Denny Hastert

Mr. HASTERT

Mr. HASTERT. Mr. Speaker, I include for the Record two editorials from Midwest papers: [From the Chicago Tribune, July 3, 1997] Phasing in Open Skies With Japan O'Hare International Airport is the world's busiest in terms of passenger volume, yet it ranks only 30th in international business. Its overseas volume is less than half that of New York, Los Angeles and Miami--the top three international airports. A broad-based, clout-heavy group of Midwest businesses and civic leaders--headed by Gov. Jim Edgar, Mayor Richard Daley and former U.S. Rep. Robert Michel--wants Washington to do something to help O'Hare. The administration should take the group's advice and act accordingly. Specifically, the Midwest-Asia Aviation Coalition wants United States negotiators to reach a deal with Japan that would adopt a phased-in approach to competition, gradually allowing more flights between the two countries and permitting marketing agreements between U.S. and Japanese airlines. A bilateral pact that immediately establishes open trade, or ``open skies,'' would be preferable and should be the first, and ultimate, goal, but the Japanese government so far has refused, arguing the U.S. won't open its domestic market to foreign airlines. Japan, however, would accept phased-in competition. United Airlines and American Airlines, which operate hubs at O'Hare, are coalition members and favor a phased-in approach like that taken with Germany and Canada. Minneapolis-based Northwest Airlines wants unrestricted access to Japan, with no limits on the rights of U.S. carriers to fly to other Asian destinations. Japan is willing to phase in open skies if there are limits on flying on to other countries. International flights at O'Hare are restricted by the aviation pact between the U.S. and Japan. It gave United, Northwest and Federal Express the right to fly to Japan and beyond, but American and other airlines are allowed only limited service. At O'Hare, United has only six flights a week to Japan, while American can't even fly between Chicago and Tokyo. Northwest, with hubs in Detroit and Minneapolis, has almost as many weekly flights from the U.S. to Japan as the rest of the domestic airlines combined. The coalition is just being realistic; Northwest is being protectionist. The choice doesn't have to be between immediate open skies or the status quo. The U.S. and Japan can allow more flights and new alliances that will promote business and growth. A recent study by Arthur Andersen concluded that the number of passengers flying through O'Hare to Asia would more than double if sufficient flights were available. The increased traffic would add jobs and foreign investment in Illinois and the Midwest. Gradual liberalization doesn't mean the goal of open skies should be abandoned. In fact, as the benefits of greater competition and service are realized, the resistance to open skies will dissolve. Meantime, some progress is better than none.

Mr. HASTERT. Another interesting thing the gentleman brings up, he talks about a $10 billion increase in economic activities. That just does not accrue to any one area in this country. It certainly accrues across the board. If cities, and especially important cities in Texas and important cities in Illinois and Louisiana and other places, have the ability to get involved and to partake in this, that certainly spreads out. Again, as we talked about, it starts to level out that imbalance of trade that we have. I really appreciate the gentleman's participation and being here tonight. And at this time, Mr. Speaker, I would like to introduce and yield to one of the youngest members of the Illinois delegation but certainly one of the hardest working, the gentleman from Chicago, IL [Mr. Blagojevich].

Mr. HASTERT. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Texas. And when we talk about what happens and, of course both United and American tend to hub and do hub in Chicago, but American has a big hub in Texas, and so the dynamics we talk about and how that brings economic activity certainly to the Midwest, certainly happens in the Midwest, in the Texas area and the Southwest, and certainly in the Mid-South.

Mr. HASTERT. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Illinois, and he brings up some very interesting statistics. One of the things I want to share with my fine colleague from southern Illinois is that he said if we open up one flight a day between Chicago and Osaka, and of course, Osaka is Chicago's sister city, that we affect some 700,000 people. But what we really do is increase the economy, Japanese yen flowing to the United States and the Midwest. And of course, we know we have that trade deficit, so the more dollars we can get, the better off we are. But just by opening this up, a half billion dollars just to Illinois, not counting what would happen in Texas and Louisiana and Georgia and other places. I think that is just an amazing piece of information, and I really appreciate the gentleman's effort. Now, Mr. Speaker, I wish to yield to the gentleman from Texas [Mr. Sessions].

Mr. HASTERT. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Peoria, and at this time I would like to introduce and yield to the gentleman from southern Illinois [Mr. Poshard].

Mr. HASTERT. Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Illinois [Mr. Weller], who also represents Chicago and parts of down-State Illinois.

Mr. HASTERT. I yield to the gentleman from Illinois.

Mr. HASTERT. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Chicago. One of the things, just in a practical application of what the gentleman said, for instance, if I wanted to take a trip to Chicago's sister city, which happens to be Osaka, Japan, a small city in Japan, only about 15 million people in its greater Kansai area, we could not go directly from Chicago to the new airport outside of Osaka. So what we would have to do, we would have to fly to Tokyo, and because there are not any rights for American carriers to go beyond Tokyo. We would have to fly some other airline from Tokyo to Osaka, and hope that maybe if we wanted to fly from Osaka back to the United States you could do that, but you could not fly direct to Chicago, you would have to fly to Los Angeles, then wait and change planes, and fly from Los Angeles back to Chicago. Not only does it complicate the ability to do business or to travel or to make exchanges between these two countries, it makes it virtually impossible for people to have free and easy travel plans. I appreciate the comments of the gentleman from Chicago.

Mr. HASTERT. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Chicago, a good friend and certainly a supporter of economic development, not only in Illinois and Chicago, but also the Midwest. It is interesting, his comments. If I wanted to fly from Chicago or Atlanta or New Orleans or St. Louis and the few flights there are, the one flight a day or two flights a day that fly out of Chicago, if I cannot get on one of those flights, that means that I have to fly to San Francisco or Los Angeles or maybe Seattle, but probably from the West, either San Francisco or Los Angeles. All of those are nice towns, but it means one is going to sit around that airport for 2 or 3 hours extra before one gets on his flight or makes his connection, and the cost of that flight is probably going to be $1,000 or $1,500 or $2,000 more than if there was open competition, if we let airlines fly in and out and let the marketplace decide what those prices are. So not only are we hindering the convenience of people to move from the Midwest and mid-South to the Far East, but we are also saying it is going to cost more money, by the way, and we are not going to let that free competition in. On September 22 of this year there is that meeting in Japan, in Tokyo, and it is important for our administration and the Japanese Government to try to come to an agreement or an accord. It also means one other thing. It means if we want to do business, we have to open that business up. We just cannot constrain that business to one airline that gets the majority of it.

Mr. HASTERT. I thank the gentleman from Illinois [Mr. Blagojevich]. Just, you left out the Chicago Bulls. I do not know how we did that.

Mr. HASTERT. Mr. Speaker, I am going to share some time with my good friend from the other side of the aisle, but before I do that, I have seen the previous speakers here kind of quote figures on the other side of the aisle and say that some folks do not believe in public education. I have to tell my colleagues, I am a product of public education. I taught in the public schools for 16 years. I think one of the real issues that these folks missed in this presentation was that people want to make choices for their kids, and I do not think that it is something that we want to decide in bureaucratic offices in Washington, how our kids should be taught, how our money should be spent. One of the things that we think might be a good idea is to send our money back to where those local schools are and let those local school boards and those local folks who run schools and State organizations decide what is best for those kids in those areas. One other thing. I heard people talking on the other side of the aisle, saying we want to deflate school because of vouchers. Vouchers give parents a choice, and if public schools are lacking, it is not up to the Congress to give people the confidence in the public schools. It is the public schools themselves that have to build confidence so that parents believe that their children are getting a good education, that they have the opportunities, and when they graduate from that school they are going to have the same opportunities somebody else has. So I would join with my friends on the other side of the aisle who just gave this presentation, yes, I think public schools are important, but I think parents ought to have choice and I think vouchers ought to be part of that decision. If a parent wants to send a child to a school, he ought to have the choice to do that. So I would say that there is room maybe for more bipartisanship than just the presentation we just saw. One of the reasons that I have asked for this time tonight is to discuss really an area of economics, far away from education, but to educate people about what is going on in this country especially with competition of major airlines, and competition with a country that has sometimes been a bitter competitor for us, and that is Japan. Japan entered into an agreement in 1952 that basically limited airline transportation between the United States and Japan between four airlines, two of those airlines from Japan and two airlines from the United States. One of those airlines from the United States has subsequently gone out of business. The other airline has been enjoying most of the air routes between the United States and Japan over the last almost 40 years plus, and as a consequence, the old story, at least out in the countryside where I am from in rural Illinois, about the farmer standing out in his field and somebody coming and saying, ``How do you get to Wright's Corners?'' And the old farmer scratches his head and says, ``Son, you can't get there from here.'' That is a problem, especially in the Midwest. If one wants to fly to Japan from some place like Chicago or Indianapolis or St. Louis or Kansas City or even Atlanta, GA, one cannot get there from there. So what we are saying is there ought to be a change. What is happening today, there are discussions, high-level discussions between the United States and Japan on changing the way that we put in the regulation on air traffic between the United States, the number of flights between the United States and Japan. The airline who has the sole, not the sole monopoly but a major monopoly of air traffic between the United States and Japan, the American carrier says, well, it is open skies or nothing. In other words, absolutely free regulation, or we stay the same way. Well, probably we are not going to get to open skies, or at least immediately. Open skies is certainly something that we would like to have, open competition. Open competition means that if one is going to fly as a business trip from Chicago to Tokyo or Chicago to Osaka, instead of paying $4,000 a ticket we may pay less than $3,000 a ticket. That means more people can go, more competition. We have a better infrastructure, interface in business and economic relationships between this country and Japan, and Lord knows we could use that. However, what happens when we limit the number of flights, especially from the interior of this country, we just cannot get there, so one has to take a train or take another flight to Los Angeles where there are 80-some flights a week, or one has to go to Seattle or San Francisco, or one has to fly to the east coast to get a flight to the Far East, which means one would have to go west. So it is an issue of fairness. We need to open the skies. We need to have these negotiations take place, but it cannot be all or nothing. What we are looking for is the ability for us to start to open the doors, to allow a place like O'Hare Field, which has one of the largest airfields, at least in capacity and the number of flights that happen in this country. It is No. 1 in this country for domestic passengers, flights in and out and the number of passengers, but we are 30th in the number of trips overseas. So what does that mean? That means that we have less visitors coming from Japan. If we just had one more flight per day, whether it is a Japanese carrier or an American carrier, out of the Midwest, out of Chicago, an average visitor from Japan spends about $1,500 while they are a guest in this country for a week or 10 days. If we had one more flight a day, that would mean over a year's time we would have almost $15 million more business. When we start to talk about trying to balance the trade between the United States and Japan, we send a lot of dollars to Japan. We have a lot of Japanese sound equipment and electronic equipment and automobiles. The best thing we can do is try to bring some of those dollars back, and the best way we can capture those dollars is having Japanese tourists come back not just to Washington, DC or New York City or Los Angeles, but yes, to the Midwest and to the South as well. If we start to open up airline availability so that those people can fly into the Midwest and the mid-South, then we could start to get more people involved, we can start to bring more dollars from Japan here, and certainly even start to balance that imbalance in trade. One of my colleagues who serves on the Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure and is involved in airline jurisdiction is my good friend from the other side of the aisle, the gentleman from Illinois [Mr. Lipinski]. I would like to yield to the gentleman at this time and hear his comments.

Mr. HASTERT. Mr. Speaker, it would be my honor.

Mr. HASTERT

Mr. HASTERT. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to voice my support for reauthorizing the U.S. Export-Import Bank. By providing loans and guarantees that may otherwise be unavailable, the Ex-Im Bank is an invaluable tool to American workers and businesses, 80 percent of which are small companies. In my home State of Illinois, 288 companies and 125 communities have benefited from the Ex-Im Bank in the last 5 years. During this time, Ex-Im financing helped to support the $2.2 billion in exports my State produces, and the estimated 30,000 jobs that manufacture those exports. The Bank is essential to the communities, constituents, and businesses in my district. Whether it's in Elgin or Aurora, Batavia, or west Chicago, companies and their employees are benefitting. I wish to thank my friend from New Jersey, Representative Robert Menendez, for joining me in making this a priority. I'm delighted that the Chief Deputy Whips from each side of the aisle can come together in making this a bipartisan effort.

Mr. HASTERT

Mr. HASTERT. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to voice my support for reauthorizing the U.S. Export-Import Bank. By providing loans and guarantees that may otherwise be unavailable, the Ex-Im Bank is an invaluable tool to American workers and businesses, 80 percent of which are small companies. In my home State of Illinois, 288 companies and 125 communities have benefited from the Ex-Im Bank in the last 5 years. During this time, Ex-Im financing helped to support the $2.2 billion in exports my State produces, and the estimated 30,000 jobs that manufacture those exports. The Bank is essential to the communities, constituents, and businesses in my district. Whether it's in Elgin or Aurora, Batavia, or West Chicago, companies and their employees are benefiting. I wish to thank my friend from New Jersey, Representative Robert Menendez, for joining me in making this a priority. I'm delighted that the chief deputy whips from each side of the aisle can come together in making this a bipartisan effort.

Mr. HASTERT

Mr. HASTERT. Mr. Chairman, I yield 4 minutes to the gentleman from Florida [Mr. Weldon].

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

Mr. HASTERT. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself the balance of my time. Mr. Chairman, we have had certainly a spirited debate and, I think, certainly a debate that tries to bring in logic and experience. Quite frankly, the experience shows that free needle exchanges does not stop drug use, it does not stop the spread of AIDS, and in fact the studies cited show that AIDS spread. Now, in this country, we face a huge challenge, a challenge as debated on the other side by people like the Sorros movement, where millions of dollars in California and Arizona were put into advertising, to promote illegal drug use as a matter of fact, not to make it illegal but to make it legal. The same Sorros who owns the pharmaceutical companies, who owns the banks in Colombia and has the conference in Colombia, these are the people who are promoting needle exchanges and drug use in this country. It is time that this Congress said no, that free needle exchanges are for one thing and one thing only, and that is to give people the ability to inject illegal drugs into their system and to pass needles out to people who have the intent to spread illegal drugs to themselves and others. My fellow colleagues, it is wrong to do that. It is wrong public policy to give needles out to kids, just as it would be wrong public policy to give clean guns out to kids. My colleagues, we need to band together, this Congress needs to stand up for what is right and against what is wrong. And if we want to look at what is right, we need to ban free needle programs and the ability of this Government to hand out free needles. It is not the intent of this country, it is not the intent of this Congress, and it is not the intent of the American people; 45 States ban free needle exchanges today. We should say no. Vote ``yes'' for this amendment.

Mr. HASTERT. Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Mississippi [Mr. Pickering].

Mr. HASTERT. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Virginia [Mr. Davis].

Mr. HASTERT. Mr. Chairman, I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from Texas [Mr. Sam Johnson].

Mr. HASTERT. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Washington [Mr. Nethercutt].

Mr. HASTERT. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 30 seconds. Mr. Chairman, I have a news article here from the American Medical News talking about the needle exchanges in Connecticut. Children are finding needles in the streets and garbage. The States Attorney in Connecticut said he has written the Governor, legislature, and the head of the State Department of Public Health saying this is an abomination. These needles are finding their way to the street corner, the same brand that is in the needle exchange program. Frankly, it is a problem.

Mr. HASTERT. Mr. Chairman, I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentlewoman from North Carolina [Mrs. Myrick].

Mr. HASTERT. Mr. Chairman, I yield 4\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from Indiana [Mr. Souder], who has been a leader on this issue.

Mr. HASTERT. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 1 minute to answer the gentleman from California. One of the things we found, especially in the largest needle exchange program in New York, is that there is no referral to drug treatment programs. Matter of fact, they offer the addict anonymity so that they can hide their problem from their friends and their families so that they do not get help. That is one of the real problems. We also found in Switzerland a study of one of the needle exchange programs and heroin-providing programs that has been tracked, of 1,035 heroin addicts given needles and clean heroin, only 83 exited the program since 1992, many by dying, and at the hands of their own government. We talk about politically correct. Mr. Chairman, this is not politically correct. This is what is right and wrong and how the people of this country believe what is right and wrong. The job of this Congress is to move that belief forward. Mr. Chairman, I yield 5 minutes to the gentleman from Mississippi [Mr. Wicker].