Barney Frank

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Speaker, I offer a motion to recommit.

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Speaker, I demand a recorded vote.

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. I yield to the gentleman from New York.

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts

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

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Speaker, I demand a recorded vote.

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. I yield to the gentleman from New York.

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Speaker, Members should not think that there will not be a vote now on the previous question, because I have no choice but to emulate my colleague, the gentleman from Mississippi (Mr. Taylor). The gentleman threatened to vote on the previous question and he got his amendment made in order. I have some amendments I would like made in order and I do not want to be open to the inference that I am less committed to mine than he to his, so I now will announce that I will be moving for a rollcall on the previous question. The rule is a disgrace. I understand the desire of the Republican leadership to make something out of the China issue. It ought to be fully debated, but it should not come at the expense of this House debating some of the most important public policy questions we face. Bosnia, and I did not know that the principle was equal Democrat and Republican amendments. That seems to be rather an odd way to make public policy, but I do not threaten that, because the amendments I want made in order are totally bipartisan. I have an amendment sponsored by myself and the gentleman from Connecticut (Mr. Shays) to put a freeze on defense spending. That was not made in order. Let us be very clear. Defense spending represents a large chunk of what we have said we will spend. Not a single amendment is made in order that would reduce the budget. This House will not be given a chance to vote on whether or not the budget ought to be reduced. That is simply a degradation of the democratic process and inappropriate. Members may want to vote to keep this spending level up, particularly since we are in a zero sub situation, and Members who have talked about how committed they are to spending for the elderly and for the environment and for housing and for crime control will be diminishing our ability to do that if they vote for this bill. Not to allow even a chance to vote on a freeze seems to me wholly disrespectful of the democratic process. Similarly, Bosnia. I do not know how often I have heard Members on the other side complain about Bosnia and the troops in Bosnia. Why, then, does the Republican leadership refuse to allow this House to vote on an amendment sponsored by 3 Democrats and 3 Republicans to compel withdrawal of the troops from Bosnia by December 31? According to the administration, it costs us $2 billion a year incrementally to keep the troops in Bosnia. These amendments go together. We could cut out the troops in Bosnia and save money. We could cut out the American troops and let the Europeans do what they ought to do and use that money for other purposes. It simply does not wash for Members on the other side to say, the President has unilaterally overcommitted us. The President has overextended us; we wish the troops were not in Bosnia, and then frustrate an effort to let the membership vote. What possible justification can there be for not letting this membership vote on a bipartisan amendment as to whether or not the troops stay in Bosnia?

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

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

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Speaker, reclaiming my time, I understand that; the gentleman has done what was in his power and my criticism is not aimed at the gentleman, but at the Republican leadership, which has somehow decided that, I don't know, it may be that they do not want to detract attention from the China issue, and the China issue deserves full debate, but how can the Republican leadership justify not letting this House vote on whether or not the troops stay in Bosnia? I will say this: If we vote for the previous question on the rollcall I will ask for and my colleagues vote for this rule and they vote for this bill, they will have refused the option to vote on Bosnia. So I will ask Members, have the intellectual consistency, if they vote down the line to keep us from debating Bosnia, not to complain about the troops being in Bosnia. There ought to be a basic rule that Members are enjoined from complaining about circumstances which they brought about. So let us now face the choice. A vote for the previous question, a vote for the rule, a vote for the bill, my colleagues will have given their okay to the troops staying in Bosnia ad infinitum. They are going to be pulled out shortly after the dome comes off this building as long as the current policy of the administration is in effect, and I think Europeans ought to be made to step up to the plate. I will give Members a chance, if they will take it, to vote on whether or not we ought to keep the troops in Bosnia at a $2 billion a year cost. I think that is bad public policy. That is debatable. What is not debatable is that the United States House of Representatives, where many Members have complained about the troops being in Bosnia, cannot even vote on the subject. That ought not to happen. Neither should we have a situation where Members are not allowed even to vote on whether or not we ought to reduce military spending. So, Mr. Speaker, I hope that Members, particularly those who have talked about the troops in Bosnia being a problem, who vote against the previous question, I will then offer that balanced bipartisan amendment, and we can go forward with our business.

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Madam Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Madam Speaker, I rise in support of this bill. The principle is very straightforward. The Supreme Court decided a while ago that people who put together the phone book could not have a property interest in the phone numbers. We do not actually deal with that decision here. That particular decision is not overturned. But it did leave at risk work that people do to collect information. Essentially the state of the law now, opponents to this bill want the state of the law to remain such that you can go through considerable work to compile data. People who have been in the data compilation business know that it is often not fun. It can be very hard work. It can be unexciting work. But it could give you a very useful work product. What we are being asked to do by those who simply want to defeat this bill is to leave that work totally unprotected legally as far as the Federal government is concerned. You do the work, you do all the research, and you come up with a significantly useful collection of information. This law says anybody else who wants to can go and take that and do whatever they want with it. We do in this bill, to the extent that we were capable of doing it, make a distinction. Nothing in this bill in any way retards the intellectual use of that data. A scoundrel who wants to do research and publish some of it as part of his or her study, if you want to go to the data collection and usurp from it so you can prove your point, you can do it. If you want to go to the data collection and reproduce it and get paid for reproducing somebody else's work, this bill says you cannot. So that is the distinction we have tried to draw between making the intellectual product here fully accessible but protecting it commercially. If in fact you leave it unprotected commercially, you will almost certainly have less work done. The notion that people should go and do this, do all this data collection, with their work product totally unprotected from anybody else who wants to use it for any purpose, including passing it on, selling it to somebody else, seems to me to be in error. One of the things we have done, we have had hearings, and we are told, Madam Speaker, that this is too quickly being done and we should pull this bill. Yes, the people who do not want to deal with it now argue to pull the bill. Why do people say, let us pull the bill? There are two circumstances in which those of us in the legislative body argue that a bill should be pulled. One, it really did come up too quickly, and we really have not had a chance to look at it. This bill had its first public hearing in October of last year and then a second public hearing in February of this year. It was voted on in subcommittee two months ago. The number of people who have been prevented from studying this bill by time is zero. People have had months to look at it. Since we have had two public hearings on the bill, a markup two months ago in subcommittee and then a markup in full committee, and then we were going to be on the calendar last week. One of those terrible legislative diseases known as turfitis, which is particularly virulent at the Subcommittee on Energy and Power; you have got to be careful when you are walking on the first floor past the Subcommittee on Energy and Power. You have got a vicious case of ``It is mine, and nobody else can look at it.'' That will break out. That held us off a week. At any rate, we have had a lot of time that people are aware of this bill. Still, what is their complaint? We have got to study this some more. They are lucky that this bill is not covered by the data collection, I suppose. They would have a long time to study it. The point is, Madam Speaker, that you say pull the bill when you do not have any substantive arguments. We all say let us delay it. We all say we are not sure what it does. That is when you do not have substantive arguments. I say that because we have asked for substantive arguments. I very much agree that full use should be there intellectually. I do not want to interfere with researchers who use those data collections. I have yet to hear a specific instance of how the legislation we are bringing forward prevents people from doing research, from reading the data and using it in that reasonable way. We have tried in various ways. People said, well, what about the concept of fair use? It does not technically apply, but it could interfere with figures. We said it does not. We have said this bill specifically allows you to do research, allows you to reproduce some parts of it to make your argument. It does not allow you to simply take other people's work product and sell it and get paid for it. We have had a series of cases, of meetings and hearings, and no one has come forward with specifics. Look at the literature that has been put out. Various organizations have said this is not a good bill, stop it. But I have not been able to find in any of this literature a specific example of how this legislation will interfere with legitimate intellectual activity. We make a distinction here in this bill between commercial use of someone else's property and the intellectual use. If people think we have not done the balance perfectly, I would be willing to listen, but they do not want to come forward with specifics. I want to talk also about my friends, the libraries. Some of my friends are librarians. My chief of staff in Massachusetts was the head of a library board and built a beautiful library building. I think libraries are very important. To the extent that librarians come and say to us, you are going to prevent our readers from being able to read this, do research with this, write a paper based on it, I would be opposed to the bill if it did that. That is not what they are saying. Essentially what they are saying is, some of the people who have done all this work might charge us more than we want to pay. We underfund libraries. I think we do. If I were in charge, we would give libraries more money than other places. The answer, however, to a public sector inadequately funding libraries is not to empower libraries to take other people's work product for nothing. The answer is further and better to fund libraries. So I will await the end of this debate, and thereafter I will still be waiting for specifics. I am available. If people will show myself, the chairman, our very able staffs how this interferes with free and open exchange of information, with intellectual use for this, we will try to change that. I do not think that is the problem. I think people have been able to get some of this information for free. I suppose, as between paying for it and getting it for free, most of us would rather get it for free, if you assume that there is an endless supply of it coming, and if you assume that people who have to give it to you for free and allow you to reuse it will not stop this kind of work. I think if we do not pass this, you will begin to see a diminution in the kind of data that is available. Nothing in this bill will interfere with the intellectual use of it, so I hope the bill is passed.

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

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Madam Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the distinguished gentlewoman from the District of Columbia (Ms. Norton)

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Madam Speaker, reclaiming my time, I will tell the gentleman what the impact is. If we go forward with the government funded proposal, and he has more to say about that than I do, and I have a suggestion, which is cancel that wasteful space station and do that instead with this money and do it quicker, with the shortfall from the Russians that you are going to have to make up, but if we go ahead and do this governmentally funded, that work will not be protectable and it will remain fully open. The fact that some other privately funded entity has chosen to do the work will have no negative effect on people's access to the work that is government funded.

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. I yield to the gentleman from California.

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Madam Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume to make two points. First, with regard to the human genome, I am glad the gentleman brought that point up. Let me say, I fully respect the gentleman's motives. He performs a very useful service as the leading Democratic member on the Committee on Science, and it is entirely valid for him to be bringing these concerns forward. The point I would make, not to him, but to those on whose behalf he is quite legitimately speaking here, is that this has been pending business since hearings last October. We have had it before us. At various stages people say we have a problem; we say, fine, let us hear it. Two months ago we had a subcommittee markup. We had a subsequent committee markup. A week ago this bill was pulled off the floor, and tomorrow never comes. I think it will come, if we in fact vote this bill out of here. By the way, it will not go from here to the President's desk. It will go from here to that august wonderful chamber on the other side of this building, which, under the House rules, is the beneficiary of all of our good comments, and they will have some time to work on it, and I do not think they are likely to speed it through. I do believe that if we do not get a bill over there, it is kind of late in the session, measured by the amount of time that has passed, not the amount of bills that have passed, but it is late in the session, and if we do not get it over there, they will never get to the point. And we look forward to the discussion. Just to give one example, by the way, on the human genome project, that is Federally funded, page 6 of the bill: Protection shall not extend to collections of information gathered, organized or maintained by or for a government entity, Federal, State or local, including any employee or agent of such entity or any person exclusively licensed by such entity within the scope of the employment agency licensed. Indeed, one difference between our version and the European version is they do not exempt, as we do, government information.

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Madam Speaker, I yield 5 minutes to the very distinguished but not infallible gentleman from California (Mr. Brown), the ranking member of the Committee on Science. (Mr. BROWN of California asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Chairman, I rise in support of the amendment. Our good friend from Virginia made me want to call the history police. The misuse of history is one of the downsides of our debate. No, this has nothing to do with why the savings and loans got in trouble. We had tax changes. We had a real estate bubble. We had a lot of other reasons. This is a very important amendment. I must say that if this amendment were to be adopted, I could vote for a bill which I will otherwise feel constrained to oppose. The smaller banks that I deal with in the State of Massachusetts are banks which have been responsible, which have tried to meet the needs of local communities, so oppose the bill without this amendment. That is a major cause of opposition because what it says to the smaller banks is, none of these new powers are in fact available to them, and indeed much of what they may have been doing they will have to stop doing. This greatly disadvantages the smaller banks, who are then forced either to forgo getting into these new activities or to get out of the ones they are in, because they will not be able to set up the holding companies. The notion that if we have a holding company with siblings, they do not implicate each other, but if we have an operating subsidy, they do, does not seem to me to hold water. The analogies of the gentleman, I must say, do not seem to me any more persuasive than his history. I was sorry to hear about the kid who stole his parents' car and had an accident. What it has to do with banking it will probably take me till Sunday to figure out, but it certainly does not have anything to do with this particular issue. Yes, we are talking about the same overall entity being in both insured and noninsured activities. Whether or not they do it through a holding company or operating subsidiaries does not affect the quality of regulation, nor will it affect the drain on the insured deposit. What it will do is weaken the ability of small banks and, further, and maybe this is partly what some had in mind, obviously not all, it weakens the reach of the Community Reinvestment Act because the activities conducted in the operating subsidiaries will be covered by the Community Reinvestment Act. If, in fact, it becomes the holding company, they will not be. So the effect of the bill without this amendment will be to diminish some of the reach of the Community Reinvestment Act. Now, I realize that is not enough for some people who would like to totally cut off the arms of the Community Reinvestment Act in a later amendment. But I must also say that one surefire way to guarantee that no legislation goes forward is to cut back on the Community Reinvestment Act, which many of us believe to have been a significant improvement in our communities which most need it. So I hope in the interest of getting reasonable legislation through, that the amendment is adopted.

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Speaker, I claim the time of the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Wexler) until he arrives.

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from of Texas (Ms. Jackson-Lee). (Ms. JACKSON-LEE of Texas asked and was given permission to revise and extend her remarks.)

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Speaker, I yield as much time as he may consume to the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Wexler).

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, as a member of the Committee on the Judiciary, I would say that we agree with the gentleman from Florida. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Speaker, I was very pleased to receive last week a notification from the Carnegie Commission Hero Fund word that they had awarded a medal to Marc Meunier of New Bedford, Massachusetts. On March 18, 1997, Marc Meunier saved two people from drowning. Many of us Mr. Speaker, would be very proud if we were able to give assistance to fellow human beings in trouble. To not simply give assistance but save the lives of two people who were about to drown is obviously an accomplishment of enormous significance. I am very pleased that the Hero Fund extended this extremely well deserved recognition to Mr. Meunier and I ask that the description of his heroics be printed here as an example of how we human beings can act at our best.

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, I agree with what my friend the gentleman from North Carolina (Mr. Coble) has said. I would just want to underline; Members will remember that we debated a patent bill earlier in this Congress. It was contentious. Many of the issues that become disagreements in setting patent policy are either created or exacerbated by delays in the process. To the extent that we adequately fund that office, and this bill will increase the guarantee that that happens because it raises funds and dedicates them to that office, to the extent that the Patent Office is well-funded and can act expeditiously, a number of the disputes we have had will diminish, many of them will, over time and over delay. So this is a very important piece of legislation. It responds to the need of our economy and our intellectual processes for the encouragement of invention. I hope the bill is passed. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Chairman, I appreciate the gentleman's point, and I think it is important to remember he apparently dismisses the notion of across-the-board cuts as simply making statements. I think we ought to have that down on the record, that his view is that an across-the-board cut is simply for the purpose of making a political statement and is apparently never a serious legislative answer.