congress. It is the intention of this unanimous consent request that the 1 hour of debate be yielded fairly between members of the majority and minority parties on both sides of this issue.