Barney Frank

Mr. FRANK

Mr. FRANK. Mr. Speaker, I know people on the other side think that the private sector ought always to be our model, but they have misapplied it in this case, because the model they have chosen is the Enron Corporation. The Enron Corporation got into trouble for engaging recklessly in trading in a way that violated the rules. Well, that is what is happening here today. The gentlewoman from Connecticut is right. This is a very important bill, far too important to be debated under a procedure that was created for noncontroversial legislation: 40 minutes of debate and no amendments. There are several important pieces to this bill. They try to achieve important goals. But some of them are flawed. There is no reason why, we have not been working that hard this week, we could not have had a serious debate on this bill. Why is this now being rushed through? Because we are following the Enron principle. There is some trading going on here. In this case, what we are trading are votes on the trade bill. What happened is very simply this: The Republican leadership found itself short of votes for fast track, so what they decided to do was to reach into the goodie-bag, they pull out trade adjustment assistance, which they will grudgingly put forward for a vote, they reach into this bill and rush it forward because it has some payoff for people in the textile industry. I want to see the textile rules better enforced. I want to see us better protected a lot of ways. But I do not want to see that done by following the Enron model where the importance of trading is so overwhelming that you short circuit the rules and play fast and loose and get yourself in trouble. It is an absolute degradation of the legislative process for a bill of this importance to be debated under this procedure of suspension of the rules. We are opposing not the substance, which many of us support in some areas, but this degradation of the legislative process, this refusal to allow honest democratic debate on important subjects, simply because the Republican leadership finds itself a little shorter of votes than it thought for the bill. I would also say, while we are at it, that people who are tempted by this ought to be clear that they get some guarantees. When people bring up a bill just like this, just before another vote, with no guarantee that it is going to go anywhere, they better be worried about consumer fraud as well as illegitimate trading.

Mr. FRANK

Mr. FRANK. Mr. Speaker, at a profoundly troubling time in the Middle East, I want to express very strongly my complete support for the right of the government of Israel to defend itself, its existence as a Nation, and its people from the systematic campaign of mass murder that is being inflicted on it. Americans should understand that if we take into account the populations of the two countries, the number of victims of blatant terrorism against unarmed civilians in Israel exceeds in the past few months the number of tragic deaths suffered here in America, and the Israeli government has every right to respond in a way that protects its people. I say that, Mr. Speaker, as one who was a strong supporter of the peace process that President Clinton encouraged the parties in the Middle East to undertake. I thought that Prime Minister Barak, former Prime Minister Barak, took very creditworthy risks on behalf of peace. I defend the right of the Israeli government to support itself, not because peace is an irrelevancy, but because peace cannot come in an atmosphere of terror. In fact, we should be very clear that the recent terrible, tragic increase in the deaths of innocent people was brought about, in part, by people who are threatened by peace, who do not want to see coexistence of an Israeli and Palestinian State. It is not an accident that as the Bush administration repudiated its past mistake of staying out of the Middle East peace process in their effort to repudiate everything that President Clinton had done, it is not a coincidence that the terror stepped up after the Bush administration sought to increase peace efforts. The mistake, however, would be to say that the terrorism should be allowed to have an impact. People who argue that the way to end and respond to terrorism in the short run is in some ways to move towards the policies advocated by the terrorists make an error. I am in favor of some change in Israeli policy. I think that the expansion of settlements is a grave error. I think the Mitchell Commission was right on that point. I think there ought to be movement towards peace. But if that movement is seen to have come as a result of mass murder, it gives an encouragement to the policy of murder. The second question that has to be addressed here is, can Yasser Arafat in fact put an end to this. People have said well, in defense of Arafat, even if he wanted to put an end to this terror, he could not do it. Those who make that argument, and I am skeptical that anyone really knows the answer, but those who make that argument should be very clear: That is an attack on the peace process. If in fact Arafat confronts a population so imbued with hatred for Israel, so opposed to the notion of a genuine peace that could be acceptable to both sides, that he is powerless to put an end to this systematic murder campaign, then the prospects for peace are very bleak indeed. I hope that is not the case. I think the Israeli government, with the encouragement and support of the U.S. Government should continue to probe. But we should be very clear that the so-called defense of Arafat, namely that bringing about an end to the terror and bringing about a genuine commitment to peace is beyond his capacity or the capacity of any other Palestinian leader is, in fact, a repudiation of the peace process. And in any case, whether that bleak prospect is what faces us or not, no one can deny the right of the democratically elected government of Israel to defend its people against a systematic campaign of mass murder, and no government should be asked to divert its attention from that most fundamental task of a government, that most fundamental responsibility of government to protect its innocent and unarmed citizens from systematic murder; no one should be diverted from that. If, in fact, Arafat is sincere and he has the power, we will see that soon. He will genuinely cooperate in putting an end to this campaign. And if not, and if the peace process founders because of that, since no government can be expected to seriously negotiate under the threat of this sort of systematic campaign of terror, then it will be clear where the responsibility lies, and it will not be with the government of Israel.

Mr. FRANK

Mr. FRANK. Mr. Chairman, the gentleman from New York has said that he is unhappy to some extent that money must come from money set aside for pressing social needs in other States, but there is no alternative. Harry Houdini had a trick. He would have other people tie him in knots, and his trick was to get out of the knots. What we sometimes see in the legislature is the reverse Houdini. That is the process by which one ties oneself in knots and says, gee, I am sorry, I have to do this because I am all tied up in knots. The people who voted for this rule pulled a reverse Houdini. They tied themselves in knots. They prevented the House from being able to vote a genuine, honest meaning of the commitment. People say, well, do other States not want to give to New York? Yes, I have people in Massachusetts who want to give to New York, but they are not the unemployed. This is not a case of one State to another. This is a case of going to the very poorest people, the people who have also been hurt. This is victimology, comparative victimology. They want to help New York, I want to help New York, so how about helping New York, instead of helping IBM by repealing the corporate minimum tax for $1.4 billion? We could help New York just with one piece of the giveaway tax bill. First they vote to reduce taxes on the wealthiest people in the country, without any incentive to invest. Then they vote for a rule which allows the President to get out from under his promise. I am not defending Massachusetts. I do not believe in State sovereignty. I am not one of those five Members of the Supreme Court who is trying to rewrite the Constitution to dismantle the Union. I am not here defending a corporate State called Massachusetts. I am here talking about people who may have lost their health care in Massachusetts, Wyoming or anywhere else. I am talking about people who have been thrown out of work. They are the ones, those who voted for this rule, and I know, they went through the dance, they voted present for a while, and, great suspense, the members of the Committee on Appropriations voted present. We held our breath, the world wondered what would happen; and surprise, surprise, they caved in. And having caved in and having helped denude New York of the money the President had promised, they then say, hey, let us all be generous and go after people who have been unemployed, people who have lost their health care, and let us feel good about the fact that we are taking it from them. We have to understand, that is what it is, that it is easy to be charitable with other people's money. It is easy to be charitable with the money of the poor. I understand New York is now in need, and in need not through its fault; but it is kind of liking walking down the street and there is somebody who has lost his job, he is homeless, he asks for some money. What do we do? Go over to some other poor old lady and take 5 bucks off her and give it to him and we feel generous. That is what they have done here, reduced taxes on people who make $1 billion a year, give profitable corporations billions and billions of dollars in aid; and then, when they are stuck because they have an administration that is unwilling to live up to its own promise, when they are stuck with trying to give New York, and by the way, we are not the ones who want to give New York 10 percent of what they are promised. When they are stuck with that, they say hey, we have a great idea. You know those unemployed people in other States, those people who do not have any health care? Let us give them a chance to feel good. I suppose the theory is that these poor people are hurt economically, they do not have jobs or health care; but they will do them a good big favor, they will let them feel noble. They will single them out for an involuntary charitable deduction.

Mr. FRANK

Mr. FRANK. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Markey) for taking this special order to give us a chance to express our sympathy to Mary Boland and their children, and express our admiration for a man who really had an extraordinary, distinguished legislative career. I am a great follower of parliamentary and legislative history. It is something that I read to relax, reading about the British parliament and other parliamentary bodies. I do not think it is sufficiently appreciated what an important role a leading institutionalist plays in making democracy function. Among other things, that is what Eddie Boland exemplified. He was an elected official, a man who came up through the political ranks, was always deeply rooted in the community from which he came, who was always in constant touch at all levels with the people he represented, and who took to Washington their mandate and built on it. He was at the same time their Representative and someone who transcended what might be the narrowing aspects of being a Representative. As previous speakers have said, he confounded some stereotypes. He was not by his manner, by his political background, by his general place in the world of the political culture the kind of man who people would have expected to have been leading an assault on a Presidential foreign policy. We have a tradition of deferring to Presidents in foreign policy, indeed excessively, it seems to me, in many cases because legitimate differences ought to be articulated. Eddie Boland, as the gentleman from Massachusetts and the gentleman from California just said, did a great deal to legitimize the notion that in a democratic society, elected officials had not only the right but the duty to speak out if they thought the President was pursuing gravely mistaken foreign policies. The fact that Ed Boland did that and did that with his dignity and with his respect for this institution and with all of the cultural attributes that he brought to the job really did, as the gentleman said, give it the imprimatur, or did give it a legitimacy. What that meant was this. It meant we could argue it on the merits. Too often when we are dealing with an issue like this, there is a whole set of deferences, a whole set of attitudes that interfere. Ed Boland's stature in this institution was justifiably of sufficient weight so that when he spoke on that issue, he overcame those deferences and we got to the merits, and he did a great service. He was also, of course, defending the prerogatives of the elected legislature against the executive, and in that also he was carrying on in the tradition of great parliamentarians. Finally, as someone who has been concerned with housing policy since I got here, I want to acknowledge his great leadership as subcommittee Chair in terms of recognizing the obligation of this very wealthy country to do something about the housing needs of the people. We look back now to the days of Ed Boland's chairmanship of the appropriations subcommittee dealing with HUD as golden days when we in fact did far more to meet vital social needs than we are doing today, unfortunately. And there are a lot of reasons for that. But Ed Boland's committed and passionate advocacy, and you can be passionate without making a lot of noise, you can be passionate by having an unstinting, unyielding determination to do the right thing; and that is what he had. As my friend from Massachusetts has said, he and I are the last two Members who served with Ed Boland and know just what integrity he brought to this job and just to what extent he exemplified what an elected representative of the people ought to be in a functioning democracy. I thank the gentleman for giving me the opportunity to say this.

Mr. FRANK

Mr. FRANK. Mr. Speaker, I am troubled by the pattern that appears to be emerging within the U.S. Justice Department under the leadership of the Attorney General of deviating from what ought to be the course of action appropriate right now. We were victimized on September 11 by a fiendish, unfortunately skillful group of mass murderers who wreaked terrible destruction on innocent people. And clearly a tough, effective law enforcement response is one of the things that is called for. We worked hard in the Congress to enhance the law enforcement powers of the Federal authorities. There was virtual unanimity that they should be given increased surveillance powers. In the end, some of us were disappointed that some safeguards we had devised were not in the final bill and some of us opposed it, but we did not oppose it because we opposed the enhanced surveillance powers. We agreed on those. We should be going further. Congress is partly guilty of having insufficiently funded the Immigration Service and others who are our first line of defense. There is broad support in the Congress and in the country for this kind of increased law enforcement, but I fear that the Attorney General's actions may be jeopardizing that consensus and he is introducing into a subject that ought to be one of virtual unanimity a degree of conflict. First, we have a couple of issues that ought not to have been pursued at this time. In my judgment, they should not have been pursued at all. But recently the Attorney General, in the midst of telling us that he is going to reorient the FBI and reorient the Justice Department to focus on terrorism, at a time when we know we have done a poor job of keeping track of people admitted into this country for limited periods and limited purposes, we have done a poor job of enforcing those limits, the Attorney General is engaged in a couple of ideological crusades, in both cases ignoring referenda passed by two States. States' rights is sometimes respected by my conservative colleagues; but it is sometimes, I guess when it gets in the way of their ideology, ignored. The people of Oregon twice voted in a referendum to allow doctors to help with suicides. People outside of Oregon may not like it, that is their right; but that was the vote of the people of Oregon. There was an effort by the Congress to overturn that. While the House passed the bill, the Senate rejected it so the law was not changed. The Attorney General has nonetheless found time in this fight to divert energies into trying to overrule, in effect, the vote of the people of Oregon. Similarly, the people of California and many other States voted to allow the medical prescription of marijuana. The Attorney General simply again diverted law enforcement efforts to go after people who were guilty only of trying to use marijuana to alleviate their pain. And even more troubling is what is going on in law enforcement itself. Yes, all the powers available to law enforcement should be used to protect us against terrorists. But a refusal by the Justice Department to tell us exactly what numbers of people are being detained, how many are being released, what are the conditions of the detention, those serve no law enforcement purpose. What they do is raise questions in people's minds about whether or not powers are abused. If people fear powers are abused, we will resist granting those powers. In fact, there are powers that ought to be there. The Attorney General disservices our effort by allowing controversy to exist where it should not. The most recent announcement that monitoring of conversations will now take place between people who have been confined and their lawyers is very disturbing. Remember, we are not talking here about terrorists having their conversations overheard. We are talking about people who have been detained; who have been convicted of no crime; who are guilty, as far as we know, maybe of something, maybe of nothing, but who have not had any adjudication; and we are talking about monitoring their lawyers' conversations. Now, the Justice Department acknowledges that to do that in a way that was relevant to a trial would not be permissible, so we are told that we will monitor those conversations, but information gained in that monitoring would not be admissible at trial. Mr. Speaker, I am afraid that invites judicial intervention, so that if they do proceed in some cases with a trial and a conviction, that could be jeopardized. We have past experience. We have the case of Wen Ho Lee, an American citizen who was accused of espionage, and the FBI abused his rights. A Federal judge criticized the FBI for that. That is the point we want to make. We are not talking here about defending terrorists; we are not talking about defending people who are guilty. We are talking about the rights of people who have been accused of crimes to prepare their defense. I hope the Attorney General reconsiders this pattern of disturbing actions.

Mr. FRANK

Mr. FRANK. Mr. Speaker, I thank the ranking member of the subcommittee for yielding time to me, and I join him in expressing our sorrow at the death of Ed Boland. He was for many years one of the voices of housing in this body. He served, along with his roommate, close friend, and legislative classmate, Tip O'Neill, for more than 30 years and made an enormous contribution in the areas of housing, intelligence, and science; and we mourn his passing. He was one of the people who made democracy work in a very positive way. As I think back to those days, I think back also with regret. We have not only lost Ed Boland, we have lost as a nation the commitment to using the resources of the wealthiest country in the world to help people who are in distressed circumstances, and to meet common problems. I want to be very clear: I congratulate the chairman, the gentleman from New York (Mr. Walsh), the ranking member, the gentleman from West Virginia (Mr. Mollohan), and the others. Given the constraints within which they had to work, they did an excellent job. I am particularly gratified that they took care to provide adequate resources to public housing. The people who live in public housing are among the most needy and abused in our society. We are the ones who created public housing. We, the society, are the ones who created what many of us now understand, almost all of us now understand, were not very good places to live in the first place, and put the poor in there because they could not afford anything else. We are trying to change that. But those who would cut back on funding for public housing are blaming the victims for penalties imposed upon them, and so in this particular appropriation public housing does well, and I thank the gentleman for doing that. This is not a politically popular goal, but it is an important one. Mr. Speaker, in general, as I said, given the inadequate resources which they were given, they have done a very good job of putting them where they are needed. I appreciate their doing that. They have taken care of new Section 8s, they have taken care of public housing, they have tried to protect some of the other important activities. I am grateful to them for doing it. But having said that, I must return to the other point; namely, that we as a Congress, we as a society, are erring gravely in withholding the resources we need for so many important problems. The very prosperity that gave us such wealth, and it is temporarily on the other side of the ledger, but it is going to come back because this remains a very strong economy, the very prosperity that generated such revenues for the government caused housing problems for some people, because for many of those in this country, prosperity was a wonderful thing and it added to their incomes. But for some, when it did not add to their incomes, they were not only not better off, they were worse off because they lived in communities where housing prices were suddenly driven beyond what they could reasonably afford. We have not, and it is not the subcommittee's doing, and it is not even the Committee on Appropriations' doing, but we as a Congress have not given the resources necessary that we could use to alleviate that. In the environmental area, I represent some working-class communities, communities not terribly wealthy. They are the ones who now have to correct years of national neglect of clean water. They are facing very significant economic problems. We do not do enough to provide Federal funding to help them meet the Federal mandate of cleaning up the water and cleaning up international waters. So just in summary, Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the gentleman from New York and the gentleman from West Virginia and the members of the subcommittee. I appreciate the hard work they put into trying to meet our needs, but I have to close by lamenting the unwillingness of this society and this Congress to do the appropriate thing with our wealth. Yes, we will have many needs that can best be satisfied by individual spending, by money in our own pockets. But a civilized society that cares about the quality of its environment, has some compassion for the poor, for homeless children, that cares about adequate medical care for those who served our country, we have to understand that these needs cannot be fully met individually, that these needs require a Federal Government that is well funded. We have to get over this kind of contradiction where everybody hates government spending, but then laments the fact that we do not have enough government spending for housing, for Community Development Block Grants, for veterans medical care, for cleaning up Superfund sites, for clean water, and for other important programs. I hope as members contemplate this piece of legislation they will express their appreciation for the work that was done, but also their understanding of the inadequacy of the resources with which it was done, and help us change national policy in that regard.

Mr. FRANK

Mr. FRANK. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, I hope we will pass this bill very clearly and overwhelmingly. A lot of lip service is paid to the role that innovation plays in our economy. The time has come to put our money where our mouth is. Indeed, it is not even our money. What we are talking about here is trying to change a practice whereby patent application fees have been used to support other governmental programs, rather than devote all of that to the Patent Office. It should be noted that we raised patent fees a few years ago. When we raised them, the assumption, the implicit promise, was these fees would go to improving the patent process. To take fees from people seeking patents and diverting them to other purposes is a grave error. We ought to be maximizing our ability to service the innovators in this economy, and we do that by allowing these fees to stay here. Now, I do want to say, I understand what happens. It is the members of the Committee on Appropriations who, from time to time, use some of these fees. I do not wish to speak harshly of them. Some of my best friends are appropriators, and I hope they remember that at this season of conference reports. But they are themselves squeezed when they are given responsibilities to fund and inadequate revenues with which to fund them. In some cases the temptation is very strong for them to look at the revenues at the Patent Office and divert them to other purposes. The answer, Mr. Speaker, is not to divert revenues from the Patent Office to pay for these other programs, but to stop this practice of reducing the Government's revenues by tax cuts that leave us unable to afford programs for which there is great demand and great need. In other words, this practice of raiding the patent fees to fund other programs is one of the negative consequences of reducing government revenues through irresponsible tax cuts below the level necessary to sustain important government activity. So I look forward to passing this bill; and I hope we will be able to keep the promise once made that, patent fees having been raised, the Patent Office would get the benefit of them.

Mr. FRANK. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. FRANK

Mr. FRANK. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, I want to express my appreciation to the chairman of the full committee for so diligently staying on this and bringing this forward. I want to express my particular appreciation to the gentleman from Texas, who has now joined us, who has been one of the leaders in making sure that we do this. The gentleman from Wisconsin has explained this very well, and I just want to underline a few points. It seemed to me at the time a great misfortune and irony that the Justice Department was seeking to invoke the antitrust law against the universities that were engaged in this practice. It is one of the most socially responsible things that they do. Essentially, what we have are among the most prestigious universities in the country, which people are eager to go to, saying that they believe they have an obligation in spending scholarship money to maximize the extent to which scholarship money enables poor or moderate-income young people to attend. The sole purpose of this whole enterprise is to extend the reach of scholarship aid based on need. For that to have been challenged on antitrust grounds seemed to me at the time a grave error. I am delighted to have been able to work all this time, particularly with the gentleman from Texas, to go to the aid of universities that are trying to do the right thing. What this says is that the universities can exchange information and they can share information; not to raise prices, not to pay less to suppliers, not to do any of the things that the antitrust law is aimed at preventing, but rather, to maximize the extent to which financial aid goes to the young people who need it. There is a great deal of controversy in our government about the extent to which, when the government is acting, we can take into account compensatory and other factors. Here we have the ideal situation. All of these institutions are wholly private institutions. They are not constrained by the various rules that government needs to follow. They have done this voluntarily, and I am very pleased that, over time, the number of institutions has expanded. I am proud to represent one of them, Wellesley College from Wellesley, Massachusetts. They have volunteered to take on extra work among themselves so as not to diminish the pool of scholarship funds available to those who are needy, and I think that is something well worth doing. Now, I know an amendment has come back from the Senate calling for a GAO study. We are not in the process of amendment here; we are in suspension. If we were in a situation where amendments were in order, I think I would be tempted in this case to offer the amendment that I once offered in the Committee on Financial Services; namely, that any Member of Congress who offers an amendment requiring a study be required to read that study when it is completed and take a public exam on its contents, because we have this tendency to burden people with compiling studies that no one, including us, ever reads. I myself do not think in this case the study is necessary, and I think it burdens universities, who are trying to do a good thing, with excess work. But that is the price of getting this bill passed. It is a fairly small price to pay for an important piece of legislation that does advance an important social goal. I salute the universities and, again, I want to express my gratitude to the two gentlemen from the majority side for the work they have done in bringing this forward. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. FRANK. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. FRANK

Mr. FRANK. Mr. Speaker, as a member of both committees, who has sat through both markups, I get to make two different sets of remarks, and I will have comments about the procedures later. But I want to congratulate the gentleman from New York (Mr. LaFalce) and the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Oxley), as well as Members of the other body, for their persistence in bringing this bill before us. We have talked a lot about the changes in perception people have undergone since the terrible mass murders of September 11. This is one of the most profound. This needs to crack down on those Nations which allow their banking systems to be used as cover for a variety of illegal activities, whether it is drugs or tax evasion or terrorism. That was long overdue, and it was opposed by the administration and some others. And I welcome the recognition now that cracking down on this misuse of money is very important. There was a great disconnect between people denouncing the terrorism and not wanting to end its financing, and I must say I was struck and I am pleased that the administration has come around now to be supportive of the bill. When the Secretary of the Treasury testified and the gentleman from New York (Mr. LaFalce), who was a main sponsor and author of this bill, asked if he was for money laundering a couple of weeks after the terrorism, he said only if it gets added some good due process provisions. My initial reaction was to hope he would run into the Attorney General that day and tell him about the value of due process provisions, because we had a period there where it seemed to me that the administration thought that due process existed for bank accounts but not necessarily for people. What we are getting is a kind of convergence, and I think that is very important. This is why I wanted to stress this bill in particular, this money laundering section, which is so important that has been so sought by law enforcement officials at all levels. I was with the district attorney of New York County yesterday, Mr. Moore, who said, again, that is all on this subject, it has to be enforced well. This is not self-executing, and the bill will become law and the Secretary of the Treasury and his aides will have a great weapon that can be used. It should be used sensitively and sensibly, but it can and must be used. And I hope that the initial reluctance to get this passed will not get in the way of its effective enforcement.

Mr. FRANK. Mr. Speaker, I do not know how I am going to vote on this bill yet because I have a notion that a bill of this weight, I ought to read it. What I want to talk about now is my deep disappointment in the procedure. The gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Sensenbrenner), the chairman of the committee, has fought hard for a fair chance for the Members to look at things; but on the whole, his efforts have not been honored. We now, for the second time, are debating on the floor a bill of very profound significance for the constitutional structure and security of our country. In neither case has any Member been allowed to offer a single amendment. At no point in the debate in this very profound set of issues have we had a procedure whereby the most democratic institution in our government, the House of Representatives, engages in democracy. Who decided that to defend democracy we had to degrade it? Who decided that the very openness and participation and debate and weighing of issues, who decided that was a defect at a time of crisis? This is a chance for us to show the world that democracy is a source of strength; that with our military strength and our determination and our unity of purpose goes a continued respect for the profound way in which a democracy functions. This bill, ironically, which has been given all of these high-flying acronyms, it is the PATRIOT bill, it is the U.S.A. bill, it is the stand up and sing the Star Spangled Banner bill, has been debated in the most undemocratic way possible, and it is not worthy of this institution. There is no reason why we could not have had this open to amendment tonight. This bill should not be debated now. Was it really necessary to debate one of the most profound pieces of legislation and its impact on our society that we have had, was it really necessary to debate it at night after all of the Members who have been working all day were told to go home? Why could this not have been a full-fledged debate with some amendments? I think because leadership of the House thought Members might have voted for a 3-year sunset. They might have voted not to have the burden of proof be on someone to prove his innocence in a criminal trial. Mr. Speaker, the House has not been well served by a procedure which degrades democracy in the name of defending it.

Mr. FRANK. Mr. Speaker, I thank my ranking member for yielding me this time, because I participated in this and he is absolutely right. There were two points at which there could have been this issue. As originally presented, the bill did say that a decision by an international organization that made that finding was binding on the United States and due diligence resulted. The gentleman from Louisiana (Mr. Baker) offered an amendment to say no because he did not want the American Government to be precluded by a decision with which it might have disagreed. We then worked out an amendment and the amendment split the difference, and it said the decision would not be binding on the U.S. unless the U.S. was a member of the organization that made it and concurred in the decision. But as the gentleman from New York pointed out, once the United States has concurred in the decision that a particular country is that sort of a haven, then the due diligence is automatic. In other words, the time to reject is when you say, okay, they are not really that kind of a haven. But the amendment clearly said and the debate clearly said that once the United States concurs in the finding of the international organization that this is a money laundering haven, then all of the due diligence must be applied.

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

Mr. FRANK

Mr. FRANK. Mr. Speaker, I have never seen the legislative process more degraded than it is by this process. The Committee on the Judiciary worked very hard and very thoughtfully and very seriously to make significant changes in the bill so we gave the House a bill that enhances law enforcement authority, as is appropriate, but to the maximum extent possible, gave protections against the abuse of that. It was not perfect, but it was a very thoughtful effort. But it turned out we were engaged in a game of bait and switch, because once the committee bill came forward, it was dumped; and we have today an outrageous procedure: a bill drafted by a handful of people in secret, subjected to no committee process, comes before us immune from amendment. I have a question: What is it about democracy that the Republican leadership thinks weakens us? Why, after an open process of a bipartisan sort, coming out with a reasonable product, are we not even allowed to offer it on the floor and debate it? What is it about the process of open discussion that people see somehow as a distraction? In fact, it is bait and switch for this reason. There are a number of important issues that now may never get debated because, having worked on that compromise bill, many of us assume that we had achieved some agreement on the balance to be struck, and at the last minute that is thrown aside so the important issues that were debated will never be debated here. I know, this allows the motion to recommit, the great catch-22 of parliamentary procedure. On the one hand, they say, you can offer it in the motion to recommit. On the other hand, Members on that side will be told, this is a party issue. This is a partisan issue. The motion to recommit has a whole 5 minutes of debate on each side. So all of that thoughtful process, all of the compromise, all of the anguishing decisions we had to make about how do we balance self-defense with protections against abuse, that is all to be compressed into a 5-minute partisan motion. Shame on the people who have brought this forward.

Mr. FRANK

Mr. FRANK. Mr. Speaker, we recognize that the chairman of the full committee tried hard to preserve some of our process; but powers beyond, it seem to me, his control have given us the least democratic process for debating questions fundamental to democracy I have ever seen. But I want to get to substance while continuing to deplore this outrageous and unfair procedure whereby the product that we voted on in committee cannot even be offered. No amendments. No amendments. But I want to explain what the substantive problem is. What we decided to do in committee, correctly, was to give to the law enforcement officials all the expanded powers they asked for, because we want to be protected. And electronic evolution requires an evolution in the powers. But we simultaneously tried to put into effect a full set of safeguards to minimize the chance that human beings, fallible ones, would abuse the powers. The problem is that the bill before us today preserves the fullness of the powers, but substantially weakens the safeguards against the misuse of the powers. The major safeguard was the sunset. Knowing that within 2 years they would have to come back for a renewal of these powers was the best way to build into the bureaucracy respect and avoid abuse. A 5-year sunset greatly diminishes that. They can figure, hey, we have got a couple of years and if we come in in the fifth year and we can say, Well, there weren't any problems lately, that is one thing. This bill may well not, in fact, be the final bill. It could go to conference with the Senate, which has no sunset at all and that sunset may recede into the sunset. We also created an Assistant Inspector General and called it an Assistant Inspector General for the purposes of trying to monitor this. That office has been downgraded. We are trying to do something very delicate. We are trying to empower law enforcement and simultaneously put constraints on them. A bill that gives the full powers and weakens the constraints is an inadequate bill.

Mr. FRANK

Mr. FRANK. Mr. Speaker, as are all of us, I have been meeting regularly with people in my district about the terrible mass murders which were inflicted on us and how we should respond. One of the groups with which I was most interested in meeting consists of Afghans who are living in the U.S., and who are strongly supportive of our efforts not simply to repel terrorism against us, but to help their native country free itself from the tyranny now oppressing them under the rule of the Taliban. On Monday, October 8, I had a very useful informative meeting with a number of people from the Afghan community in New England. Given that these are people who believe in freedom, and also practice it, they were not all in complete agreement with everything the U.S. government has done since September 11, nor were they in complete agreement with each other on every point. But they were united on the basic points, embodied in the statement which they presented to me. We should remember that the major victims of the alliance between the Taliban and Osama bin Laden on a continuing basis are the people of Afghanistan, women especially, but all in Afghanistan who are being subject to a brutal, terroristic regime. To remind us all of this, and to share with my colleagues the insights presented to me by Afghans who are committed to helping us resolve this issue, I ask that their very thoughtful statement be printed here. October 8, 2001. Congressman Barney Frank, Newton, Massachusetts. Congressman Barney Frank: Thank you for the time and for the opportunity you have given us to meet with you in your office. We represent the few Afghan families who live in Massachusetts. There are roughly 100 Afghan families in Massachusetts. Most of us have come to United States in the 1980s when the Russians invaded Afghanistan. Around 20 families have come to United States in the past two years. Those who come in the 1980s are mostly US citizens now. After the September 11th terrorist attacks in New York and in Washington we, the Afghan Community of New England in Massachusetts, issued a Statement and a Press Release the day after the attack. We strongly condemned these terrorist acts and expressed our solidarity and unity with our President and our Government. We also expressed our sadness, sorrow and condolences with those families who lost their loved ones. Long before the September 11th attacks, all Afghans in the United States and abroad and the Afghans inside Afghanistan raised their voices loudly and warned the world about the existence and threats of these non-Afghan terrorist groups inside Afghanistan. It is unfortunate to say that the government of Pakistan, its military forces, and the ISI helped, funded, and created these terrorist groups along with Taliban who rules Afghanistan right now. Taliban do not represent the Afghan society. We would like to see a broad based government, which includes all the people of Afghanistan regardless of their ethnic, linguistic, and religious differences. We wished this goal had been accomplished through a peaceful mean. Today, we are deeply concerned about the fate of the civilians inside Afghanistan. We appreciate the aid package for the refugees inside and outside Afghanistan and the food dropping efforts. We would like to see this humanitarian assistance to continue throughout the wintertime. We would like to see that the United States and the free world not to abandon Afghanistan and to plan for the future of Afghanistan. We need to re-build and re-construct Afghanistan. Sincerely yours, Afghan Community of New England in Massachusetts.

Mr. FRANK

Mr. FRANK. Mr. Chairman, I support the amendment, but I am struck by this extraordinary doctrine we have of the exceptionalism of agriculture, because Members who are ardent supporters of free enterprise and keeping our markets free and keeping the government out of the markets, and not subsidizing and not regulating apparently, have read all of those economics books better than I, and they have found the secret footnote that says none of this applies to agriculture. Now we have a new element in the doctrine of agricultural exceptionalism. Member after Member has gotten up and said we must protect American workers from the unfair and degrading conditions overseas. Let us see how they vote on Fast Track, Mr. Chairman. We are about to get legislation that will be the grandparent of enabling competition of precisely the sort that Members have been here denouncing. I will be noticing how many Members who have invoked the unfairness of international competition unregulated to justify the sugar program. I will be looking to see how many of them will find that that was really just an exception and they will vote to, in fact, to subject the whole rest of the American economy to precisely what they have been deploring.

Mr. FRANK

Mr. FRANK. Mr. Speaker, I have not thought of myself as naive in a long time, but I guess I am. I have heard and read and even participated in saluting unity, in arguing that divisive issues ought to be deferred at this time; indeed, while I continue to think spending billions on missile defense is a diversion from the real defense needs of this country and a waste, and destabilizing at a time when the world does not need that, I understand the decision not to press that at this time. So I was deeply shocked to be told yesterday that the Republican leadership has chosen to use this bill to make an assault on millions of gay and lesbian Americans in general, and on those who live in the District of Columbia, in particular. Not only are they launching this assault, but they are going to extraordinary lengths to do it. A nongermane amendment has been protected by the Committee on Rules so that a decision of the Committee on Appropriations, recognizing the right of people in the District of Columbia to make their own choices about how their money will be spent, can be overruled. The District of Columbia, by its small ``d'' democratic processes, decided to say that if two men or two women were in love and were prepared to commit themselves to each other legally and financially, as well as emotionally, the District of Columbia, if they work for the District of Columbia, they would honor that. For reasons I do not understand, that willingness to accept a mutual declaration of responsibility from two people in love deeply offends some of my colleagues. On a personal level, it does not matter to me what they think. They are entitled to their opinions, prejudicial as I might think they are. But to tell the 550,000 people of the District, who have voted through their democratic processes, that they may not use money raised in the District by taxation voted by the District on residents of the District, that they may not use that money to carry out a policy that recognizes that love, shame on those who perpetrate it, and particularly now. Everybody in America is concerned about the people who died, and gay and lesbian and bisexual and transgendered people are no different than others. In addition to the general mourning, there is discussion of those in that particular community, of which I am a member, who died. Indeed, we have the military announcing what we call a ``stop loss'' policy, which says that gay and lesbian Americans in the military who are, I think, wholly unfairly and incorrectly and unwisely subject to being thrown out, may not be thrown out now. In other words, at this time of terrible crisis, when we are going to ask Americans to go and risk their lives for the defense of freedom, overwhelmingly supported here, we are going to make an exception in some cases to the policy of excluding gays and lesbians. Gay and lesbian people who have been asking for the right are going to get it. They are going to be allowed to die for their country. But according to some, we are just not allowed to live here freely, because this bill says that we will violate what some have said is a philosophical principle that local people at the local level ought to be able to decide how to spend local money. We are not talking formally about States' rights. The District of Columbia is not a State, it is a self-governing group of Americans who have voted through an open and democratic process, through a public policy, which they are prepared to support with their money. And the Republican leadership says, no, no, we cannot let them do that. We cannot let them do that, because if two women are allowed to express their love for each other and one of them works for the District of Columbia and wants to extend health benefits to her partner, we cannot allow that. That somehow is going to undo the great fabric of this Nation. And we will even violate the normal rules of the House, because it is the one amendment that is nongermane. In our technical terms, it is legislating in an appropriations bill. And by the way, how seriously do they take this terrible assault on the dignity and freedom and emotions of gay and lesbian Americans? They give us 10 minutes to talk about it. There will be 5 minutes in which those of us who are appalled by this intrusive, divisive assault on so many millions of their fellow citizens, because those of us who do not live in the District on a legal basis, share the pain of those in the District who will be penalized by this punitive amendment, and they give us 5 minutes to talk about it. I do not see how anyone who has talked about not being divisive, who has talked about unity at this time, can agree to dealing with this amendment at this time, and certainly not to a 5-minute debate on each side, where people's fundamental rights, the right of the District to self-governance, that is to be disposed of in 5 minutes? Have people so little concern for the rights and feelings of others? I hope the rule is voted down.

Mr. FRANK

Mr. FRANK. Mr. Chairman, the gentleman from Pennsylvania who got off the floor invoked religion as a reason to support the amendment that would prevent the District of Columbia's democratically-elected decision on domestic partnership from going into effect, and I know there are religious views of this sort. We have heard them expressed recently in various ways. Indeed, my guess is one could quote from the Taliban at great length about how terrible all of this is. But the question is not what people in their own individual religious views think, but what a self-governing people in the District of Columbia, self-governing thanks to our grant, but it is a grant that I am proud that we made, should be allowed to go forward. I now want to talk a little bit about the substance. Here is what we are talking about. It used to be illegal in the District of Columbia for two people of the same sex to express their affection physically. That was illegal, physical intimacy. The District of Columbia repealed that, and to its credit, this Congress allowed that repeal to stand. So understand that according to this Congress, only recently, a few years ago, we allowed the physical expression of intimacy. So the question now is, do we then follow it up by saying to the people, okay, they can live together and can express their love in a physical way, but by God, if they try to show responsibility, if they try to show that financially they are going to be responsible for each other, if they try to couple their emotional and physical sense with some degree of commitment, we are not going to allow it; because what we are talking about here are two people, one of whom works for the District of Columbia and one of whom does not, one of whom has health insurance and one of whom does not. So do not think Members are banning people's ability to live together. We are beyond that. This Congress has said the District could make that decision. The question is, once the people live together, do they think it makes sense to say that the person who is working and wants to jointly pay for health insurance cannot do it? What Members are talking about, let us be very clear, there are people whose lives they do not like, and I am one of those, and I regret that, but I must admit I am far beyond losing sleep about what the Taliban or anybody else thinks about the way I live. But what I assert is my right to live that way equally and freely as an American, and I implore my colleagues, what motivates them to inflict pain on fellow citizens who have done them no wrong? They just want to live. Can they not let them live? Our government is about to say that, in times of crisis, they can die for their country, because we are going to put a temporary cessation to the ``gays in the military'' policy. Let people live and let them die freely.

Mr. FRANK

Mr. FRANK. Madam Chairman, I rise reluctantly in support of this amendment, not because in the current context I have any hesitations about it, but because I would rather that we have been having the fuller debate on this issue that a few weeks ago it looked like we could have. Obviously, we regret, all of us terribly, the circumstances that have compressed this. I believe that the continued expenditure on missile defense is gravely mistaken. I understand that to have a debate under these circumstances would not be in our interests on the broader aspects of this, because, frankly, given the impulse, the understandable and laudable impulse to show our unity and support, I think the project would get more votes than it might get in a calmer atmosphere. I look forward to our being able to debate this at a future time, because I think the leadership on our side, on the committee and on the Committee on Appropriations subcommittee, has done an excellent job of vetting this project. So I am going to vote for this amendment because it is the most reasonable thing to do in this context. But I want to repeat again what I think is a very important point to the President: there is an accommodation going forward here. There is less of a debate on this issue and less of an attempt to reduce it than would otherwise have happened in the interests of showing national unity. I hope we will see a reciprocal response, in particular at a time when we are trying to build an international cooperative coalition with Russia, with China, and with other nations. It would ill-behoove this Nation to take unilateral action to undermine the ABM treaty. It would be an error to use the fact that the House has said, okay, and the other body has said okay, we understand that this is not the appropriate time to have the full debate. I regret that, but I understand the decision. But I hope we will not see the executive branch take advantage of that to go forward with steps that would lead to a fracturing of our efforts to build an international coalition and that would inappropriately unilaterally undermine the ABM treaty and the international cooperative framework.

Mr. FRANK

Mr. FRANK. Mr. Speaker, I have had the very great privilege over the past several years of sharing with my colleagues information about the very important work of ROFEH International and the New England Chassidic Center. Under the leadership of Grand Rabbi Levi Horowitz, the Bostoner Rebbe, project ROFEH has pioneered in efforts to make it possible for people all over the world to derive the great benefits of the first rate medical care that is available in Boston. Rabbi Horowitz, in addition to his religious role, is a leading scholar in the field of medical ethics--indeed, I have myself benefitted from his advice in dealing with some of the important research issues which are now before us--and it is thus not surprising that he has played this leadership role in an organization which make it possible for people to receive vital medical treatment which would otherwise not be available to them. Every year, ROFEH International and the Chassidic Center come together with their supporters at a dinner, a highlight of which is the recognition of people who have provided especially important service to this wonderful effort. This year's honorees are two men of very great distinction, Dr. Judah Folkman, and Mr. Arnold Andler. Professor Judah Folkman, M.D., was born in Cleveland, Ohio. He received his B.A. (cum laude), in 1953 from Ohio State University, and his M.D., (magna cum laude), in 1957 from Harvard Medical School. While at Ohio State he worked in Dr. Robert Zollinger's surgical laboratory and was a co-author on papers describing a new method of hepatectomy for liver cancer. As a student at Harvard Medical School he worked in Dr. Robert Gross' laboratory where he developed the first atrio- ventricular implantable pacemaker, for which he received the Boylston Medical Prize, the Soma Weiss Award, and the Borden Undergraduate Award in Medicine. In 1957, Dr. Folkman started his surgical training at the Massachusetts General Hospital and served as Chief Resident in surgery from 1964-1965. His surgical residency was interrupted between 1960 and 1962 when served as a lieutenant in the U.S. Navy at the National Naval Medical Center in Bethesda. It was here that Dr. Folkman with David Long first reported the use of silicone rubber implantable polymers for the sustained-release of drugs. It was also in Bethesda that he carried out the experiments of growing tumors in isolated perfused organs, which led to the idea that tumors are angiogenesis-dependent. In 1965, Dr. Folkman joined Harvard's Surgical Service at the Boston City Hospital where he was appointed Instructor in Surgery. In 1967 he was promoted to Professor of Surgery at Harvard Medical School and to Surgeon-in-Chief at Children's Hospital Medical Center, becoming the Julia Dyckman Andrus Professor of Surgery in 1968. After 14 years as Surgeon-in-Chief, he stepped down to devote his full time to research. Dr. Folkman's discoveries on the mechanism of angiogensis opened a field of investigation now pursued worldwide. His laboratory reported the first purified angiogenesis molecule, the first angiogenesis inhibitor, proposed the concept of angiogenic disease, and has begun clinical trials based on this research. Basic fibroblast growth factor (bFGF) was first purified in Folkman's laboratory (together with Michael Klagsbrun and Yuen Shing). Angiogenesis inhibitors are currently in clinical trials in the U.S. and Europe. Dr. Folkman's exceptional achievements have been recognized by numerous national and international awards. In 1990 he was elected to the National Academy of Sciences. He is also a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the American Philosophical Society and the Institute of Medicine. He holds honorary degrees from five universities. Dr. Folkman is the author of more than 300 peer-reviewed papers as well as may other publications. Arnold Andler affectionately known as ``Arnie'' to his family and friends has been an endearing member of the Chassidic Center and Rofeh following in the footsteps of his parents, aunts and uncles and many others in the Andler family. Arnie spent his early years in Dorchester where his family always kept Judaism in the forefront of his life. In the 50's Arnie's family moved to Newton where they became very active in the Jewish Community and in Beth-El Atereth Israel. Today Arnie is still an active board member, Chairman of the Hebrew School as well as serving on a variety of other committees. He is a staunch supporter of many other organizations and synagogues not only in Boston and its surrounding area, but all over the world. Arnie is known in the Newton Community as the ``Candy Man'', a title inherited from his father, Samuel, of Blessed Memory, and the more recent title of grandfather, a title of which he is exceptionally proud. His three beautiful granddaughters, Brooke, Paige, and Brianna can be seen accompanying him at Shabbos and Holiday Services much to his and everyone's delight. Arnie's mother, Frieda, is still an active member of the Jewish Community and along with his father, Samuel, of Blessed Memory, have given him only the highest of standards to achieve, both religiously and morally. His mother-in-law, Lillian and late father-in-law, Maurice, of Blessed Memory have always been supportive and proud of his accomplishments. Arnie especially thanks his lovely wife Barbara of 40 years, their three children, Doug and wife Kim, Wendy and husband Joseph, and son Greg, and all his brothers and sisters for their understanding and support. Arnie emphasizes--``Without their love and guidance I would not be here today''. This award is humbly accepted in honor and memory of the Andler family and the continuous outstanding work of the Rebbe, the Chassidic Center, and Rofeh. Mr. Speaker I consider it a very great honor that these important institutions are located in the Congressional district which I am privileged to serve, and I am very proud to have the chance to salute here the important work done by ROFEH and the New England Chassidic Center, and to join in paying tribute to their extremely distinguished honorees.

Mr. FRANK

Mr. FRANK. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman for yielding me this time. I am currently in the Committee on the Judiciary having hearings on the important question of the anti-terrorism legislation. The gentlewoman from Indiana (Ms. Carson) graciously agreed to come down and has done a very good job of explaining the bill. I simply want to note that the gentlewoman is correct. This is bipartisan. It is bicameral. We have worked it out in conjunction with the other party. It is important to note what I think is a duality of these issues. When it comes to how best to use existing resources to preserve housing, we are able to work together. There continues to be differences between the parties on how much we should be putting in additional resources for housing. But once we have come to an agreement by whatever process as to what resources are there, I am very pleased we have been able to work in agreement because I think we are committed to the principle that for the Federal Government to have put money into subsidized housing, to have invited people to come in and live there, and then to allow people's economics to drive them out of what have become their homes is simply unacceptable. We need to have this ongoing commitment to do this. This is part of that ongoing commitment. It shows we can make adjustments that will save government money as well as require in other instances, not in this bill, increases. So I am grateful for this. I do note it, but I note that it does not do away from what I believe and I know what the gentlewoman from Indiana (Ms. Carson) believes, is the need to put additional resources in this very rich country into the area of housing. Let me ask the indulgence to say because I know the other bill will be coming up, the one on the Housing Commission. I also want to express my gratitude to the gentleman from New York (Mr. Walsh), the chairman of the Subcommittee on VA, HUD and Independent Agencies of the Committee on Appropriations because he was helpful in working that out. I am glad we are able to work out the extension and the appropriate staffing. With that, I will take my leave and let us be guided by the gentlewoman from Indiana; and I will go back to the hearing of the Committee on the Judiciary.

Mr. FRANK

Mr. FRANK. Madam Chairman, given the fact that the gentleman acknowledges, yes, this is an area in which we differ, I appreciate very much his comments. And I hope that this will be part of the signal that we set, that we can maintain legitimate differences within our democratic structure without in any way endangering our unity.

Mr. FRANK. Madam Chairman, will the gentleman yield?