Maurice Hinchey

Mr. HINCHEY

Mr. HINCHEY. Mr. Speaker, all across New York and across America, many people are being denied access to the health care that they need. They are also being denied access to the doctor of their choice and the health care professional that they would like to consult and be advised by in order to get the health care they need. Access to prescription drugs also is being denied to Americans. These drugs are needed to alleviate the health care conditions that they have. The problem is that our health care delivery system is out of control because it is increasingly controlled by bureaucrats and insurance companies. We need a Patients' Bill of Rights which will allow Americans to get the health care they need, access to health care professionals and the professional medical advice they need, not from insurance company bureaucrats, but from health care professionals, the doctors that they want to consult. That is why the democratic proposal for a Patients' Bill of Rights is so important. The hearing is going on now. We need to get that bill to the floor and get it passed.

Mr. HINCHEY

Mr. HINCHEY. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the last word. Mr. Chairman, what the gentlewoman from Oregon (Ms. Furse) was trying to do in bringing her amendment before the House was to give us the opportunity to talk about the future direction of the Forest Service. Specifically, we need to determine what its priorities are; that is to say, what the Forest Service priorities should be in managing the national forests and how the Forest Service should spend the money allocated to it. Historically, the Forest Service has brought a great emphasis on timber production. The gentlewoman from Oregon was not saying in her amendment that timber production should be shut down entirely, as some have inferred, that is not the case, but that it should be put in context among the other purposes of the Forest Service. Commercial timber harvests should pay their own way and should not receive direct or indirect subsidies from the taxpayer. Here are a few principles that we support: The national forests are owned by all the American people and should serve the diverse interests the American people have in the forests. Those diverse interests include watershed protection, recreational use, wildlife habitat, as well as timber production. Watershed protection probably serves the greatest number of people today. According to the Forest Service, the greatest number of direct forest users are recreational users, and recreational users produce the greatest amount of forest revenues. These facts should be taken into account in planning the Forest Service budget. According to the Forest Service's own recent report, it lost $88.6 million on below-cost timber sales last year alone, where the costs of arranging these sales exceeded by that amount the revenue derived from those sales. We should face facts: Below-cost sales are subsidized. We have been giving away our jointly-owned resources. There are cases where a below-cost sale may clearly support a public good, such as improving a watershed. But more often it is simply a giveaway of public resources to a private interest; what has been called corporate welfare. We have heard a lot of rhetoric about how people should stand on their own and not get help from the government. We have heard a lot of talk about how efficient private industry is in creating jobs. We have heard lots of rhetoric about the futility of propping up uneconomical activities and how we should let the market rule. Well, it is time to apply all of that rhetoric to resource extraction. It is time to say that if a timber operation is not economical and cannot survive without free or cheap public timber, maybe it needs to change. We are pleased to see the plan to end purchaser road credits. We hope it holds and we hope that all the people who pledge to support it will pledge to keep it in the conference version of this bill, but we do need to go beyond that. We have to modernize the Forest Service and modernize its budget to take into account what we have learned about forests, to take into account and give a much more prominent role to the other purposes of forests that more and more Americans care about, and to stop giving trees away just to keep the machine running or just because that is the way we have always done it.

Mr. HINCHEY

Mr. HINCHEY. Mr. Speaker, it is sad to see how this Congress has hardened its heart toward America's veterans. The latest expression of that is contained within this bill and the rule that controls it. The bill, first of all, makes inadequate provision for a growing problem in America with regard to veterans health care. It may be the result of so few Members of this House having had the opportunity to have the experience of serving their country in uniform. Whatever the reason, this bill deals inadequately with the problems of veterans health care, it funds veterans health care inadequately, and, furthermore, it makes provisions to transfer inadequate funds inappropriately and discriminately against the interests of veterans. There are many reasons why this bill should be defeated, but particularly, today, as our veterans from World War II, from Korea, and even Vietnam are aging, and the illnesses, physical and psychological, which they suffered as a result of those conflicts are expressing themselves more deeply, it is time that we pay attention to the needs of America's veterans and fund health care adequately. Defeat this rule if you care about the veterans of America.

Mr. HINCHEY

Mr. HINCHEY. Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to see the House taking up this legislation today authorizing an exchange agreement between the Interior Department and the State of Utah. The agreement would resolve a number of longstanding problems arising from the enclosure of Utah school trust lands in Federal reservations. I believe that a settlement of these issues will be good news for the people of Utah and the people of all our states. The agreement may appear to be a local matter, but in fact it concerns all of use, and is important to all of us. The lands and money that Utah's School Trust will receive under the agreement are the property of all Americans, and the land Utah proposes to exchange will become the property of all Americans. And we will be proud to accept them. As a non-Utahn, I want to join my friends and colleagues from Utah in urging that Congress move as quickly as possible on this matter. Historically, it has been difficult to arrange exchanges in the State of Utah, leaving gaps and inholdings in some of our spectacular national parks there, and most recently, in the new Grand Staircase- Escalante National Monument. Some people thought it would be impossible to work out this exchange, because of the deep differences among the different interested parties. But it has been accomplished. It shows that negotiations can work, and it shows that both sides can come away satisfied. It takes a real commitment on both sides for negotiations to work. Above all it takes a willingness to face the realities of the situation and to give up dreams of an ideal solution. In this case, many people deserve credit for what has been accomplished. I want to compliment Secretary Babbitt and Governor Leavitt for their commitment to making this process work, and the staffs at the Department of Interior and the Utah School and Institutional Trust Lands Administration for their hard work on the practical details. Here in the House, our colleague Chris Cannon deserves special commendation for his dedicated efforts to get this process going. I was happy to work cooperatively with him on this. We have many differences among us on the best disposition of federal lands in Utah, but we have no difference on the question of the importance of settling these exchanges. Resolution of these exchanges will produce two great benefits for the public. First, SITLA will receive money and lands with real income- producing potential that can increase funding for Utah's schools. I believe that the children almost always benefit when more funding is available for education so I'm delighted with that result. Most importantly, if this bill is enacted, they will start seeing the benefits very quickly. Second, the people of the United States will receive the trust lands now enclosed within the Grand Staircase- Escalante National Monument. This will give the Interior Department the opportunity to manage this magnificent territory in accord with its nature, and not according to arbitrary lines on the map. The possibility that inappropriate development will mar the wild beauty of the Monument or interfere with its wildlife will, I hope, be eliminated with this exchange. Again, my thanks and congratulations to all who worked on this agreement. I urge my colleagues to support this bill, and hope it will be enacted as soon as possible.

Mr. HINCHEY

Mr. HINCHEY. Mr. Speaker, it is coincidental that my good friend, the gentleman from Michigan, was here just a few moments ago and entered into the Record the article by Stephen Brill which appeared in Brill's Content, the Independent Voice of the Information Age, which talks about Pressgate. In that article, Mr. Brill says on the cover, ``In Watergate, reporters checked abuse of power. In the Lewinsky affair, they enabled it; that is, the press enabled abuse of power by lapping up Ken Starr's leaks, which he now admits for the first time, the inside story day by day. Mr. Conyers just entered that article into the Record. I would like to take this opportunity to draw the attention of the Members of the House and anyone else who is interested in this issue to the March-April edition of Columbia Journalism Review. I do so because, unfortunately, Mr. Brill's article has been attacked. It has been attacked most vociferously by the Independent Counsel and the apologists for the Independent Counsel, Mr. Starr. However, objective analysis of Mr. Brill's article shows that in spite of the attacks against it, the article stands up very well and reveals quite clearly the abuse of power engaged in by the Independent Counsel in this particular investigation. The Independent Counsel, it appears, and it is shown by Mr. Brill's article, engaged in a conscious series of leaks of misinformation to the press over a prolonged period of time. Now, if additional substantiation is needed going beyond Mr. Brill's report, that additional substantiation can be found to a remarkable degree in that March-April edition of the Columbia Journalism Review. The article in Columbia Journalism Review, and it is a cover story, is entitled ``Where We Went Wrong,'' and it is an examination of the press coverage of the so-called events that the prosecutor is allegedly looking into. I would like to read a few brief excerpts from the story in the Columbia Journalism Review and then enter the entire article in the Record. The article says, in part, ``But the explosive nature of the story, and the speed with which it burst upon the consciousness of the Nation, triggered in the early stages a Piranha-like frenzy in pursuit of the relatively few tidbits tossed into the journalistic waters--by whom,'' the story asks? ``That there were wholesale leaks from lawyers and investigators was evident, but either legal restraints or reportorial pledges of anonymity kept the public from knowing with any certainty the sources of key elements in the saga.'' The story goes on: ``Not just the volume but the methodology of the reporting came in for sharp criticism--often more rumor-mongering than fact-getting and fact-checking, and unattributed approbation of the work and speculation of others. The old yardstick said to have been applied by the Post in the Watergate story, that every revelation had to be confirmed by two sources before publication, was summarily abandoned by many news outlets,'' and no wonder, because they thought they were getting the information from the horse's mouth, from Mr. Starr and his investigators. The story goes on: ``As often as not, reports were published or broadcast without a single source named or mentioned in an attribution so vague as to be worthless. Readers and listeners were told repeatedly that this or that information came from ``sources'', a word that at best conveyed only the notion that the information was not pure fiction or fantasy. As leaks flew wildly from these unspecified sources, the American public was left, as seldom before in a major news event, to guess where stories came from and why. ``Readers and listeners were told what was reported to be included in affidavits and depositions . . . or presented to Independent Counsel Starr. Leakers were violating the rules while the public was left to guess about their identity and about the truth of what was passed on to them through the news media, often without the customary tests of validity.'' Of course, the story goes on. I include this article for the Record, Mr. Chairman. We will take other opportunities to talk more about this in the future. The article referred to is as follows: [From the Columbia Journalism Review, Mar./Apr. 1998] Where We Went Wrong (By Jules Witcover) In the sex scandal story that has cast a cloud over the president, Bill Clinton does not stand to be the only loser. No matter how it turns out, another will be the American news media, whose reputation as truth-teller to the country has been besmirched by perceptions, in and out of the news business, about how the story has been reported. The indictment is too sweeping. Many news outlets have acted with considerable responsibility, especially after the first few frantic days, considering the initial public pressure for information, the burden of obtaining much of it from sealed documents in legal proceedings and criminal investigations, and the stonewalling of President Clinton and his White House aides. But the explosive nature of the story, and the speed with which it burst on the consciousness of the nation, triggered in the early stages a piranha-like frenzy in pursuit of the relatively few tidbits tossed into the journalistic waters by--whom? That there were wholesale leaks from lawyers and investigators was evident, but either legal restraints or reportorial pledges of anonymity kept the public from knowing with any certainty the sources of key elements in the saga. Into the vacuum created by a scarcity of clear and credible attribution raced all manner of rumor, gossip, and, especially, hollow sourcing, making the reports of some mainstream outlets scarcely distinguishable from supermarket tabloids. The rush to be first or to be more sensational created a picture of irresponsibility seldom seen in the reporting of presidential affairs. Not until the story settled in a bit did much of the reporting again begin to resemble what has been expected of mainstream news organizations. The Clinton White House, in full damage-control mode, seized on the leaks and weakly attributed stories to cast the news media as either a willing or unwitting collaborator of sorts with independent counsel Kenneth Starr's investigation of alleged wrongdoing by the president. Attacking the independent counsel and his office was a clear diversionary tactic, made more credible to many viewers and readers by suggesting that the overzealous news business, so suspect already in many quarters, was being used by Starr. Unlike the Watergate scandal of twenty-five years ago, which trickled out over twenty-six months, this scandal broke like a thunderclap, with the direst predictions from the start. Whereas in the Watergate case the word impeachment was unthinkable and not uttered until much later in the game, the prospect of a premature end to the Clinton presidency was heard almost at once. ``Is He Finished?'' asked the cover line on U.S. News & World Report. Not to be outdone, The Economist of London commanded, ``If It's True, Go.'' ABC News's White House correspondent Sam Donaldson speculated on This Week with Sam and Cokie on January 25 that Clinton could resign before the next week was out. ``If he's not telling the truth,'' Donaldson said, ``I think his presidency is numbered in days. This isn't going to drag out. . . . Mr. Clinton, if he's not telling the truth and the evidence shows that, will resign, perhaps this week.'' After Watergate, it was said that the president had been brought down by two reporters, Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein, and their newspaper, The Washington Post, and they were widely commended for it. This time, after initial reporting by Michael Isikoff of Newsweek, there was a major piling-on by much of American print and electronic journalism, for which they have been widely castigated. A Washington Post poll taken ten days after the story broke found 56 percent of those surveyed believed the news media were treating Clinton unfairly, and 74 percent said they were giving the story ``too much attention.'' The advent of twenty-four-hour, all-news cable channels and the Intenet assured the story of non-stop reportage and rumor, augmented by repeated break-ins of normal network programming and late-night rebashes. Viewing and listening audiences swelled, as did newspaper and magazine circulation, accommodated by special press runs. Not just the volume but the methodology of the reporting came in for sharp criticism--often more rumor-mongering than fact-getting and fact-checking, and unattributed appropriation of the work and speculation of others. The old yardstick said to have been applied by the Post in the Watergate story--that every revelation had to be confirmed by two sources before publication--was summarily abandoned by many news outlets. As often as not, reports were published or broadcast without a single source named, or mentioned in an attribution so vague as to be worthless. Readers and listeners were told repeatedly that this or that information came form ``sources,'' a word that at best conveyed only the notion that the information was not pure fiction or fantasy. As leaks flew wildly from these unspecified sources, the American public was left as seldom before in a major news event to guess where stories came from and why. Readers and listeners were told what was reported to be included in affidavits and depositions in the Paula Jones sexual harassment case--information that supposedly was protected by a federal judge's gag order--or presented to independent counsel Starr. Leakers were violating the rules while the public was left to guess about their identity, and about the truth of what was passed on to them through the news media, often without the customary tests of validity. In retrospect, it was sadly appropriate that the first hint of the story really broke into public view not in Newsweek, whose investigative reporter, Isikoff, had been doggedly pursuing for more than a year Paula Jones's allegations that Clinton had made inappropriate sexual advances to her when he was governor of Arkansas. Rather, it surfaced in the wildly irresponsible Internet site of Matt Drudge, a reckless trader in rumor and gossip who makes no pretense of checking on the accuracy of what he reports. (``Matt Drudge,'' says Jodie Allen, Washington editor for Bill Gates's online magazine Slate, ``is the troll under the bridge of Internet journalism.'') Drudge learned that Newsweek on Saturday, January 17, with its deadline crowding in, had elected not to publish. According to a February 2 Newsweek report, prosecutors working for Starr had told the news-magazine they needed a little more time to persuade former White House intern Monica Lewinsky to tell them about an alleged relationship she had with the president that had implications of criminal conduct. Early Saturday morning, according to the same Newsweek report, the magazine ``was given access to'' a tape bearing conversations between Lewinsky and her friend Linda Tripp. But the Newsweek editors held off. Opting for caution of the sort that in earlier days was applauded, they waited. The magazine also reported that publication was withheld because the tapes in themselves ``neither confirmed nor disproved'' obstruction of justice, because the magazine had ``no independent confirmation of the basis for Starr's inquiry,'' and because its reporters had never seen or talked with Lewinsky ``or done enough independent reporting to assess the young woman's credibility.'' If anything, such behavior if accurately described resonated with responsibility, although holding back also left Newsweek open to speculation by journalists that its action might have been a quid pro quo for information received. Drudge, meanwhile, characteristically feeling no restraints, on Monday morning, January 19, jumped in and scooped Newsweek on its own story with a report that the newsmagazine had ``spiked'' it after a ``screaming fight in the editors' offices'' on the previous Saturday night. Isikoff later said ``there was a vigorous discussion about what was the journalistically proper thing to do. There were no screaming matches.'' Drudge was not without his defenders. Michael Kinsley, the editor of Slate, argued later that ``the Internet beat TV and print to this story, and ultimately forced it on them, for one simple reason: lower standards . . . There is a case to be made, however, for lower standards. In this case, the lower standards were vindicated. Almost no one now denies there is a legitimate story here.'' Kinsley seemed to harbor the crazy belief that had Drudge not reported that Newsweek had the story, the newsmagazine never would have printed it the next week, and therefore the Internet could take credit for ``forcing'' the story on the mainstream news media. Newsweek, not going to press again until the next Saturday, finally put the story on its America Online site on Wednesday, January 21, after The Washington Post had broken it on newsstands in its early Wednesday edition out Tuesday night, under the four-column banner atop page one CLINTON ACCUSED OF URGING AIDE TO LIE. The story was attributed to ``sources close to the investigation.'' ABC News broadcast the gist of it on radio shortly after midnight Wednesday. The Los Angeles Times also had the story in its Wednesday editions, but The New York Times, beaten badly by the Post on the Watergate story a quarter of a century earlier, was left at the gate again. The lead on its first story on Thursday, January 22, however, was a model of fact: ``As an independent counsel issued a fresh wave of White House subpoenas, President Clinton today denied accusations of having had a sexual affair with a twenty-one-year-old White House intern and promised to cooperate with prosecutors investigating whether the president obstructed justice and sought to have the reported liaison covered up.'' The story spread like an arsonist's handiwork. The Washington Post of Thursday reported from ``sources familiar with the investigation'' that the FBI had secretly taped Lewinsky by placing a ``body wire'' on Tripp and had got information that ``helped persuade'' Attorney General Janet Reno to ask for and receive from the three-judge panel overseeing the independent counsel authorization to expand the investigation. On that same Thursday, the Times identified Lucianne Goldberg, the literary agent who later said she had advised Tripp to tape her conversations with Lewinsky. But The Washington Post continued to lead the way with more information apparently leaked by, but not attributed specifically to, lawyers in the case, and in the Paula Jones sexual harassment lawsuit that had caught Lewinsky in its web. On network television on Friday, taste went out the window. ABC News correspondent Jackie Judd reported that ``a source with direct knowledge of'' Lewinsky's allegations said she ``would visit the White House for sex with Clinton in the early evening or early mornings on the weekends, when certain aides who would find her presence disturbing were not at the office.'' Judd went on: ``According to the source, Lewinsky says she saved, apparently as a kind of souvenir, a navy blue dress with the president's semen stain on it. If true, this could provide physical evidence of what really happened.'' That phrase ``if true'' became a gate-opener for any rumor to make its way into the mainstream. Judd's report ignited a round of stories about a search for such a dress. Despite disavowals of its existence by Lewinsky's lawyer, William Ginsburg, stories soon appeared about a rumored test for tele-tale DNA by the FBI. The New York Post, under the headline Monica kept sex dress as a souvenir, quoted ``sources'' as saying the dress really was ``a black cocktail dress that Lewinsky never sent to the cleaners,'' adding that ``a dress with semen on it could provide DNA evidence virtually proving the man's identity--evidence that could be admissible at trial.'' The newspaper also reported that ``Ken Starr's investigators searched Lewinsky's Watergate apartment, reportedly with her consent and carried off a number of items, including some clothing,'' which Ginsburg subsequently confirmed. He later said that the president had given Lewinsky a long T-shirt, not a dress. The Village Voice, in a scathing retracing of the path taken by the ABC News report of a semen-stained dress, labeled Judd's account hearsay and noted it had nevertheless been picked up by other news organizations as if such a dress existed. Six days after the original ABC story, CBS News reported that ``no DNA evidence or stains have been found on a dress that belongs to Lewinsky'' that was ``seized by the FBI from Lewinsky's apartment'' and tested by ``the FBI lab.'' ABC, the next day reported that ``according to law enforcement sources, Starr so far has come up empty in a search for forensic evidence of a relationship between Mr. Clinton and Lewinsky. Sources say a dress and other pieces of clothing were tested, but they all had been dry cleaned before the FBI picked them up from Lewinsky's apartment.'' In this comment, ABC implied that there had been stains, and it quoted a ABC spokesperson as saying, ``We stand by that initial report'' of a semen-stained dress. A close competitor for the sleaziest report award was the one regarding the president's alleged sexual preference. On Wednesday, January 21, the Scripps Howard News Service reported that one person who has listened to the Lewinsky- Tripp tapes said Lewinsky ``described how Clinton allegedly first urged her to have oral sex, telling her that such acts were not technically adultery.'' That night, on ABC News's Nightline, Ted Koppel advised viewers gravely that ``the crisis in the White House'' ultimately ``may come down to the question of whether oral sex does or does not constitute adultery.'' The question, he insisted, was neither ``inappropriate'' nor ``frivolous'' because ``it may bear directly on the precise language of the president's denials. What sounds, in other words, like a categorical denial may prove to be something altogether different.'' Nightline correspondent Chris Bury noted Clinton's ``careful use of words in the matter of sex'' in the past. He recalled that in 1992, in one of Gennifer Flowers' taped conversations offered by Flowers in her allegations of a long affair with the then governor of Arkansas, she ``is heard discussing oral sex with Clinton. Bury went on, ``during this same time period, several Arkansas state troopers assigned to the governor's detail had said on the record that Clinton would tell them that oral sex is not adultery.'' The distinction came amid much speculation about whether Clinton, in his flat denial of having had ``sexual relations with that woman,'' might be engaging in the sort of semantic circumlocution for which he became notorious in his 1992 presidential campaign when asked about his alleged affair with Flowers, his draft status, smoking marijuana, and other matters. The Washington Post on Sunday, January 25, reported on the basis of the Tripp tapes that ``in more than 20 hours of conversations'' with Tripp, ``Lewinsky described an eighteen- month involvement that included late-night trysts at the White House featuring oral sex.'' The story noted in its second paragraph: ``Few journalists have heard even a portion of these audio tapes, which include one made under the auspices of the FBI. Lewinsky herself has not commented on the tapes publicly. And yet they have been the subject of numerous news accounts and the fodder for widespread speculation.'' Nevertheless, it then added: ``Following are descriptions of key discussions recorded on the tapes, information that The Washington Post has obtained from sources who have listened to portions of them.'' The story went on to talk of ``bouts of `phone sex' over the lines between the White House and her apartment'' and one comment to Tripp in which Lewinsky is alleged to have said she wanted to go back to the White House--as the newspaper rendered it--as ``special assistant to the president for [oral sex].'' The same story also reported that ``Lewinsky tells Tripp that she has an article of clothing with Clinton's semen on it.'' On television, these details led some anchors, such as Judy Woodruff of CNN, to preface some reports with the kind of unsuitable-for-children warning usually reserved for sex-and- violence shows like NYPD Blue. But comments on oral sex and semen may have been more jarring to older audiences, to whom such subjects have been taboo, than to viewers and readers from the baby boom and younger. The tabloids were hard-pressed to outdo the mainstream, but they were up to the challenge. Borrowing from The Sun of London, the New York Post quoted Flowers in an interview saying ``she reveals that Clinton once gave her his `biblical' definition of oral sex: `It isn't `real sex.'' The headline on the story helped preserve the Post's reputation: Gospel According to Bubba says oral sex isn't cheating. Meanwhile, the search for an eyewitness to any sexual activity between Clinton and Lewinsky went on. On Sunday, January 25, Judd on ABC reported ``several sources'' as saying Starr was investigating claims that in the spring of 1996, the president and Lewinsky ``were caught in an intimate encounter'' by either Secret Service agents or White House staffers. The next morning, the front-page tabloid headlines of both the New York Post and the New York Daily News shouted, caught in the act, with the accompanying stories attributed to ``sources.'' Other newspapers' versions of basically the same story had various attributions: the Los Angeles Times: ``people familiar with the investigation''; The Washington Post: ``sources familiar with the probe''; The Wall Street Journal: ``a law enforcement official'' and ``unsubstantiated reports.'' The Chicago Tribune attributed ABC News, using the lame disclaimer ``if true'' and adding that ``attempts to confirm the report independently were unsuccessful.'' The New York Times, after considering publication, prudently decided against it. Then on Monday night, January 26, The Dallas Morning News reported in the first edition of its Tuesday paper and on its Web site: ``Independent counsel Kenneth Starr's staff has spoken with a Secret Service agent who is prepared to testify that he saw President Clinton and Monica Lewinsky in a compromising situation in the White House, sources said Monday.'' The story, taken off the Internet by The Associated Press and put on its wire and used that night on Nightline, was retracted within hours on the ground that its source had told the paper that the source had been mistaken (see box, page 21). Then there was the case of the television talk show host, Larry King, referring to a New York Times story about a message from Clinton on Lewinsky's answering machine--when there was, in fact, no such story. Interviewing lawyer Ginsburg the night of January 28, King told his guest that the story would appear in the the next day's paper, only to report later in the show: ``We have a clarification, I am told from our production staff. We may have jumped the gun on the fact that The New York Times will have a new report on the phone call from the president to Monica Lewinsky, the supposed phone call. We have no information on what The New York Times will be reporting tomorrow.'' Beyond the breakdown in traditional sourcing of stories in this case, not to mention traditional good taste, was the manner in which a questionably sourced or totally unsourced account was assumed to be accurate when printed or aired, and was picked up as fact by other reporters without attempting to verify it. For days, a report in The Washington Post of what was said to be in Clinton's secret deposition in the Paula Jones case was taken by the press as fact and used as the basis for concluding that Clinton had lied in 1992 in an interview on 60 Minutes. Noting that Clinton had denied any sexual affair with Gennifer Flowers, the Post reported that in the deposition Clinton acknowledged the affair, ``according to sources familiar with his testimony.'' Loose attribution of sources abounded. One of the worst offenders was conservative columnist Arianna Huffington. She offered her view on the CNBC talk show Equal Time that Clinton had had an affair with Shelia Lawrence, the widow of the late ambassador whose body was exhumed from Arlington National Cemetery after it was revealed he had lied about his military record. Huffington, in reporting on the alleged affair, confessed that ``we're not there yet in terms of proving it.'' So much for the application of journalistic ethics by journalistic amateurs. With CNN and other twenty-four-hour cable outlets capable of breaking stories at any moment and Internet heist artists like Drudge poised to pounce on someone else's stories, it wasn't long before the Internet became the venue of first resort even for a daily newspaper. The Wall Street Journal on February 4, ready with a report that a White House steward had told a grand jury summoned by Starr that he had seen Clinton and Lewinsky alone in a study next to the Oval Office, posted the story on its World Wide Web site and its wire service rather than wait to break it the next morning in the Journal. In its haste, the newspaper did not wait for comment from the White House, leading deputy press secretary Joe Lockhart to complain that ``the normal rules of checking or getting a response to a story seem to have given way to the technology of the Internet and the competitive pressure of getting it first.'' The Web posting bore the attribution ``two individuals familiar with'' the steward's testimony. But his lawyer soon called the report ``absolutely false and irresponsible.'' The Journal that night changed the posting to say the steward had made the assertion not to the grand jury but to ``Secret Service personnel,'' The story ran in the paper the next day, also saying ``one individual familiar with'' the steward's story ``said that he had told Secret Service personnel that he found and disposed of tissues with lipstick and other stains on them'' after the Clinton-Lewinsky meeting. Once again, a juicy morsel was thrown out and pounced on by other news outlets without verification, and in spite of the firm denial of the Journal report from the steward's lawyer. One of the authors of the story, Brian Duffy, later told The Washington Post the reason the paper didn't wait and print an exclusive the next morning was because ``we heard footsteps from at least one other news organization and just didn't think it was going to hold in this crazy cycle we're in.'' In such manner did the race to be first take precedence over having a carefully checked story in the newspaper itself the next day. White House press secretary Michael McCurry called the Journal's performance ``one of the sorriest episodes of journalism'' he had ever witnessed, with ``a daily newspaper reporting hour-by-hour'' without giving the White House a chance to respond. Journal managing editor Paul Steiger replied in print that ``we went with our original story when we felt it was ready'' and ``did not wait for a response from the White House'' because ``it had made it clear repeatedly'' it wasn't going to respond to any questions about any aspect of the case. Steiger said at that point that ``we stand by our account'' of what the steward had told the Secret Service. Three days later, however, the Journal reported that, contrary to its earlier story, the steward had not told the grand jury he had seen Clinton and Lewinsky alone. Steiger said ``we deeply regret our erroneous report of the steward's testimony.'' On a less salacious track, the more prominent mainstream dailies continued to compete for new breaks, relying on veiled sources. The New York Times contributed a report on February 6 that Clinton had called his personal secretary, Betty Currie, into his office and asked her ``a series of leading questions such as: `We were never alone, right?' '' The source given was ``lawyers familiar with her account.'' The Post, ``scrambling to catch up,'' as its media critic Howard Kurtz put it, shortly afterward confirmed the meeting ``according in a person familiar with'' Currie's account. Saying his own paper used ``milder language'' than the Times in hinting at a motivation of self-protection by the president, Kurtz quoted the Post story that said ``Clinton probed her memories of his contacts with Lewinsky to see whether they matched his own.'' In any event, Currie's lawyer later said it was ``absolutely false'' that she believed Clinton ``tried to influence her recollection.'' The technology of delivery is not all that has changed in the reporting of the private lives of presidents and other high-ranking officeholders. The news media have traveled light years from World War II days and earlier, when the yardstick for such reporting was whether misconduct alleged or proved affected the carrying out of official duties. In 1984, when talk circulated about alleged marital infidelity by presidential candidate Gary Hart, nothing was written or broadcast because there was no proof and no one willing talk. In 1987, however, a Newsweek profile reported that his marriage had been rocky and he had been haunted by rumors of womanizing. A tip to The Miami Herald triggered the stake out of his Washington townhouse from which he was seen leaving with Donna Rice. Only after that were photographs of the two on the island of Bimini displayed in the tabloid National Enquirer and Hart was forced from the race. Clearly, the old rule--that questions about a public figure's private life were taboo--no longer applied. But the next time a Presidential candidate ran into trouble on allegations of sexual misconduct--Bill Clinton in 1992-- the mainstream press was dragged into hot pursuit of the gossip tabloids that not too many years earlier had been treated like a pack of junk-yard dogs by their supposedly ethical betters. The weekly supermarket tabloid, Star, printed a long, explicit first-person account of Flowers' alleged twelve-year affair with Clinton. Confronted with the story on the campaign trail in New Hampshire, Clinton denied it but went into extensive damage control, culminating in his celebrated 60 Minutes interview. With the allegations quickly becoming the centerpiece of his campaign, the mainstream press had no recourse but to report how he was dealing with it. Thus did the tail of responsible journalism come to wag the dog. From then on, throughout Clinton's 1992 campaign and ever since, the once-firm line between rumor and truth, between gossip and verification, has been crumbling. The assault has been led by the trashy tabloids but increasingly accompanied by major newspapers and television, with copy-cat tabloid radio and TV talk shows piling on. The proliferation of such shows, their sensationalism, bias and lack of responsibility and taste have vastly increased the hit-and-run practice of what now goes under the name of journalism. The practitioners with little pretense to truth-telling or ethics, and few if any credentials suggesting journalistic training in either area, now clutter the airwaves, on their own shows (Watergate felon G. Gordon Liddy, conspiracy- spinner Rush Limbaugh, Iran-Contra figure Oliver North) or as loud mouth hosts and guests on weekend talkfests (John McLaughlin, Matt Drudge). In the print press and on the Internet as well, journalism pretenders and poseurs feed misinformation, speculation, and unverified accusations to the reading public. The measure of their success in polluting the journalism mainstream in the most recent Clinton scandal was the inclusion of Drudge, as a guest analyst on NBC News' Meet the Press. The program also included Isikoff, the veteran Newsweek investigative reporter. Playing straight man to Drudge, moderator Tim Russert asked him about ``reports'' that there were ``discussions'' on the Lewinsky tapes ``of other women, including other White House staffers, involved with the president.'' The professional gossip replied, dead-pan: ``There is talk all over this town another White House staffer is going to come out from behind the curtains this week. If this is the case--and you couple this with the headline that the New York Post has, [that] there are hundreds, hundreds [of other women] according to Miss Lewinsky, quoting Clinton--we're in for a huge shock that goes beyond the specific episode. It's a whole psychosis taking place in the White House.'' Drudge officiously took the opportunity to lecture the White House reporters for not doing their job. He expressed ``shock and very much concern that there's been deception for years coming out of this White House. I mean, this intern relationship didn't happen last week. It happened over a course of year and a half, and I'm concerned. Also, there's a press corps that wasn't monitoring the situation close enough.'' Thus spoke the celebrated trash-peddler while Isikoff sat silently by. Such mixing of journalistic pretenders side-by-side with established, proven professional practitioners gives the audience a deplorably disturbing picture of a news business that already struggles under public skepticism, cynicism, and disaffection based on valid criticism of mistakes, lapses, poor judgment, and bad taste. The press and television, like the Republic itself, will survive its shortcomings in the Lewinsky affair, whether or not President Clinton survives the debacle himself. The question is, has the performance been a mere lapse of standards in the heat of a fast- breaking, incredibly competitive story of major significance? A tapering off of the mad frenzy of the first week or so of the scandal gives hope that this is the case. Or does it signal abandonment of the old in favor of a looser regard for the responsibility to tell readers and listeners where stories come from, and for standing behind the veracity of them? It is a question that goes to the heart of the practice of a trade that, for all its failings, should be a bulwark of a democracy that depends on an accurately informed public. Journalism in the late 1990s still should be guided by adherence to the same elemental rules that have always existed--report what you know as soon as you know it, not before. And if you're not sure wait and check it out yourself. Those news organizations that abide by this simple edict, like a disappointed Newsweek in this instance, may find themselves run over by less scrupulous or less conscientious competitors from time to time. But in the long run they will maintain their own reputations, and uphold the reputation of a craft that is under mounting attack. To do otherwise is to surrender to the sensational, the trivial and the vulgar that is increasingly infecting the serious business of informing the nation.

Mr. HINCHEY

Mr. HINCHEY. Mr. Speaker, it seems that the leadership of this House has taken another poll; and in that poll, they discovered that the people of this country are concerned about the quality of education that their young family members are getting. So they come up with this brilliant idea to provide a tiny little tax cut for private schools. This tiny little tax cut would amount to somewhere in the neighborhood of between $5 and $10 a year to families in my district. That is not even enough to buy a single textbook. That is how meaningless and disgraceful this piece of legislation is. Instead of doing what we need to do, this offers a false hope to people. We know what is wrong with education in our country. We know that we need more teachers. This bill does not do a thing to provide more teachers. We know that we need smaller class sizes. This legislation does not do a thing to provide us with smaller class sizes. We know that we need an infrastructure improvement program to build classrooms and to upgrade schools and existing classrooms. So many of the classrooms, most of them, are so old in this country, they cannot even be wired for the Internet. They need a complete overhaul in the wiring of the school system. This is what we need, and this is what the ranking member of the Committee on Ways and Means is offering us in his motion to recommit. What this Congress ought to be doing is investing appropriate resources to reduce class sizes, to educate more teachers, and, most of all, to build the classrooms and build the schools and upgrade the system so that we can modernize our schools, modernize our classrooms so that we can modernize education in America. That is what the motion to recommit would do. The bill before us would do none of that. That is why we need to vote for the motion to recommit and defeat the legislation.

Mr. HINCHEY

Mr. HINCHEY. Mr. Speaker, increasingly people across this country are referring to this Congress as the ``do nothing Congress.'' But more appropriately it might be referred to as the ``conspiratorial Congress.'' The leadership in this House has conspired with someone in this Congress to kill both antismoking legislation and campaign finance reform. The somebody yesterday succeeded in killing the antismoking legislation. That job has been done. Now the leadership in this House has got to live up to its part of the conspiracy and deliver on killing campaign finance reform. They are doing so by proposing a rule on the floor later today with an unprecedented 258 amendments designed to drag this issue out all through the summer into the fall. It is death to campaign finance reform by amendment. Mr. Speaker, that is the conspiracy that is going on in this Congress. We need Meehan-Shays on the floor. We need real campaign finance reform. Let us have a vote on the real bill.

Mr. HINCHEY

Mr. HINCHEY. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to join my friends and colleagues in Saugerties, New York, in commemorating the landing of the Palatine immigrants in Ulster County in October 1710. The Saugerties Historical Society will be dedicating a monument marking this event on Saturday, June 13th to celebrate the immigrant roots of our great nation and to admire the hard work and perseverance of these hard- working people who struggled to get to America. The Palatine settlers in the Hudson Valley created some of the very first settlements of European peoples in America and their first winter was characterized by harsh weather--but they persevered, building a church and a schoolhouse, and settling into the Hudson Valley which reminded them so much of the Rhine river valley. The monument which will be dedicated on Saturday will be placed on the grounds of Saint Paul's Lutheran Church, where the remains of the Reverend Joshua Kocherthal are interred. Reverend Kocherthal was the leader of the Palatines and the person who was to lead them to their promised land in America. It is not surprising that the ideals that they brought to America would later that century be embodied in our own Constitution--that people of different nationalities and creeds and beliefs could come together to make this country the great nation that it is. Mr. Speaker, and my fellow members, please join me in celebrating this great immigration to America and the dedication ceremony which will be held this Saturday.

Mr. HINCHEY

Mr. HINCHEY. Mr. Speaker, I rise to congratulate the Reverend Charles Schaum upon his retirement and to praise his work of the last thirty- one years at the Union Presbyterian Church in Newburgh, New York. Reverend Schaum's contributions to the community will be celebrated this Sunday at a party in his honor and I want to join his family, friends, and neighbors and the entire community in thanking him for his many contributions--leading the way in creating a nursery school, a counseling service, a food bank for the poor, reading programs, and so much more. Reverend Schaum also served as the President of McQuade Children's Services which provides important educational and housing services to troubled children. He encouraged friends and parishioners to do God's work in the community by helping others, especially those in need, and becoming one of God's ``coworkers.'' Mr. Speaker, today I want to join all of the Reverend Schaum's ``coworkers'' in thanking him for his years of service to the community and wishing him the very best this Sunday, and in the future.

Mr. HINCHEY

Mr. HINCHEY. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Michigan for yielding to me. Mr. Speaker, the House is currently debating a series of three nonbinding resolutions that are heavy in their political content and very light in their substantive content. They also contain within them a very substantial degree of vindictiveness. The resolutions in themselves probably would not be harmful except that they are in their intention and in their wording and, also, secondly, because they take away from the House valuable time which it would be better advised dealing with more substantive issues. This resolution, first of all, suggests that the Congress urge the President of the United States to urge other people to waive their constitutional rights. It says, in effect, that the President of the United States should behave as some kind of a sultan or dictator and have people dragged before a congressional committee and submit to that congressional committee, ignoring completely their rights under the Constitution and ignoring completely the separation of powers which is the hallmark of this government. This resolution in that regard is enormously dangerous. This comes from the party that asserts itself as being the party of small government, the party of a weaker, less intrusive government. Yet, in this very resolution, all of that is denied. All of that is put aside. This resolution says that this particular party that advocates this resolution is the party of strong dictatorial government that would force people to behave in ways that are contrary to their own best interests and contrary to the basic protections of the Constitution. It is very difficult to understand the reasoning behind this resolution, very difficult to understand the reasoning behind its author who stands for different kinds of things, or at least gives voice to different perspectives and different viewpoints than are expressed in this particular resolution. This resolution says that people should be forced before a particular congressional committee, even though they do not want to appear before that congressional committee. Why might people be reluctant to appear before this particular committee headed by this particular chairman, the gentleman from Indiana (Mr. Burton)? It is quite clear. In doing so, they are simply being sensible. They are using good common sense. They have seen the way that this particular chairman behaves. They have seen that this particular chairman falsifies evidence and information that comes to his attention and is in his hands. They have seen that this particular Chairman will take a person's statements and falsify those statements. He will falsify those statements by extracting from them words, whole sentences, and whole paragraphs. Parliamentary Inquiry

Mr. HINCHEY. Mr. Speaker, I would direct the attention of the House to the recorded dialogues and the way in which those dialogues were handled by this particular committee, and ask the Members of the House to make judgments for themselves with regard to the way that those conversations were transcribed, and observe that in those transcriptions, certain words and sentences were omitted and observe in those transcriptions that words in fact were inserted into those transcriptions, which gave entirely different meanings to the sentence and paragraphs allegedly therein transcribed. I think if people will look at that, they will be able to judge for themselves exactly what was taking place there. Now, with regard to these three nonbinding resolutions and all the time that these three nonbinding resolutions have taken from the House, it would be one thing if we had all the time in the world to dwell on these political issues. But the fact of the matter is that languishing in committees in this House are important measures that are critical to the health, safety and well-being of millions of Americans. Languishing in committees in this House is are legislation dealing with the safety of patients in hospitals; languishing in committees in this House is legislation dealing with the regulation of HMOs. Languishing in committees in this House is legislation dealing with the reauthorization of the Federal Superfund. We need to bring that legislation to the floor and have it voted on.

Mr. HINCHEY

Mr. HINCHEY. Mr. Speaker, the principal issue still facing this Congress is the issue of campaign finance reform. Campaign finance reform is so critically important because it influences so much else of what we do in this House and the other one, as well. In the summer of 1995, the Speaker of this House, the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Newt Gingrich), shook hands in New Hampshire with President Clinton. He promised then that we would resolve the issue of campaign finance reform. Now it is almost 3 years later, and the issue has still not been resolved. Not only that, but we have not been assured that we will have a simple up-or-down vote on the principal bill that seeks to reform the way we finance campaigns, the Meehan- Shays bill. We need to bring that bill out to the floor. That bill needs to be fully debated. This House needs to have the opportunity to vote yes or no on Meehan-Shays. Let us have that vote as soon as possible, this week, next week, or the week after. Let us have that vote up-or-down on Meehan-Shays.

Mr. HINCHEY

Mr. HINCHEY. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding to me. Mr. Speaker, I have some very serious objections to the bill in chief, but I want to focus my remarks at this particular moment on the rule. Although this rule, as has been noted, is a better rule and a more open rule than the one which was originally advanced for this bill some time ago, it is still, nevertheless, seriously deficient in that it is still too closed and not open enough. This particular bill, H.R. 10, is the most substantial and significant piece of financial legislation to come before this House in a very long time. I dare say that there will be few Members presently serving here who will vote on more significant legislation, even if they stay as long as the dean of the House, our revered friend, the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Dingell), some 30 years. This bill is critically important and is far-reaching. Let me just talk a little bit about the issue of fees and how this rule refused to address the issue of bank fees. Customers of banks find themselves increasingly paying more and more and more in fees. This bill fails to address that problem, and the rule objected to our introducing an amendment which would have limited ATM fees. This is an amendment which had the support of the very respected gentleman from Iowa (Mr. Leach), the chairman of the Committee on Banking and Financial Services. Nevertheless, the Committee on Rules decided that they should not allow an amendment on this floor which would restrict or prevent banks from charging their customers at ATM machines. There are 90 percent of the banks across the country now charging at ATM machines, and those fees are going up. They were $1 in most instances. Now they are going up to $1.50. How long will it be before they are $2 and $2.50 and $5? The banks are insatiable in this regard. This rule does nothing to prevent them from continuing to fleece the American public by charging them higher and higher fees. Furthermore, there is a broad, sweeping provision in this bill. It is section 104(b)(1), which preempts State legislative bodies in a very broad, sweeping way from enacting protections for customers, consumers across this country. So even if this Congress is not prepared to protect the banking customers, to protect financial consumers, the bill goes beyond that and makes it difficult, if not impossible, for State legislative bodies to enact fair, reasonable consumer protection laws. This is an outrageous position, and it is an outrageous position on the part of the Committee on Rules to prevent an amendment which was suggested and offered by the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Kucinich), which would have preempted this particular sweeping provision of the bill. These are just some of the reasons why this outrageous, tight, wrong rule ought to be defeated.

Mr. HINCHEY

Mr. HINCHEY. Mr. Speaker, it is my privilege to recognize the retirement of Vincent A. Bergamo from the New York State Racing and Wagering Board. After forty years of service, Vince leaves behind a legacy in the sport of harness racing that will forever be a testament to his deep-rooted love of horses and racing. His enthusiasm and experience will surely be missed. I have had the pleasure of knowing Vince for several years. He has impressed me as a man of great character and integrity and I am fortunate to call him a friend. His career as a racing judge was characterized by hard-work and dedication and his contributions have left a lasting effect on the industry. Vincent Bergamo began his distinguished career in 1958 at the Monticello Raceway in Monticello, New York as an Assistant Race Secretary. Having grown up with a keen appreciation for horses, Vince immediately excelled around the track. He was quickly offered a position in Saratoga, New York as presiding judge. He was 24 at the time, the youngest presiding judge in the state. Vince's love of harness racing and his enthusiasm for his job brought him to every track in New York as well as tracks in Florida, Maryland, New Hampshire and Pennsylvania. Throughout all of these locations, Vince set the standard for judging. He was honest, fair and demanded the highest degree of competitiveness from the participants of his races. He was also the recipient of numerous accolades recognizing his accomplishments. Mr. Speaker, aside from judging, Vince tackled several other tasks in harness racing. On a purely voluntary basis, he became actively involved in the Goshen Historic Track--realizing that the track as the oldest exiting sporting site in the nation at that time. He has been credited with leading the crusade that saved the track. His efforts directly led to the listing of the track on the National Register of Historic Sites. Vince remains actively involved in the operation of this track and continues to promote racing throughout New York, the United States, and even the world--Vince's creation, the popular Billings Amateur Series has lasted some 16 years and has attracted international attention. Looking past Vince's professional awards and accomplishments, and there are many, it is clear that above all else, Vince is a family man. While maintaining an extraordinarily active career, Vince, along with his wonderful wife, raised 10 beautiful children. He was, and remains today, active in all aspects of their lives. Mr. Speaker, it is not often that a man like Vince Bregamo comes along. He is the epitome of class and integrity and his accomplishments both professionally and personally are remarkable. I invite my colleagues to join me in honoring Vincent Bregamo for 40 years of dedicated service and in wishing Vince, his wife, and his entire family many more years of health and happiness.

Mr. HINCHEY

Mr. HINCHEY. Mr. Speaker, I rise to say a few words in support of the motion to instruct, and in spite of what has been said by the sponsor of the bill in chief, I think that it is very appropriate for us to be talking about the need for funding for modernization of our schools and construction of new schools. I do not question the motivation of the sponsor of the bill, but the fact of the matter is that he is ignoring the primary need of education in our country. More than 90 percent of our students attend the public schools. Two- thirds of schools across this country, and it is true in New York, two- thirds of the schools are in need of major repair or rehabilitation or rebuilding. In the district that I represent in New York, 60 percent of the schools are in such need. Every day, children from kindergarten through the 12th grade are walking into schools where the paint is falling off the walls, the ceiling is falling in in some instances, lavatories are not working, chalkboards are so old that they cannot accept the chalk from the teacher. These schools are in bad need of rehabilitation. Mr. Speaker, when a child walks into a school like that day after day, week after week, they begin to get the message, and the message is we do not care about them. And pretty soon they ask themselves, why should I care about them? That is why there are 1.7 million people in prison in this country; one of the reasons at least. We need to pay attention to our schools. This country was built on the idea of free elementary and secondary education. We pioneered that idea. We were the first country in the world to invent that idea. We are falling far behind in educating our elementary and secondary schoolchildren, and one of the reasons is that our school buildings are falling apart. Mr. Speaker, they cannot accept wiring for the Internet they are so old. Our kids cannot take advantage of new technology because the building that they are going to school in cannot accept the wiring for the Internet. This is a scandal. The bill does nothing to deal with this problem; the motion to instruct does. We need to pay attention to our public schools.

Mr. HINCHEY

Mr. HINCHEY. Mr. Speaker, in the last several days, the Speaker of this House has launched an intemperate prejudicial attack on the President of the United States, demeaning himself and the office he holds by prejudging issues that may, in fact, come before this House. One can only conclude by these intemperate actions that the Speaker's basic intention is to draw attention away from the failure, his failure and the failure of the Republican leadership to address important issues that are of deep concern to the American people. Yesterday, we learned that the Speaker personally made it impossible to reach a bipartisan agreement on a broad-based tobacco bill. He, in effect, told the chairman of the Committee on Commerce that he could no longer cooperate with Democrats to put together a bill that would make it difficult for children to become addicted to tobacco, demonstrating once again how deeply into the pockets of tobacco this Speaker actually is. It is a shameful circumstance and one that needs addressing. We need to get on to the business of this House.

Mr. HINCHEY

Mr. HINCHEY. Mr. Speaker, Social Security is such a critically important program to every American that it ought to be examined from time to time, and we periodically ought to do whatever may be necessary to strengthen it to make sure that it continues to last. This Democratic program, the invention of Franklin Roosevelt, has served several generations of Americans extremely well, and it will continue to do so so long as we nourish the economic conditions that are necessary to sustain it. We learned something very important about Social Security just today. We learned that Social Security is directly tied to the national economy. When the economy is growing and doing well, when it is growing at a rate of 2\1/2\ percent or greater, Social Security does well. When we tighten up the economy in the ways that the Federal Reserve Board has attempted to do, for example, in some recent years, then we threaten Social Security as we threaten other public programs and threaten the economic health of all Americans as well. So the first lesson that we ought to dictate to any commission that ought to be examining Social Security, and parenthetically let me say I am a little bit wary about these Social Security Commissions because the last one we had headed up by the now Chairman of the Federal Reserve did not do very much to save Social Security, and in some ways it weakened it. But that aside, when we examine Social Security, we ought to do so in a way that recognizes the symbiotic relationship between Social Security and the national economy. Having an economy that is based upon low interest rates, interest rates now are too high, the Federal Reserve should lower them, is not a good thing. A national economy that is growing at 2.5 to 3 percent will be an economy that has a strong Social Security system. There are people here in this House who from time to time have raised issues that would not have strengthened Social Security, but would have, in fact, weakened it. We know that there have been discussions by the leadership on the other side to phase out Social Security, to raise the level of retirement age, to reduce the level of benefits as inflation increases over the years. Those things ought to be avoided. Social Security is a strong system. What it needs is a strong economy. We need to be investing appropriately in the right kind of education for the next generation to make sure that they are capable of holding the kinds of jobs that provide the right kinds of salaries that will allow the economy to continue to grow. So the first thing that we have to recognize is what we were told in the news that was released today. A strong economy is essential to the maintenance of the Social Security system. If we want the Social Security system to remain strong, it will do so, and we need to make sure that the economy is strong, and with a strong economy, Social Security will remain strong as well.

Mr. HINCHEY

Mr. HINCHEY. Mr. Speaker, as has been noted a couple of times here this morning, today is Earth Day. It is the day in which we remind ourselves of the symbiotic relationship that exists between our species and every other species on the planet and how dependent everything else is on Earth upon our actions. It is also important for us to observe today that there are a number of environmental bills that are pending in this House, or I should say really locked up in this House, that are not making progress. I will mention just two, the Federal Superfund, which needs to be reauthorized, and the Endangered Species Act. With regard to the Endangered Species Act, a recent poll of more than 400 American biologists indicates that they are deeply concerned about the loss of biological diversity which we are currently experiencing. They estimate that up to one-fifth of all the species on the Earth will be wiped out within the next 30 years, unless we do something to protect the habitat of these species. We are directly linked to everything else on Earth. We have a responsibility to protect them. We have a responsibility to pass the Endangered Species Act and get other important environmental bills out on this floor.

Mr. HINCHEY

Mr. HINCHEY. Mr. Speaker, I am rising to speak today to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the chartering of Veterans of Foreign Wars Post 9588, the Bailey-Richman Post, in Monticello, New York. The Post was chartered on April 4th, 1948 at the Grange Hall in Monticello and was recently honored by the National Headquarters of the VFW with a Golden Anniversary Citation. It is an honor they justly deserve. I would like to also celebrate and honor the Post's long history of public service and commitment to their community in Sullivan County. The wonderful men and women of this post have given so much to us all in times of war and in times of peace and I want them to know that their contributions are deeply felt and greatly appreciated. I ask all of my colleagues to join me in celebrating the upcoming 50th anniversary of the Bailey-Richman VFW Post 9588.

Mr. HINCHEY

Mr. HINCHEY. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for yielding this time to me. This bill is not needed to address real problems of forest health. The Forest Service has now authority to take actions that are needed, such things as prescribed burns, thinning, et cetera, where the health of the forest requires it and where there is a risk of wildfire. The bill would establish a new, cumbersome, bureaucratic administrative process that is not needed. The Forest Service financing methods and accounting systems have long been a subject of criticism. Yesterday, a joint hearing looked into those issues. What we found was that there were problems, but the Forest Service is cleaning up that mess. This bill would impede that process and make matters worse. First, it would divert money from a road and trail maintenance fund at a time when the service has a huge maintenance backlog, $10\1/2\ billion, and put it into a new recovery trust fund not subject to appropriations. The fact that that is not subject to appropriations should set off a warning bell for every Member of this House. How will that money be used? Who will scrutinize it? What is the potential for abuse and mismanagement? Under the bill, any revenue from timber sales conducted under this plan will be turned over to the States, not to the Federal Treasury. This is a giveaway of Federal resources and Federal money, money earned from land that is owned by all the people of this country. Imagine if all the revenue from the Customs levees at New York were turned over to the State of New York. That is essentially what is happening here. We have heard that the bill has been changed to reflect expressed concerns about environmental impacts. It has indeed been changed at the last minute so that few people have had much time to examine the new text, but the changes have not in any way satisfied environmental concerns. Although most of the references to salvage have been removed from the bill, the substance has not changed. The bill is based on the premise that the best way to protect the forest health is to cut the forest down. The new improved bill not only allows cutting in roadless areas, cutting of large old-growth healthy trees, but it authorizes cutting in the name of so-called recovery if forest problems are merely anticipated or that somebody thinks there might be a problem at some time in the future. These practices are obviously ridiculous. They would not be limited to the size of the forest either. These are just some of the reasons why this bill creates bad public policy and should be defeated.

Mr. HINCHEY. Mr. Chairman, so if we allow this bill to pass, what we succeed in doing is allowing vast amounts of natural resources to be stolen and vast amounts of revenue to be stolen. I made the point in my opening remarks that the customs duties in the City of New York could be taken by the City of New York under the same kind of reasoning that goes on here or in the Port of Miami or the Port of Los Angeles under the same reasoning. Because the port is there, should all of those resources go to New York or Miami or Los Angeles or any other port? Obviously not. Those resources belong to all the people of the country, as these resources belong to all the people of the country and should not be expropriated as they would under the provision of this bill. This bill is bad public policy, and I urge its defeat.

Mr. HINCHEY. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the last word. Mr. Chairman, the sponsors and the proponents of this bill say that they are passing this measure because they have the best interest of the national forests at heart, that what they want to do is to promote programs and policies which will make the forests healthier, stronger, both now and in the future. And I believe that some of them actually believe that. I have tried to find within this proposal evidence to support that proposition, and I have looked in vain. They tell us that they are establishing a network of scientists who have certain credentials which will enable them to make sound scientific judgments with regard to how the forests should be managed. That, I suppose, is okay, except that that duplicates the abilities already contained within the National Forest Service. The National Forest Service now has people that have the ability to make these decisions. That kind of expertise exists within the Forest Service. In fact, we could look far and wide and not find people who are better able to make those judgments based upon silviculture, based upon biological diversity, based upon maintaining the soil, based upon the effects of soil erosion on aquatic life. All of that expertise now currently resides within the Forest Service, and it exists in great abundance. All of the intellectual resources that one could want to make these decisions exists in the Forest Service. Why do we need this new, cumbersome, bureaucratic arrangement that is only going to complicate matters to superimpose their judgment over the judgment of people who are more capable of making them, already working for the Federal Government? That does not make any sense to me. What this bill will simply do is promote logging. Now, a certain amount of logging, it is recognized, is good and healthy. But this bill is going to promote amounts of logging that are unhealthy and unreasonable, unnecessary, and will be counterproductive to the stated objectives of the proponents of this legislation. When we come right down to it, Mr. Chairman, what this bill is is a license to steal. It is a license to steal a vast amount of the precious natural resources of this country, and it is a license to steal taxpayers' money. Now, how does it do that? It does that by setting up this kind of arrangement, which is the kind of arrangement that I have discussed, which will enable vast amounts of cutting to go on in the national forest, based upon the idea that by so doing they are going to somehow protect the forests. It will set up a bureaucratic arrangement whereby if someone believes or supposes or imagines that there is some kind of danger occurring to the national forests, that vast amounts of that forest can be cut, clear-cutting can take place. Now, is the size of that clear-cutting defined? Not at all. Entire forests could be cut down under the provisions of this bill. Entire forests could be clear cut under the provisions of this bill. So this bill sets up a program which will allow those misguided people who want to clear cut the national forests to have a license to do that, a license to steal vast amounts of the natural resources of this country. And then when there is revenue produced as a result of this larcenist logging that will take place, those financial resources will not accrue back to the taxpayers of the country, as it should because, after all, all of these resources are owned by all of the people of this country jointly. No, what this bill will do is take those monies and deposit them in certain places in the country to benefit certain constituencies or certain constituencies of certain Members of this body, so taking money that belongs to all the people of the country and putting it into special places in the country at the expense of everyone else. That money, by the way, should be used for what it would be used under normal circumstances under the provisions of the existing law, to enable the Forest Service to conduct their business in the way that they should and the way that they want to.

Mr. HINCHEY

Mr. HINCHEY. Mr. Speaker, I would like to take this opportunity to offer congratulations to the people of Greece who today are celebrating their 177th year of independence from the Ottoman Empire. Their story is one that closely mirrors that of our own country and is deeply engrossed in the very principles that our nation was founded. Like our forefathers, the people of Greece arduously fought against oppression to win their independence and their right to self-determination. We share a common appetite for the individual freedoms that characterize our democracies and common disdain for those who threaten that liberty. In fact, the society we live in today--a democracy where freedoms and liberties are paramount--was crafted, in theory, by the great thinkers and politicians of ancient Greece. Our Founding Fathers relied heavily on the political and philosophical experiences of the ancient Greeks as they themselves toiled with the blueprints of this great nation. We can easily equate the observance of the Greek Independence Day with the celebration of our own independence on the Fourth of July. Both represent opportunities to trumpet the successes of democracy, revel in our freedoms and pay our respects to those who have come before us and perished to protect our liberties. Mr. Speaker, Greece remains one of the United States' closest allies. It is interesting to note that they are one of only three nations, outside the British Empire, which has fought alongside American soldiers in every war this century. Their loyalty is commendable and deserves our continued reciprocity. As I stand in the chamber of this great legislative body, surrounded by renderings of several of the most notable Greek philosophers, I am compelled to recognize the legacy left behind by the original pioneers of democracy. I thank the people of Greece for their continued goodwill and offer them my sincere best wishes as they celebrate their lasting independence.

Mr. HINCHEY

Mr. HINCHEY. Mr. Speaker, I want to talk this evening for just a few minutes about the meeting of the Federal Reserve Federal Open Market Committee which will take place on Tuesday of next week, the 31st of March. This is a very important meeting, as all of these meetings are, because the Federal Open Market Committee will in effect be setting short-term interest rates for the months ahead. Setting short-term interest rates is important because it governs so much of the lending that goes on, particularly the consumer lending that goes on in our country. It is consumer lending and borrowing that affects so much of our economic circumstances, including the level of growth. So the interest rates which will be determined at this meeting of the Federal Open Market Committee on Tuesday are critically important. The Fed has been saying, in effect, that they have been holding interest rates steady. That is essentially true. They have been holding them steady at about 5\1/2\ percent. When you factor in the very important fact that the consumer prices, in other words, the cost of living, has been going down, then you see that real interest rates have, in fact, been going up over the course of the last many months. This chart here, I think, demonstrates that quite clearly. Beginning in 1997, the interest rates have gone up quite dramatically. And the indications are that, absent any change in Federal Reserve policy, real interest rates, that is interest rates as a function of inflation, as a function of the cost of living in our society will continue to go up as this chart here clearly demonstrates. If interest rates go up, that means that the cost of many things will go up as people have to borrow to buy those things in our society. The Fed is excusing this raising of real interest rates by saying that there are indications of inflation in our economy. But when we look closely at it, we discover that that is not the case at all. Just today, an announcement came out of the Department of Commerce indicating that durable goods orders were down again, orders for durable goods, which are used in every aspect of manufacturing in our country have gone down, indicating that manufacturing is going to go down in the future because those durable goods orders are going down. Consumer prices at both the retail and at the wholesale level continue to decline. There is absolutely no indication of any inflation anywhere in our economy, yet the Federal Reserve continues to allow interest rates to creep up. That is real interest rates, interest rates as a function of inflation. Now, under ordinary circumstances, this would be troubling, and we would be upset with the Federal Reserve for allowing the cost of borrowing to continue to creep up this way. But we are now involved in a circumstance that is not normal at all; it is very unusual. That circumstance is the financial crisis that is sweeping across all the countries, virtually all of the countries, at least, of East Asia and the very complicated financial problems that exist in those countries, which are causing actual disinflation in East Asia, and even deflation in some places that is going to flood the marketplace of every other economy in the world, as much as possible, with these cheap goods. Therefore, that is going to cause additional economic problems here. Indications are that the flooding of these cheap goods into our economy is going to cost us as much as 1 or 2 points in our economic growth and the cost could be even higher. We could experience economic growth of only 1 percent or even negative economic growth sometime later this year if the Federal Reserve does not act soon to reduce interest rates and prepare us for the onslaught of the consequences of what is taking place in East Asia. Some other countries are preparing themselves for the consequences of these activities. For example, some of the OPEC countries recently realizing that the deflation going on in East Asia that is causing oil prices to drop have come together and they are reducing the amount of oil that they are producing, and that is going to raise oil prices a bit, but what they are doing is preparing their economies for the onslaught of this disinflation and even deflation that is coming across from East Asia. Mr. Speaker, we need to do the same. The most important way that we can prepare ourselves for the effects of this disinflation and deflation is to lower interest rates, lower short-term interest rates at the next meeting of the Federal Reserve Federal Open Market Committee. I am circulating a letter this week to all of the Members of the House of Representatives asking them to join me in a letter to the Federal Reserve, asking them to take into consideration the fact that durable goods orders are down again, to take into consideration the fact that consumer prices and wholesale prices continue to fall, and to take into consideration the fact that we are about to be hit by the disinflation sweeping across East Asia, and that is going to have a damning effect on our economy, and we need to act, and act soon.

Mr. HINCHEY

Mr. HINCHEY. Mr. Speaker, the American people and most of the Members of this Congress agree that the most important issue currently facing our country is reforming the way we finance campaigns. Earlier this year, the Senate defeated campaign finance reform when the leadership over there engaged in a filibuster. Now the leadership in this House is bringing a bill to the floor which is a complete hoax. Here is what Common Cause has to say about the bill. ``Under the Republican leadership bill, tobacco companies could continue to launder soft money through the State parties in order to influence Federal elections, as they did in 1996. And under the Republican leadership bill, medium mogul Rupert Murdoch could again run $1 million in soft money through the California Republican party, as he did during the 1996 campaign while he was seeking favorable treatment in Washington on Federal communications legislation.'' He succeeded, by the way. The great Republican Abraham Lincoln said, ``You can't fool all the people all the time.'' Let us stop fooling around and get real campaign finance reform out here on the floor.