Jeff Flake

Mr. FLAKE

Mr. FLAKE. Mr. Chairman, I reserve the right to close and would inquire does the opposition have an additional speaker.

Mr. FLAKE. Mr. Chairman, I offer an amendment.

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

Mr. FLAKE. It is my intent to close. Mr. Chairman, I yield the gentleman from California (Mr. Rohrabacher) 30 seconds.

Mr. FLAKE. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself the remainder of my time. Mr. Chairman, I appreciate the debate. And let me say, both sides of this debate want the same thing. We want a free, democratic, and prosperous Cuba. The question is how do we get there? Should we go the same route that we have gone for the past 42 years that has ended in utter failure? Fidel Castro is still around. He is still a thug. He is still very much a bad guy. We will all stipulate that. The question is how do we best remove him? How did we make sure that he does not have the only megaphone in Cuba? Currently we silence Americans who would like very much to go to Cuba, to see the situation there, to explain to their Cuban brethren that we have a better way and to see what 40 years of socialism have wrought on that island. We prevent them from doing so, and we allow Fidel Castro to have the microphone, the only one they hear. We recognize the rest of the world, in China, Vietnam, North Korea, Iran, you name it. We not only allow travel; we encourage it. Yet, in Cuba, we say we will go a different route. We will isolate. Well, we have the verdict: 42 years, nothing has changed. Nothing has changed. Let me read you a quote: I have called for lifting economic sanctions generally, unilateral sanctions, because I believe they do not work. Well, Cuba is a tough case and admittedly a difficult one because we have had sanctions there over the years. They have not worked either. Sanctions, frankly, have not worked very well in Cuba. You might think that was the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. McGovern) or the gentleman from Indiana (Mr. Roemer) or the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Delahunt) or others who made that statement or even me. It was not. It was Vice President Cheney. As I mentioned before, Secretary O'Neill in testimony before the Senate just months ago said that if it were up to him he would not enforce the Cuba travel ban because he knows that if we are concerned about terrorism, then the last thing we want to do is expend resources from OFAC, or the Office of Foreign Assets Control, tracking down tourists, tracking down innocent grandmothers from Iowa, when we could instead be tracking down real terrorists and those who are perpetrating the terrorism war against the United States. I would urge my colleagues to remember what this is all about. The Flake amendment says that we should be free, we should be free as Americans to travel where we want to. The Goss amendment says no. Vote ``yes'' on the Flake amendment.

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

Mr. FLAKE. Mr. Chairman, I rise in strong opposition to the Goss amendment. This debate is all about consistency, and it is interesting that we have been debating for the past 10 minutes who gets what amount of time to argue what position. If we think about it, the other side of this debate has had 42 years to make this debate, to make their side of the debate. Forty-two years. Forty-two years we have had the same failed policy. Castro is still every bit the thug he was 42 years ago. He is still very much in power, and the question occurs after 42 years, it is about time that we decide maybe we need a change here. Maybe we ought to be consistent with what we are doing in the rest of the world. We not only allow, we encourage tourists and others to travel to China, even though China is very much engaged in shipping arms, and who knows, maybe biological weapons. They certainly have the capacity. If Cuba does, they do. So does Albania, for that matter. Iran very much has the capacity. If we believe the other side, they got it from Cuba. Are we saying that we should not travel to Iran? No. We are saying Americans are our best ambassadors all over the world, yet we say not to Cuba. It is time for that policy to change. The other side will say this is all about terrorism. Last year 240 Members of this body said we need a change. We need a change. At that point the other side stood up and said it is about political prisoners. That was the killer amendment to the Flake amendment last year. Terrorism was not the chic issue it is this year; it was political prisoners. That was brought up and said, well, Castro has to release political prisoners. This year, is political prisoners in the Goss amendment? No. It is terrorism. Are they saying we should allow tourism just as long as there is no terrorism, even though Castro has not released political prisoners? No. This is simply a killer amendment; let us take it for what it is. If we are concerned about terrorism, I would submit that the best thing to do is defeat the Goss amendment and approve the Flake amendment. We have to realize that the Office of Foreign Assets Control at the Treasury Department spends between 10 and 20 percent of its resources tracking down grandmothers from Iowa who happen to go on a bicycling trip to Cuba. Last year a man from the State of Washington went to Cuba for 24 hours to spread his parents' ashes at the church they built in the 1950s. That man returned to a $7,500 fine from the Office of Foreign Assets Control. Now the Office of Foreign Assets Control's job is to shut down the international terrorist network. How can they do that if they are spending all of their time chasing down tourists or others who are going to Cuba for innocent reasons? It is time to defeat the Goss amendment.

Mr. FLAKE. Mr. Chairman, if I can take it.

Mr. FLAKE

Mr. FLAKE. Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of this resolution. Fires continue to blaze through the western portion of our country. Aided by drought the damage stretches into a million acres and billions of dollars. More than 22,000 communities across the country and over 211 million acres of federal lands are currently at risk to these severe wildfires. In Arizona alone, over a half a million acres of land burned with more than 400 homes and other structures. Nearly 33,000 people were evacuated. The key to reducing risk of these catastrophic wildfires is to actively manage forests not just in the interface but landscape wide to ensure forests can withstand drought, insects and disease. Reaching the appropriate tree density and promoting native mixes of species ensures less severe burns than what we have seen ravage the west already this year. This is not a commercial logging or timber issue. This is an issue of keeping the forests healthy and well maintained through thinning, logging and prescribed burns. Policies that slow down this process coupled with appeals that further halt necessary treatments must be stopped. Without these changes, we will see more years similar to this one where the fire year is shaping up as the most devastating on record. Some 2.7 million acres have already burned, nearly three times the average acreage for this time of year. We still have time. The fire season is in its early stages. Thinning and forest management practices necessary to ensure our forests are able to survive future catastrophic wildfires must begin without further delay. In a 1999 report, the General Accounting Office report to the U.S. House of Representatives, entitled ``Western Forests: A Cohesive Strategy Is Needed To Address Catastrophic Wildfire Threats,'' was published in 1999. The GAO reported that ``the most extensive and serious problem related to the health of national forests in the interior West is the overaccumulation of vegetation, which has caused an increasing number of large, intense, uncontrolled and catastrophically destructive wildfires. According to the U.S. Forest Service, 39 million areas on national forests in the interior West are at high risk of catastrophic wildfire.'' The Western Governors Association (WGA) signed it ``Collaborative 10- year Strategy for Reducing Wild Fire Risks to Communities and the Environment'' in 2001. The plan emphasizes preventing catastrophic blazes instead of just fighting them. I encourage Congress to support the plans of the 10-year strategy. I encourage the immediate implementation of practices we know will aide in preventing future fires that burn thousands of acres of land and homes.

Mr. FLAKE

Mr. FLAKE. Mr. Chairman, the amendment I have proposed only requires that a government official responsible for making grants or loans knows what is in the appropriation bill. Now I think we assume that those on the executive side actually read the bill. That is all that is required here. When they read the bill, they will know if this is report language or if it is language actually contained in the bill. With this information, they are able to make that determination simply by reading the bill. I do not see how this imposes a new task on a government official. If the Chair rules that my amendment is subject to a point of order because it proposes a new duty, then the Chair is ruling that a government official does not have the responsibility to actually read the bill. That is, I think, the least we can expect of government officials is that they actually read the bills that we pass. I would submit that this should not be subject to a point of order. It is inconceivable that this body is deciding that government officials cannot actually read the report. I respectfully ask that the Chair does not sustain the point of order.

Mr. FLAKE. Mr. Chairman, I wish to be heard on the point of order.

Mr. FLAKE. Mr. Chairman, this amendment is actually quite simple. We have a situation in Congress now, we have been spending the last full day, many, many hours trying to amend the Interior appropriations bill. This is the bill. There are very strict limits on what we can amend and what we can do because we can only amend the bill. The problem is most of the spending is actually directed not on the bill itself but in the committee report. The committee report actually directs how a lot of the money is to be spent. The hard marks are in the bill. The soft marks are in the committee report. The problem we have is once this bill passes through the House, passes through the Senate, and then comes to a House-Senate conference, we then have the bill which we in the House vote on and they vote on it in the Senate, we have to go up or down. We cannot go in and amend specific language. But, again, most of the spending is actually directed, not then by a committee report, but by a conference report. Ordinary run-of-the-mill Members, if you are not a member of Committee on Appropriations, really do not have a chance to go in and amend some of the most egregious pork barrel projects that are often part of the bill. And there are some doozies. We hear about them all the time. We have little ability on the House floor either at this point or no ability when we vote on the House-Senate conference report to actually go in and amend and actually go to try to clean up some of these pork barrel projects. What this amendment simply says is the executive branch of government cannot spend money, cannot expend any of the money appropriated in the bill that is not expressly contained in the bill. This does not get rid of earmarks. Earmarks are an important part of the congressional prerogative. The executive branch does not always know the best way to spend money, and Congress has the prerogative to direct that spending. What this amendment simply says is that if we want to direct the spending, if we want to earmark the spending, do so in the bill, not in the conference report; and that will allow Members to go in and actually take that money out or move it around and not be limited to the very limited amount of money that we can actually direct or rescind or move around in the bill. We have to remember, most of the money is directed and earmarked through soft marks in the report language in the committee and then the conference report. I think this amendment is very simple. It actually would shine a lot of sunshine on the process. This would allow Members of the House and the Senate, not just those on the Committee on Appropriations, but Members at large to actually go in and face that pork barrel spending and actually do something about it, not just tell their constituents, hey, I was forced with an up-or-down vote, I had to vote ``yes'' or I had to vote ``no.'' That is the amendment and I urge my colleagues to support it. Point of Order

Mr. FLAKE. Mr. Chairman, I offer an amendment.

Mr. FLAKE. Mr. Chairman, as I understand the rules of the House, a proposal constitutes legislating if it imposes an additional task or new task on the executive branch or a government official, such as having information that that government official does not currently have. I would inquire of the Chair, is that the correct understanding of this provision?

Mr. FLAKE

Mr. FLAKE. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the requisite number of words. Mr. Chairman, I rise in support of the amendment. I have a holding here. It is called the Arizona Media Advisory, sent out by the Committee on Appropriations to my home State. As Members know, Arizona has lost about 450,000 acres to fire over the past month. What this media advisory says, and I will not mention the other names included in there, ``Representative Flake Works to Slash Firefighting Funds.'' We all know why the firefighting funds were put in there. It was to silence people from the West who have opposition to the runaway spending in this bill. This was sent out to the media in Arizona hoping that that would silence me and others who had opposition to the higher spending in this bill. Well, it will not. I think it is a horrible thing, and it is dirty politics at its worst to do this kind of thing; but let me say for the record that we have suffered a huge loss in Arizona. There is need for funding to fight fires. That ought to be handled in a supplemental appropriation bill, not here. Those funds will be needed now, not later. This bill, if we look at the last 4 years, the soonest it has been passed, I believe, is October 4, or October 21. The latest is November. So if this money is not going to be available, anyway, why are we doing it now? The answer is simple. It is to silence those who want to stand up and say that we are engaging in runaway spending. I appreciated the comments of the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Obey) earlier. He hit the nail right on the head. What we are doing here is we are plussing up, porking up the early bills after defense and military construction. We see here from the chart we are well above the President's request on these three; but lo and behold, when we get to the end of the appropriation trail, then we are well below. Does anybody think for a minute that these bills at the end of the process can even get out of committee? The gentleman from Wisconsin does not believe so on the minority side and neither do I. I do not think that anybody in this body reasonably believes that those bills can actually get out of committee, let alone pass on the floor. And so what we are participating in here is a charade. We passed a budget, and as Republicans we ought to stick to it. We know that if we engage and we go forward with this bill, we will not be able to stick to that budget. That is the objection I have, and that is why I am supporting this amendment, and we ought to support every amendment that would bring the level of spending down so that we can actually get back to the budget that we passed, get back out of deficit spending, get back to surpluses and get back to doing what we ought to do here.

Mr. FLAKE. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Let me just say I feel particularly honored that they have chosen to limit the debate on my amendment. I am not sure what the opposition is afraid of, but in any event, we will move ahead. The last amendment that we voted on, it was said by the Democratic opposition that that was a meat ax approach to this bill. I am pleased to say that this is more of a machete kind of approach. The last one cut about $162 million from the Interior bill. This will cut about $51 million. It is about a third of the original amendment. If they do not like that, then we will take, I guess, the scalpel approach. The next amendment offered by the gentleman from Indiana (Mr. Pence) will cut, I believe, $13 million from the bill. So we are here to please and to offer a variety of amendments. A lot has been said about the farm bill. In fact, many Members were asked if they had voted for the farm bill, yet were supporting the amendments that were offered here. I would gladly yield to the gentleman from Florida if he wants to ask if I voted for the farm bill. I did not. I will be glad to yield if anybody asked if I voted for the airline bailout. I did not. I will be glad to yield if anybody asked if I voted for the President's education bill. I did not. I have not voted for any of the big spending bills. I think they are spending far too much. The average American has to work 181 days of the year simply to pay the cost of government. That is, I believe, six days longer than we had to work last year. We are spending simply too much. Early this year Citizens Against Government Waste identified $20.1 billion in Federal pork projects. This is an increase of 9 percent over last year's total. The money was spread out over 8,341 projects injected into the appropriations bills in fiscal year 2002. This is an increase of 32 percent. The report also identified $1.2 trillion in savings over 5 years in its prime cuts report. For those who say that we simply cannot cut anymore, that is wrong. We can cut. We are simply spending too much. The problem is not tax cuts. The problem is spending. We are spending far more this year than we spent the year before. We spent far more last year than we did the year before that. We have got a long way to go before we reach fiscal discipline. In fact, we have heard a lot over the last couple of weeks about corporate crooks. Let me tell my colleagues, over the past 5 years, lawmakers have spent a total of $142 billion above the levels in corresponding budgets. These are our own budgets that we passed, and yet we go above, $142 billion over 5 years. That is more than 12 times the misstated earnings from Enron, Xerox and WorldCom combined. For us to lecture the private sector on what they have to do to have transparency and to get their books in order when we are ourselves $142 billion over 5 years in excess of our own corresponding budgets. It has been said that the farm bill, $9 billion, and we are talking here just a couple of hundred million dollars. I am not here to defend the farm bill, believe me. I think that was the worst piece of legislation passed in a long time here, but we are talking here, if we go ahead with the appropriations request, $9 billion this year above the President's request. We have to remember that the President's request was modified to match the House budget. So we are $9 billion above this year's request. That, over 10 years, is more than the farm bill. As I said, I am not here to defend the farm bill, but there are some who point out the farm bill, $9 billion over 10 years, that is a lot of money. I am not here to defend the farm bill at all, but we need to put it in perspective. We are over the President's request. Mr. Chairman, on January 30, 2002, President George W. Bush said, To achieve these great national objectives, to win the war, protect the homeland, to revitalize our economy, our budget will run a deficit that will be small and short term so long as Congress restrains spending and acts in a fiscally responsible manner. That is the case. The problem is spending. We simply need to get it under control. That is why we are offering amendments. That is why we are stepping in tonight and making sure that we restore a bit of fiscal discipline. That is all we are trying to do here, and when I took to the floor last week, we were being lectured on lifting the debt ceiling. We were told that we were acting irresponsibly because we wanted to lift the debt ceiling because we had to lift the debt ceiling. We were being lectured over here by those who had approved and had voted for big spending projects that we had never approved and we had never voted for. Yet we were being lectured on that. My time is ending, but I just want to say that I urge everyone to vote for this amendment.

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

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

Mr. FLAKE. Mr. Chairman, we are in a situation now, since the gentleman yielded, where American families all over the country are having to cut their own budget.

Mr. FLAKE. Mr. Chairman, the one I just proposed. I just proposed going back to the fiscal 2002 levels.

Mr. FLAKE. Mr. Chairman, I offer an amendment.

Mr. FLAKE

Mr. FLAKE. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding me the time. Mr. Speaker, I do come from the State of Arizona where we have had 450,000 acres burn already this year. The entire West, as mentioned by the gentleman from Colorado, is a tinderbox at this point. We are at level 5, the first time we have reached level 5 this early in the year. Arizona, as mentioned, lost about 600 square miles to fire. We still have a lot of Ponderosa pine forest left. We have the largest stand of Ponderosa pine forest in the country. Many of my colleagues, particularly from the East Coast, were surprised to hear that we had forests in Arizona, let alone that they were burning. We had a horrible fire that was finally contained after 2 weeks, contained fully on Sunday. That fire is contained, but I can tell my colleagues that this season is not done, and this legislation recognizes the need to have firefighters, particularly in a management capacity, come here and to ensure that we have the forces necessary to put out these fires. When the lightning seasons hit, we had some lightning just a couple of days ago, five new fires started quickly, had to be suppressed, and we are going to see a lot more of that this year. So it is very important that we pass this legislation. I thank the gentleman from Colorado for introducing it and for the chairmen, as he mentioned, who moved it so quickly to this point. We have a situation in Arizona and throughout the West where we have far too much fuel that allows these fires to burn far hotter and spread far faster than they would otherwise. These are things that we need to address as we look to the future, but for now, we need to ensure the firefighters are on the ready. That is what this legislation does. I urge my colleagues to support it when it comes to the floor. Mr. Speaker, In August of 2000, 68 firefighters from Australia arrived in Montana to help their American counterparts bring wildfires under control. At that time more than 70 fires were burning in 12 U.S. states that prompted the call for assistance. After devastating wildfires in 2000, long-term agreements were negotiated with Australia and New Zealand. These agreements have not been implemented, however, due to concerns that the foreign firefighting personnel would face liability for alleged torts committed while their personnel were furnishing assistance to the U.S. Over 450,000 acres of land burned in the widely publicized fire of Arizona. The National Interagency Fire Center has declared a state of ``Preparedness Level 5''--indicating the highest level of risk and the need for the greatest degree of preparedness due to the severity of fire season conditions. For safety purposes, for every twenty firefighters on the front line of a fire there must be one management level firefighter to supervise and ensure the safety of the men in the field. Fourteen days ago when this legislation was introduced, the Hayman fire was still burning in Colorado and the Rodeo-Chedeski fires were raging in Arizona. Various other fires were also burning; together they were almost expending the resources we have available to fight these blazes. At that point there was a strong concern that there wouldn't be enough management level personnel to keep all the necessary frontline firefighters fighting the blazes. This legislation prevents that from occurring. The legislation before us makes it possible to ensure sufficient management level firefighters in the event of catastrophic fires by providing protections to firefighters, sending countries and any organization associated with the firefighter from any liability resulting from actions taking place while fighting fires here in the United States. Also provided within the legislation is a reciprocal agreement providing the same protection to American firefighters who go to other countries to assist in fire suppression or firefighting. With the West experiencing a severe drought and one of the worst fire seasons it has ever seen on record, fire managers are expecting a busy summer. Remove the constraints that prevent management level firefights from ensuring we can meet the demands of this season. Support this legislation.

Mr. FLAKE

Mr. FLAKE. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding me time. I did not plan to speak on this at all. I was up in my office and could not help but, watching some of the proceedings, I could not help understanding that there is something amiss here to have people, individuals on the Democrat side of the aisle who have voted for nearly every spending program that has been put up, who vote for the airline bail out, who vote for the farm bill, who vote for the education bill, spending bill after spending bill, none of which I voted for and yet I am over here saying to vote for this bill. Now, how can somebody spend like a drunken sailor and then all of a sudden find religion when it comes to raising the debt limit? This is just like eating a big meal and walking out on the bill. There are only a few people in this House who could in good conscience vote against this bill, and they have spoken. And to see this display of people standing up and saying, we cannot raise the debt limit, that is not responsible, after voting to spend and spend and spend, it is just more than I could take. So I had to come here and talk about it.

Mr. FLAKE

Mr. FLAKE. Mr. Speaker, I respectfully request the opportunity to record my position on rollcall votes 249, 250, 251, and 252. I was regrettably absent from the chamber on Monday, June 24, 2002 during rollcall votes 249, 250, 251 and 252. Had I been present, I would have voted ``yea'' on all four votes.

Mr. FLAKE

Mr. FLAKE. Mr. Speaker, as I stand here today, my home State of Arizona is burning. We have lost now nearly 400,000 acres to fire. That is more than 500 square miles. Colorado is burning as well. We have lost a tremendous amount of forest just this year, and we have got to do something about it. We should not be surprised at the losses so far to fire. Our forests have been choked with underbrush and excess trees for years now; and whenever we try to go in and thin and manage our forests, we are blocked by radical environmentalists who file lawsuits, who create such uncertainty with the Forest Service that nobody can go in and thin our forests like they should. One of the groups that is blocking us from going into forests and thinning is a group called Forest Guardians, one of these radical environmental groups. They were interviewed in the East Valley Tribune in Arizona yesterday, and in the paper it says, Forest Guardians oppose using any forest thinning that might benefit commercial logging companies. If one uses the words thinning and/or they use the word forest and commercial in the same sentence, it seems they sue before one can finish the sentence. They simply oppose anything that benefits commercial companies, which means that to go in and thin the forest it is all on the public treasury. It is estimated that it would cost them $35 billion to go in and thin our forest properly, to prepare them to make sure that we do not have the devastating crown fires that are killing trees and everything, wildlife, whatever stands in their way, but we can cannot do it with the public treasury. We have to allow people to go in, but of course they oppose that. Going on, it says, and hear what the Forest Guardians are suggesting: Instead, small numbers of small trees should be removed by crews using solar-powered chain saws to ensure the work does not affect air quality in the forest. Solar-powered chain saws. I know my way around a hardware store pretty well, although I have never stumbled into the solar-powered chain saw aisle. It is simply laughable, if it were not so horrifying, that we are being held up by such groups that have such outlandish ideas. I do not know what is next, trained beavers? Are we supposed to round up the animals of the forest, Mr. Deer and Mr. Bear, and convince them to get a forest council together to help us replant? We need to remind the radical environmentalists that Ferngully was a cartoon. We have serious problems here in our forests. They demand serious solutions, serious debate, serious answers, and we are getting solar- powered chain saws? We have got to rethink what we are doing. Our State is burning. Colorado is burning. There are some 3 million acres of Ponderosa pine forest in Arizona. We stand a chance of losing most of that over the next year or two. It is a tinderbox unless we get in, and we cannot afford to wait another 4 or 5 years until we wade through all the lawsuits to allow private interests in to thin forests. We have got to move ahead, and I plead with those serious environmentalists who want to protect habitat for endangered species, who want to have beautiful forest land, to join with us and create a balance as we are getting serious about the issue, instead of throwing up roadblocks and talking about solar-powered chain saws and the like.