Denny Hastert

Mr. HASTERT

Mr. HASTERT. Mr. Speaker, I yield 4 minutes to the gentleman from California [Mr. Cox].

Mr. HASTERT. Mr. Speaker, I ask the Chair how much time do I have left?

Mr. HASTERT. Mr. Speaker, I yield such time as he may consume to the gentleman from New York [Mr. Gilman]. (Mr. GILMAN asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. HASTERT. Mr. Speaker, I offer an amendment, as modified.

Mr. HASTERT. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. I want to thank the chairman of the Committee on International Relations, the gentleman from New York [Mr. Gilman] and certainly the ranking member, the gentleman from Indiana [Mr. Hamilton] for the fine work that they have done on this issue. Let me say that my amendment, first of all, does not change the decertification of Mexico. What we do is to stay that decertification for 90 days. What we are trying to say is there has got to be a commonsense approach with our Government, who is not without fault, certainly, in the drug program, we have the demand problems and, certainly, with the Government of Mexico who I do not think anybody can argue that they have fully cooperated over the years and deserve certification. What we are saying is that our President and our State Department reach out to the people of Mexico and the President of Mexico to get, over a 90-day period, assurances of substantial progress in several areas, several areas such as our law enforcement agents being able to work in Mexico and being able to defend themselves, assurances that Mexico does not become a safe haven for dangerous drug felons who commit crimes. We need to be able to, both countries, get the extradition agreements that we need to have. We need to get vital antidrug radars in place in the south of Mexico. That needs to happen. We need to get permanent maritime agreements to stop drug traffickers who are skirting our law enforcement agencies and duck into Mexican waters. Twenty out of twenty six countries in the Caribbean have that agreement. And we need to get concrete progress on rooting out corruption, not only on our side of the border but also on the Mexican side of the border. That needs to happen. Who benefits from this? Is it the Mexican Government? No. Is it our Government? No. But let me tell Members about my district. I have the cities of Aurora and Elgin, IL. Aurora, IL, where my brother teaches in junior high, has had one of his Mexican American children, Hispanic children killed this year by narcotics traffickers, shot down in the streets next to his home. Why? Because the drugs come across our borders. It is not just American kids who get killed. It is kids that are of a Hispanic origin, American and Mexican origins. We need to work together to solve the problem. People have said that this whole issue of certification is flawed. We need to have a commission to take a look at it and find a commonsense way to treat it. This amendment is a commonsense way that our Government can work together, that we stay the decertification for 90 days, that we find a way to solve the problem. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time. The SPEAKER pro tempore [Mr. LaHood]. Is the gentleman from Indiana [Mr. Hamilton] opposed to the amendment?

Mr. HASTERT. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Florida [Mr. Stearns].

Mr. HASTERT

Mr. HASTERT. Mr. Speaker, I move that the House do now adjourn.

Mr. HASTERT

Mr. HASTERT. Mr. Speaker, I rise to welcome to this House and to introduce our guest chaplain for today, Pastor Dick Anderson of the First Presbyterian Church in Aurora, IL. He is a spiritual leader of one of the largest congregations in my 14th District of Illinois. I thank him for his message as we open this session. First Presbyterian has taken an active role in the life of the community, and it is home for outreach ministries which include programs for at-risk teenagers and other young people. It is also fitting that Pastor Anderson is here today on the 12th of February as we mark the birthday of one of our greatest Presidents, Abraham Lincoln. A noted student of Lincoln's speeches and writings, Pastor Anderson has masterfully portrayed our 16th President on literally hundreds of occasions throughout the State of Illinois and this Nation, including the reenactment last year of the great Lincoln- Douglas debates in Illinois. As recently as yesterday he represented and portrayed Lincoln here in Washington, DC, on the celebration today of Lincoln's birthday. Mr. Speaker, I would ask you and my colleagues to join me in welcoming my friend, Pastor Dick Anderson, to our House of Representatives.

Mr. HASTERT

Mr. HASTERT. Mr. Speaker, I rise today for two reasons. First, to congratulate Money Magazine on its 25th anniversary, but also to commend the magazine for adopting the city of Elgin, IL and beginning a year-long project to enhance the personal-finance knowledge of the city's residents. Mr. Speaker, the city of Elgin, in my 14th District of Illinois, was chosen for this project because it is truly a microcosm of our Nation. A city with an industrial heritage that has seen a surge in suburban growth in recent years, Elgin is also home to several of the Nation's largest firms which have experienced strong export sales growth. In the coming year, Money Magazine, in conjunction with Elgin Community College, will provide free financial seminars for Elgin residents. In addition, a dozen Elgin families will be highlighted in a series of articles dealing with family financial concerns and innovative ways of addressing those concerns. The project kicks off on January 29, 1997 with a ceremony at Elgin High School, to be attended by former President and Mrs. George Bush. It is significant to note that while Money Magazine could have celebrated its 25th anniversary quietly, and without fanfare, the publisher and editors of the magazine have instead decided to mark this occasion by assisting this community and its residents with their financial planning. This action deserves our commendation and our thanks. Mr. Speaker, I also congratulate the city of Elgin, its citizens, and civic and business leaders, on its selection for this worthy project. Elgin is an outstanding community, and one I am proud to represent in this House.

Mr. HASTERT

Mr. HASTERT. Mr. Speaker, I am very proud to stand in support of H.R. 3118, and praise the work of Veterans Committee Chairman Bob Stump. I am especially pleased that a provision I pledged to support has been included in this important legislation. Because of the work of Representative Jerry Weller and Representative Tim Hutchinson and his Veterans' Hospital subcommittee, hospitals in my district will now be given the opportunity to contract with the VA for local hospital care and medical services so that veterans in north-central Illinois will have improved access to quality health care. This is a great victory for one group of veterans in particular, because for years they have had inadequate access to veterans' health care. Today, LaSalle County veterans cannot go to their local doctor and hospital. Instead, because of outdated Washington Regulations, they are often forced to drive hours to Chicago and stand in long lines to receive needed health care. Such rules cost us time and money and it's time we change them. The bill we adopted today will make it possible to open an outpatient VA clinic in LaSalle County so that over 13,000 eligible veterans and their families can receive care in their home communities. I promised at a Veterans Committee field hearing in April that I would see this measure passed, and I've kept that promise. Our veterans answered the call when our Nation needed them. Today, Congress answers the call of veterans who are in need of our help.

Mr. HASTERT

Mr. HASTERT. Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong support of H.R. 2508, the Animal Drug Availability Act of 1995. I'd like to commend the gentleman from Colorado [Mr. Allard] for crafting a bill that enjoys such broad, bipartisan support. I know of no opposition to this bill. This bill is critical to animal agriculture and is sorely needed to improve the animal drug approval process. Currently, it takes the FDA an average of 58 months to approve a new animal drug, and the cost of bringing a drug to approval in some instances can be as high as $200 million. This bill will streamline the approval process for animal drugs, making safe drugs available more quickly and less expensively. Clearly, the pork, cattle, poultry, and wool producers in my district in Illinois will benefit tremendously from this legislation, as will every pet owner in the country. But the benefits of this bill go far beyond making life a little easier for our farmers and for our animals. Ultimately, the real benefactors of this legislation will be every consumer across America, as safe, cheaper animal products are made more available. The bill before us today represents a consensus that has been negotiated with the FDA. It enjoys broad bipartisan congressional support, and the full support of the administration. I urge quick passage today of the Animal Drug Availability Act. Thank you; I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. HASTERT

Mr. HASTERT. Madam Speaker, I wish to thank the majority leader, the gentleman from Texas [Mr. Armey], the Committee on Economic and Educational Opportunity chairman, the gentleman from Pennsylvania [Mr. Goodling], and certainly the opportunity to work with the chairman of the opportunity subcommittee in answering my request in bring legislation to authorize library services to the House floor. H.R. 1720, the Government sponsored Enterprise Privatization Act improves the provisions of the Library Services and Technology Act. This bill authorizes $150 million for library services for fiscal year 1977 and insures the authorization necessary for fiscal years 1998 through the year 2002. Madam Speaker, the program has wide bipartisan support in both houses of congress, and it is important that we continue it. I am very pleased it will be continued. Many local libraries have used these funds to assist them with expansion projects and to purchase new equipment. This legislation will make these programs even more effective by making these programs more flexible and easier to use. At the same time it will give libraries the ability to keep up with the information age with access to new technologies and allowing them to share resources. Communities in my district have greatly benefitted from this program. In the past year along Elgin, Aurora, and Mendota have greatly improved their community services in libraries in addition to towns like Geneva and St. Charles and Warrenville in order to better serve the needs of its residents. Because of these grants, Mendota Graves Hume Public Library is proceeding with its Multi-county Rural Cooperative Collection Management program. This program allows libraries to fill specific needs for one another; Aurora public library's implementing its changing resources and changing world, and in Elgin, the public library's district resources through shared technology. Madam Speaker, I ask for a positive vote on this bill.

Mr. HASTERT

Mr. HASTERT. Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of this attempt to override President Clinton's veto of the partial birth abortion bill and I hope my colleagues will join me in this effort. Mr. Speaker, I have listened with some care to the comments by my distinguished colleague from Colorado, Mrs. Schroeder, who is leading the effort to preserve this procedure. And I am reminded of some advice that the gentlelady from Colorado gave this House just a day or two ago when we were debating a bill to make Mother Teresa an honorary citizen of the United States. The gentlelady from Colorado, at that time said we could honor Mother Teresa best if, every day, as we considered how to vote on legislation brought to this floor, we reflected upon Mother Teresa's compassion, and her courageous stand for children and the helpless. As the gentlelady from Colorado knows, I do not always agree with her advice. But on this occasion I think the gentlelady from Colorado's advice the other day does apply to our deliberation today. I think we should let the wisdom of Mother Teresa inform our hearts and our minds. And I think it is quite clear what that gentle woman from Calcutta, India, would say if she were here today--it is the same thing she has said so often--that the taking of innocent human life is wrong. Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to vote to end partial birth abortion in this country. Override the President's veto.

Mr. HASTERT

Mr. HASTERT. Mr. Speaker, I commend the following article to your attention. It ran on July 25, 1996, on page A-18 of the Washington Times. I think that the American people will benefit from the truth about the Medicare debate which is printed in this respected newspaper. [From the Washington Times, July 25, 1996] Gingrich on Medicare Besides the customary $40 million in political action committee (PAC) contributions organized labor gives to Democratic candidates for Congress each election cycle, it pours millions of additional dollars of unregulated ``soft money'' into the Democratic Party and untold millions more in ``in-kind'' (telephone work, election-day duties, etc.) contributions. For the 1995-96 election cycle, the AFL-CIO will supplement these normal contributions to the Democratic Party, all of which come directly from compulsory union dues, with a special assessment that will extract another $35 million from the paychecks of union workers irrespective of their political allegiance. The bulk of these new funds has been used to finance ``issue advocacy'' ads for radio and television, so far mostly about Medicare. In the latest version, which splashes the label ``Newt Gingrich on Medicare'' across the television screen, the ad selectively and completely out of context quotes from an October speech by the Republican Speaker: ``Now, we don't get rid of it in round one because we don't think that that's politically smart and we don't think that's the right way to go through a transition. But we believe it's going to wither on the vine,'' Clearly, any viewer would infer--erroneously, as is easily demonstrated--that the antecedent of ``it'' is Medicare. In fact, the antecedent is the Health Care Financing Administration (HCFA), the bureaucratic behemoth administering Medicare, which presidential candidate Bill Clinton promised to ``scrap'' in his 1992 campaign manifesto, ``Putting People First.'' The ad further asserts that Republicans sought to ``cut Medicare and give new tax breaks to the wealthy.'' So inaccurate is the ad--the CNN ad-watch team has called it ``dishonest''--that the viewer would never know that, under the GOP seven-year balanced-budget plan vetoed by President Clinton, Medicare expenditures per beneficiary would have increased by 50 percent, rising from less than $4,800 in 1995 to nearly $7,100 in 2002. Aware of this indisputable fact, the typical viewer might have a difficult time understanding how Republicans sought to have Medicare ``wither on the vine.'' Concerning the ``tax breaks to the wealthy,'' in fact, more than 60 percent of the 7-year $245 billion tax cut would have financed a $500 per child (under 18) tax credit for families with adjusted gross incomes no higher than $110,000. Considering that production and non-supervisory employees were working on average more hours per week and earning a higher inflation-adjusted wage in January 1993, when Mr. Clinton was inaugurated, than they worked and earned in May 1996, union members might view the $500 per child tax credit vetoed by President Clinton differently than their labor bosses, who clearly have their own agenda in mind. To conclusively demonstrate the AFL-CIO's campaign of intentional distortion and lies, it is worth repeating exactly what Mr. Gingrich said about the HCFA last October. ``We tell Boris Yeltsin, `Get rid of centralized command bureaucracies. Go to the marketplace.' OK, what do you think the Health Care Financing Administration is? It's a centralized command bureaucracy. It's everything we're telling Boris Yeltsin to get rid of. Now, we don't get rid of it in round one, because we don't think that that's politically smart and we don't think that's the right way to go through a transition. But we believe it's going to wither on the vine.'' In the context of the entire quote and considering Medicare spending per beneficiary was scheduled to increase under the GOP budget plan by $2,300 per year by 2002, who could possibly believe that Mr. Gingrich was referring to Medicare when speaking of ``wither[ing] on the vine''? Only liars. The sooner union workers learn the truth about Medicare and tax cuts their bosses seem so afraid to share with them, the sooner they can choose leaders who pursue an agenda more compatible with their needs.

Mr. HASTERT

Mr. HASTERT. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman very much for the time. It wonders me when I listen to some of the arguments on the other side that insurance companies are holding down the mental health parity issue. I will tell my colleagues, the insurance companies would love to have mental health parity because they would like to have those premiums coming in. The gentleman from Washington, who says it is terrible that we do not have mental health parity in the bill, I guess if I was a psychiatrist I would think it was terrible also. But that is a provision that we do not have in the bill. I will tell Members why. There are two groups of people who lose when we put mental health parity in this bill. I am talking about billions of dollars of cost, not millions, not thousands, not hundreds, but billions of dollars of cost. First of all, to people who buy insurance policies, if mental health parity is in that bill, it would cost the moms and dads, the middle- class workers in this country an increased insurance cost which would be astronomical, so there is a good reason that that is not in the bill. The second good reason is that the employers who provide health care and mental health care to their employees all of a sudden would have a choice. Your choice is, Mr. Employer, that you will start to increase your health care costs astronomically because you are including a provision in here that has never gone through a committee in this House, did not go through a committee in the Senate, but somebody would like to throw it in. What happens, the employer says, ``I always provided mental health for my employees, but the cost is so high I am not going to do it anymore.'' Who loses out? The people that lose out in that provision are the people who for years were able to cover themselves with mental health policies but now, because of a provision that was put in in the Senate at the last minute, without debate or anything else, on a whim, was knocked out in conference committee. Who wins because of that? People who have to pay the bills, my colleagues, not the gentleman from California, who advocated a big Government health care takeover just 3\1/2\ years ago or 4 years ago, or the gentleman from Washington, who advocated that we do the Canadian health care plan where the Government does everything and we lose control of what happens in health care in this country. So, Mr. Speaker, there is a reason things happen around here, a good reason. I think we have a bill before us today that has some provisions in it. I, again, was wondering why my good friend who is the minority whip from Michigan, he said we are just denying moms and dads this ability to cover themselves. I remember distinctly that my good friend from Michigan denied the Rowland-Bilirakis bill from coming forward in this House 3\1/2\ years ago, when we would have given portability to moms and dads who wanted to move to better jobs, that wanted better opportunity. But they were denied that because some Members in this House wanted to present a big Government takeover of health care, and they were afraid that the Rowland-Bilirakis bill would undercut that. It is 3\1/2\ years later, Mr. Speaker. There is a bill here that will give people portability in health care. It will give the doctor the ability to tell his patient what the cost of a service is. That patient can choose, with his medical savings account, whether he wants to go to this doctor or that doctor or that doctor because he knows what something costs. He knows what the problems are and he gets straight answers because he makes that decision, not a third party payer someplace. To the gentleman from California, that is going to save health care costs in this country billions and billions of dollars, something that you wanted to deny when you wanted big health care to take over in this country. The barber in Illinois that told me awhile back that he wanted deductibility for the cost of his health care from his income tax, we do that in this bill. We do a lot of good things for people. It is a good bill, and I think it deserves the support of this body. I thank the chairman and the chairman of the Committee on Ways and Means and the chairman of the Committee on Commerce and the Senate staff and all our staff who worked to make this thing happen.

Mr. HASTERT

Mr. HASTERT. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to announce to the American people and to this body that the score is not exactly an Olympic score, but it is big Government, big obtrusive Government, 0, the American people, 2. That is a good trend, and we hope to raise and make that score even spread, but with the passage of welfare reform and, today, health care reform, we have given the American people something on a bipartisan basis, mainly because some people in this Congress have stood up and said there is a principle, there are some things we could do. People need to have health care security. We need to make health care portable so a mother who loses her job, with an asthmatic child, can go and get health care at the next stop, at the next job she picks up; that a father who is locked into a job that he has and a wife with a heart condition will move on to a better job because there is portability. And, yes, we do give American families choice, choice through the medical savings account to choose the doctor they want, to choose the health care they want, and if they do not spend that money they get to keep it.

Mr. HASTERT

Mr. HASTERT. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Florida for yielding me this time to talk a few minutes about this bill. This bill gives people availability of insurance and affordability of insurance. These were the guide words, the words we talked about to make this happen. That means that a mother who wants to change jobs and has a child that is asthmatic can take that next job. It means a father who wants to move up and do a better job for his family and get a better area or level of his occupation can move to the competitor in the next job over and know his wife with the heart condition can get that care when he changes jobs. It also means that families have choice; that if they choose to ask a doctor what is the price of this care or if they ask their health care giver what is the cost, that they can get a cost and they can make a decision on where they go because of medical savings accounts. It also tells a barber in Elgin, IL who wants to have a deductibility that is fair with other companies he can do that. He can deduct his cost of health care up to 80 percent off his income tax. It is a bill of fairness, it is a bill of availability, and I just want to thank some folks before I leave this podium. Certainly this would not have been done without a fine staff: Ed Cutler, Howard Cohen, Chip Kahn, Phil Mosley, Bitzie Beavin, Russ Mueller, and the Senate staff that worked with us. And also the chairmen who gave freely of their time and their work to make this happen: Chairman Archer, Chairman Bliley, Chairman Hyde, and Chairman Goodling, and the subcommittee chairs, Mr. Thomas, Mr. Fawell, Mr. Bilirakis, and Mr. McCollum. But most of all I would like to thank the gentleman from Florida [Mr. Goss] who spent unending hours listening to meetings, so when this bill came together it came together in the right way and it came together in the Committee on Rules. I thank all of them. This is a good day, and I look forward to passage of this bill.

Mr. HASTERT

Mr. HASTERT. Mr. Speaker, today I join a bipartisan majority of the House to return our Nation's welfare system to what it was meant to be: a hand-up, not a hand-out. Almost everyone I talk with understands that our current welfare system is inefficient, unfair and damaging to those it is supposed to help. We all agree that helping those who by no fault of their own have fallen on hard times is the right thing to do. But the current system doesn't do that. It traps families in a cycle of hopelessness and despair--destroying initiative and responsibility. The historic welfare reform bill we passed today is based upon the principle that welfare should not be a way of life and that we should promote work instead of welfare. It also recognizes that we in Illinois are better able to help the poor without the interference of huge, inflexible, Washington bureaucracies. We need a plan based upon Illinois values and Illinois needs, not on a Washington bureaucrat's regulations. Can any serious person argue that the federalization of poverty by Washington has worked? The idea that just spending more and more money and handing people government checks is the answer to poverty is a cruel hoax on both the needs and the taxpayers who are trying to help them. We have spent $5.4 trillion dollars since Lyndon Johnson began the `War on Poverty.' Despite this enormous commitment by the American people, an amount greater than our entire national debt, the result has been more broken families, exploding illegitimacy, a drug epidemic that is destroying generations, rising crime rates and schools that are war zones. By creating a culture of poverty, we have destroyed the very people we have sought to help. The welfare reform package provides $4.5 billion in increased child care funding which will enable parents to return to work, and attacks the unacceptable 50 percent illegitimacy rate for families on welfare by strengthening efforts to identify fathers and force them to pay child support. This legislation is an important acknowledgment that the moral health of America is no less important than its military or economic strength. We cannot have a healthy moral environment to raise children in our communities when 12-year-olds are having babies, 15-year-olds are killing each other, 17-year-olds are dying of AIDS, and 18-year-olds are graduating without diplomas. Our accomplishment today helps restore the moral health of this great Nation. Eighteen months ago, the new Republican Congress set out to reform the destructive welfare system. We asked ourselves whether we had the courage to tackle this difficult issue and give our children hope, rather than an endless cycle of dependency. We knew we would face a chorus of special interests who benefittre the status quo and would accuse us of being cruel and heartless. But we listened to the common sense of the American people who see through the misinformation and distortion and we kept our promise. I am pleased that President Clinton finally joined our cause today and agreed to sign this long overdue reform.

Mr. HASTERT

Mr. HASTERT. Mr. Speaker, I move that the House do now adjourn.

Mr. HASTERT

Mr. HASTERT. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to support a measure that will help provide veterans in Illinois' LaSalle County with outpatient VA services. LaSalle County veterans have had to travel long distances to receive needed VA medical services. This often requires a family member or friend to travel with or drive them to their appointments. The Veterans Health Care Eligibility Reform Act, will help provide an outpatient VA clinic in LaSalle County which will serve over 13,000 eligible veterans and their families. At a veterans field hearing this past April, Representatives Tim Hutchinson, Jerry Weller, Lane Evans, and myself heard the concerns of representatives of several organizations who testified to the need for a closer outpatient care center. The nearest outpatient care facility for eligible LaSalle County veterans is over an hour's drive away, with the nearest VA hospital over 2 hours away. The measure adopted today authorizes the VA to provide all needed outpatient care services, including preventive care and home health care, and to contract out for those services where a VA facility does not exist. This important legislation represents the commitment of Veterans' Committee chairman, Bob Stump, the entire House Veterans' Committee, and this Congress to keep our promises to our Nation's veterans. Our veterans answered the call when our Nation needed them, so Congress must answer the call when veterans need our help. Today, we've answered that call and I'm proud to support this measure.

Mr. HASTERT

Mr. HASTERT. Mr. Speaker, I rise today in strong support of H.R. 2779, the Savings in Construction Act. I'd like to thank our distinguished chairs, Mrs. Morella and Mr. Walker, as well as Ranking Member Brown for moving this bill quickly through the Science Committee. Most of all, I'd like to thank my good friend, the chairman of the Republican Policy Committee, Mr. Cox, for all his hard work on this legislation. When the gentleman from California learned about the thousands of American jobs that could be lost, and the millions of tax dollars that would be wasted pursuing a hard metric standard, he responded by crafting this commonsense, bipartisan piece of legislation. Mr. Speaker, as part of the Metric Conversion Act of 1975, the Congress required each Federal agency to ``use the metric system of measurement in its procurements, grants, and other business related activities'' but with the important exception of not mandating its use when ``such use is impractical or is likely to cause significant inefficiencies or loss of markets to United States firms.'' Thus, under this law, it seems clear that Federal agencies should seek to use a soft metric standard--for example, requiring that building materials be measured in metric units. This is certainly a reasonable policy. However, a number of Federal agencies have exceeded the intent of the Metric Conversion Act and are now seeking to apply a universal hard metric standard to purchases of certain construction materials by the Federal Government. A hard metric standard stipulates that not only must materials be measured in the metric system, but that they must also be manufactured in round metric dimensions. In many cases, this would require plants manufacturing construction materials to completely retool their production facilities, and rework their product line to produce a product with slightly different dimensions. This expensive process would satisfy only the needs and desires of a few Government bureaucrats, not the demands of the free market. Since Federal contracts account for only about 5 percent of the construction industry, only the biggest firms will go to the expense of retooling. This would effectively eliminate hundreds of American small businesses from competition for Federal contracts. The exclusion of these small businesses from the market will result in less competition, fewer bids on contracts, and greater costs to the American taxpayer. What's worse, in seeking to apply a hard metric standard, some Federal agencies are ignoring the direct warning of the Metric Act not to do so in cases where it would be impractical, inefficient, or result in a potential loss of markets. Mr. Speaker, through the corrections process, H.R. 2779 addresses this problem by taking the existing metric law and giving it teeth. It requires the Government to use common sense in its purchasing decisions, and allows the free market to play a bigger role. It will prevent Federal bureaucrats from arbitrarily imposing a hard metric requirement for Federal contracts on key industries providing construction materials for Federal construction projects. It also creates the position of metric ombudsman, who will make decisions regarding future metric implementation using some basis commonsense standards: the availability of hard metric products, the impact on American jobs, the competitiveness of American firms, and the cost to the United States taxpayer. Mr. Speaker, I strongly urge my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to support this commonsense legislation. By passing H.R. 2779, Congress can act to enhance the competitiveness of American industry, protect small businesses, save thousands of union jobs from foreign competition, and save the American taxpayer money. I urge my colleagues to support this bipartisan bill. I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. HASTERT

Mr. HASTERT. Mr. Chairman, thank you for reversing a trend that has happened in this country over the last 5 years. This bill changes a trend that has seen a reduction in drug interdiction. It has seen a reduction in the ability to stop children from using drugs. Your work, Mr. Chairman, has changed this whole issue. What we do in this bill is increase the ability for the Drug Enforcement Administration to renew counternarcotics attacks on those countries who grow the drugs and manufacture drugs. We have given our country the ability to go into those countries and crush those drug growing and manufacturing areas. Let me just say one very simple illustration. If you have seen on TV the last couple nights about ruby red, a new type of heroin that teenagers use, they smoke it because the purity has gone from 4 to 90 percent. We will be able to stop the infusion through Colombia, who used to use cocaine, now using ruby red, a more devastating drug to teenagers then anything we have ever seen. This bill will help us stop that. I support its passage and really salute the chairman of the committee who has made this happen.

Mr. HASTERT

Mr. HASTERT. Mr. Chairman, reclaiming my time, as the gentleman knows, I object to the second part of the amendment, which would prevent ONDCP from spending $2.5 million until the House and Senate Committee on Appropriations and ONDCP reach agreement on a revised staffing plan. At what point would the gentleman from Iowa propose to lift that restriction?

Mr. HASTERT. Mr. Chairman, I appreciate the gentleman from Iowa yielding on this and, as always, for his hard work and diligence and excellent craftsmanship.

Mr. HASTERT. Mr. Chairman, I want to express my concerns with the strong language contained in the committee report regarding the ONDCP staffing levels and the ONDCP in general. I would hope the gentleman's intent is to reverse this language in the conference report once he has agreement on a staffing plan, and I understand that everyone is committed to reaching swift agreement on that plan. Many of us have strong expectations that this will happen very soon and the monies will be released by the time this bill goes to conference. Mr. LIGHTFOOT Again, the gentleman from Illinois is correct. Once we have agreement, the strong language will no longer apply. At that time I will recommend to the conference committee that it be reversed. I fully expect and wish to drop the harsh report language in conference, and also to drop all restrictions on spending so ONDCP, under its new and more effective leadership, has our strong support for its mission and has the resources necessary to reduce drug abuse in this country. I would also like to compliment the gentleman from Illinois for his hard work on this issue.