Henry Hyde

Mr. HYDE

Mr. HYDE. Yes, I agree with the chairman of the committee that the other emergency exception from the 60-day delay of major rules was included for this kind of circumstance. Certainly, it would be totally appropriate for the President to determine by Executive order that the market transition contract rules promulgated this spring under the Federal Agriculture Improvement and Reform Act are emergency rules that would not be subject to the automatic 60-day delay.

Mr. HYDE. Mr. Speaker, if the gentleman will continue to yield, yes, my colleague is correct. If any Federal agency issues what the Congressional Review Act defines as major rules, those rules would not be allowed to go into effect for at least 60 calendar days. However, I advise my colleague that the President, by executive order, may declare a health, safety or other emergency, and that particular major rule would be exempt from the 60-day delay. I would add that the President's determination of whether there is an emergency is not subject to judicial review.

Mr. HYDE

Mr. HYDE. Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of H.R. 3136, and particularly title III of that bill, the Small Business Regulatory Enforcement Fairness Act of 1996. Title III, as amended by the rule, is patterned after the provisions of S. 942, legislation sponsored by Senator Christopher Bond of Missouri, which passed the Senate on March 19 by the vote of 100 to 0. It would provide important regulatory relief for America's small businesses. This measure is vitally important to the small business community, which is particularly burdened by the effect of multiple, and many times conflicting, regulatory requirements. It should be viewed not as a total solution to all regulatory problems, but as a good first step of making rules more fair, more rational, and more carefully tailored to achieve the goal they are designed to accomplish. First, title III proposes important changes in the Regulatory Flexibility Act, allowing judicial review of certain aspects of that statute. The Regulatory Flexibility Act was first enacted in 1980. Under its terms, Federal agencies are directed to consider the special needs and concerns of small entities--that is, small businesses, local governments, farmers, and so forth, whenever they engage in a rulemaking subject to the Administrative Procedure Act. The agencies must then prepare and publish a regulatory flexibility analysis of the impact of the proposed rule on small entities, unless the head of the agency certifies that the proposed rule will not ``have a significant economic impact on a substantial number of small entities.'' From the beginning, the problem with this law has been the lack of availability of a judicial reviews mechanism to enforce the purposes of the law. Right now, if agencies do not actually conduct a regulatory flexibility analysis or fail to follow the other procedures set down in the act, there is no sanction. Thus, under current law, the small business community has no remedy. Title III would cure this problem. In instances where an agency should have undertaken a regulatory flexibility analysis and did not, or where the agency needs to take corrective action with respect to a flexibility analysis that was prepared, small entities are authorized to seek judicial review within 1 year after final agency action. A court will then review the agency's action under the judicial review provisions of the Administrative Procedure Act. The remedies that a court may order include remanding the rule back to the agency and deferring enforcement of the rule against small entities, pending agency compliance with the Regulatory Flexibility Act. Another important aspect of title III is the congressional review procedure. This will allow Congress to review all proposed rules to determine whether or not they should take effect. Specifically, title III would allow Congress to postpone for 60 days the implementation of any major rule, generally defined as having an annual effect on the economy of $100 million or more. The language allows the President to bypass the 60-day delay through the issuance of an Executive order, if the rule addresses an imminent threat to the public health or safety, or other emergency, or matters involving criminal law enforcement or national security. This legislation was developed by Senator Don Nickles and Senator Harry Reid. My Judiciary Committee staff has worked very closely with Senator Nickles' staff concerning the details of this provision. I think it is important to emphasize that this approach means that Congress must be prepared to take on greater responsibility in the rulemaking process. If during the review period, Congress identifies problems in a proposed major rule prior to its promulgation, we must be prepared to take action. Each standing committee will have to carefully monitor the regulatory activities of those agencies falling within their jurisdiction. Title III also includes a provision which will require Federal agencies to simplify forms and publish a plain English guide to help small businesses comply with Federal regulations. These compliance guides will not be subject to judicial review, but may be considered as evidence of the reasonableness of any proposed fines or penalties. Federal agencies would also be directed to reduce or waive fines for small businesses in appropriate circumstances, if violations are corrected within a certain period. The proposal would also create an ombudsman within the Small Business Administration to gather information from small businesses about compliance and enforcement practices, and to work with the various agencies so as to respond to the concerns of small businesses regarding those practices. In addition, some important changes would be made in the Equal Access to Justice Act. The Equal Access to Justice Act [EAJA] currently provides that certain parties who prevail over the Federal Government in regulatory or court proceedings are entitled to an award in attorneys' fees and other expenses, unless the Government can demonstrate that its position was substantially justified or that special circumstances would make the award unjust. Eligible parties are individuals whose net worth does not exceed $2 million or businesses, organizations, associations, or units of local government with a net worth of no more than $7 million and no more than 500 employees. The act covers both adversary administrative proceedings and civil court actions. Title III proposes to change the Equal Access to Justice Act so as to make it easier for small businesses to recover their attorneys fees, if they have been subjected to excessive and unsustainable proposed penalties. It would amend the EAJA to create a new avenue for small entities to recover their attorneys fees in situations where the Government has instituted an administrative or civil action against a small entity to enforce a statutory or regulatory requirement. In these situations, the test for recovering attorneys' fees would become whether the final demand of the United States, prior to the initiation of the adjudication or civil action, was substantially in excess of the decision or judgment ultimately obtained and is unreasonable when compared to such decision or judgment. The important point here is that this legislation will level the playing field and make it far more likely that the United States will not seek excessive fines or penalties from small businesses and will be more likely to make fair settlement offers prior to proceeding with a formal regulatory enforcement action or before going to court to collect the civil fine or penalty. Mr. Speaker, I have only described in very general terms today the substance of this important title. Because the language is the product of negotiation and compromise with the Senate, there is no formal legislative history available to explain its terms. To cure this deficiency, I will be inserting in the Congressional Record at a later date a document which will serve as the equivalent of a statement of managers. The same document will be submitted to the Record in the Senate. It is the committee's intent that that document carry the weight of legislative history regarding title III of H.R. 3136. Mr. Speaker, this legislation represents an important and significant step toward removing unnecessary and unduly burdensome regulations from the backs of small businesses. I urge my colleagues to support H.R. 3136 and look forward to its prompt passage and it being signed into law.

Mr. HYDE

Mr. HYDE. Mr. Speaker, I listened with great intensity to the debate this evening. It is an important debate. I heard the gentleman from Vermont talk about humility, and he is absolutely right. You do not deal with people's lives in a sense of arrogance at all. But at the same time, if you believe you are right, if you are convinced that you possess the truth and you remain silent, you become the accomplice of liars and forgers. I just ascribe the failure to consider the unborn, and I listened to all of the impassioned remarks of my friends on the other side, they never talk about the unborn. It is the woman, it is her family, it is her doctor, but the little tiny infant in the shadows, the absent person, the invisible person is the unborn, and that is a failure of imagination. That is a compassion deficit. Mr. Speaker, I guess you have to be healthy to be born. I guess our Declaration of Independence, when it talked about the right to life being inalienable should have said if you are healthy, if you are healthy. God help you if you are handicapped before you are born. But if you make it through the birth canal, we will give you a preferred parking place. That is the way we deal with those situations. No, the partial birth abortion, which is just what it is. It is not an exercise of reproductive rights, and it is not a fetus. It is an abortion. It is not a termination of a pregnancy. It is an extermination of a defenseless little life whose little arms and little legs are wiggling until that scissors gets shoved in his neck and then they stiffen. We heard that testimony. Some of you heard that testimony. There is a coursening of our national conscience when you tolerate this form of torture. Catholic bishops. Thank God somebody cares about this grotesquery. Thank God, I do not think that invalidates those charts. A political goal? If defending human dignity is political, then I plead guilty. But somebody has to speak up for that little defenseless child almost born, three-quarters born, just the little head left, and they brutally kill that little child, and you do it in the name of compassion. I am sorry, I think that is a coursening, a desensitizing of our conscience. This bill outlaws a uniquely barbaric method of abortion. Even to describe it is painful, but it is not as painful as the pain that little unborn child feels. If steel traps are too brutal for wild animals, what is too brutal for a tiny member of the human family, an almost-born infant? Have you heard of PETA, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals? We need a PETA for humans, people for the ethical treatment of tiny, defenseless, cannot rise up in the streets, cannot vote, cannot escape members of the human family. You would not treat a coyote like you treat this little almost-born baby. Members keep insisting the Government should not intervene. Well, I know some Members are for Government intervention in everything but abortion. I understand that. But who will speak for the baby if the Government does not? What is the purpose of law to protect the weak from the strong? What is weaker than a little child almost born and you destroy that child in a barbaric way? No, I am glad the Government is there. I am not that libertarian that I do not think that Government should not protect the weak from the strong. The only thing Members consider is the autonomy of the woman, the woman. Well, God bless the woman, and she needs help and care and love and nurturing. But what about the little baby? Why do you leave that out of your equation, our of your calculus? We had four anesthesiologists tell us those little babies feel pain. That is why they get anesthesia. One of the head of the anesthesiology department at Emory University says the pre-term baby feels pain more that when it is born. That validates the title ``silent scream.'' What about the pain felt by the little baby? Not a word, not a word. Is there anything, is there anything we say no to? Is everything permitted? God help us if that is true. Let us draw the line here. This should not be tolerated.

Mr. HYDE

Mr. HYDE. Mr. Speaker, there is no more troubling issue confronting Americans than that of abortion. The highly respected publication, National Review, March 25, 1996, has performed a signal service by publishing a very thoughtful article on this question signed by 45 of America's finest scholars, all of whom have thought long and hard about this volatile subject. I commend this article to my colleagues' careful attention. The America We Seek; A Statement of Pro-Life Principle and Concern Americans are conducting the sixth presidential election campaign since the Supreme Court decreed a virtually unlimited ``right'' to abortion in Roe v. Wade and its companion case, Doe v. Bolton. Over the past 23 years, the abortion debate has been about abortion, of course; but it has also been a debate about the kind of society America is and seeks to be. Throughout our national history, few issues have so sharply focused attention on the fundamental purposes of the American democratic experiment. For, in the abortion debate, we are required to confront an urgent moral issue: Who is to be included in the community of the commonly protected? The following statement of principle, endorsed by a broad spectrum of pro-life organizational leaders and scholars, is the result of consultations held over the past several months at the Ethics and Public Policy Center in Washington, D.C. The statement aims to clarify the principles on which the pro-life movement stands, to articulate a pro-life vision of the American future, and to suggest a set of political, legal, and cultural strategies that are capable of translating that vision into reality. The signatories, who join the statement as individuals, offer this statement to the pubic in the hope that it will raise the level of public discourse on this highly controversial issue, and thus strengthen American democracy. The signatories are deeply grateful to NATIONAL REVIEW for opening its pages to their ideas and concerns. Twenty-three years after the Supreme Court's Roe v. Wade and Doe v. Bolton decisions, the conscience of the American people remains deeply troubled by the practice of abortion on demand. Because of these two decisions, abortion is legal at any time in pregnancy, for virtually any reason, in every state. This constitutes an almost completely unrestricted private license to judge who will live and who will die. That America has the most permissive abortion regime among the world's democracies is a betrayal of the American promise of justice for all. That is why a new sense of moral concern is stirring throughout our country in this election year. That is why millions of Americans have refused to accept the Court's 1992 admonition in Planned Parenthood v. Casey to stop debating the issue. 2. To those weary of this argument, it may seem that there is nothing more to be said on this matter of abortion. We disagree. Survey research tells us that the American people do not want a legal regime of abortion on demand for any reason, at any time during a pregnancy. We believe we have an obligation to employ the arts of democratic persuasion to help reinstitute legal protection for all unborn children. The extent of the abortion license and its reach into other areas of law and public policy is widely underestimated. We believe that, as citizens of the United States, we have the responsibility to discuss with our fellow citizens the facts of the abortion license and its impact on our common life. Many women in crisis earnestly seek alternatives to abortion. We believe we ought to encourage those alternatives and help to provide them. 3. Pro-life service to women in crisis and pro-life advocacy on behalf of legal reform are expressions of our highest ideals as citizens of the United States. We affirm the nobility of the American democratic experiment in ordered liberty. We affirm the rule of law and the principle of equal protection under the law, even as we work to reform constitutional and statutory law so that the American legal system is, once again, congruent with the Founders' claim that the inalienable right to life is one of the great moral truths on which American democracy rests. We want an America that is open, hospitable, and caring--a community of civic friendship in which neighbors reach out to assist neighbors in distress. 4. The abortion license has helped to erode the moral foundations of the American civic community. Right now we are not the country we ought to be. That distress is, to us, a sign of moral vitality. We speak now because we seek to defend the America we love. We speak to promote the cause of an America in which women and men, together, rebuilding the fabric of civil society by acknowledging our common responsibility to serve and protect the weakest and most vulnerable among us. We speak for a rebirth of freedom in these United States: a freedom that finds its fulfillment in goodness. victims of the license 5. Americans of every race, economic condition, religion, and political persuasion share a common concern today for what some have called a national ``virtue deficit.'' As a country, we have not paid sufficient attention to nurturing those habits of heart and mind that make democratic self- government possible and that undergird what the Framers of the Constitution called ``civic virtue.'' We believe that the abortion license is a critical factor in America's virtue deficit. 6. Abortion kills 1.5 million innocent human beings in America every year. There is no longer any serious scientific dispute that the unborn child is a human creature who dies violently in the act of abortion. This brute fact is the root of our national distress over the abortion license. Abortion kills: few would now deny that. But in order to defend the private ``right'' to lethal violence that is the essence of abortion, proponents of the license frequently resort to euphemisms like ``products of conception'' and ``the termination of pregnancy.'' The public dialogue is not coarsened by depictions of the reality of abortion. But a coarsening of our common life has taken place; it is evident in the lack of moral revulsion that follows one newspaper's accurate description of an abortion procedure that ``breaks . . . apart'' the ``fetus'' before ``it'' is ``suctioned out of the uterus'' or ``extracted.'' 7. The abortion license hurts women. Some (including the narrow Supreme Court majority in the 1992 Casey decision) contend that the license is necessary to ensure social and economic gains for women. It is ever more clear, though, that women pay a huge price for abortion. By providing an alleged technological ``fix'' for unintended pregnancy, the license has encouraged widespread male irresponsibility and predatory male sexual behavior. Abortion-on-demand has given an excuse to a man who shirks his responsibilities, claiming that the child he helped conceive ought to have been aborted, or that the woman who declined to abort may not impose on him any responsibility for her ``lifestyle choice.'' Fathers have also been harmed and dehumanized by the abortion license. Some watch their children killed against their will; others learn to their distress only much later that a child they would have raised is dead. Even when agreeing to support the abortion decision, fathers, like mothers, suppress their grief deny heir protective instincts, and otherwise damage themselves when they allow the killing of their own children. Abortion contributes to the marginalization of fatherhood in America, which many agree is a primary cause of the alarming breakdown of American family life. The license has thus poisoned relationships between women and men, even as it has done serious harm to the thousands of women who now suffer from the effects of post-abortion grief. The women of America do not need abortion to be full participants in our society. To suggest otherwise is to demean women, to further distort relationships between women and men, and to aggravate the difficulties of re- creating in America a community of virtue and mutual responsibility.

Mr. HYDE

Mr. HYDE. Mr. Speaker, this is a very painful vote, because there are great arguments on both sides and there are great people on both sides. I do not see the point of polarizing this. This is across the lines of politics and party and geography. But I, after much wrestling with this idea, this issue, come out opposed to H.R. 125. At the same time, I strongly support the second amendment. I believe every American has the right to keep and bear arms. But as the first amendment guaranteeing free speech has reasonable restrictions, copyright, trademarks, slander, libel, obscenity, fire in a crowded theater, it does not impair the rigor of the first amendment to have reasonable restrictions on it, so the second amendment can endure and flourish with reasonable restrictions. I do not think the kid next door should have a flamethrower or a Howitzer or a 5-inch .38. And so where you draw the line? It seems to me hunters have a right to hunting rifles, hunting guns. A person has a right to a pump shotgun to protect his home, and I am told that is the weapon that will do it. Target shooters have a right to weapons. But an Uzi, an AK-47, has no legitimate purpose in the civilian population. It may have a purpose during war because all they can do is kill a lot of people in a hurry. But it seems to me the promiscuous proliferation, forgive the alliteration, of these weapons among youth gangs in cities, who many times can outgun the police, is stupid. It is not an impairment of the second amendment to say ``no.'' Take your hunting rifle, take your shotgun, take your target pistol and your target rifle, but an AK-47, a Street Sweeper, belongs in the arsenal under lock and key. Now, this bill is a statement. I know that. It does not do much. The definition of an assault weapon is kind of vague and fuzzy. But it is a statement that there are too many guns out there. They are killing instrumentalities. They are too available to people unfit and unsuited physically and temperamentally and emotionally to use them, and there ought to be a limit. And if this cuts down the millions of guns that are available to people who are unsuited to use them, then it is worthwhile. It only lasts 10 years. We have used up 2. It sunsets, then it does not make them illegitimate, it just says no more importation and no more manufacture. Let us give it a chance, and maybe some lives. But I do not think this violates the second amendment. I think it is a reasonable restriction.

Mr. HYDE

Mr. HYDE. Mr. Chairman, I thank the distinguished chairman of the Subcommittee on Immigration for yielding me time, and I am pleased to speak here on this very important issue. Mr. Chairman, immigration reform is one of the most important legislative priorities facing the 104th Congress. Today, undocumented aliens surreptitiously cross our border with impunity. Still others enter as nonimmigrants with temporary legal status, but often stay on indefinitely and illegally. The INS administrative and adjudicatory processes are a confusing, inefficient bureaucratic maze, resulting in crippling delays in decisionmaking. The easy availability of fraudulent documents frustrates honest employers, who seek to prevent the employment of persons not authorized to work in the United States. Unfortunately, the result of illicit job prospects only serves as a magnet to further illegal immigration. Clearly, we face a multifaceted breakdown of immigration law enforcement that requires our urgent attention. The 104th Congress can make an unprecedented contribution to the prevention of illegal immigration as long as we have the will to act. H.R. 2202 provides for substantially enhanced border and interior enforcement, greater deterrence to immigration-related crimes, more effective mechanisms for denying employment to undocumented aliens, broader prohibitions on the receipt of public benefits by individuals lacking legal status, and expeditious removal of persons not legally present in the United States. The Committee on the Judiciary, recognizing that issues involving illegal and legal migration are closely intertwined, approved a bill that takes a comprehensive approach to reforming immigration law. Today, we create unfulfillable expectations by accepting far more immigration applications than we can accommodate--resulting in backlogs numbering in the millions and waiting periods of many years. We simply need to give greater priority to unifying nuclear families, which is a priority of H.R. 2202. In addressing family immigration, the Judiciary Committee recognized the need for changes in the bill as originally introduced. For example, the Committee adopted my amendment deleting an overly restrictive provision that would have denied family-based immigration opportunities to parents unless at least 50 percent of their sons and daughters resided in the United States. During our markup, we also modified provisions of the bill on employment related immigration--removing potential impediments to international trade and protecting the access of American businesses to individuals with special qualifications who can help our economy. We recognized the critical importance of outstanding professors and researchers and multinational executives and managers by placing these two immigrant categories in a new high priority--second preference-- exempt from time consuming labor certification requirements. We restored a national interest waiver of labor certification requirements and delineated specific criteria for its exercise. In addition to adopting these two amendments which I sponsored, the committee also substantially modified new experience requirements for immigrants in the skilled worker and professional categories and deleted a provision potentially reducing available visas up to 50 percent. The net result of these various changes is that American competitiveness in international markets will be fostered--encouraging job creation here at home. Another noteworthy amendment to this bill restored a modified diversity immigrant program. Up to 27,000 numbers--roughly half the figure under current law--will be made available to nationals of countries that are not major sources of immigration to the United States but have high demand for diversity visas. The program will help to compensate for the fact that nationals of many countries--such as Ireland--generally have not been eligible to immigrate on the basis of family reunification. This week we have the opportunity to pass legislation that will give us needed tools to address illegal immigration and facilitate a more realistic approach to legal immigration. Our final work product should include an employment verification mechanism, because America's businesses cannot effectively implement the bar against employing illegal aliens without some confirmation mechanism. H.R. 2202 appropriately gives expression to the utility of reviewing immigration levels periodically, but we need to adopt an amendment by the gentleman from Kansas [Mr. Brownback] and the gentleman from Illinois [Mr. Gutierrez] that deletes language in the bill imposing a sunset on immigrant admissions in the absence of reauthorization because such a provision can create serious potential hardships for families and major disruptions for American businesses. There are two other amendments I wish to comment on briefly at this time. An amendment by the gentleman from Florida [Mr. Canady] will require that employment-based immigrants and diversity immigrants demonstrate English language speaking and reading ability. I plan to support it because I believe that our common language is an essential unifying force in this pluralistic society and a key to success in the American work force. An amendment by the gentleman from Wisconsin [Mr. Kleczka] reimburses fees to Polish nationals who applied for the 1995 diversity immigrant program without being selected. Such recompense is entirely appropriate because the State Department erred in its handling of applications from nationals of Poland. This omnibus immigration reform legislation, introduced by the gentleman from Texas, Lamar Smith, chairman of the Subcommittee on Immigration and Claims, makes major needed changes in the Immigration and Nationality Act. A number of the bill's provisions are consistent with recommendations made by the Congressional Task Force on Immigration Reform, chaired by the gentleman from California, Elton Gallegly, as well as by the U.S. Commission on Immigration Reform, chaired by our former colleague, the late Barbara Jordan. I also note that the administration finds itself in agreement with significant portions of the bill before us. The extent of bipartisan interest in achieving immigration reform must not be overlooked as Members debate this legislation. The Committee on the Judiciary, during a long markup on nine different days, improved provisions on both illegal and legal immigration. We favorably reported H.R. 2202 as amended by a recorded vote of 23 to 10. Immigration reform is very high on the list of national concerns-- underscoring the importance of our task this week. I fully recognize the complexity of this issue--socially, economically, and emotionally. These are problems that generate strongly held views. Nevertheless, I am confident that this House will debate these matters with civility, patience and good will. The 104th Congress can make a major contribution toward solving our nation's immigration problems and active consideration of H.R. 2202 represents a forward step in that direction.

Mr. HYDE

Mr. HYDE. I will leave that to the distinguished Speaker of the House.

Mr. HYDE. I yield to the gentleman from Michigan.

Mr. HYDE. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. I am waiting for the Speaker, who would like to close debate, and he should be here imminently. Meanwhile, I would like to respond to Professor Conyers, who gave us an interesting lecture on criminal law, simply to say that his amendment, section 201, reads, ``whoever damages or destroys or attempts to damage or destroy, by means of fire or an explosive, any person or real property in whole or in part, owned, possessed, used by, leased to the United States or any department or agency thereof, or any institution or organization receiving Federal financial assistance.'' What is the penalty that the gentleman has inculcated in his amendment? Not ``shall be in prison for not more than 25 years, or both,'' but ``if personal injury results to any person other than the offender, the term of imprisonment shall be not more than 40 years.'' Then, skipping another paragraph and getting to the end game here, ``if death results to any person other than the offender, the offender shall be subject to imprisonment for any term of years or for life.'' I do not see the death penalty in here in section 201 of title II. I see life. If you kill somebody by bombing a Federal building, now the professor has indicated elsewhere in the code death penalties are provided for. May well be. I have not thumbed through that part of the code recently. But I wonder why he introduced this amendment providing for life imprisonment if you kill somebody by blowing up a Federal building, which is what happened in Oklahoma City. The gentleman surely does not do things idly or without purpose. I suspect the gentleman wants to get into law his well-known dislike for the death penalty, and I understand that. That is a perfectly respectable, legitimate position to have, but it should be noted that his amendment does away with the death penalty for bombing a Federal building.

Mr. HYDE. How does what, sir, habeas corpus deter a single terrorist?

Mr. HYDE. Taking my time back, I thought the gentleman had something new to add to this debate. The gentleman is repeating what the gentleman from North Carolina [Mr. Watt] said, and he said it better.

Mr. HYDE. At least.

Mr. HYDE. I yield to the gentleman from Michigan.

Mr. HYDE. I misconstrued the gentleman. I misconstrued the gentleman. I humbly apologize.

Mr. HYDE. I am anxious, but I am not anxious to ever go on record as rejecting something we have been looking for, for 10 years and working toward, and that is habeas corpus reform. Also, Mr. Chairman, I am still puzzled by the gentleman's unwillingness, and I do not say inability, but unwillingness to see that habeas corpus law applies to murderous terrorists. They depend on habeas corpus, an indefinite prolongation of habeas corpus proceedings, so they never get the sentence executed.

Mr. HYDE. Well, yes, that was an overstatement on my part out of the depths of my dismay that I was losing. But on sober reflection, I think it is an antiterrorism bill, not as robust as I would like it to be, but still worthwhile. Now there are a number of things in the Conyers-Nadler-Berman substitute that I like and could support. Unfortunately our colleagues have lumped them together with eliminating habeas corpus reform, and that, of course, destroys any balance and makes it not worthwhile. For example, under the Conyers amendment and the amendment of the gentleman from New York [Mr. Nadler], current law which would permit the imposition of the death penalty for somebody who bombed a Federal building where death resulted, that is rewritten. It cannot be done now under the Conyers amendment. Just let me finish my statement. I will yield to the gentleman shortly. Now, the Conyers amendment would not impose the death penalty. He has rewritten this law for someone who uses a biological toxin that results in another's death. Oh, the gentleman from Michigan [Mr. Conyers] provides a life sentence, but not the death penalty. Now, somebody who kills somebody using biological toxin certainly qualifies for the death penalty in my book. Mr. Conyers strikes the criminal alien deportation improvements, which we have in this bill, we passed those earlier, and we are repassing them here. They passed 380 to 20 last February. So as tempting as it is to support the designation of terrorist organizations, and we should be able to do that, I hope to goodness we get to do that, I hope we can do that in conference. But that morsel of good public policy is not worth throwing away habeas corpus reform or the ability to impose the death penalty on someone who bombs a Federal building, as they did in Oklahoma City. Mr. Chairman, I yield to the gentleman from North Carolina [Mr. Watt].

Mr. HYDE. To make sure that it passes. Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. HYDE. I would say to the gentleman from New York [Mr. Nadler], I am just getting wound up, but go ahead. I would rather the gentleman interrupt me now than later.

Mr. HYDE. I may do that, although they are not run-of-the-mill, they are superb legal giants. Mr. Chairman, I want to make it clear that this is still a good bill despite the Barr amendment yesterday, which disappointed me, but the bill still is a very good bill and worthy of support. We have habeas reform. If we can defeat the Nadler-Conyers-Berman amendment that is offered now, we have victim restitution, we have criminal alien deportation improvements, we require marking plastic explosives to allow for more effective detection. If we had that, Pan Am 103 might well never have occurred. We prohibit the possession, importation, and sale of nuclear materials, reform asylum laws to stop their manipulation by foreign terrorists. Not most importantly, but very importantly, we authorize lawsuits by Americans against foreign nations responsible for State-sponsored activity. That is amending the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act. We provide for the expedited expulsion of illegal aliens from the United States, yes, and we protect Federal employees and Federal Government buildings because if someone is murdered, it becomes a death penalty. Now the Conyers-Nadler-Berman substitute is another gutting amendment. There are----

Mr. HYDE. Yes, of course.

Mr. HYDE. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 10 minutes. (Mr. HYDE asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.) Mr. Chairman, it is kind of deja vu to hear the four Attorneys General routinely trotted out by the opposition. They have been referred to as the four horsemen of Swan Lake. But we also have our retinue of Attorneys General who disagree with them, led by Griffin Bell, William Barr, Richard Thornburg, the late William French Smith. But I have a celebrity to trump all of those Attorneys General on the subject of habeas corpus, and his name is President Clinton. Mr. Chairman, he said on June 5 of last year, 2 days before the Senate passed the identical bill overwhelmingly that we seek to pass in this legislation; here is what the President, Mr. Clinton, said on ``Larry King Live.'' He said in death penalty cases it normally takes 8 years to exhaust the appeals. It is ridiculous. And, if you have multiple convictions, it could take even longer. So there is a strong sense in the Congress, I think among members of both parties, we need to get down to sort of one clear appeal. We need to cut the time delay on the appeals dramatically, and that ought to be done in the context of this terrorism legislation so that it would apply to any prosecutions brought against anyone indicted in Oklahoma, and I think this ought to be done. Now that is the head man. So I just serve warning. Anytime my colleague brings out Mr. Katzenbach, Mr. Richardson, Mr. Civiletti, and Mr. Levi, I am going to bring out the President, so just be fairly warned. Now I want to make it very clear----

Mr. HYDE. Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. HYDE

Mr. HYDE. Mr. Speaker, I offer a motion.

Mr. HYDE. Mr. Speaker, I offer a motion.