Ernest Istook

Mr. ISTOOK

Mr. ISTOOK. I reserve the right to object, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. ISTOOK. I was trying to grant the gentlewoman the courtesy to state her intent, but I do intend to assert my objection.

Mr. ISTOOK. Mr. Chairman, I object.

Mr. ISTOOK. Mr. Chairman, I object to the unanimous consent request.

Mr. ISTOOK. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the last word. Mr. Chairman, I very much appreciate the presentation by the gentlewoman from New York (Mrs. Kelly). FinCEN financing in this measure is already increased by 12.7 percent over the last fiscal year. We have added significant dollars in the full committee to the FinCEN appropriations, and the FinCEN appropriations is at the level that was requested by the administration. However, for the gentlewoman from New York and other Members who are concerned, we will continue to work with them on this issue to make sure that we do not disagree, have a disagreement with the administration, and might perhaps be persuaded that there might be some different number that should be in the final vote of conference. However, Mr. Chairman, I do not want to be constantly in this process with a long night ahead of us going back and reopening different parts of the bill that have been closed. We all know it is a slow moving process as it is. And if we start accepting every unanimous consent, we would not be completed. Parliamentary Inquiry

Mr. ISTOOK. Mr. Chairman, I ask unanimous consent that all debate on this amendment and all amendments thereto close in 1 hour and that the time be equally divided.

Mr. ISTOOK. Mr. Chairman, that is satisfactory.

Mr. ISTOOK. Mr. Chairman, I yield the time in opposition to the gentleman from Ohio's (Mr. Oxley) amendment to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Culberson), a member of the subcommittee to let him control that debate.

Mr. ISTOOK. Mr. Chairman, I rise in opposition to this amendment and in support of the language that is in this bill which was adopted in the Committee on Appropriations. Certainly the arguments that are being heard today played out in the committee, and we decided that this was indeed an issue that relates to financial institutions, sure, but it relates to homeland security as well. The gentleman from Arizona that spoke before me, talking about the problems with porous borders, look at the latest issue of Time Magazine if they want to look at challenges of it and remember that we have adopted a great amount of legislation telling financial institutions they need to know their customer. We are talking about the financial center that is in the Treasury Department to track terrorism money. And if we do not have valid identification for the people when we are trying to track foreign assets in the United States and spot those that are using phony IDs to cover up terrorism, then why are we spending all the tens of millions and hundreds of millions and billions of dollars on homeland security if we say, oh, this is just a matter for the federally chartered, federally regulated financial institutions? We are going to put a loophole in the Federal law and all of our efforts to track foreign and potentially terrorism money are going to be undone because we can use unreliable identification. In the name of political correctness, we are going to accept the matricula consular? I think not. I oppose this amendment. I ask that the Members reject the amendment and keep in the language that is put in this bill by the committee.

Mr. ISTOOK. Mr. Chairman, I ask unanimous consent that the remainder of the bill through page 166, line 3 be considered as read, printed in the Record, and open to amendment at any point.

Mr. ISTOOK. Mr. Chairman, I ask unanimous consent that debate on this amendment and any amendment thereto be limited to 20 minutes to be equally divided and controlled by the proponents and myself, the opponent.

Mr. ISTOOK. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Chairman, I think it is important that we distinguish what is being claimed from what is actually being sought. I want to read to people so they understand. I want to read to them what this amendment actually says. I ask the gentlewoman that if we have the wrong copy for any reason, please correct us. The amendment that is before the House states, ``None of the funds made available in this act may be used to enter into any contract with an incorporated entity where such entity's sealed bids or competitive proposal shows that such entities is incorporated or chartered in Bermuda, Barbados, the Cayman Islands, Antigua or Panama.'' This is not about corporations that started in the U.S. and went someplace else. This is not about corporations that are necessarily involved in any colorable claim of tax evasion. This is saying if you are chartered in Bermuda, Barbados, the Cayman Islands, Antigua or Panama, you cannot do business with the United States Government. It does not matter whether you are a big company or a small one. It does not matter whether you are offering lodging or travel services or financial services or what knows what. It does not matter if you ever had a presence in the United States before this time. This is not about jobs that started in the U.S. and have been moved overseas. No matter what you claim the amendment may be about, it is important that everyone who votes on the amendment reads it and knows what it is really doing. Now, we could just as easily say, we have got some beefs with France. Why do we not add France to this list? There are a lot of Americans that are unhappy about France. Or we could say maybe somebody does not want America to do business with Italy or South Africa or Luxembourg, Thailand, pick your country. Automatically, automatically under the amendment being offered here we are going to pick out nations and start disqualifying them not based upon any logical claim that they have done something wrong in transferring jobs or trying to evade our tax laws, but that is where they are incorporated. I think that is a bad policy, Mr. Chairman, and I would ask people to vote against the amendment.

Mr. ISTOOK. I yield to the gentlewoman from Connecticut.

Mr. ISTOOK. Reclaiming my time, I thought I was yielding for a question. The fact that there may be corporate expatriates in these countries does not mean you should disqualify everybody that is in those countries. If you want to get at corporate expatriates, go after them, but do not say that because, maybe, let us pick a number, maybe it is as high as 5 percent of the companies that are chartered in one of these nations is a corporate expatriate you are disqualifying 100 percent. I do not know what those ratios are, but I do know the vast majority of companies in these nations are not corporate expatriates. The fact that the list that you have of corporate expatriates say these are their chosen destinations does not mean that everybody in those countries are corporate expatriates.

Mr. ISTOOK. Mr. Chairman, no. I do not want running debate. Just because people that may do a corporate inversion, may choose to go to these countries does not mean that everybody that is in there is. If you live in a country or in a city where there is a lot of crime, it does not mean that you are a criminal. You do not say we will go out and penalize everybody in that community because some among them are people that we do not like. We should not do that to any other country on the Earth. Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. ISTOOK. Mr. Chairman, I have no other speakers except myself to close. I am not sure if the gentlewoman has any other speakers or if she was yielding back her time.

Mr. ISTOOK. Mr. Chairman, I reserve my time until closing. I believe I have the right to close.

Mr. ISTOOK. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. I just want to reiterate that this is not an amendment aimed at corporate inversions. This is not an amendment aimed at expatriating companies from the United States. This is an amendment that says if you are in those countries, you are not only presumed to be guilty, you are judged beyond all doubt that you are guilty and we do not want to do business with you. It is presuming guilt, not presuming innocence. It is making guilt not just an assumption, but an absolute finding that nobody can question. This would cut off trade between our Nation and Bermuda, Barbados, the Cayman Islands, Antigua, and Panama. Talk about going too far. If my colleagues want to go after companies that were once in the U.S. and moved their headquarters to these, fine, bring an amendment that is targeted that way; but do not say that every business in these countries is disqualified. The vast majority of those in these nations are not corporate expatriates. They are not corporate inversions. My colleagues disqualify every business in those nations, not just those who may have moved their corporate presence out of the United States and into them. This amendment goes too, too far. It ought to be rejected. It is not what the author purports it to be, and I ask people to reject the amendment accordingly. Mr. Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. ISTOOK. Mr. Chairman, I ask unanimous consent that debate on this amendment and any amendments thereto be limited to 20 minutes to be equally divided and controlled by the proponent and myself, the opponent.

Mr. ISTOOK. Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time to close.

Mr. ISTOOK. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Olver).

Mr. ISTOOK. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself the balance of my time. Mr. Chairman, I very much appreciate the words of my ranking member, the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Olver), and I agree with him that this matter is going to ultimately be resolved in conference. We have had a very tight bill, and I realize that some Members think that, well, because money has been freed up by all these points of order that we can accomplish lots of things now. But when we get back to conference, we have to compare the priority of this proposal with everything else. FinCEN has already received in this bill a 12.7 percent increase. The administration has not asked us for one penny more. We have given them every penny they have asked for, and if they are communicating with other Members of Congress and not coming to our committee about their financial needs, they are sure going about things the wrong way. When someone says, well, maybe they need $8 million more, and then it balloons up to $25 million more, that is going about things the wrong way. And so I am not going to subject Members of this body to a vote for somebody claiming that this is crucial to fight terrorism when we have not even had a proposal from the administration that reflects how supposedly this money would be spent to do that. We will take care of the needs of FinCEN, the legitimate needs, in conference. We will make sure that the effort to combat the financial network of terrorism is fully funded. But to say on the spur of the moment, and to suddenly have a sky-is-falling mentality that if they do not get a 40 percent increase in a brand new agency, far more than they have asked for, I think, is going way overboard. Mr. Chairman, I do not think this issue has been well handled, because if the administration wanted more money for this, they would have come to the Committee on Appropriations. They have not done so. Like I say, I am not going to subject Members to a vote on this because somebody might think that somehow they are voting against terrorism, but it will be resolved in a correct manner in the conference committee. We have given this agency a 12.7 percent increase already, every penny that they were asking for. And people can always say things have changed since then, but we would have heard from the administration if they wanted this change, and we have not heard from them on the Committee on Appropriations. Mr. Chairman, I urge Members to vote this down. We have other needs that need to be done. We do not need to give an agency more money than they can consume just because people claim if you do not do it you are not against terrorism. I urge opposition to this amendment.

Mr. ISTOOK. Mr. Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. ISTOOK. Mr. 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. 5025 in the Committee of the Whole pursuant to House Resolution 770, no amendment to the bill may be offered except: Pro forma amendments offered at any point by the chairman or ranking minority member of the Committee on Appropriations or their designees for the purpose of debate; amendment 1; amendment 2, which shall be debatable for 1 hour; amendment 5, which shall be debatable for 40 minutes; an amendment by the gentleman from Oklahoma (Mr. Istook) regarding GSA; an amendment by the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Olver) regarding Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards, which shall be debatable for 30 minutes; an amendment by the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Olver) regarding the IRS or regarding election reform, which shall be debatable for 20 minutes; an amendment by the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Brown) regarding the definition of manufacturing; an amendment by the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Van Hollen) regarding OMB circular A-76, which shall be debatable for 20 minutes; an amendment by the gentlewoman from West Virginia (Mrs. Capito) regarding private collection, which shall be debatable for 20 minutes; an amendment by the gentleman from Arizona (Mr. Flake) regarding Cuba, which shall be debatable for 1 hour; an amendment by the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Delahunt) regarding Cuba; an amendment by the gentleman from New York (Mr. Rangel) regarding Cuba; an amendment by the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Lee) regarding Cuba; an amendment by the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Waters) regarding Cuba; an amendment by the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Stenholm) regarding the debt limit, which shall be debatable for 20 minutes; an amendment by the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Gutierrez) regarding the Comptroller of the Currency, which shall be debatable for 30 minutes; an amendment by the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Moran) regarding chapter 89 of title 5 of the United States Code, which shall be debatable for 20 minutes; an amendment by the gentleman from North Carolina (Mr. Butterfield) on disadvantaged business enterprises; and an amendment by the gentlewoman from the District of Columbia (Ms. Norton) regarding federal employee health benefit plans. Each amendment may be offered only by the Member named in the request or a designee or the Member who caused it to be printed or a designee; shall be considered as read; shall not be subject to amendment except pro forma amendments offered by the chairman or ranking minority member of the Committee on Appropriations for the purpose of debate; and shall not be subject to a demand for a division of the question in the House or in the Committee of the Whole. Except as specified, each amendment shall be debatable for 10 minutes, equally divided and controlled by the proponent and an opponent. An amendment shall be considered to fit the description stated in this request if it addresses in whole or in part the object described.