Ernest Istook

Mr. ISTOOK

Mr. ISTOOK. Mr. Chairman, I ask unanimous consent that the remainder of the bill through page 53 line 14 be considered as read, printed in the Record, and open to amendment at any point.

Mr. ISTOOK. Mr. Chairman, I reserve a point of order on the amendment.

Mr. ISTOOK. Mr. Chairman, I rise in opposition to the amendment, as well as reserving a point of order. What is happening with charter schools in the District of Columbia is that parents and students are flocking to them because they offer an escape from the bureaucracy that governs the District's schools, that assumes the cash, that has one of the highest per-pupil funding rates in the country; but where the cash ends up in a bureaucracy not helping out in the classroom with Johnny and Suzy. Charter schools have now attracted over 10 percent of the student enrollment, moving toward 15 percent of the students in the public schools in the District of Columbia. Charter schools are themselves public schools but they do not get stuck with the same bureaucracy, and parents want these charter schools. They are sending their kids to them. But what is happening, Mr. Chairman, is that the bureaucracy is striking back. Not openly, not out in the open, but using their weapon of choice, red tape, and strangling the charter schools when they try to do something. Charter schools are supposed to have the same access to public resources as public schools do. We did not create this, Mr. Chairman, but the control board had an order that they issued in 1998 saying that if a charter school wanted to match the bid price of a vacant school, and they have tons of them in the District of Columbia, if a charter school wanted to match the bid price, because they were also part of the public school system, that if the price was a million dollars or less, they would get a 25 percent discount; if the price was over a million dollars, it would be 15 percent. That is where this language providing discounts comes from. It is the standard the control board approved. But guess what? Let me tell my colleagues a couple of things. Charter schools found when they tried to make the leases, the process was being dragged out. Let me tell my colleagues the story of the Franklin School. The Franklin School had bids solicited for this vacant property in February of 1998. There was an appraisal made so the taxpayer would be protected. The appraisal was $4.1 million, and the successful bidder was a charter school. But then the emergency board of education trustees said, well, we want to oppose this, and the control board rejected the bid. Why? Well, the control board said they found out there was an assessment and the District claimed the building is worth more than the $4 million, that it is worth $15 million. And they hung on to that claim for months and months as a reason, until somebody finally went back to the District and checked the records, and the District had changed its own assessment, but no one bothered to ask the District about it. The District had agreed. They had changed it back in June of 1999 that the assessed value was $4.2 million, right in line with the appraisal of $4.1 million. Despite the successful bid of the charter school, which is now, gosh, Mr. Chairman, it is a year and a half old now, the D.C. schools and their bureaucracy are dragging their feet and refusing to let the building be used for a charter school. They just drag it out. Never any overt actions; just we are waiting on this, we are waiting on that. Mr. Chairman, we have to cut through the red tape sometime. Now, I want to work with the gentlewoman from the District; I want to work with the gentleman from Virginia, the ranking member; and I want to work with the District people and the school people. I just want to make sure that they want to work with the charter schools. The charter schools are public schools. They have the same rights, because they represent and teach the same kids, the same source of kids, and we have to stop the bureaucracy from trying to strangle them. The general provisions in the bill just put in common sense requirements to make sure they get equal treatment. We could delve into the details, but as I said, they could change as we work through this process. We want to protect the kids, whether they attend a regular public school or a charter school. They need protection. They need a good solid education so that they can have a future of hope and growth and opportunity. Mr. Chairman, we certainly oppose the amendment that tries to take out these efforts at reform, but we do want to continue to work with everyone involved to make these provisions the best they can be. Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. ISTOOK. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself the balance of my time. I appreciate the gentleman's concern, Mr. Chairman. I want to assure him this is not about displacing anyone, and certainly I do not believe the amendment does what the gentleman claims, but I understand the bona fide concern to make sure that it does not. We have been working both directly and indirectly with the mayor's office and other entities involved and will continue to do so. Point of Order

Mr. ISTOOK. Mr. Chairman, I make a point of order against the amendment because it violates the rules of the House since it calls for the en bloc consideration of two different paragraphs in the bill. The precedents of the House are clear in this matter: ``Amendments to a paragraph or section are not in order until such paragraph or section has been read.'' Cannon's Precedents, Volume 8, section 2354. I ask for a ruling from the Chair.

Mr. ISTOOK. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. I am going to have a somewhat mixed response to the comments by the gentlewoman from the District of Columbia. What we are talking about here has not, I do not think, been fully stated, and it needs to be. I believe the date was July 11 when the Council had its meeting. At that meeting, an ordinance came up for consideration requiring placing a mandate compelling employers in the District of Columbia to make one portion of health insurance coverage be that contraceptives would be covered, that they would be part of the benefit. Now, we could have a separate debate, we are not going to, but we could have a separate debate about what happens when you keep putting different mandates on health insurance. No matter how common sense some particular mandate may seem to some people, it still drives up the cost. It is like every time you buy a car, they say, do you want this option or that option, or anything else that you purchase that you have got options, the more options you choose, the higher it costs. The same thing is true, of course, with health insurance. If you require that people cannot buy health insurance unless you get it with all these options, then you find that nobody can buy plain coverage. Just like they could not buy a plain car if they had to buy the ones with all the options with it. Now, that is a separate issue because frankly it is not the core of the debate but that is where it started. They said we want to mandate. We want to make sure if you are an employer in the District of Columbia and you are offering health care benefits, you cannot do it unless you include coverage for contraceptives. In the process of doing so, there had been a lot of work behind the scenes and a lot of debate and a lot of effort by the D.C. Council and by people within the community bringing up the issue of a conscience clause. The Catholic Church, and entities affiliated with it, which has religious beliefs that are negative toward contraceptives, at least in the way that many other people may look at them, but the Catholic Church is a major employer in the District of Columbia. Georgetown University, the hospital services they provide, I will mention maybe as part of the laundry list later, but the point is they said, ``For us and for other people, you are asking us to be doing something that is against our beliefs. You shouldn't do that.'' We have got the first amendment protecting religion in this country. And what happened--and people saw it on TV, and they read about it--was that a little bit of a fire storm developed because rather than accommodating a good faith request for a conscience clause for people who have a religious or moral problem with providing contraceptives, the D.C. Council ran roughshod over them. Not only that, they conducted a hearing that was vitriolic toward people of faith in general and the Catholic Church in particular. That did not sit well with this Congress. That did not sit well with a great many people in the District. That did not sit well with people in the country. So we put in the bill a simple provision under our authority, under our obligation of article 1, section 8 of the Constitution, to have the legislative authority over the District of Columbia, saying this proposed law, that I believe ultimately was even adopted unanimously by the D.C. Council, this proposed law shall not take effect, cannot do it. And if you come back to fix things, to adopt a conscience clause, make sure that it covers religious beliefs and moral convictions, which is the law that is found in the Federal standard that we have adopted, for example, for the Federal employees health benefit plan. The Federal standard provides coverage for contraceptives but does not mandate that it has to be done so in violation of a religious belief or a moral conviction of the employer, employee and so forth. So we have got that in there. The gentlewoman from the District of Columbia, however, makes an objection to the portion, and to her credit she is not asking that we strike the entire section, she is not asking that and nobody should think that she is. She is not asking that we strike the section that says if they come back and do something again, they must provide a conscience clause for religious belief and moral conviction. What she is requesting is that we strike the part that says this proposed law shall not go into effect. Well, why? Because, she says, having been subjected to this fire storm, the mayor and the council have learned and they have made public statements that they intend to do this and the mayor has made a public statement, indeed he has done so to me in writing, that he intends to do a pocket veto of the bill. Now, that legislation was passed by the D.C. Council a couple of weeks ago, and he has had an opportunity to veto this legislation. He has had the opportunity. He could just take it, write veto, and it is vetoed. And then what is left for us to do? Instead, he said he wants to use a procedure that drags it out, that gives them, I think it is about 10 business days or so, that may ultimately result in vetoing that legislation which so many people find so offensive, but he has not done it yet. We are dealing with the here and now. We are talking about the current circumstances, which is that this provision is alive, and people want to look to us and they say, ``We don't want you to demonstrate the disregard for religious convictions and beliefs of people of faith in this country that was demonstrated by the Council in the District of Columbia.'' They want to make sure that we take action to show which side we are on on this issue. If we do not use our opportunity to disapprove it, who are we siding with? The mayor could veto this bill, the bill that was passed by the D.C. Council. He could veto it. He has chosen not to do so. He has said he will do it with a pocket veto in the future. I believe him. Nevertheless, right now it is a live issue. And since a live issue is before us and people in the District government knew the basic schedule of when this bill would come to the floor, they could have taken action before it got to this point. They have not chosen to do so. The D.C. Council could have gotten together and said, we rescind, we take back what we did. They have not done that. They have had time to do it. They have not done it. People want to know where we stand. I believe that we, under the situation as it exists now, should not accept this amendment, we should oppose it, but certainly we look forward to the future when the D.C. Council and the mayor will actually take action, not just say they are going to do something but will actually take action to fix this situation. Mr. Chairman, I would like to include a letter from the National Conference of Catholic Bishops and printed excerpts from D.C. Council proceedings on this issue. National Conference of Catholic Bishops, Washington, DC, July 25, 2000. To Hon. Ernest Istook, Jr. Dear Member of Congress: As the House of Representatives considers the District of Columbia appropriations bill for Fiscal Year 2001, I write to explain the need for strong conscience protection in the bill's provision on mandated contraceptive coverage. As approved by committee, the bill prevents implementation of the D.C. City Council's proposal to force all employers in the District of Columbia, to buy coverage for a broad range of contraceptives and abortifacient ``morning-after'' drugs for their employees. The bill also expresses the intent of Congress that any future D.C. legislation on this issue include a conscience clause that ``provides exceptions for religious beliefs and moral convictions.'' On the House floor there may be an effort to delete or weaken this provision, possibly by deleting conscience protection based on moral convictions. Congress should reject such a change. We object to a government mandate for contraceptive coverage generally. At a time when tens of millions of Americans lack even the most basic health coverage, effort to mandate elective drugs and devices which raise serious moral problems and can pose their own health risks are misguided. In addition, any such mandate will cause needless injustice if it does not provide full protection to those who object for reason of conscience. This is so for several reasons: Narrow Language Protecting only Churches Is Inadequate. City Council members who strongly favor the contraceptive mandate offered a concscience clause protecting only ``religious organizations'' when they approved their bill July 11. But they defined a ``religious organization'' so narrowly that it would exclude hospitals, universities, religiously affiliated social service agencies such as Catholic Charities, and even Catholic elementary schools. An organization could qualify for exemption only it its ``primary purpose'' is the ``inculcation of religious beliefs''--and as a Council member observed, Catholic schools teach subjects other than religion. The Council also would have assessed a fine against each religious organization claiming an exemption; the fine would defray the costs of investigations by the D.C. Insurance Commissioner to ensure that the organization is ``reglious enough.'' Council members who support genuine conscience protection rightly declined the offer of ``protection'' framed in this way. A vague requirement to protect only ``religious beliefs,'' however, may invite renewed mischief of this kind. Moral Concerns and Abortifacient Drugs. The D.C. mandate requires coverage of all prescription drugs and devices approved by the FDA for contraception, including, what the FDA calls ``postcoital emergency contraception.'' Aside from specifically religious concerns, there is broad agreement that such drugs often work by destroying an early human embryo. This raises moral concerns about early abortion which transcend any particular religion. Congress itself bans federal funding of experiments that harm or destroy human embryos in the first two weeks of life--a sound moral decision based on no one religious belief. Congress should not deny the same right of morally based decision making to others. Federal Precedent on Rights on Conscience. Numerous conscience clauses in federal law protect conscientious objection based on both religious and moral grounds, in contexts ranging from capital punishment to abortion and sterilization. Many state laws are similarly broad. These are based on a sound understanding that forcing someone to engage in activity that violates his or her deeply held conscientious beliefs is a violation of human rights and an abuse of government. Clearly, not all conscientious moral convictions are based on religious belief. Indeed, Congress protects medical residency programs from being forced to provide abortion training regardless of whether their opposition is morally based, because abortion is simply not the kind of practice which anyone should be forced to participate in for any reason. Current protections against forced participation in abortion and sterilization also extend to organizations as well as individuals. To retreat from this tradition now in favor of narrower and more grudging protection restricted to religious belief alone would send an ominous signal regarding the U.S. government's respect for rights of conscience. Protecting Individuals' Conscience Rights. By mandating prescription contraceptive coverage in health plans, the government increases the pressure on individual physicians and pharmacists in these plans to violate their own consciences. Even without a government mandate, pharmacists' careers have been endangered when they refuse on moral grounds to fill prescriptions for abortifacient ``emergency contraception'' (see J. Allen, ``Morning-after pill'' battles flare: Patients, doctors, druggists in birth-control tug of war,'' Washington Times, May 27, 1997, p. A3). In light of such cases, the American Pharmaceutical Association and other organizations have urged respect for rights of ``conscientious refusal'' which they do not confine to religious grounds. Codes of medical ethics, as well, generally speak of physicians' right to refuse participation in activities they find immoral or unethical. The federal government has already enacted conscience protection based on both religious and moral convictions for health care personnel in health plans providing coverage to federal employees. It should do no less here, attending as well to employees who could be forced by government to purchase morally objectionable contraceptive coverage or forgo prescription drug coverage altogether. We believe contraceptive mandates should not be imposed on private organizations. But if some form of mandate is adopted, effective protection for conscientious objection on both moral and religious grounds should be ensured. Sincerely yours, Rev. Msgr. Dennis M. Schnurr, General Secretary.

Mr. ISTOOK. Madam Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Madam Chairman, although I think everyone wants to continue the debate tomorrow, I do find it necessary to take at least 30 seconds, because I think a couple of things need to be said. I certainly would not endorse and extend the attacks on the Catholic Church or any other church, whether the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Moran) wishes to do so is his free speech right. I fear that he has added fuel to the fire rather than trying to suppress it. In response to the gentlewoman from the District (Ms. Norton), I said clearly, and I will repeat it, the mayor said in writing to me that he intends to do the pocket veto of the bill, and I believe him. That does not change the fact that it has not been vetoed; it remains a live issue where people expect this Congress to do something. It is a live issue until such time as the veto has indeed occurred. Madam Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. ISTOOK. Madam Chairman, I move that the Committee do now rise.

Mr. ISTOOK

Mr. ISTOOK. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that during further consideration of H.R. 4942 in the Committee of the Whole pursuant to House Resolution 563 no further amendment to the bill shall be in order except, one, pro forma amendments offered by the chairman or ranking minority member of the Committee on Appropriations or their designees for the purpose of debate; two, the amendments printed in House Report 106-790; three, the additional amendment printed in the Congressional Record and numbered 23, which shall be debatable for 40 minutes; and, four, the additional amendment printed in the Congressional Record and numbered 13, which shall be debatable for 10 minutes. Each additional amendment shall be debatable for the time specified equally divided and controlled by the proponent and an opponent, shall not be subject to amendment, and shall not be subject to a demand for a division of the question in the House or in the Committee of the Whole.

Mr. ISTOOK

Mr. ISTOOK. Mr. Speaker, I want prescription drugs to be available and affordable, but this is not the way to do it. If something is overpriced, it's nonsense to have government step in and agree to pay that inflated price. That is not good stewardship of public money. Congress should be holding hearings about price-fixing allegations, and about whether there is price-gouging of American patients, to subsidize overseas sales of prescription drugs. But if costs are exorbitant, it's wrong-headed to use tax dollars to pay those inflated prices. That will not bring the prices down. Instead, there is a stampede to buy the votes of senior citizens, by spending enormous amounts of taxpayers' money on a new entitlement. I'm not joining that stampede to buy votes with taxpayers' money. I'm disappointed that fellow Republicans would abandon principles to buy votes with promises of a huge new government program. Yet the Democrat plan is worse; its cost is about double. Both sides are in a bidding war, and both are bidding with taxpayers' money. The cost of the GOP plan is not ``only'' $8 billion a year. The official projection says it soon will be $28 billion a year and probably it will be even higher. It would be automatic spending, which would go on forever. This is how our national debt was created, and why it's so tough to balance the budget and pay down the debt. Medicare is already in major financial trouble. You don't fix it by adding more spending, when it's already costing too much and delivering too little. For example, if the foundation of your house is crumbling, you don't build a new third story. Instead, you fix the foundation before you consider adding on. That's what we should do with Medicare. Medicare's government bureaucracy doesn't even pay hospitals (especially rural hospitals) the cost of the care they provide. That drives up medical costs for everyone who is not on Medicare. This is part of what we should fix first, before promising an new expensive benefit.

Mr. ISTOOK

Mr. ISTOOK. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Porter) for allowing me to speak on this amendment. Mr. Chairman, the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Pelosi), in offering this amendment, correctly states that drugs are a huge problem in the United States. They destroy lives. They destroy lives of people who voluntarily get involved with drugs. I would hope that we would put some emphasis on self-responsibility into any debate such as this. I know that the gentlewoman is wanting to give assistance through drug treatment programs to help people that have gotten themselves caught in drugs to get out of it. That is good, but it is not as though we are not doing anything. Among the multiple billions and billions of dollars of tax money that is spent to combat drugs, on top of the private plans and the private money that goes to combat them, but one part of the tax money that we already have is $2.7 billion for the very program to which the gentlewoman wants to add another $600 million. Yet to hear some people talk, one would think that we are not doing anything and that somehow the people who are not using drugs are responsible for those who are using drugs. Now, we want to help them. We want to help them get out of that cycle, but it is not done by trying to say it is penny-pinching Republicans that somehow are at fault. No. It is the people who use drugs that are at fault, and we are trying to help them. We are trying to help society. We have a $2.7 billion substance abuse treatment program already. So let us not pretend that nothing is being done. For goodness' sakes, let us have some priorities. We have an overall budget of the amount to spend because one of the other things that has drained so much from this country is when we have had these massive Federal deficits that obscenely push debt on to our kids and our grandkids and destroy their futures, just as drugs destroy them. One of the drugs is addiction to Federal spending. When we have had deficits of hundreds of billions of dollars each year, it is because people offer amendments that say let us just spend another $600 million; I do not know where it will come from, but let us just spend it. They say, well, our proposal is do not lower anyone's taxes. We had a vote on lowering taxes in this House last week. It received bipartisan support; two-thirds of the House, on the estate tax, on the death tax. That is one of many tax proposals. I know some people say look, do not give relief to people that have been supporting the highest level of taxes since World War II. We have an addiction here in Washington that many people have to spending and just spend and spend and spend. That is every bit as damaging to this country as the addiction of people that are on drugs. We have got to break both of those habits. So we are funding substance abuse programs. We are funding huge amounts of it. But let us also make sure that we set an example and not have Washington politicians that are addicted to spending and say, to stop one addiction, we will feed another. That is not going to work. This amendment, if the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Pelosi) wants to offer a cut someplace else to offset that spending, that might be in order. I cannot support the adoption of this amendment. I urge a no vote.

Mr. ISTOOK

Mr. ISTOOK. Mr. Speaker, on rollcall No. 254, I was unable to attend and vote due to a family medical emergency. Had I been present, I would have voted ``aye.''

Mr. ISTOOK

Mr. ISTOOK. Mr. Speaker, due to a family medical emergency, I was unable to vote on H.R. 8, the Death Tax Elimination Act of 2000. Had I been in Washington, I would have voted yes. I regret that I was not able to vote on this very important bill to help reduce the enormous tax burden on the American public. I was also unable to vote on the amendment to remove the prohibition on the Occupational Safety and Health Administration's (OSHA) proposed ergonomics regulations. I would have voted to keep the prohibition.

Mr. ISTOOK

Mr. ISTOOK. Mr. Chairman, I appreciate the time from the gentleman from Illinois. The gentleman from Illinois has done great, thankless work for so many years in trying to craft together one of the most controversial bills that comes before us each and every year. You could not find a finer gentleman whether you agree or disagree with him on different issues. He has handled himself very well and deserves our appreciation for that. Mr. Chairman, this bill at the same time represents some of the best things and some of the worst things in this Congress. I appreciate the bipartisan cooperation working with the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Obey) and the gentlewoman from New York (Mrs. Lowey) on a couple of things that are in this bill. To say that when the Federal Government is purchasing computers that go in public schools and we are spending hundreds of millions of dollars for that, that we want to make sure that filters are on that so that they are not being exposed to Internet pornography through a computer paid for by taxpayers, that is a bipartisan effort. That is in here. That is good. We also have in here an expansion of the Federal programs trying to promote abstinence among teenagers. If you want to reduce out-of- wedlock pregnancies and births, tell kids that they ought to be waiting until marriage. We have had hundreds of millions of dollars, billions of dollars in Federal money teaching a so-called safe sex message. It is about time we start promoting a message that promotes our values and the right decisions. That is in here, thanks to bipartisan support. Yet we hear people say, well, this bill is not spending enough. This bill is spending $12 billion more in optional spending than last year. I heard one speaker talk about a figure of a 15 percent increase. Yet some people say, oh, you're cutting this and you're cutting that, you're cutting things. Come on. Get real. If you want to say it is below the President's request, that is fine. That is honest. But to say that it is cutting, no, that is not. Mr. Chairman, this bill deserves our support. It spends more than many of us want to spend but for goodness sakes, do not claim it spends less.

Mr. ISTOOK. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the requisite number of words. Mr. Chairman, I appreciate the concern of the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Jackson) with employment of people, and I find it interesting to hear some descriptions, because I keep hearing from the White House and from the administration talk about the booming American economy. I know we had new figures in Oklahoma that show we have the lowest unemployment, which means the best employment, in decades; under 3 percent. It may be different in the gentleman's district or in the gentleman's State, but right now businesses all over the country are saying that we have got to give them more visas to bring immigrants in from other countries to do the jobs because there are so many jobs available in the United States of America. And yet it sounds like the gentleman is saying, gosh, we have to help people find work. If we look at these programs, because I know some are like summer jobs initiatives, hundreds of millions of dollars proposed so that mayors in cities all over the country can put on these seminars and say, oh, this is the mayor's summer job fair for youth. And it happens in most every city in the country. How many people know that that is coming out of the Federal Treasury, so mayors all over the country can claim responsibility for kids working? Except a lot of those are, frankly, make work jobs. They are not really working. Some of them are sitting around listening to music but being paid for it. I realize that is not always the case, and I know that is not what the gentleman from Illinois intends. But when employment is up and unemployment is down, they say, well, the answer is we have to spend more on Federal job programs. And, of course, if employment is down and unemployment is up, they say, oh, that is another sign we need to spend more money on Federal job programs. Whether times are good, times are bad, times are indifferent there is only one answer we hear; we have to spend more. Why? Not because there is a real need. The need, as people see it, is political. They want to tell people if they want to work, they are going to be beholden to a politician, because we want their first, their first effort to be to turn to some sort of Federal job program so that a Congressman or a mayor or somebody else in politics can claim credit for getting them work. Well, let me tell my colleagues, the economy does not boom because government is out there with make-work programs or Federal work programs. It booms when we enable businesses, private individuals, to flourish and hire people. And believe me, there are tons of jobs out there for kids this summer and for adults as well. That is what we want. But is there not ever a moment of relief when we say we have had some success with getting the American economy going so there are opportunities for people if they are just willing to take them? We say, oh, no, no, we cannot do that. We have to have more Federal money instead. Why not relieve the tax burden on people, not have so many Federal programs, not teach them that they should be beholden to somebody in politics for the right to work? Teach them self-accountability, teach them the free enterprise system. We have tons of Federal job programs already, billions of dollars each year, and I do not think it is justified to say we should quit paying down the national debt so that, instead, we can add another $200 million to these spending programs. I do not think that is the way to go.

Mr. ISTOOK

Mr. ISTOOK. Mr. Speaker, on rollcall No. 241, I was unavoidably detained. Had I been present, I would have voted ``yea.''

Mr. ISTOOK

Mr. ISTOOK. Madam Chair, I will make sure an additional copy is sent to the gentleman immediately.

Mr. ISTOOK. Madam Chairman, is there any way that someone who, in good faith, has sought to offer an amendment to this bill can avoid this filibuster tactic?

Mr. ISTOOK. Will expire at 2:30. So that any time consumed by this amendment, should it consume all the remaining time between now and 2:30, would have the effect of preventing the House from considering the other pending amendments?

Mr. ISTOOK. Madam Chairman, under the rule, is it correct that remaining debate time, which must include the additional amendments which have been prefiled and are to be offered the remaining time for debate, is limited to 1 hour? So that if everyone keeps speaking on this, they are effectively trying to stifle the consideration of other amendments?

Mr. ISTOOK. Madam Chairman, an inquiry of the Chair.

Mr. ISTOOK. Madam Chairman, this is the amendment that has the support of the governors who have serious concerns about this legislation, and also of the retail merchants who seek nothing but fairness in this. We should not discriminate against those who do business via the Internet, nor should we discriminate against those who do business outside of the Internet. Now, as has been brought forward, the big problem with the underlying legislation is that it tries to take an easy thing, saying we do not discriminate against the Internet and ignore the difficult task of resolving the difficulties of equal treatment, a level playing field. As has been proposed by the governors, and proposed by retail merchants, and we have letters of endorsement from them, we need something that they know is a road map. This is how we do it uniformly and fairly. As the legislation sense of Congress specifies, it would be through a centralized, multi-State registration system for sellers, uniform definitions for goods and services that are subjected to a potential tax; uniform and simple rules for attributing transactions to one jurisdiction and one jurisdiction only, so there would be no multiple taxation and no discriminatory taxation; similarly, uniformity which the States frequently do through the Commission on uniform laws. Madam Chairman, this is simply Congress trying to give a road map. That is what people have been crying out for. We want to do things in a fair, nondiscriminatory fashion. Just give us some assistance in doing so instead of saying no. That is what this is. It is a sense of Congress. It is not binding, but it certainly gives the States and retailers guidance. I am pleased that it has support of the E-Fairness Coalition, the National Retail Merchants Federation, the International Mass Retail Association, governors and others with an issue at stake in this. After all, Madam Chairman, the underlying registration, who does it restrict? It restricts the governors, the State legislators, the mayors, the city council members, the county commissioners. It basically says, we are not going to let you make decisions on your own taxes in your own State. That violates the 10th amendment to the Constitution, reserving the rights of the States which do not properly belong to the Federal Government. This amendment would go a great deal forward in fixing the underlying problems that this legislation attempts to ignore. Madam Chairman, I think that it is hard to imagine how anybody would oppose this. We have certainly worked diligently with the Parliamentarian to make sure that it is in order and within the House rules of germaneness and all of the other rules, and I certainly believe that it is time that we move ahead with its adoption.

Mr. ISTOOK. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for yielding me this time. I have had a personal computer on my desktop for over 15 years, using it daily, watching it become an important part of work, of entertainment, of information gathering, of finding out the news, of doing research. I use it constantly. And I hear people say, well, do not tax the Internet. Okay, that is fine. I do not want to tax the Internet. But I do not hear those same people saying do not tax telecommunications, do not tax department stores, do not tax clothing stores. Where is the principle of fairness and consistency? If we tell businesses that by hooking up with the Internet they gain exemption from taxes, competitive pressure means all businesses will work through the Internet to exempt themselves from taxes. But we are not talking about Federal taxes that we are deciding. We are taking away the ability of our States and our communities to have the tax base that pays for schools, that pays for roads, that pays for police, that pays for fire protection. Do not tell me to not tax the Internet unless we want to also say we will not tax telecommunications. Get rid of all of them. My cable modem at home comes through our cable TV provider. There is a tax on it. Do we say we will grandfather that one in, but if California or somebody else wants to do the same thing, they cannot do it? There is no principle of fairness, no principle of equality. We have traditional businesses. They have been in our communities. They have sponsored little league teams, they have picked up trash by the side of the road. They have helped with the PTA and school plays. But we say we do not care about them because there is a new kid in town that looks mighty attractive to us and we only care about them. Now, I realize this bill purposefully evades the big issue, which is equal treatment of collecting sales taxes. And people say, oh, well, we will worry about that later. Yeah, after 5 more years, on top of another year and a half to go. Justice delayed is just denied. Decisions delayed are decisions denied. Mr. Chairman, we need the principle of fairness, and we should not take the easy decision. We are going to eat our dessert, but we are never going to deal with eating our vegetables. Let us put the decisions all in one, as we did in telecommunications reform, as we did in financial services reform. We should not put off the tough decisions.

Mr. ISTOOK. Madam Chairman, I offer an amendment.

Mr. ISTOOK. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding to me, and I think everyone should be clear, Mr. Speaker. Previously we voted on the Delahunt amendment. It was two things in one. It was changing the 5-year moratorium to 2 years, and it was eliminating the, and I guess it is a double negative, it was eliminating the elimination of the grandfather clause. But what we have now in the motion to recommit is one thing and only one thing. It changes the proposed 5-year additional moratorium to 2 years. So, instead of a moratorium that expires in October of 2006, it will be a moratorium that expires in October of 2003. That is the issue. Certainly with the speed at which knowledge advances and the Internet progresses, to think we could hide our heads in the sand for 5 years, on top of the next year and a half, I do not think is realistic and I do not think it is responsible. So I certainly urge people to do the commonsense thing. We wanted to offer this amendment on the floor, but time limits did not let us do so. This simply says not a 5-year moratorium, only 2. We need to bring consensus together, bring the governors together, the retailers, and all the key people involved with a consensus, with renewing a moratorium in a responsible way.