Porter Goss

Mr. GOSS

Mr. GOSS. I yield to the gentleman from California.

Mr. GOSS. I yield to the gentleman from Vermont.

Mr. GOSS. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the distinguished gentleman from New York (Mr. Boehlert) a valued member of the committee. (Mr. BOEHLERT asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. GOSS. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from New Mexico (Mrs. Wilson), a new member of our committee, who has already established her credentials in helping us with the matters in Los Alamos, which happens to be in her district.

Mr. GOSS. Mr. Chairman, I am happy to yield 4 minutes to the distinguished gentleman from Florida (Mr. McCollum), a more than highly valued member of the committee, chairman of one of our subcommittees, a member who has led the task force on drug efforts that have been ongoing these years, a man whose contributions through the Committee on the Judiciary and his value from that position on the committee is extraordinary.

Mr. GOSS. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Chairman, I thank the ranking member for his fine statement and particularly my full support and agreement on the last point he made with the special access programs. Mr. Chairman, let me note that there is a mistake in the printed committee report concerning the CBO estimate. That is not an intelligence failure. This is a printing mistake. The CBO letter provided to the Select Committee on Intelligence states that the unclassified portion of the bill ``would not affect direct spending or receipts, thus pay-as-you-go procedures would not apply.'' In the process of printing the committee report, the GPO omitted the final ``not,'' making it appear as if pay-as-you-go procedures would apply. I would like the Record to reflect accurately the CBO estimate and, therefore, will submit at the appropriate time the CBO letter for inclusion in the Record. Likewise, Mr. Chairman, in our review of the materials in preparation for floor action today, we also noted the inadvertent inclusion of language in the committee report that does not accurately reflect the committee's position in one instance. The offending language is found at page 15 of the published committee report and concerns the Joint Airborne's SIGINT program. This language also indicates a cut to the program office of $1.6 million. This, too, is not an accurate accounting of the committee's intent on this program. Mr. Chairman, I yield to my distinguished ranking member for any comment he may wish to make on this point.

Mr. GOSS. I yield to the gentleman from Vermont.

Mr. GOSS. I yield to the gentleman from California.

Mr. GOSS. Mr. Chairman, I offer an amendment to the amendment.

Mr. GOSS

Mr. GOSS. Mr. Speaker, by direction of the Committee on Rules, I call up House Resolution 167 and ask for its immediate consideration.

Mr. GOSS. Mr. Speaker, for purposes of debate only, I yield the customary 30 minutes to my colleague and friend, the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Frost), pending which I yield myself such time as I may consume. During consideration of this resolution, all time yielded is for the purpose of debate on this issue only. Mr. Speaker, House Resolution 167 is a modified open rule providing for the consideration of H.R. 1555, the Intelligence Authorization Act for fiscal year 2000. What makes the rule modified is the requirement that Members wishing to offer amendments were asked to have them preprinted in the Congressional Record prior to the consideration of this bill by the House. Notice of this restriction was given to Members last week prior to the filing of the report on this bill, and at the time of the filing, when we asked for the UC, we also reminded Members of the requirement. This requirement makes good sense, given the unique nature of the matters covered by the bill. In the past, we have found it works well to allow the Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence the opportunity to review potential amendments ahead of time in order to work with Members to ensure that no classified information is inadvertently disclosed during our floor debate. This is not about shutting out any debate on the bill but, rather, about an extra degree of caution and making sure sensitive material is properly protected. As is customary, the rule provides 1 hour of general debate divided equally between the chairman and the ranking member, the gentleman from California (Mr. Dixon), of the Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence. The rule makes in order the amendment in the nature of a substitute recommended by the Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence as an original bill for the purpose of amendment. The amendment in the nature of a substitute shall be considered by title, and each title shall be considered as read. The rule further waives points of order against the amendment in the nature of a substitute for failure to comply with clause 7 of Rule XVI, which prohibits nongermane amendments. This is necessary because, again, the introduced bill was more narrow in scope, as it usually is, than the product reported out by the committee. Specifically, this provision in the rule pertains to title V of the reported bill regarding the Freedom of Information Act exemption for the National Imagery and Mapping Agency, NIMA, which is, I believe, a noncontroversial provision which makes a technical correction. As I mentioned earlier, the rule makes in order only those amendments that have been preprinted in the Congressional Record and provides that each amendment that has been so printed may be offered only by the Member who caused it to be printed or his designee. Each amendment shall be considered as read. The rule allows the Chair of the Committee of the Whole to postpone votes during consideration of the bill and to reduce voting time to 5 minutes on a postponed questioned, if a vote follows a 15-minute vote. Nothing new there. Finally, the rule provides the traditional motion to recommit with or without instructions. Again, a guarantee for the minority. Mr. Speaker, this is certainly a fair rule and one without any controversy that I am aware of, but I am aware that the ranking member, the gentleman from California (Mr. Dixon), my colleague, friend and close working partner on the Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, had hoped that we could delay consideration of this bill until next week, to give Members even more time to familiarize themselves with the provisions of this bill, especially its classified components. I know that every effort was made to be sensitive to his request. I agreed with it. But given forces beyond any one Member's control, particularly relating to other legislation that is still under discussion, we in fact were asked to be on the floor with this bill today. That said, I encourage Members to vote for this fair rule and to support the underlying legislation, which I think is well prepared. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. GOSS

Mr. GOSS. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that in the engrossment of the bill, H.R. 1555, just passed, that the Clerk be authorized to make such technical and conforming changes as necessary to reflect the actions of the House.

Mr. GOSS

Mr. GOSS. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman from North Carolina (Mrs. Myrick) for yielding me this time. Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of what I think is a very responsible and open rule that gives Members a chance to consider a very wide variety point of view on what is a critical issue, as we all know. I cannot understand why we are having opposition to an open rule. Mr. Speaker, U.S. operations in Kosovo have exposed the reality that the fabric of our national security has indeed worn very, very thin, at a time when it is still a dangerous world. Over the last several years, the Clinton-Gore administration has demanded more from the military but it has actually provided less resources for the military. From Somalia to Haiti, Bosnia, Iraq, all those places, our troops are being deployed overseas, more often, for longer periods of time, even as our defense budget has been cut or has been held even. Well, today the bill has come due. It is simply time to pay up. The supplemental appropriation under consideration under the leadership of the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Young) and the gentleman from California (Mr. Lewis) will address the immediate needs arising from the U.S. operation in the Balkans, but it will also shore up other critical readiness areas that have been sadly depleted. Mr. Speaker, last week's debate on the War Powers Act showed that Congress was of many minds on the policy issue, but this debate today is not about policy. I repeat, this is not a policy debate today. It is about money. It is about resources to take care of our troops, and that is something that Congress must pursue with a single-minded intensity. Who among us would deny our troops in harm's way the best training, the best equipment, the best odds to survive and to win with the least casualties? I know that some of my colleagues would like to deal with the policy issue by refusing to fund military operations in Kosovo. They are absolutely right, that policy missteps by the Clinton-Gore administration can have grave consequences, as we have seen vividly and tragically in Somalia when the body of a U.S. soldier was dragged through the streets of Mogadishu. But failing to fund our troops' needs would invite the same kind of disaster by leaving our men and women on the front lines without the training and resources they need to protect themselves. I encourage my colleagues to support this rule and vote for the supplemental appropriations bill. Taking care of our troops and our national security are among the most fundamental duties this body has.

Mr. GOSS

Mr. GOSS. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that the Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence have until midnight, May 7, 1999, to file its report on the bill, H.R. 1555.

Mr. GOSS

Mr. GOSS. Mr. Speaker, I wish to announce to all Members of the House that the Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence ordered the bill, H.R. 1555, the Intelligence Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2000, reported favorably to the House. That report will be filed tomorrow, Friday, May 7, under the unanimous consent just agreed to. I would also like to announce that the classified schedule authorizations in the classified annex that accompanies H.R. 1555 will be available for review by Members at the offices of the Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, which is room H-405 of the Capitol, beginning any time after the bill is filed. The committee office will be open during regular business hours for the convenience of any Member who wishes to review this material prior to its consideration by the House. I anticipate that H.R. 1555 will be considered on the floor probably next week, but no sooner than Thursday, I am advised, and possibly later than that. I would recommend that Members wishing to review the Classified Annex contact the committee's Director of Security and Registry to arrange a time and date for that viewing. The number is on everybody's telephone chart. This will assure the availability of committee staff to assist Members who desire that assistance during their review of these classified materials. I urge Members to take some time to review these classified documents before the bill is brought to the floor, if they have an interest, in order to better understand the recommendations of the committee. The Classified Annex to the committee's report contains the Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence's recommendations on the intelligence budget for fiscal year 2000 and related classified information that cannot be disclosed publicly. There are procedures. It is important that Members keep in mind the requirements of Rule 24 of the House, clause 13. That rule only permits access to classified information by those Members of the House who have signed the oath set out in Rule 24. I would advise Members wishing to review the Classified Annex and its Classified Schedule of Authorizations that they must bring with them a copy of the Rule 24 oath signed by them when they come to the committee office to review that material. If they do not have a copy of the oath or cannot get one and wish to review the Classified Annex, the committee staff can administer the oath and see to it that it is executed in proper form and sent to the Clerk's office. We are happy to provide that service. Additionally, the committee will require that Members execute an acknowledgment form indicating that they have been granted access to the Classified Annex and Classified Schedule of Authorizations and that they are familiar with both the Rules of the House and the committee with respect to the classified nature of information contained in the Classified Annex and the limitations on disclosure of that information. That is a standard operating procedure for our committee. Nothing unusual. And we urge all who are interested to come to the committee and take a look at the material.

Mr. GOSS

Mr. GOSS. Madam Speaker, I encourage my colleagues to support this rule. It is a fair rule that makes in order every amendment that was offered, ensuring an open debate. Let me begin by commending the transportation committee for resolving the issues that held this much needed legislation up over the last year. It is a critically important bill for my home state of Florida and the rest of the country. I am pleased to see that Congress, as evidenced by the funding levels in this bill, has once again turned back the Clinton-Gore administration's assault on beach renourishment projects. These vital projects serve the same function as other flood control projects: they save lives and limit damage to property. I simply cannot understand the Clinton-Gore administration's continued neglect of these important projects. It is irresponsible and it's past time they got the message. I am particularly grateful for the committee's attention to southwest Florida and the captiva project. In addition, I would point out that this bill will help us continue moving forward on the Everglades restoration program. The bill extends the authorization period for the Everglades ``critical projects'' so they can be funded and completed as planned. Once again, Congress has reaffirmed its commitment to the Everglades restoration program and is meeting its obligations to help restore this national treasure. In conclusion, Madam Speaker, this is a fair rule and a good bill. I encourage my colleagues to support both.

Mr. GOSS

Mr. GOSS. Madam Speaker, I thank my very distinguished friend, a member of the Committee on Rules of senior standing from Washington State, for yielding me this time, and I rise in support of this very appropriate structured rule. To the gentleman who just spoke who is concerned about this being the fourth year in a row, I would say unless this passes today, do not make any plans for April 15 next year, either. I think we can all agree that on a matter of principle such as this, which involves a change to our Constitution, we must eagerly seek and accept a more rigorous debate structure, and the Committee on Rules has tried to provide for that. In the Committee on Rules on Tuesday, proponents of this tax limitation constitutional amendment were accused of attempting a symbolic gesture. Well, the truth is that symbolism of considering this measure on this day, Tax Filing Day for working Americans, is extremely important. Every year on April 15 many Americans are reminded in a very personal, up-front and direct way of what their government costs them. It is on this day that many families and businesses come face-to-face with the enormity of the Federal tax bite, and so it makes perfect sense that this Congress would on this day focus on a means to decrease the tax bite, Madam Speaker. But the fact is that too many other Americans view April 15 in a dramatically different context. As refund checks go out from Uncle Sam, millions of Americans will not feel the big sting of our overwhelming tax bite, but will be insulated from the real cost of our Federal Government, perhaps forgetting that they have been paying by withholding all year. Whether writing a big payment check today or not, one thing is very certain. The tax burden placed on all Americans is too great, and it is too confusing. Most of us cannot even get the same conclusion when we follow the form. It is in a large part the result of incremental tax increases that are buried in big bills for which Congress has not been held properly accountable. The constitutional amendment we consider today is an accountability measure designed to require a higher standard of proof for Congress when tax increases are considered. That makes sense, Madam Speaker. After all, the money belongs first to the people, not first to the government. Some folks forget that from time to time inside the beltway. It seems to me that too many people have forgotten that truth, that government does not have some innate right to confiscate the earnings of the people it serves. Tuesday morning I heard a news report on the radio that stunned me and, I hope, anybody else who heard it. A professor who has studied the historical trends in IRS audits was interviewed about his research, and in his commentary he said the following, and I quote: ``Tax enforcement is the essential sort of function for the government.'' I wonder if that gentleman's history lessons took him back to Boston Harbor in something called the tax about tea, and the gentleman from Boston (Mr. Moakley) has properly reminded me that is in his district, and I know he learned the lesson well. Madam Speaker, was he there? How far we have come from the model envisaged by our Founding Fathers. Madam Speaker, I urge my colleagues to understand the symbolism of today's debate, but then, and more importantly, to vote for the substance of the amendment being proposed to require a tougher standard and a greater accountability on those in government seeking to raise the taxes that all Americans must pay, whether that payment is by withholding throughout the year or by writing a large check to the government on April 15, or, perish the thought, both.

Mr. GOSS

Mr. GOSS. Mr. Speaker, on rollcall No. 81, I was inadvertently detained. Had I been present, I would have voted ``yes.''

Mr. GOSS

Mr. GOSS. Mr. Speaker, if the gentleman will permit, I will correct my statement to say that we will be applying 10 hours of our day today to this subject.

Mr. GOSS. I think some of the better debate takes place during the vote time.

Mr. GOSS. Mr. Speaker, we did a calculation, and my guess is we will be out of here about 8 o'clock tonight. I suspect we are not doing anything else today, so I assumed it would be about 10 hours.

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

Mr. GOSS. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Georgia for yielding me the time, and I rise in support obviously of this very good rule to bring the budget forward. First, though, Mr. Speaker, I know I speak for all my colleagues when I say good luck, Godspeed, and we are behind our young men and women who are overseas today doing the very hard work of this Nation's national security in their mission in Yugoslavia. We are all praying for their success, for a safe mission and a quick return home. Mr. Speaker, as has been described, this rule is a fair and balanced approach to the very important debate we are about to have for the Nation's fiscal year 2000 budget. I know that some of our colleagues will be disappointed this rule does not allow for every proposed amendment. But what we have tried to do is craft a rule that allows for several different approaches to be debated so that all the major issues, all of the major issues, can be addressed today. I think we have succeeded on that point, as we will hear in the 10 hours of debate that will ensue. In addition, I point out to my colleagues who have expressed specific concern about the need to boost defense spending levels, even beyond what the Committee on the Budget has provided, that we have in fact taken that advice and this rule will incorporate an enhancement of defense spending in the base text of the resolution. Mr. Speaker, the budget brought forward today by the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Kasich), the chairman of the Committee on the Budget, is a positive blueprint for where we should be headed as we assess our Nation's finances in the new millennium. The budget outlines our unwavering commitment to preserving Social Security and Medicare, living within budget caps, caps we set for ourselves in 1997, and providing real tax relief to the American people. We know there is a great temptation among some who see the term ``surplus'' and who conclude that we should be boosting the budget of all sorts of government programs. But we are committed to maintaining discipline, even in the face of that kind of temptation, by first meeting our obligation to ensure the retirement security and the national security of the American people. They are counting on us and we are doing it. Once we have accomplished those goals, we propose to give something back in the form of tax cuts to the American people. With all the numbers we will be hearing today, and all the rhetoric and spin that will come forward, to me, once again, this debate here in Congress boils down to fundamentally different competing visions of where America is headed in the millennium. We propose less government and more control by American families of their own hard-earned resources. The administration, and some of our Democrat colleagues across the aisle, propose ever more government and ever more taxes, and we will hear it here today. It is really just that simple. This is a healthy debate for us to have, and this rule allows for plenty of opportunity for all voices to be heard. I congratulate the chairman of the Committee on Rules, the gentleman from California (Mr. Dreier), for bringing this rule forward, and my colleague, the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Linder), for his beautiful support for it today, and I urge the support of all my colleagues for this rule and the underlying resolution.

Mr. GOSS

Mr. GOSS. Mr. Speaker, by direction of the Committee on Rules, I call up House Resolution 125 and ask for its immediate consideration.

Mr. GOSS. Mr. Speaker, for purposes of debate only, I yield the customary 30 minutes of debate to the distinguished gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Hall), my friend and colleague, pending which I yield myself such time as I may consume. During consideration of this resolution, all time yielded is for the purpose of debate only. Mr. Speaker, H. Res. 125 is an open rule providing for the consideration of H.R. 1141, a bill making emergency supplemental appropriations for fiscal year 1999. As we just heard from the Clerk, the rule description sounds technically complicated, but Members should keep in mind that this is an open rule which includes the waivers necessary to bring this matter to the attention of the House today and which allows the House to address the major issue of contention, offsets, in full and fair debate. As to the specifics, the rule waives clause 4(c) of rule XIII, which requires the 3-day availability of printed hearings on a general appropriations bill and sections 302 and 306 of the Congressional Budget Act against consideration of the bill. The waiver relating to section 302 of the Budget Act, which prohibits consideration of the committee's legislation providing new budget authority until that committee has filed its 302(b) report and which also prohibits consideration of legislation providing new budget authority in excess of a subcommittee's 302(b) allocation of such authority, are necessary because the Committee on Appropriations has not filed its final 302(b) suballocation report for FY 1999 and, since there are no final suballocations, H.R. 1141 is technically considered to be in breach of existing suballocations. The waiver of section 306 is necessary because the emergency designations within H.R. 1141 are within the Budget Committee's jurisdiction but were not reported by the Budget Committee. The rule provides one hour of general debate equally divided and controlled by the chairman and ranking member of the Committee on Appropriations, and it provides that the bill be open to amendment by paragraph. The rule also waives clause 2 of rule XXI, prohibiting unauthorized appropriations or legislative provisions in a general appropriations bill and prohibiting nonemergency designated amendments to an appropriations bill containing an emergency designation. In addition, the rule provides special protection for an amendment printed in the Committee on Rules report if offered by the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Obey) or his designee. This allows the House to consider and vote upon the fundamental issue of offsets. That amendment shall be consider as read, shall not be subject to amendment, and shall not be subject to a demand for a division of the question in the House or in the Committee of the Whole. The rule permits the Chairman of the Committee of the Whole to grant priority in recognition to members who have caused their amendments to be preprinted in the Congressional Record prior to their consideration. That is an option, not a requirement. The rule also permits the Chairman of the Committee of the Whole to postpone votes during consideration of the bill and to reduce the voting time to 5 minutes on a postponed question if the vote follows a 15-minute vote. The rule provides waivers necessary to ensure a fair debate, specifically clause 2(E) of rule 21 and section 302(C) of the Congressional Budget Act for all amendments to the bill. Lastly, the rule provides one motion to recommit with or without instructions. As I said, it sounds complicated but it is essentially an open rule. Mr. Speaker, Americans are a compassionate people, willing to respond with a helping hand when our friends and neighbors are in trouble, at home and abroad, or when suffering grievously the consequences of disasters, as we have seen in the past year. H.R. 1141 meets a series of needs related to the devastation caused in the fall of 1998 when Hurricanes Georges and Mitch tore through the Caribbean and Central America with an intensity and viciousness rarely seen in nature. The people of the Dominican Republic, Haiti, Honduras, and many of the Caribbean Islands are still trying to rebuild their lives and their livelihoods in the wake of these two brutal storms. Mother Nature struck again with a vengeance in January of this year when an earthquake rocked northern Colombia. These three catastrophic events together were responsible for at least 10,400 deaths, injuries to more than 17,000 people, three-and-a-quarter million people homeless or displaced, and an estimated financial cost of several billion dollars. Here at home our farmers have been struggling with their own disastrous problems, stemming primarily from low crop commodity prices. This legislation responds to those and other needs, and to the request of the administration that we move expeditiously toward releasing necessary funding, by providing a total of $1.3 billion in fiscal year 1999 spending. I would note that we expect the Congress to exercise its oversight in the expenditure of the funds in this bill, to ensure that the relief gets to those in need and does not get sidetracked or diverted by bureaucratic or other snafus. I am specifically thinking about the people of Haiti and the very real concerns I have about the stability of Haiti's infrastructure and the misery that exists upon the Haitian people in Haiti. I will certainly be watching closely, and I know others will as well, to see that the money gets to those who need it and where it was intended to go. Mr. Speaker, this bill does something else that is very important. It provides the offsets for nearly all the spending it outlines. Why is this important? It signals that we are committed to changing the way business is done in Washington, to living within our means, and to making the choices necessary to ensure that we never again allow this government to spend our children into deficits and red ink. In the bad old days of soaring deficits it used to be common practice to slap the label of ``emergency'' on a grab bag of spending items in order to circumvent the spending constraints. Well, things have changed. Even though the administration is willing to call most of the items in this bill emergency-related to avoid the offsets, our majority has ensured the bill is more than 90 percent offset, and they deserve a lot of credit, paid for with rescissions from the lower priority programs and accounts with as yet unspent funds. This is a question of prioritizing needs. The one piece of this bill that is truly defined as emergency spending is the payment for monies already spent to cover the costs of deployment of our military resources in the immediate aftermath of these three disasters; the ready response, as it were; the lifesaving missions that were undertaken by our military. Mr. Speaker, the rules of the budgeting game are vague and imprecise. They provide cover for too much spending, in my view. Yet my good friend, the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Young), chairman of the Committee on Appropriations, made the extra effort in crafting this compassionate bill, which takes the extra step of responsibly paying for the bulk of its spending. It is my hope that down the road when we discuss reforming our budget process, and we will, because we have introduced legislation, we will make some changes to the current rules to assist in these efforts in the future; changes that would better define what we mean when we say emergency, and that would establish a rainy day reserve fund to better plan ahead for true emergency situations. We know they are going to happen. In the interim, as we proceed with H.R. 1141, I know that there will be debate about the policy of offsetting any or even all of the spending in this bill, and that is a legitimate debate for us to have, and that is why we have provided this rule before us today, which allows for that discussion and ensures that all Members will have a chance to be heard. I urge my colleagues to support this fair, open rule. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.