Nancy Johnson

Mrs. JOHNSON of Connecticut

Mrs. JOHNSON of Connecticut. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the requisite number of words. I rise in strong opposition to the Roemer amendment. In this era, more than at any other time in history, our future depends on our staying on the cutting edge of the knowledge frontier. That is why in this budget and other parts of the budget we have this year and we have other years increased our investment in NIH, in the National Institutes of Health. That is why we struggled to get more and more money in the National Institutes of Science. That is why we support R&D tax credits, to help companies invest the amount into research and development that they need to be on the cutting edge of product development. If you are not on the edge of science, if you are not out there pressing the frontiers of knowledge now, in this era of extraordinary, fast-paced change, our children will not have the economic opportunity we would hope for them nor the opportunity to improve the quality of their lives that we have had. Investing in the Space Station is part of keeping America at the cutting edge of the knowledge frontier. That will have enormous dividends for people here and now. Our work on the Space Station is leading to developments that could more than make up for our Federal investment. For example, the U.S. is currently using space-based research to gain a better understanding of combustion, which accounts for nearly 85 percent of the world's energy production and is a leading cause of the world's atmospheric pollution. Consider that U.S. fuel consumption is approximately $300 billion a year. If microgravity combustion research helps make our energy use more efficient, even if we only use 1 percent less fuel, we will save more than $3 billion a year and reduce industrial pollution at the same time. The kind of research that can go on in space is the kind of research that cannot go on elsewhere and can have enormous dividends both in freeing up resources and in attacking some of our most serious problems. But it is not just what we can do when we get there. It is what we are doing in the process of going there. And, yes, it has been more expensive than we thought because we have never done it before. It has taken longer than we thought, because no one has ever done before what we are trying to do in building this Space Station. But we are learning an enormous amount along the way. What we are learning is strengthening our manufacturing base and our capabilities in many, many ways. To build a Space Station, you have to build product, parts, components to a 30-year life standard. You cannot run down to the hardware store and get something to repair it if it does not work in space. You cannot run back down to Earth and get a fix-it quick. When we work to build a Space Station, we are building to 30-year life standards and that has never been done and has extraordinary implications for manufacturing and other areas. It has led to the development of increased productivity through integrating design and manufacturing in frankly truly revolutionary ways. When I go through the plants in my district that are building parts for the Space Station and see the developments that have come out of this demand for 30-year life, it is awesome. It is going to have enormous implications as the years go by for the quality of products like automobiles, for their safety, for their strength, for so on and so forth. When I go into companies in my district that design and produce for the Space Station, I am struck by the extraordinary challenge of keeping a clean environment, clean air, clean water within a tight capsule for months and years at a time. Think what that has already done for the science of cleansing air, for managing liquids. It is extraordinary what we have already learned just in trying to invent to the standard that the Space Station challenge puts upon us. And so along with the Space Station commitment goes the development of many, many thousands of high-paying jobs, 500 high-paying, high-tech jobs just in the companies in Connecticut. These are the very kinds of jobs that not only can do this job but keep America at the cutting edge. I urge Members to be far-sighted and oppose this amendment.

Mrs. JOHNSON of Connecticut

Mrs. JOHNSON of Connecticut. Madam Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding me time. Madam Speaker, I rise in opposition to this resolution. While I strongly support efforts to improve human rights in China and to influence their defense and foreign policies, this resolution will only undermine our work in these areas and compromise our national economic interests. U.S. engagement has brought concrete results in human rights, defense and foreign policy areas. We must continue normal trade relations with China to further these and all American interests. Only continual communication, contact and engagement can bring China into the world community of nations on the basis of the values that unite the world leaders, who share a commitment to market economic principles as the only hope for a prosperous world, who support democratic political principles as the only hope for a peaceful world, and who oppose the proliferation of nuclear weapons. The pace of change in China is accelerating. The government is accepting a measure of debate in political matters that was unheard of just a few years ago. Earlier this year, a former Chinese Government official distributed an essay on advocating free elections at the highest level of government without censure. Further, well-regarded economists and professors have also spoken out freely for the first time in favor of democracy. The climate is changing in China, and our engagement is generating results in the important area of human rights. But trade and investment are bringing constructive change on many fronts in China. United Technology Corporation, Connecticut's second largest employer and one of the most active United States companies in China, has been working with the Chinese equivalent of our EPA to establish the highest world standards for the building of manufacturing plants in China. This not only will help them avoid the mistakes that we made that so polluted our environment, but it also will assure that our companies who build to those standards will not be at a competitive disadvantage, and it begins to lay that foundation of law and principle that we need China to adopt to be part of the World Trading Organization and part of the GATT trading protocol based on universally accepted legal standards. PPG Industries also participates in joint venture manufacturing in China. Each of their operations require compliance with PPG corporate environmental health and safety programs, which in America are considered the best practices in the United States, and far more demanding and respectful of people's rights than the common practice in China. PPG summarizes the impact they are having in China by saying ``There are roughly 2,000 Chinese citizens who now have some understanding of American ideas, work styles, management methods and commitment to market economies, free information flow, ethics and human values.'' My point is that engagement, continual engagement, and contact, people-to-people, is what builds knowledge of the very values that underlie democracy and market economies. Only engagement can create that fundamental foundation, that change in people's beliefs about their own rights and opportunities, on which a modern China depends and on which a strong world community of nations will depend, a community of nations capable of spreading prosperity throughout the world and of keeping the peace. We must not reject normal trade relations with China. If we do, we abandon the one rational hope for social and political reform in the People's Republic of China, the process of change from within. I could give examples of how our failure to stand by normal trade relations will cost Americans jobs, examples of products in which we are making the parts and they are assembling them, but I do not have that time. I just say that on every front, engagement will create both a China that can govern with us to create a prosperous world, but also a China that will help create a peaceful world with respect for human rights.

Mrs. JOHNSON of Connecticut

Mrs. JOHNSON of Connecticut. Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the gentlewoman from New York (Ms. Slaughter). (Ms. SLAUGHTER asked and was given permission to revise and extend her remarks.)

Mrs. JOHNSON of Connecticut. And how much time do I have remaining, Mr. Chairman?

Mrs. JOHNSON of Connecticut. Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from North Carolina (Mr. Ballenger). (Mr. BALLENGER asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mrs. JOHNSON of Connecticut. Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the gentlewoman from New Jersey (Mrs. Roukema). (Mrs. ROUKEMA asked and was given permission to revise and extend her remarks.)

Mrs. JOHNSON of Connecticut. Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from New York (Mr. Gilman). (Mr. GILMAN asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mrs. JOHNSON of Connecticut. Mr. Chairman, I yield 5 minutes to the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Yates).

Mrs. JOHNSON of Connecticut. Mr. Chairman, if I may, I would say to the gentleman I do have a lot of requests for time. I thought the gentleman wanted 5 minutes to speak.

Mrs. JOHNSON of Connecticut. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Regula).

Mrs. JOHNSON of Connecticut. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 2 minutes. I am proud to offer my amendment to restore $98 million in level funding for the NEA. I would have been equally proud to have risen to oppose a motion to strike NEA funding as adopted in the committee bill, and I salute my colleague, the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Yates), for his successful committee amendment, yet another sign of the breadth of support there is for the NEA. I also salute the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Yates) for his long and consistent leadership in support of the arts and for his deep dedication to responsible stewardship of our Nation's resources. In this House we often refer to each other as the gentleman from a certain State or the gentlewoman from a certain State. Indeed, the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Yates) has been a gentleman; not only a gentleman, but a wise gentleman and a leader, and I thank the gentleman for his fine service over so many years. Mr. Chairman, I ask my colleagues to support my amendment. The reforms adopted last year directly addressed the causes of past problems, as the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Regula) will make clear in a few minutes. Perhaps these reforms address the concerns. I asked those 150 Republicans who supported the Republican amendment last year, which supported a Federal role for the arts to support my amendment this year. I have been a lifelong supporter of the arts, because truly man does not live by bread alone. The arts are a medium through which we publicly discuss profound and great matters of life and death, love and duty, freedom and bondage, man's relationship to God and nature. NEA dollars help new plays to be written, new symphonies to be conceived, performing arts groups to develop and thrive, and the performing arts to reach our most rural communities and our most isolated neighborhoods. Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mrs. JOHNSON of Connecticut. Mr. Chairman, I offer an amendment made in order by the rule.

Mrs. JOHNSON of Connecticut. Mr. Chairman, who has the right to close?

Mrs. JOHNSON of Connecticut. Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the gentlewoman from Maryland (Mrs. Morella).

Mrs. JOHNSON of Connecticut. Mr. Chairman, I yield such time as he may consume to the gentleman from North Carolina (Mr. Etheridge). (Mr. ETHERIDGE asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mrs. JOHNSON of Connecticut. Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Mica).

Mrs. JOHNSON of Connecticut. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself the 30 remaining seconds. I urge support of my amendment in the strongest terms possible. This body votes R&D tax credits to support the creativity necessary to an entrepreneurial society. We support NIH funding to create the knowledge base for medical innovations. We must support NEA dollars to support the infrastructure for a strong, vital, national, creative culture community of the arts. We must do no less if we are to have the quality-inspired leadership that this Nation needs in our democracy. If my colleagues have never been in a HOT school, a higher order of thinking school, go. It will demonstrate why NEA dollars count now and in the future.

Mrs. JOHNSON of Connecticut. Mr. Chairman, I would say to the gentleman, I certainly would be happy to have him yield time on his side; I also have them on my list.

Mrs. JOHNSON of Connecticut. Mr. Chairman, I yield such time as she may consume to the gentlewoman from New York (Mrs. Lowey). (Mrs. LOWEY asked and was given permission to revise and extend her remarks.)

Mrs. JOHNSON of Connecticut. Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Connecticut (Mr. Shays).

Mrs. JOHNSON of Connecticut. Mr. Chairman, I yield such time as she may consume to the gentlewoman from New York (Mrs. Maloney). (Mrs. MALONEY of New York asked and was given permission to revise and extend her remarks.)

Mrs. JOHNSON of Connecticut

Mrs. JOHNSON of Connecticut. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the requisite number of words. Mr. Chairman, I oppose this amendment, and I think that Members have to be very sensitive to what my colleague from New Jersey is attempting to do here today. Is there no limit to my colleague's willingness to impose his concept of when life begins on others? Conception is a process. Fertilization of the egg is part of that process. But if that fertilized egg does not get implanted, it does not grow. And so on throughout the course of pregnancy. For those who do not believe that life begins upon fertilization, but believes, in fact, that that fertilized egg has to be implanted, the gentleman is imposing his judgment as to when life begins on that person and, in so doing, denying them what might be the safest means of contraception available to them. Some women cannot take the pill. It is too disruptive to them. Some women depend on intrauterine devices and other such contracptives. When we get to the point where we have the courage to do more research in contraception, we will have many other options to offer women so that they can have safe contraception. For us to make the decision that that woman must choose a means of contraception that reflects any one individual's determination as to when in that process of conception life actually begins is a level of intrusion into conscience, into independence, into freedom that, frankly, I have never witnessed. Even the issue of being for or against abortion is a different issue than we debate here tonight. We have never, ever intruded to this depth. When I talk to my friends who are obstetricians, because all my colleagues know my husband is a retired obstetrician, how the pills work is not simple. In some women they have one effect, and they may have first effects and secondary effects. They prevent ovulation in general but not absolutely. And if there is a fertilization while on the pill, the pill prevents implantation. So this is a complex process. And for us to imagine here tonight that it is either right or proper or possible for the gentleman to impose his determination on others at this level is extraordinary. As a Republican who believes that government should stay out of our lives, I oppose this amendment with everything in me. And I would ask my colleagues, those who are pro life--and I honor that position. And I would say that the pro-life members of our Nation have changed the issue of abortion over these years. People take it far more seriously. It is not as casual. They have made an enormous difference for the good in our Nation. But that does not make it right for them to step, then, into this level and try to make definitions that, frankly, are not nearly so simple as my friend and respected colleague, the gentleman from Oklahoma (Mr. Coburn), implies. The lines are not clear. They are not simple. I would ask my colleague to respect that we are a Nation founded on the belief that we should have freedom of conscience and freedom of religion, and this amendment deeply, deeply compromises those liberties.

Mrs. JOHNSON of Connecticut

Mrs. JOHNSON of Connecticut. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the requisite number of words. Mr. Chairman, I oppose this amendment, and I think that Members have to be very sensitive to what my colleague from New Jersey is attempting to do here today. Is there no limit to my colleague's willingness to impose his concept of when life begins on others? Conception is a process. Fertilization of the egg is part of that process. But if that fertilized egg does not get implanted, it does not grow. And so on throughout the course of pregnancy. For those who do not believe that life begins upon fertilization, but believes, in fact, that that fertilized egg has to be implanted, the gentleman is imposing his judgment as to when life begins on that person and, in so doing, denying them what might be the safest means of contraception available to them. Some women cannot take the pill. It is too disruptive to them. Some women depend on intrauterine devices and other such contracptives. When we get to the point where we have the courage to do more research in contraception, we will have many other options to offer women so that they can have safe contraception. For us to make the decision that that woman must choose a means of contraception that reflects any one individual's determination as to when in that process of conception life actually begins is a level of intrusion into conscience, into independence, into freedom that, frankly, I have never witnessed. Even the issue of being for or against abortion is a different issue than we debate here tonight. We have never, ever intruded to this depth. When I talk to my friends who are obstetricians, because all my colleagues know my husband is a retired obstetrician, how the pills work is not simple. In some women they have one effect, and they may have first effects and secondary effects. They prevent ovulation in general but not absolutely. And if there is a fertilization while on the pill, the pill prevents implantation. So this is a complex process. And for us to imagine here tonight that it is either right or proper or possible for the gentleman to impose his determination on others at this level is extraordinary. As a Republican who believes that government should stay out of our lives, I oppose this amendment with everything in me. And I would ask my colleagues, those who are pro life--and I honor that position. And I would say that the pro-life members of our Nation have changed the issue of abortion over these years. People take it far more seriously. It is not as casual. They have made an enormous difference for the good in our Nation. But that does not make it right for them to step, then, into this level and try to make definitions that, frankly, are not nearly so simple as my friend and respected colleague, the gentleman from Oklahoma (Mr. Coburn), implies. The lines are not clear. They are not simple. I would ask my colleague to respect that we are a Nation founded on the belief that we should have freedom of conscience and freedom of religion, and this amendment deeply, deeply compromises those liberties.

Mrs. JOHNSON of Connecticut. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the requisite number of words. I, too, would like to comment on the gentleman's proposal. It is appropriate that it be struck at this time, but I appreciate the seriousness of his concern, the amount of research he has done on this issue and the significant problems that our universities could face if this legislation is implemented poorly. However, it is also true that this Congress is going to inject $40 billion through the HOPE Scholarship credit and the lifetime learning credit into our universities and colleges and other educational institutions, and indeed we do have to be sure that that money does go for the cost of education. I have had a number of discussions with the gentleman now about this, and, as chairman of the Subcommittee on Oversight of the Committee on Ways and Means, which has jurisdiction over the Tax Code and works closely with the IRS on many issues, we will look forward to working closely with him and the universities to straighten out these problems. I believe we can do it without legislation. We did put some clear direction in the conference report on the IRS reform bill, but we will be tracking it very carefully with the gentleman and using the input and the ideas that he has had to make sure that the process is as simple as it can be and yet assure the accountability for the expenditure of what is going to be billions and billions of dollars in support of an educated America.

Mrs. JOHNSON of Connecticut. Mr. Chairman, on the point of order, this amendment has been modeled precisely on the passage of the bill that says no funds basically shall be expended to cover abortions. This is no funds; none of the funds appropriated by this act may be used, and basically to pay for a health care plan that does not provide contraceptives. So this is modeled exactly on the underlying bill, the language in the bill that has been acceptable, and so I would hope that the Chair would rule favorably.