Ernest Istook

Mr. ISTOOK

Mr. ISTOOK. Mr. Speaker, I also yield the balance of my time to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Smith).

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

Mr. ISTOOK

Mr. ISTOOK. Mr. Speaker, I submit the following letter from the Hungarian Ambassador into the Congressional Record. The Ambassador of Hungary, October 4, 2000. Hon. Ernest J. Istook, Jr., U.S. House of Representatives, Washington, DC. Dear Congressman Istook: I am deeply moved when I express my heartfelt gratitude to you and your distinguished Colleagues in the House of Representatives on the adoption of H. Con. Res. 400 congratulating my country, Hungary, on the 1000th anniversary of its statehood. I am particularly indebted to Congressman Frank Pallone, who initiated the resolution, and your 29 Colleagues, who joined you as co- sponsors. The eloquence and historical depth of the resolution will surely impress all my compatriots, as well as hundreds of thousands of Americans of Hungarian descent. Being a historian myself and as someone who lived through a greater part of the 20th century, which brought so much misfortune to my people, I also very much appreciate the words used by you and your colleagues in approving the resolution. On this occasion let me share a few ideas with you on the links that bind your great nation of America with Hungary. The people of Hungary have been admirers of the United States for well over two centuries. We, too, have fought for our freedom and independence several times during these centuries. We felt your nation's sympathy in many difficult periods, particularly in 1848/49 and 1956. In 1978 the United States returned the Holy Crown of St. Stephen, kept in safety at Fort Knox since 1945, to the Hungarian people, boosting our morale and pride in our history, thus contributing to the process which led to the peaceful transformation of the political system of Hungary in 1989/90. I am pleased to say that we, Hungarians, are not alone in celebrating the establishment of the State. Like the United States, Hungary is also a nation of immigrants. When our ancestors moved into the Carpathian Basin they soon absorbed its sparse Slavic and Turkic population. Later on we welcomed many individuals and whole national groups in search of a better life and more freedom. Thus credit for the achievements of our thousand year old history goes not only to our Founding Fathers, but to all those who joined our nation through the centuries, embraced our culture and language and enriched us immensely with their industry, knowledge, culture and traditions. Among our neighbors, the Slovaks shared a common state with the Hungarians for over 1000 years, and the The bust of Louis Kossuth, Governor of revolutionary Hungary in 1849, and later a refugee most warmly received in the United States in 1851/52, stands in one of the hall-ways of the Capitol. The dream of Kossuth and so many other Hungarians has come true: our two nations have become allies. We are working together to turn South-Eastern Europe, a region of conflicts, into a stable and prosperous one. We are fighting jointly against international crime and terrorism, and the rights of people oppressed. We count on your support in our efforts to seek the safeguarding of the rights of close to three million Hungarians residing in the states bordering on Hungary. A historian of ancient Rome, Sallustius, stated: ``Truly not armies nor treasurers are the safeguards of a kingdom, but friends.'' We, Hungarians, have a modest army and small wealth, but a great friend in the United States. We are grateful for your friendship and for the resolution which is such a beautiful testimony of that. Sincerely yours, Geza Jesenszky.

Mr. ISTOOK

Mr. ISTOOK. Madam Speaker, if I may inquire of the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Moran), would it be agreeable if I take 2 minutes to close, then the gentleman take 2 minutes to close?

Mr. ISTOOK. Madam Speaker, I yield myself 3 minutes. Madam Speaker, I think it is important to remember that were we to adopt the motion of the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Moran) and just accept everything that the Senate has done on this bill, first, we would blow a $61 million hole in the District's budget because we would not have the language that was intended to be put in and will be put in the conference agreement to enable the District to issue securities against the revenue they expect from the tobacco settlement and that the District is counting on in this budget this year. So we would cut out that $61 million and blow a hole in their budget. I do not know where they would try to make it up. If we were to adopt the gentleman's motion, we would also remove the public-private effort, not only to work with public housing but to work with the residents of public housing to improve their employment, which is part of the project of the Washington Interfaith Network that the House version funds but the Senate version does not. Also, were we to adopt the Senate version, we would cut out the funding that the House has to help teenagers, young women, in the District to promote abstinence, to try to stop the major problem with teenage pregnancy and sex and the difficulty it leads to for so many people. We would cut out that funding if we were to adopt the gentleman's motion. Also under the gentleman's motion, we would remove millions of dollars from the drug testing and drug treatment program that is a major effort to reduce crime in the District of Columbia. We would cut that out if we were to adopt the gentleman's motion. Madam Speaker, the things that were mentioned by the gentlewoman from the District of Columbia (Ms. Norton) as I tried to make clear throughout, we always expected, and it is the intention in the conference, that more funds are now being made available to the House, which is the amount that we were counting on to provide the full requested funding on the New York Avenue Metro station. That has been the plan all along, that is what is happening; but we did not have the money available to us in the House in our subcommittee previously. It was not that we had the money and spent it elsewhere, we did not have the money. And we were going to say we are going to wipe out everything else, because we knew what was going to happen, and it has happened with or without adopting the motion of the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Moran), the bill, when it finally goes to the President's desk, will have the full funding for the New York Avenue Metro station and the full funding for the college tuition program, because any excess in that program would just be carried through to the next year anyway. We have tried to make that clear. That is not an issue. That is not an issue whatsoever. In the conference report, those are the things that we intend to do, but let us not undo the work of the House of Representatives. We had amendments that this House adopted by voice vote, because the support was so firm. We had an amendment by the gentleman from California (Mr. Bilbray) for example that was adopted in this House by 265 votes, very strong, very bipartisan votes that the gentleman's motion would wipe out. I urge defeat of the motion to instruct conferees, so we can very, very quickly go to conference, get these issues resolved and bring the confercne agreement right back to this floor. Madam Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. ISTOOK. Madam Speaker, I yield 6 minutes to the gentleman from Kansas (Mr. Tiahrt), a member of the subcommittee.

Mr. ISTOOK. Madam Speaker, the gentleman mentioned the effort of the Senate. I was watching, and perhaps the gentleman was, when the Senate brought the bill up. Is the gentleman aware the consideration the Senate gave to this bill on the floor when they brought it up and passed it in about 30 seconds? That was the extent of the consideration, literally 30 seconds.

Mr. ISTOOK. Madam Speaker, I object to the vote on the ground that a quorum is not present and make the point of order that a quorum is not present.

Mr. ISTOOK. I yield to the gentlewoman from the District of Columbia.

Mr. ISTOOK. Mr. Speaker, reclaiming my time, that is not accurate. The $2 billion in grants and such is in addition to the $414 million that the House appropriated. So the total of those is approximately $2.5 billion. And then we have the local funds of about $3 billion. This is significant taxpayers' money. Whether the figure is $2.5 billion, $2 billion, or $400 million, I do not think any of us should say to the taxpayer with a straight face that that is not much money and this Congress should not be concerned about it and just let it go. We should be concerned. Now, the Senate bill has more than the $414 million. They have $448 million. And that is what we have been working to reconcile. Now, I think a false illusion, and it has been fascinating in this process, Mr. Speaker, to see efforts to create a false illusion as though the House were not trying to work, for example, on this New York Avenue Metro station project. The problem is, we do not get money from the President's budget. I realize that Members of his own party can stand up here and say, ``Oh, my goodness, they are not doing what the President's budget says.'' Well, if all we need is the President's budget, we do not need a House of Representatives and we do not need a Senate; just let the President call all the shots and act accordingly. The President does not give us money. The money comes from the taxpayers. And we have budgets within the House and within the Senate. We do not say we can spend as much money as the President says we can spend. We are only allowed to spend as much money as the House says can be spent if it should be spent. And this nonsense about saying, ``Oh, they have not done what the President's budget says;'' we do not always agree with the President. That may be a surprise to some people. Maybe they always do. But I do not always agree, and I try in good faith to work with everyone and work these differences out. As we have said throughout the process, it is really sad to see this effort to try to say to the business community and others in Washington that Congress is not helping with the New York Avenue Metro station. That is balderdash. Number one, we funded to the full extent that we were able to do within the amount of money that had been allocated in our budget. And secondly, we have said from the beginning that we expected when we got to the conference with the Senate that the Senate would have a higher number that would enable us to add the extra money for the New York Avenue Metro station, which is exactly what is happening. I really think it is sad to see this effort to demagogue and say, ``Oh, they are not trying to help on this significant project,'' because we have from day one and that has been the plan all along that the extra money would be received in an allocation when we got to conference so that we would be able to do that. Also a false argument has been made saying, ``Oh, they are not taking care of the college tuition program.'' My goodness, we established that program in this bill last year with bipartisan support, as the gentlewoman mentions, and we have funded every penny that the program required plus a cushion of about 15 percent. I recognize some people want to expand the program and, therefore, they want more money or they want the amount that was originally projected to be needed until they found out how many students were actually participating and we knew then what the actual number was rather than going with an estimate that was done a year or more in advance. We funded the need and then some. But some people say, ``Oh, they have got to give us more than that because we created a number in advance that we projected would be necessary and we are wearing blinders as to what the actual needs of the program are.'' Nevertheless, because the funds that go into that college tuition program remain available for future years and cannot be used for any other purpose we are going to increase the funding for that program. I think what we will end up doing is provide funding in advance for some of the college tuition that will not be spent until more than a year from now. That has been the situation all along. Yet some people try to create an illusion that there has been a different approach toward the college tuition or towards the New York Avenue Metro station. The bill that we have before us should be resolved very soon. We have been working with the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Moran), we have been working with the gentlewoman from the District of Columbia (Ms. Norton), we have been working with the administration, and we certainly have been working with the Senate. We expect that we are going to have this conference completed very quickly and the bill right back out to this Floor so that we can take care of the situation, the timing concern that the gentlewoman from the District mentions. We are sensitive to that. We are trying to move as quickly as we can. But the Senate did not pass its bill until last week, until last Thursday night. The House acted long before that. We have been waiting on the Senate. Now that the Senate has acted, we are able to go to conference, and finish up these details and get it right back here to the House floor. We expect to have this done quickly. Mr. Speaker, I oppose the motion to instruct conferees. As I said in my earlier statement, it is going to blow holes in the District's budget. It is going to create a lot more problems than it might ever solve. I oppose the motion to instruct and ask Members to oppose the motion. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. ISTOOK. Madam Speaker, will the gentleman yield?

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

Mr. ISTOOK. I am referring to the language that is in the House bill, although the gentleman correctly notes that we are working on possible revisions of that to put it in its best form.

Mr. ISTOOK. I yield to the gentleman from Virginia.

Mr. ISTOOK. Reclaiming my time, Mr. Speaker, that is why it is to be added in conference. The District has been working on the language, which they have submitted to us, knowing that it needs to be inserted in the conference report. It is a part of the District's budget. They are relying upon these funds. But without having the conference so that we can insert that language, all other issues aside, the gentleman would blow a greater hole in the District's budget than the gentleman is trying to get them in additional Federal money. Because, as the gentleman points out, the additional Federal money that the Senate bill has that is not in the House bill is about $30 million or $35 million, only half of the hole that we would blow in the District's budget if we did not go to conference. And, of course, as the gentleman is aware, the Federal funds in the House bill, it is kind of like having a checking account or a savings account and drawing against it. We had an allocation for what we could do regarding the District; the Senate had the larger account, and that is the reason they provided a higher level of funding. We have all along expected that more funds would be made available to the House so that we could, for example, provide more Federal funding for the New York Avenue metro station in particular. That has been the plan all along, and it is proceeding accordingly. In addition, of course, to the financial problems that we would cause for the District were we to adopt the motion of the gentleman from Virginia, we would, of course, take out some other things. We would take out several million dollars of the drug testing and treatment program for persons on probation and parole who are required to stay drug free as a condition of remaining free on the streets. The House has the larger amount of money to make sure that we not only have the drug testing to get people locked right back up if they violate that condition of their probation or their parole, but also to provide the drug counseling and treatment that is necessary to try to help people not only to be drug free now but to be that way for the rest of their lives, even after the term of their probation or parole expires. If we adopted the gentleman's language, we would also be taking out $1 million in a public-private housing partnership that is being put together by the Washington Interfaith Network, where the Washington religious community is providing a lot of resources and effort to improve a particular housing project that we have some matching Federal money to work with the private effort that they are putting forth there. If we adopt the language of the gentleman from Virginia, we also would be giving a blank check to the Public Benefit Corporation. Well, what is the Public Benefit Corporation? That is the entity that runs D.C. General Hospital that, in addition to the $45 million subsidy that they receive from the District of Columbia, has been running additional deficits of over $100 million total over these last 3 years. We have language in the House bill that brings the PBC under control, to try to get its finances straightened up. The Senate bill does not have that language. By adopting the Senate bill we would perpetuate the abuse and the misuse, the illegal, I believe, management of funds at the D.C. General Hospital, which right now the Mayor, the Council, and the new members on the PBC board are trying to get a handle on the situation and change the structure of the D.C. General Hospital. If we do not have the incentive in this bill to say to them that they can no longer just take money that was not even budgeted and pour it into D.C. General Hospital, ignoring the law, as the General Accounting Office has made clear is what they have been doing, we will not get the D.C. General Hospital situation under control. We most certainly will not if we just adopt the motion of the gentleman from Virginia. There are a number of things that are either in the House bill or that we have been working to make sure are put into the conference report between the House and the Senate that would be destroyed by the motion of the gentleman. I do not think we want to adopt that motion. I could talk about other things. We could talk about the drug-free zones that would be wiped out; I could talk about the youth tobacco program, trying to keep kids away from tobacco, that the gentleman's motion would wipe out; but I think I have said enough to make the point. I urge Members to oppose the motion of the gentleman from Virginia. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. ISTOOK. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume, and I rise to oppose the motion to instruct made by the gentleman from Virginia. I recognize the gentleman is concerned about the differences between the House-passed and Senate-passed bills and he is willing to take what the Senate has done, but I would certainly disagree with some of the things he wants to accomplish because I think he would defeat his whole purpose if we were to adopt the Senate bill. If we were to adopt the Senate bill, for example, we would create a hole of $61 million in the District's own budget. We would put it out of balance. Why? Because there is language that the Senate does not have that we are poised to put in the conference agreement for what they call the ``tobacco securitization.'' These are proceeds from the tobacco settlement that allows the District a revenue stream to issue securities to be able to use that money in their budget. They need the language provisions that we are working on in the conference report, or they are going to have a hole in their budget. So if we just took the gentleman's recommendation, and he says he is concerned with the finances of the District, we are going to knock a big hole in their budget by doing so.

Mr. ISTOOK. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to take from the Speaker's table the bill (H.R. 4942) making appropriations for the government of the District of Columbia and other activities chargeable in whole or in part against revenues of said District for the fiscal year ending September 30, 2001, and for other purposes, with a Senate amendment thereto, disagree to the Senate amendment, and agree to the conference asked by the Senate.

Mr. ISTOOK. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, let me, as part of my response to some things that have been claimed, take issue with this idea that supposedly the bill consists almost entirely of local funds. In this bill, of the total of about $5.5 billion in operating expenses in the bill, about $3 billion of it is raised locally, about $2 billion of it is different Federal grant programs that comes from the Federal Government; and then over $400 million of it is direct appropriation of Federal funds to the District of Columbia. I do not consider $2.5 billion of Federal money or $400 million of appropriated money--and of course it exceeds that $400 million--I do not consider that to be small potatoes. I consider that to be a lot of taxpayers' money. We do not have that kind of direct appropriation to my hometown. It does not go to Oklahoma City. It does not go to Sacramento. It does not go to Minneapolis or St. Paul or even Chicago. It goes to Washington, D.C., as the Nation's Capital because we have a unique constitutional perspective and mandate regarding the Nation's Capital. Otherwise, we would not have this bill, we would not have a District appropriation.

Mr. ISTOOK

Mr. ISTOOK. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from California for yielding to me. I thank the gentleman from New York (Mr. Gilman) for bringing this legislation up. Mr. Speaker, as a principle sponsor, I think it is good that we talk about what it means for a nation, for Hungary, to celebrate 1,000 years as a Nation. Many of us recall when the United States of America celebrated its bicentennial in 1976. That was for 200 years. We have not yet made it quite to 225 or 250 or 500, much less 1,000 years that Hungary is celebrating. When one looks at the history when they came into the Carpathian Basin and they decided that they wanted to establish permanency, and they wanted to be a key part of Europe, and they had the crowning of Saint Stephen as the first king of Hungary, and founded the state that has endured despite the Nazi occupations, the Soviet occupations. We, who have visited Hungary both before and after the Iron Curtain came down, see the marvelous resiliency of a people who could not be suppressed, who retained everything that they could, that made an example before the world in 1956 as the first nation to try to throw off the yoke of Communist oppression and domination. The Freedom Fighters of Hungary earned a special place in the hearts of the American people. I am proud of the fact that Hungary was the first country under communist domination to break out by holding free elections. As the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Pallone) mentioned, in 1990, when Hungary did that, that really started the collapse of the Iron Curtain. Now this is especially important to me, not just because I visited this beautiful land, but this is the land from which my grandparents came to the United States of America. My father's parents were immigrants from Hungary. My grandfather came here just before the first world war. He became an American citizen. Just after that war, he went back and married my grandmother. James and Rozalia Istook became U.S. citizens. If one has a chance to see the difference, Hungarians as well as so many people from throughout the land gathered to the United States of America and made this the melting pot. Because of that, we feel special kinship and ties to those who remained as well as those who came having had a chance to visit with family that we still have in Hungary before, and to rejoice with them in knowing that they have opportunities because they would not give up. They would not surrender their hearts and their minds and their souls to the communist yoke. In fact, when we were visiting in Hungary before the fall of the Iron Curtain, it was fascinating to us that because of the 1956 revolution and the resistance that they constantly had to the Soviet regime, they were allowed certain economic opportunities and freedoms that other nations in the Communist block did not have, and we found that people there often referred to Hungary as the ``Little USA.'' This was what they were saying among themselves, because they had that same yearning for freedom and for opportunity, economic as well as political. There is a great sharing between our Nation and Hungary, and to know that Hungary has set an example of endurance of a thousand years, I think, is a great challenge for the United States of America. I would love to see the day when the parliament in Hungary is passing a resolution commending the United States of America on 1,000 years as a nation. Anyone who has never had a chance to visit Hungary and Budapest, this is one of the most beautiful spots in the entire world there on the Danube River where the Hungarian parliament is located. So as well as commemorating Hungary, we urge Americans to visit this great land. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from California (Mr. Lantos); and of course, for him, it is not just a matter of his ancestors but himself who was born there, and he sets the example, as I mentioned, of being part of the melting pot: E Pluribus Unum, out of many nations has come one, the United States. And we want to remember this special land of Hungary and congratulate them on their millennium.

Mr. ISTOOK

Mr. ISTOOK. Madam Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days within which to revise and extend their remarks, and that I may include tabular and extraneous material during further consideration of H.R. 4942.

Mr. ISTOOK

Mr. ISTOOK. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Chairman, as the gentlewoman from the District of Columbia (Ms. Norton) correctly states, we were in a situation where her amendment was simply trying to strike language from the bill which would disapprove pending legislation in the District of Columbia. That legislation, since we were here last on this bill, has been pocket vetoed by the mayor of the District of Columbia. Therefore, there is no need to have the language in the bill whereby Congress disapproves that local legislation because, indeed, it has already been disapproved by the action of the mayor. Therefore, there is no need for the language in the bill and certainly I am ready to accept, and I believe our side is ready to accept, the amendment from the gentlewoman. For clarification, for anyone, lest there be any confusion, the amendment that is under consideration right now offered by the gentlewoman from the District of Columbia (Ms. Norton) simply says that Congress is not taking action to disapprove this legislation by the District. However, there remains intact, it is not affected by the amendment, the congressional instructions to the District that any legislation regarding mandatory coverage of contraceptives and insurance must include a conscience clause. The amendment of the gentlewoman from the District of Columbia (Ms. Norton) does not touch that language in the bill. That language remains. I think that is what she is referring to as far as the good faith concerns of a great many Members. Since the item in the bill is moot, there is no need for the language in subsection (a) and I certainly agree to accept the amendment of the gentlewoman from the District of Columbia (Ms. Norton), and if the gentlewoman from the District of Columbia (Ms. Norton) is agreeable, I would like to ask that we both yield back the remainder of our time so we may be done with this item.

Mr. ISTOOK. Mr. Chairman, I ask that the amendment be accepted, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. ISTOOK. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the last word. Mr. Chairman, in closing debate on this bill, first I want to take the opportunity to thank the staff who have worked so hard on this: John Albaugh of my personal staff and the Committee on Appropriations; Chris Stanley, a Congressional Fellow who has been assisting in our office from the U.S. Secret Service; Mary Porter, who is detailed to us from the District Government, and I will say more about her in a moment; the committee staff for the majority, Migo Miconi; the committee staff for the minority, Tom Forhan; and from the personal staff of the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Moran), Tim Aiken. Each of them has put in untold hours of hard work and effort to help bring this bill to the floor, and regardless of where we may stand on different issues, I want to express my appreciation to all of them. In regard to Mary Porter, this Fall she is retiring after 40 years of dedicated service to the District government and to our Committee. She came to the Washington area from Tennessee, worked for an insurance company until 1960 when she went to work for the District Government, and, for the last 40 years has been assisting through the Mayor's office and then on loan to Congress to follow the budget through with the city council, with the Congress, the House, the Senate, and is the undisputed expert of so many things. So, Mary, on behalf of all the subcommittee and the Members, we appreciate your many years of hard effort. I do not know how we could tackle the technical problems we have to face, were it not for your efforts. We appreciate you and we want to thank you. Mr. Chairman, as I stated earlier, Mary Porter has provided more than 40 years of dedicated service to the District of Columbia government and to our Committee. That is an absolutely remarkable achievement--in fact, it is almost unbelievable. For all of those years, Mary has been with the Mayor's office where the budget is prepared. She follows the budget to the Council, and then she comes to Congress and follows it through the House, the Senate and finally the House/Senate conference. She is the technical expert and without question the single most knowledgeable person at any level when it comes to all aspects of the District's budget. In every organization or office there is one person who keeps everything together and running smoothly and who knows not only what needs to be done but also what it takes to get it done. Mary Porter is that person when it comes to the District government's budget. Her technical expertise, knowledge and temperament in putting the bill and report together cannot be matched. Many times Mary has worked 18-hour days and weekends but she was always back on the job bright and early. Mary has always set high standards that others find difficult to attain. Mary came to the District of Columbia from a little town called Deer Lodge in Tennessee in May 1954 just out of high school and found her first job with the Equitable Life Insurance Company. She worked there until the birth of her first child in 1960 when she went to work in the District government's budget office. Back then the District's total budget was $196 million; today 40 years later it is $3.3 billion, a 1,584 percent increase over what it was when she started. I don't believe we can blame Mary for that phenomenal increase. Mary also witnessed the evolution of the governmental structure of the District of Columbia from a three-member Presidentially-appointed commission to a single appointed mayor-commissioner with appointed city council members to an elected mayor and city council form of government. I'm sure she could tell us first hand which form of government was the most efficient and effective in delivering services, but we will not ask her. Mr. Chairman, there is only one Member of this House who was here when Mary first started working for the District government back in July 1960, and he is the Dean of the House. She has assisted the Committee under seven Committee Chairmen: Chairman Clarence Cannon of Missouri, Chairman Mahon, Chairman Whitten, Chairman Natcher, Chairman Obey, Chairman Livingston, and now Chairman Young. On the District of Columbia Subcommittee, she has served under Chairman Rabaut, Chairman Natcher, Chairman Wilson, Chairman Dixon, Chairman Walsh, Chairman Taylor, and now during my tenure. Mr. Chairman, I can attest to the fact that she is a ``professional'' in every sense of the word and has served chairmen and members of our subcommittee of both parties equally, providing them with her best advice and technical support. Mr. Chairman, Mary is not one dimensional. Although she has been employed for the last 46 years, she and her husband Al have managed to raise a wonderful family. Their four children, Harvey, Lorne, Vance, and Vera are successful in their own right. Mary, I know that I speak for the entire subcommittee and for this entire House in wishing you well in your retirement. Your 40 years with the District of Columbia government and your professionalism are a credit to our subcommittee, to the Committee and to the Congress. You are truly a remarkable person. We all thank you very much.

Mr. ISTOOK. Mr. Chairman, I urge adoption of the bill. Sequential Votes Postponed in Committee of the Whole

Mr. ISTOOK. Mr. Chairman, it is important that we address the bill itself. I heard the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Moran) say ``Let's pass the Senate bill.'' Well, there is no Senate bill. The Senate is just beginning their work. The House receives from its Budget Committee an allocation for the District, the Senate receives from its Budget Committee an allocation. There is a difference. I think what the gentleman is referring to is that the Senate Subcommittee on the District of Columbia has been granted $30 million more by the Senate Budget Committee than the House Subcommittee has received from its Budget Committee, and the gentleman wants that additional money. Maybe when we get to conference, some of that additional money will be added and we will have the ability to do some things the gentleman wants to do. But the whole tenor of comments, Mr. Chairman, to say, ``oh, you are not doing this for the District and you are not doing that for the District,'' my goodness, what is the District not doing for itself? This bill has $414 million in direct Federal appropriations for the Government of the District of Columbia, and that is on top of the $1.5 billion they receive from all the Federal programs in which they already participate that other communities around the country are able to participate in. This $414 million is on top of that $1.5 billion and it's given to the city to run their prisons, to run their court system, to run their probation and parole system. On top of that, we have these other things, but they say it is not enough, it is not enough, it is not enough. Why? Because they say ``well, we want another $17 million for the subway project, we want another $3 million for Poplar Point, we want another $3 million for education.'' Let me suggest, Mr. Chairman, that if the District were more diligent in conducting its duties, they would not have these problems. We have the D.C. General Hospital that this Congress has been telling the District for years you have got to get on top of that. They give a $45 million a year annual subsidy to it, and, on top of that, they have been running a deficit of $35 million a year for the last 3 years. If they want to have that money, then the District ought to stop the feather bedding, the cronyism and the mismanagement at D.C. General Hospital. It is long overdue. Some people are trying to do it now, and I applaud them for it, but some others in the District are saying slow down, do not do it. If the District wants money for these projects, why do they not get serious about internal reform? Why do they not take a look at the $20 million that was spent on a payroll system that they have said they now have to scrap because of their incompetence in trying to get things done right? There is money, if you want to have it, for some other use. Why do they not take the $32 million in other reform efforts that are now in jeopardy? Why do they not look at these things, at this waste, rather than just saying whatever you are doing Congress, it is never enough, it is never enough. But the money they say they want for that New York Avenue Metro station, which is attracting private development money too, that money is in the bill. The $25 million they want for it is in the bill. Their objection is saying, ``oh, wait a minute, but $18 million is coming out of this interest-bearing account held by the Control Board that is under the direction of Congress, and we want you to get it from some other account instead.'' Why? Because the Control Board in its last year of operation wants to double its own budget and wants to give golden parachutes to its people, instead of having that money go to the Metro station at New York Avenue. Do not put the bug on Congress for mismanagement by the District of Columbia. There are many people working hard to correct that mismanagement and abuse, and I applaud those officials, but accept responsibility for the problems that the District brings upon itself, and do not try to shift the blame and say it is because Congress has failed to do enough. Yet, we do have funds in here for the unique program that started last year to enable kids from the District of Columbia to go to college since the District does not have a State system of colleges. We have the money in here for that program. We have every penny that all estimates say are needed for the program and then some. But they still say, we want more, no matter what it is, we want more, we want more. We have the money in here for the program of drug testing and drug treatment to a greater extent than anyplace else in the Nation, and yet, they say it is not enough. That program is Federally funded. We have not done that for Detroit, we have not done it for Cincinnati, we have not done it for Minneapolis or Phoenix or many other cities that say, we would like to have some help too. It is about time that some people in the District recognize what this Congress has done to fulfill its responsibility toward the Nation's Capital, what the people in America have supported for the Nation's Capital, and start working together instead of constantly just griping that it is never enough, no matter what we do. We have gone above and beyond, and when we get to conference we may find that we have the ability to get a little more money to do even more. But for goodness sakes, to hear people say ``vote against this bill because we are not doing enough for the District of Columbia'' is nonsense. It is spin, and it is about time people got called on that spin. Mr. Chairman, this is a good, solid, responsible bill. It moves reform in the District of Columbia, it requires accountability, it puts a stop to this endless drain by D.C. General Hospital that if left unchecked will take the city back into insolvency. It requires strengthening of the charter schools which education bureaucrats are trying to strangle right now, even as parents are saying, ``I want my kids in this charter school because it is a public school that gives them an opportunity instead of being trapped in a dead end, nonperforming, dangerous school,'' as many of them are now stuck in. Mr. Chairman, this bill is a bill to take care of the needs of the District of Columbia, to move along reform in the District of Columbia, and to promote responsibility and futures of hope, growth and opportunity. Mr. Chairman, I would like to include in the Record an article on mismanagement and other serious problems, including what some might consider medical malpractice, at DC General Hospital. The article was the cover story in the August 18, 2000 edition of the Washington City Paper. [From the Washington City Paper, Aug. 18-24, 2000] First, Do No Harm (By Stephanie Mencimer) When some D.C. General Hospital doctors talk about putting patients first, they're not being Hippocratic. They're being hypocritical. About a year and a half ago, an inmate from the D.C. Department of Corrections came to D.C. General Hospital for hernia surgery. He hadn't seen his surgeon, Dr. Norma Smalls, in at least a month. But when the man arrived for his procedure, Smalls didn't do a fresh pre-op physical exam--a step that most surgeons regard as routine. Instead, according to former Chief Medical Officer Ronald David and three other hospital sources, Smalls just had the man put under anesthesia and then cut him open--on the wrong side of his body. Finding no hernia, David says, Smalls walked out of the operating room, wrote some notes in the charges, and then looked over the medical records. Realizing her mistake, Smalls had her patient anesthetized once more and cut him open again. Fortunately, the patient recovered. Still, such a ``sentinel event,'' as a blunder like wrong-side surgery is known in the hospital business, is a very big deal, as serious a hospital disaster as an abducted baby or a rape by a staff members. The reason, of course, is that the kind of mistakes that lead to wrong-side hernia operations can lead to amputating the wrong leg or removing a healthy kidney. If D.C. General were a normal hospital, Smalls' blunder would have come under intense scrutiny. The Joint Commission on the Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations (JCAHO) requires hospital medical staff to conduct a ``root-cause analysis'' of any wrong-side surgery and to implement an action plan to prevent such incidents from recurring. A hospital's accreditation is partly based on how its medical staff handles sentinel events. Initially, though, the medical staff wasn't even planning to investigate Smalls' wrong-side surgery, according to David. When pressed by the administration, a committee made up of the chief of surgery, the chief of anesthesiology, and the head of the nursing staff eventually did review each department's role in the case. The nursing administration promptly fired a nurse who was found to be partially culpable. The doctors, however, found no problem with Smalls' performance in the operating room. Dr. Richard Holt, the hospital's chief of surgery, would not comment on the case. Smalls declined to discuss the surgery other than to say, ``I am a physician and citizen of high ethical standards,'' and that the JCAHO, the hospital accrediting body, was satisfied with the hospital's review process. ``I have reams of documentation to show how well that was done,'' she says. Nonetheless, the story of Smalls' surgical mistake spread through the hospital like a staph infection, raising eyebrows among nurses and other technical staff members who had heard constant rumors about her competency, according to several hospital sources. But that didn't stop the physicians from later electing Smalls as president of the D.C. General medical/dental staff. And today, she is head of quality assurance for the hospital's department of surgery. Smalls and some of her colleagues on the D.C. General medical staff have been among the loudest voices complaining about the many problems ailing the District's only public hospital. They have taken their complaints about the hospital administration to the mayor, to the D.C. Council, and directly to Congress. They have demanded the ouster of former CEO John Fairman and even summoned various investigative agencies to scrutinize the hospital, which has run up $109 million in budget overruns and is at risk of being closed down completely. Patients themselves are deserting the hospital in droves: More than 90 percent of Medicaid patients and 97 percent of Medicare patients now go to other, private D.C. hospitals, as do two-thirds of the city's 80,000 uninsured residents, according to D.C. Department of Health figures. Yet during all the recent debate over the future of the city's ailing public health system, few people have ever stopped to ask whether Smalls and some of her medical colleagues might themselves be part of the problem. For years, the medical staff has eluded the demands for accountability that have slowly started to take hold in other parts of D.C. government. Instead, the doctors have successfully portrayed themselves as the lone champions of health care for the poor, which is the one thing that D.C. General inarguably dispenses. Yet internal memos from the D.C. Health and Hospitals Public Benefit Corp. (PBC), the body that oversees the public hospital and its clinics, show that far from improving patient care, Smalls and some of the elected leadership of the medical staff have fought to overturn disciplinary actions against poorly performing physicians and defend doctors' shoddy work habits. Even as they have complained about the quality of the nursing staff and hospital administrators, many of the physicians have fought off requirements to update their own skills, see more patients, and otherwise raise the standards of D.C. public health care. Moreover, past and present hospital administrators say that a vocal minority of those same doctors have played a key role in obstructing the very reforms that might put the PBC on better financial footing. Deairich Hunter is the PBC's former chief of staff and a former staff member for Ward 8 Councilmember Sandy Allen, chair of the Health and Human Services Committee, which oversees the PBC. When he worked for the council, Hunter spent much of his time trying to save D.C. General. When he came to work for the PBC last year, though, he says, ``I started to wonder what it was that I was saving.'' To be sure, many of the 170 doctors who work for the PBC are devoted professionals who have a real commitment to public health care and labor under difficult circumstances. But then there are the others: the twice-bankrupt, many-times-sued OB- GYN and the former chief of trauma who allegedly saw only eight patients in a month, despite being paid for full-time work. The city's doctors are emboldened by the same civil-service protections that make all D.C. government employees nearly impossible to fire, and they are largely immune from outside accreditation investigators, who evaluate hospital procedures, not physician competency. Duly insulated, the PBC's doctors have successfully chased out reform-minded administrators who have attempted to rein them in. ``Using a good offense as their best defense, the medical staff has avoided accountability for years,'' says one hospital administrator, who wishes to remain anonymous. The bureaucrats' attack on reformers is a time-honored D.C. government tradition. Such behavior has made city agencies like the Department of Motor Vehicles merely infuriating, but in a hospital, the consequences can be deadly. It's no surprise that even as D.C. councilmembers go to bat for the jobs of city doctors, the poorest city residents are taking their business elsewhere. Last August, D.C. General OB-GYN John S. Selden III featured prominently in a front-page story in the New York Times about racial disparities among women who die in childbirth. ``Most obstetricians are afraid to talk about losing patients,'' the story read. ``But the doctors at D.C. General are surprisingly direct. Dr. John S. Selden, who has worked at the hospital on and off for the last 13 years, told of a death that occurred just a few months ago.'' The woman Selden described died on the operating table, moments after a Caesarean section at D.C. General. Selden was something of an odd choice for the hospital to offer up as a national expert. Had the Times interviewed some of his former patients, the paper might have discovered that Selden has a somewhat blemished record as a physician. But his story helps illustrate why some doctors at D.C. General are often so militant about protecting their jobs. In the past 20 years, Selden has been sued at least six times, racking up some huge settlements. In 1984, Selden treated a pregnant woman named Vanessa Black who had come to Greater Southeast Community Hospital suffering from vaginal bleeding. Selden discharged her the next day with instructions for strict bed rest, without determining whether it was safe for her to move. Black was still spotting, and a day later, she went into labor, had a emergency C-section because of hemorrhaging, and delivered a brain-damaged baby. In 1993, Greater Southeast settled a suit filed by Black's family for $1.3 million. Another case is currently pending, filed by Cherif Abraham Haidara, alleging that during a 1997 delivery at D.C. General, Selden caused traumatic nerve injury to her baby's arm, rendering the arm useless. In this case, the family isn't likely to get a dime if it prevails in court, because Selden has no assets to speak of, having filed for bankruptcy protection twice in the past 15 years. And at the time of Haidara's delivery, he had no malpractice insurance. Ordinarily, as a city employee, Selden wouldn't have needed malpractice insurance, because he would have been insured by the District. But Selden was working at D.C. General on a contract with the Medical Services Group, a private practice consisting of several OB-GYNs who had retired from D.C General in 1995 and had immediately gotten a $2.9 million emergency contract from the hospital. The contract allowed the doctors to earn significantly more than they would have as hospital employees. After the Office of the D.C. Auditor criticized the contract for various improprieties, the hospital canceled it in 1997. D.C. General provided most of the group's clients, so when it canceled the contract, the practice shut down. During that last year, when Haidara's baby was born, the Medical Services Group doctors were carrying no malpractice insurance. They blamed the city, which they claimed was supposed to pay for the insurance. (The doctors are currently suing the District over the issue.) According to his deposition in the Haidara case, Selden remained unemployed for about a year after his practice collapsed, and he eventually filed for bankruptcy protection. Later, he went to work for Planned Parenthood for about six months before D.C. General rehired him in March of last year. Selden could not be reached for comment. Given Selden's history, it might seem strange that D.C. General would be eager to have him back. But thanks to city pay-scale restrictions, the hospital is fairly desperate for specialists like OB-GYNs, whom it needs to maintain its accreditation. D.C. law bars city employees from making more than the mayor's salary, which for most of the 1990s was about $90,000. The going salary for an OB-GYN in the private sector is nearly $300,000. (The mayor's salary has since gone up, to about $120,000, but doctors' salaries have remained capped at $99,000.) Lawrence Johnson, the medical director at D.C. General for 15 years until 1997, says the salary cap has always been problematic in keeping the hospital staffed up. ``We couldn't keep a full-time specialist in some cases,'' he says, adding that the hospital has always relied on a patchwork quilt of coverage. ``It's not the kind of arrangement that lends itself to building stability.'' The PBC's poor pay--among the worst in the nation--combined with difficult working conditions and old-fashioned crony politics has helped make D.C. General a virtual dumping ground for troubled doctors. Alongside doctors like Selden, the hospital employs physicians who have left other troubled city facilities, like the D.C. Jail and the old city-run nursing home, D.C. Village, which was closed after a suit by the Justice Department, following the deaths of more than 30 residents from poor medical care. Another of the hospital's former medical directors is Dr. William Hall, former Mayor Marion S. Barry Jr.'s longtime eye doctor, who was the medical director of the D.C. Department of Corrections when the jail medical services landed in receivership for abysmal treatment of inmates in 1995. A federal judge seized control of the services shortly after an inmate with AIDS died while tied to a wheelchair, where he has sat in his own feces, neglected, for several days. Hall went on to do a brief stint as D.C. General's medical director and is still employed at the hospital as an ophthalmologist. Conventional wisdom holds that the trauma surgeons at D.C. General are among the hospital's best doctors, because of their experience in handling life-threatening gunshot wounds and other medical crises. Despite their reputation, though, no data exist to prove whether D.C. General trauma surgeons are any better than, say, Washington Hospital center's. And there's some evidence to suggest that they might be worse. In 1995, an ambulance transported a transgendered man, Tyrone Michael (aka Tyra) Hunter, to the emergency room at D.C. General, where he later died after doctors failed to drain blood that had pooled near his heart, according to a lawsuit filed by Hunter's mother, Margie Hunter. Her lawyer, Richard Silber, learned during the litigation that Joseph Bastien, the trauma surgeon who had treated Hunter in the emergency room, had flunked his surgical board exams three times and was not certified as a surgeon. In fact, out of the eight attending physicians in the trauma unit at the time, five were not board-certified, including the unit's acting chief, Dr. Paul Oriaifo. (Two of those noncertified doctors still work at the hospital.) In 1998, a jury awarded Margie Hunter $2.3 million, and the city last week settled the case for $1.75 million. Silber says he was astonished at the poor qualifications of some of the trauma surgeons at D.C. General. ``There are terrific public hospitals in this country. Just because they are public doesn't mean they have to have incompetent care,'' he notes. It's 8:30 a.m. on Wednesday, July 5, and already the D.C. General orthopedic clinic is full of people on crutches or in wheelchairs, or sporting casts, slings, or metal staples in their knees. A man in a wheelchair with a full head rack and pins keeping his neck straight closes his eyes and exhales slowly. Almost 50 people have arrived in the basement of the hospital. Kenneth Reid, here for his broken knee, knows he's in for a long wait. ``Last time I was here, I had a 9 a.m. appointment, and I didn't get done until 4,'' Reid says. The clinic is open only on Mondays and Wednesdays, and the staff schedules patients for appointments between 8 a.m. and 10:30 a.m. Even then, it's first come, first served. So people line up early and then hunker down in front of the TV. With luck, they'll get their blood pressure taken by the time Bob Barker wraps up The Price Is Right. If you feel really bad, Reid says, you can go to the emergency room. Or you can employ Monica Parker's strategy; the fake faint. Parker, who recently broke both her legs, says she once got so tired of waiting that she staged a collapse on the way to the ladies' room. ``I got right in,'' she says with a laugh. ``You got to fall out right where everyone can see.'' An elderly man who gives his name only as Oscar, who has been waiting almost a year for surgery on his hip, knows the system pretty well. ``The whole thing is not to have the doctors waiting to see the patients,'' he explains. There's no chance any doctors will be waiting today. Medical residents doing training as part of the Howard University Medical School do most of the work here, but they haven't arrived yet. That's because on Wednesday mornings, the residents have to attend a meeting at Howard University Hospital. They usually don't show up at the clinic until 10 a.m., even though patients have been sitting here for two hours by then. And as for the staff doctors, well, none of the patients seem to know when they get in. Oscar says the attending physicians alternate covering the clinic because most of them also work somewhere else. Elaborating some common hospital folklore, Oscar explains confidently, ``The hospital can't afford to pay doctors for 40 hours a week.'' The hospital does in fact pay the clinic's attending physicians almost $100,000 annually for full-time work, but conversations with other patients make it easy to see how Oscar came to that conclusion. While dozens of patients watch Maury Povich berating moms for dressing so sexy that they embarrass their children, a woman in a bright-red dress and heels storms out of the clinic door, cursing the people behind Booth 2. She comes back later and throws herself into a chair. ``I had three appointments. They made me come in. The doctor wasn't here,'' fumes Mary E. Muschette. ``This is the fourth appointment. One day I was here at 7:30 and left at 3 after I found out that they had discharged me without seeing me. I've made this appointment since April for a jammed finger. Every time I've been here, no doctor.'' Muschette says she is supposed to see a specialist, but adds, ``He's never here. If I had a job and did that, I'd be in trouble.'' Muschette's furious tirade is more entertaining than Povich, and it sets off a round of complaints and affirmations from the other patients. ``I never see the doctor who signs the prescriptions,'' Parker says, ``I've only seen him once, and that was at Howard. He is on all my paperwork, though.'' Dr. Easton Manderson, the chief of orthopedics, is himself the subject of patient complaints about scheduling. An inmate at Lorton, David Spencer, is currently suing Manderson in federal court for allegedly bumping him off the surgical schedule for more than a year, delaying a bone graft on his arm and, he says, causing partial paralysis. Spencer filed the suit pro se, but a federal judge believed Spencer had a strong enough complaint that he took the unusual step of appointing a lawyer to represent Spencer. But Manderson is a busy man. Along with his full-time job at D.C. General, he also has two private practices. On Tuesdays, Wednesday, Fridays, and some Saturdays, he works at his Providence Hospital office. Then, on Tuesdays after 5 p.m., he works at his Eastern Avenue office in Maryland. Yet Manderson managed to collect $23,866 in overtime at D.C. General last year, according to documents provided by the