Jack Kingston

Mr. KINGSTON

Mr. KINGSTON. Reclaiming my time, yes. Unfortunately, some of the reports say in a high, mountainous remote area, the best way to get to them is from the air because of the resistance. I do agree that manual destruction is superior. One thing the gentleman has not mentioned is the pollution to the water that comes downstream when these agents are applied. We do need to continue to work this thing through, and figure out the best way to destroy the crops.

Mr. KINGSTON. Mr. Chairman, I thank my beloved chairman for yielding this time to me in support of this amendment. Mr. Chairman, I think that the gentleman from New Jersey has raised some very valid points about Ecstacy. I think that the gentleman from California has raised some very valid points about the U.N. I think if we go back to last week we can see that on the Commerce- State-Justice bill the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Paul), when he offered an amendment that said we do not wish to participate in the U.N. funding anymore, he got a lot of votes. I would love to say that at the U.N. people would have been watching the Paul amendment last week as many Members of Congress, and I think it was 50 to 60, voted to get out of the U.N. by not funding it anymore. I say that I love the U.N., but the fact is that there is no adult supervision at the U.N. these days. They go off on their own tear, and bureaucrat A from country A talks to bureaucrat B from country B, and then they go to a committee and then they go to a subcommittee, and then they pass a resolution. Then they do an amendment, and then they add to their agenda. Then they go to lunch. That is why the U.N. is not as effective as it should be. It is not as respected as it should be, because of silly and foolish actions. Can Members imagine in a room full of mature, responsible adults kicking the United States of America off an antidrug commission? Here we are, global leaders. Here we are, and we have been debating for 6 hours on our drug initiative in South America. We are all over the globe. It is our children that are at risk. But to folks at the U.N., it is their children at risk, as well. The drug problem is all over the globe. That is why the United States is leading the international efforts. We are going to continue to do so with or without the U.N. It is just that it is the desire of this Member that there was somebody down there paying attention, somebody who says, ``Okay, guys, you have made your point. You hate America. But this issue is too important to play silly games on.'' That is why I support the Ose amendment.

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

Mr. KINGSTON. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for yielding me this time, and I believe the gentleman from Michigan has raised a very important point for us to ponder. Unfortunately, we kind of find ourselves as a body in a ``darned if you do and darned if you don't situation.'' Because there are areas that have been reported to us that the best way to get to them is through aerial fumigation, and I think the gentleman knows that. But it is certainly not the intent of our Congress to hurt children, hurt livestock, hurt crops and do inadvertent harm to the population of these countries. I am not sure what the solution is, but I do want to say there is a reason that we are doing this aerial fumigation, as the learned gentleman knows. And I want to say that as a member of the committee, and I am with the chairman on this, we want to work with the gentleman on this in any way we can, and I appreciate the gentleman bringing it up.

Mr. KINGSTON

Mr. KINGSTON. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the requisite number of words. Mr. Chairman, if I am the last speaker, let me just say: this amendment is the equivalent of burning down a house because one of the rooms is messy and it needs cleaning. In our Child Survival Account in this bill, we are spending $1.387 billion on child survival, maternal health, vulnerable children, HIV-AIDS, other infectious diseases, reproductive health and voluntary family planning and a grant to UNICEF. Included in this very, very important expenditure of $1.3 billion is five primary childhood killers: a focus on diarrhea, acute respiratory infections, malnutrition, malaria, directed primarily at children, and vaccine-preventible diseases. We are also looking at contaminated water. We are working to improve maternal health to protect the outcome of pregnancy, neonatal and young infants, to save the lives of the mothers by improving maternal nutrition, promoting birth preparedness, improving safe delivery and postpartum care, and managing and treating life-threatening complications of pregnancy and childhood. I keep hearing about values. This committee is already weighing in at $1.3 billion, and we believe that we can work to continue to support the war on childhood diseases. Now, Mr. Chairman, why do I say they are just burning down the whole house? The author of this amendment a few minutes or hours ago said that this amendment does not direct a cut towards military. Now, I understand that they are angry at the military, but this amendment does not stop there. It is not earmarked. Therefore, it does go after human rights; it does go after judicial reform. It goes after all the good parts of Plan Colombia, which I think they would support. But I want to address why is their military involved. Maybe it would be better to send down the Boy Scouts. Maybe we could send AmeriCorps in there. Maybe we could send the Peace Corps. Maybe we could send my church Sunday school group down there, and they could interface with these drug dealers and say, you really do not want to kill people, do you? Maybe that would work better. But I think not. Let me read to you a part of the Andean counter-drug initiative report. It talks about Bolivia's 5-year plan to eliminate illegal coca cultivation. Why do we have seven countries involved in this? Just keep in mind that the drug dealers and drug problems are kind of like fire ants in neighborhoods. You treat fire ants in your yard, they go to your neighbor's yard. And drugs work the same way. This talks about the eradication operation in the Yungas Mountains. It says coca is located in remote areas that are well guarded by resistance and militant coca growers, making it difficult, dangerous and costly to remove. The international narcotics elimination plans to go in there with aircraft, C-130Bs, and supply personnel. It talks about one road where there are violent ambushes and attacks from coca growers and traffickers. It talks about this one road in the Yungas being the world's most dangerous road, that aside from tricky hairpin turns, the rocky and gutted road is seldom wider than 11 feet, necessitating its closure by soldiers to allow one-way traffic during various times of the day. Eradicating coca is very, very dangerous business, and that is why you have paramilitary in there. I wish there was another way to fight drugs, but the money is too great. Think about what we are faced with here in the United States of America. This is a product that if you work for the drug dealer, you do not have business cards, you do not advertise, you do not have brochures; and yet this insidious product is so bad that it can be obtained nearly on every school yard in the United States of America. I would challenge my 434 colleagues, if you do not believe me, go ask schools, particularly high schools in your districts, to the kids, can you get illegal drugs by the end of the day? And at most high school seniors' classes, about half the hands go up and say yes, they can. This is a threat to society, not just in America, but all over the world. That is why you have to get tough with it. That is why you have to use the military. But, again, Mr. Chairman, very, very importantly, this amendment does not stop at military. This cuts into judicial training; it cuts into efforts to assist displaced people and other human rights violations. This is a reckless and sloppy amendment, and it should be voted down. I would hope that the author of it would just withdraw it.

Mr. KINGSTON. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the requisite number of words. Mr. Chairman, I rise in opposition to this amendment. However, I do want to commend the author for her sincerity and the work that she has done on the HIV situation. I oppose this for a number of reasons. First of all, let me reiterate what the gentleman from North Carolina (Mr. Ballenger) just said, that we have over $1 billion in various appropriation efforts to combat AIDS. This bill alone, as the gentleman from Arizona (Mr. Kolbe) has said, we have a $474 million earmark, and then another $80 million that was in the supplemental budget, and we just increased this $18 million with the Visclosky amendment. Now, compare that over $500 million, just on this bill, Mr. Chairman, to last year's $315 and the year before about $220 million. Clearly, this foreign operations committee is moving at a very aggressive pace to try to help this situation worldwide, but also in coordination with 12 other appropriation committees in their efforts. This committee is also funding or encouraging the funding of such products as the Morehouse School of Medicine is doing in Atlanta, and other nonprofit organizations and research institutes. So we are clearly committed to fighting the AIDS situation. I want to also talk about where this money is coming from, because the author of this amendment is taking money out of some very, very vital programs, the foreign military financing assistance programs. Let me just read the names of some of the recipients of this valuable money: Albania, Bosnia, Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Lithuania, Macedonia, Malta, Romania, Slovakia, and Slovenia. These are all emerging democracies in the Balkans. How can we, at this critical point in their most recent history, turn our backs on them? Why would we cut this money to what are emerging as not just great democracies but also free people and allies for the United States of America? That is what is going on in the Balkans. That is where this money is coming from. Now, let us look at the Western Hemisphere. This cuts money from people in Argentina, Belize, El Salvador, Haiti, Jamaica. Certainly, right now, with all the trouble Jamaica is having, it is not time to pull the rug out from under their military assistance. So I would say, as well intended as this amendment is, it is financed through the wrong mechanisms. And, Mr. Chairman, if that is not bad enough, I want to talk about the Andean initiative and a lot of the criticism of that. And I share the criticism when we rush out on a defense contractor buyer spree, buying helicopters and creating a cottage industry for people who deal in quasi- military equipment, but there are some other programs in there that are extremely important. Judicial training and witness monitoring that NGOs are doing for some of these countries. Now, I had a constituent several years ago who was jailed in Ecuador. And under the Ecuadoran system of government, an individual has to prove that they are innocent. The state does not have to prove that they are guilty. It is completely different than America. People are put in jail, and they have to build their own case. The government does not even have to tell the person jailed what they are charged for. One of the great disservices we could inadvertently do for our constituents in America is to put them at further risk when they go to some of these countries in South America. They do need judicial reform, and this money cuts that very needed judicial reform. So for these reasons I oppose this amendment. Again, I appreciate the sincerity of the authors and the supporters of it, by I think we need to look again at where they are taking the money and the track record of this committee, what it has done, and what its commitment remains to be on HIV.

Mr. KINGSTON

Mr. KINGSTON. Mr. Speaker, one of the goals that I wanted to accomplish as a Member of Congress is to help make health care more affordable and more accessible. This week we have a choice between two bills. One of them is the Dingell-Norwood-Ganske bill. That bill seems to be an inner baseball game, intramural game between the affluent trial lawyers, the affluent medical community and the affluent insurance companies on who can sue who. As a result, health care costs, of course, are sure to rise. On the other hand, we have the Fletcher bill that, unlike the other bill, addresses the issues of affordability and accessibility. It offers a Medical Savings Account so that the insured individual will become responsible and have an incentive to save money on his or her health care. That is one element, a key element, that is missing in our health care delivery service today. It also helps the uninsured. That brickmason back home who has two or three people on his crew, right now he is priced out of health care. Under the Fletcher bill, there will be more competition and more opportunity for him to buy health care. I urge my colleagues to vote for the Fletcher health care bill for affordability and accessibility.

Mr. KINGSTON

Mr. KINGSTON. Mr. Chairman, I thank the chairman and the ranking member of the subcommittee for their good work on a bipartisan basis in crafting out this bill. I think it is important for us to remember a lesson from the gospel of John in which we are told ``to those who much have been given, much is expected.'' That is why the United States of America is engaged in so many different areas around the globe. We have been a very affluent country. We are the most affluent country in the world. Therefore, it is incumbent upon us to be involved with the rest of the world. This bill makes many, many statements about our values. Values about health care as we have addressed problems with land mines and displaced children and AIDS around the globe. Values about peace, military assistance, nonproliferation assistance, the Western Hemisphere School for Peace in Latin America. Values about jobs as we work through trade in Ex-Im Bank and USAID and various financing mechanisms. Values about drugs as our anti-narcotics control and our cooperation for them, our efforts. Values about the environment, the debt for development, saving the tropical rain forests around the globe. International assistance because of disasters. Mr. Chairman, one of things people back home ask me is, why do we have a foreign aid bill? I say, just think about Rwanda. Several years ago we saw the picture of the children, of 300,000 people dying. What did we, as Americans, want to do? We wanted to respond to our natural goodness, to go out and give aid and assistance to the people in that poor country. That is what we are doing with the foreign aid bill, this Foreign Operations Appropriations bill here tonight. We are saying we are going to act proactively so we can act reactively a little bit less and help the rest of the world enjoy all of the fruits and benefits that we as an American people have so enjoyed in this century. We are going to continue that involvement. Mr. Chairman, I look forward to the debate on this bill and look forward to its final passage.

Mr. KINGSTON

Mr. KINGSTON. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman for yielding time to me. Mr. Speaker, I stand in strong support of this rule. I am a little confused. Those who are against it are saying they are against it because they cannot get their amendments in. Yet, that same group last week, when the Committee on Rules said, let us have a campaign finance reform bill with lots of amendments, they were totally against that rule. So the reality is here they are against H.R. 7. Let us review. In 1996, President Clinton, a liberal Democrat, signed into law welfare reform, welfare reform which said that faith-based organizations could participate in the delivery of some certain welfare services. The sky did not fall. For some reason, the sky is still up there. All this does, H.R. 7, is say, we are going to take the 1996 bedrock signed by President Clinton and expand it to say that faith-based organizations who participate in some form of social services can be eligible to compete for Federal grants that fund such services. Therefore, St. Paul's A.M.E. Church in Savannah, Georgia, run by Reverend Delaney, in all of his services of food and shelter and education and health care and family structure and family counseling, what they are saying to him is, ``Reverend Delaney, if you can divide the soup from the sermon, then what we will do is we will let you compete for a grant to feed the hungry. And what really matters is the full stomach here. That is the Federal Government's interest, not the conversion. You have to divide the soup in the sermon. But if you are doing a good job based on outcome, we are going to let you compete for that grant.'' That is what the Federal Government interest is, is the outcome. If the Federal Government and all our Federal agencies were doing such a darned good job of delivering these services, we should have wiped out poverty, because since 1964 we have spent more on the war on poverty than we did to fight World War II. It is not working. They need a helping hand. Let those who know the recipients, who live in the same ZIP Code and area code, let them compete for this money. They will do a good job.

Mr. KINGSTON. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding time to me. I want to say to my good friends on the left, gee, whiz, they must have trouble sleeping. Since 1996, this basically has been the law, that charitable institutions, faith-based institutions, can participate in welfare distribution, welfare services. Now all we are doing is saying two things, that we want to expand that eligibility to say that faith-based institutions who are delivering social services, like job training, like drug addiction, like feeding the hungry, that they can participate in grants. I know Members are very, very proud of the great job that the government has been doing since the War on Poverty. We have only spent billions and billions of dollars, and the poverty level has not decreased. What we are saying is, let us think outside the box. Let us expand it. Let us let faith-based institutions get in there. The second part, which is very important, is let people have a charitable contribution deduction on their taxes to encourage more giving to charity. We think this is important. I know that the left, and I want to say the Washington left, because I want to say to my Democrat friends back home, all the Democrats back home support this. The traditional liberals back home think this is a good idea. I would be very careful before I listen to my Washington friends.

Mr. KINGSTON

Mr. KINGSTON. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Illinois and the gentleman from California (Mr. Lantos) and the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Boehner) for their support of this legislation and for moving it forward. Mr. Speaker, I am a friend of Paul Coverdell's family, his wife Nancy, and certainly was a good friend of Mr. Coverdell; and I am proud to stand in support of this. I am saddened and disturbed by those who are in opposition of this legislation. I would ask, Mr. Speaker, is there a road, is there a bridge, is there a building in the United States of America that was built by one person, one personality, one act of one man? I would say certainly there is not. Yet routinely we in this body name roads, bridges and buildings after one person. It is symbolic. It does not say there was no one else involved in it. It only says here was somebody who was typical of the spirit of that group or that organization. Mr. Speaker, we cannot name every building after everybody. It is too bad because we know all great acts and great institutions have myriads players. That is what we are doing today, not to slight others, but to commemorate many through naming it for one person. Mr. Speaker, I would ask my colleagues who are opposed to this to abandon their pettiness and ask them to abandon a little veiled partisanship that seems to be taking place. If this is their standard, it must disturb them greatly when we name the post offices and buildings and roads and bridges which we routinely do under the suspension calendar. I want to talk a little bit about Paul Coverdell. I first learned about him in 1974. At that time, he was a candidate for the Georgia Senate; and my mother, who was urging me to look into a political career or be interested in politics, she cut out an article from the Atlanta Constitution about a guy running for the Senate. And this guy was doing something unconventional. Rather than just working the good old boys barbecue circuit and going to the back room power brokers, he was a reformer. He was standing by the side of the road and knocking on doors and going direct to the voters, the unknown and the unnamed and untitled voters, to say, ``I am Paul Coverdell. I would like to be Georgia's next senator. Here is what I stand for. Do you have any questions?'' In 1974, that was an unconventional campaign. Mr. Speaker, when Paul got to the Georgia Senate, at that time there were only three Republicans in the Georgia Senate. When I joined it in 1984, and I was a member of the General Assembly with the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Isakson), the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Linder) and the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Collins), there were nine Republican Senators. Paul Coverdell was the minority leader; and yet, despite the numerical odds against him, he never was without ideas. He played in the arena. He was a force in the arena because of his ideas. Mr. Speaker, I remember one idea he had on DUI legislation. His approach, rather than just keep increasing the DUI penalties, he said a lot of these repeat offenders are alcoholics. Why not require an assessment and then rehabilitation. That was a new idea, but that was typical of Paul Coverdell. Mr. Speaker, when he came to the United States Senate and when he served in the Peace Corps, he was also a man of ideas. As a Peace Corps director, he had a world vision. So many directors prior to him used this as a political plum for backing the right candidate for President, but not Paul Coverdell. Mr. Speaker, he went into the most difficult and remote places and countries and said, ``How can we help with health care? Are there better farming techniques out there? Is there a way to get cleaner water? What can we do for the children?'' I remember during that period of time when he was director of the Peace Corps, we had a meeting at our house. We had all kinds of Peace Corps volunteers there. It is interesting to hear some of the comments today. I do not remember any of those volunteers being resentful of Paul Coverdell's leadership. They loved the fact that he would ask former volunteers what they thought. Mr. Speaker, we were in the middle of our meeting and Mr. Coverdell was giving a world view wrap-up, and my little girl who was 4 years old came running into the room. She had been playing out in the backyard with the other kids, and she said, ``Mom and Dad, I fell off the slide, and I hurt my heinie, and all the other children are laughing at me.'' The room full of grown-ups fell silent; and all eyes went to the little girl who was at the foot of this soon-to-be U.S. Senator, a very dignified and somewhat sophisticated man and a tad old-fashioned in his mannerisms, to a very positive extent, I might add, and he looked down at her and smiled. It said it all. Everything was fine, and the little girl got herself back together and ran back out on the playground with the rest of the kids. Mr. Speaker, that was the grace and charm of Paul Coverdell. Here is a man with a world view but could look at a 4-year-old girl and say, everything is okay. That is what made Paul Coverdell special. Mr. Speaker, when he came to Washington both with the Peace Corps and as a U.S. Senator he worked for farmers and veterans. He worked for education. He was a member of the back rooms with the high and connected, yet he never forgot the common person. Mr. Speaker, I am proud to support this legislation, and I think those who will study the life of Paul Coverdell will also be proud to support it as well.

Mr. KINGSTON

Mr. KINGSTON. Mr. Chairman, I stand in support of the Gutknecht amendment, and I think there are two reasons we should focus on this. Number one is cost, and number two is safety. I have to ask Members, 435 Members, how many have heard the story from a senior citizen about someone in El Paso, Texas, or Detroit, Michigan, or some other border city, who has to take Lipitor or some other prescription drug on a regular basis, and they go to the neighborhood pharmacy and it is $60; but they can go over the border and get the exact same drug made by the exact same American pharmaceutical company, exact same dosage, same box, for $20? Now, we all, if we have been doing our homework on prescription drugs, have heard that story. And that is what we are talking about. We are talking about letting our constituents, not just seniors, but young mothers and families, save lots of money. Just listen again to the differences in these prices. Allegra, in U.S. dollars, $69; in Europe, $20. Lipitor, in America, $52; in Europe, $41. Premarin, $17 in America; $9.90 in Europe. Prozac, $71 in America; $44 in Europe. These are real dollars. This is not just like the difference in gasoline, as you drive from town to town and State to State. But we have to ask ourselves, if we allow more competition, will it not bring down the prices? Certainly it will. Do our constituents deserve this? Absolutely they do. I want to also talk about safety, because is it safe not to take your Lipitor, is it safe not to take your Prozac, is it safe to not take your Zyrtec? This is the issue that seniors and everyday Americans are faced with, not taking their drugs because it is too expensive to. We appropriated $23 million to the FDA. We are not bypassing them. We are saying control this, but let us give American consumers the savings.

Mr. KINGSTON

Mr. KINGSTON. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from California, and I just want to say that I do believe we can work together for good, sound science of modern technology, of solutions, and we can get there. We can improve our infrastructure for energy to get the power to the places that it is needed. We can promote conservation, a balanced environment. We can simplify government regulations so that we can make some progress. I am a member of the Committee on Appropriations, and we will continue in this Congress and continue to fund research and development on alternative and renewable energy sources. Mr. Speaker, I am very excited that Honda has on the drawing board right now a hybrid car that will get 75 miles a gallon. I am excited about these fuel cell cars that are out there that have these perpetual batteries. I believe that our government has a role in funding such research, such general research, and we are going to continue to do that. Mr. Speaker, I also applaud the gentleman from Arizona (Mr. Hayworth) and the gentlewoman from New Mexico (Mrs. Wilson) for your boldness in speaking out on nuclear energy, because I think it is something that Americans need to be comfortable with the dialogue. Finally, I want to say that I think that we should continue to explore alternative uses and evaluate our own domestic resources to see what we can do to become more energy-independent and not risk our national security on the whims of Middle East dictators and kings and despots. I thank the gentleman from California (Mr. Radanovich) for inviting me to be here tonight and look forward to working with the gentleman and the rest of the Congress on some very positive solutions.

Mr. KINGSTON. Mr. Chairman, if the gentleman will yield, I wanted to touch base with what he is saying in terms of nuclear energy and what the gentlewoman from New Mexico was saying. In France, 76 percent of the homes and buildings are powered by nuclear energy; in Belgium, 56 percent; in America, most people do not know this, it is 20 to 25 percent already, and it is safe. I represent Kings Bay Naval Base and all the subs down there are nuclear submarines; yet ironically, people in that county will say, well, I am against nuclear energy; it might be dangerous. So you have more nuclear power plants in your county than most of the States in the entire country. But nuclear energy is safe. It is low cost, it has fewer disruptions of power. One out of every five homes in America are powered by a nuclear plant. It is the second single-largest source of energy already, and it provides almost 70 percent of all emission-free energy. This is something that we cannot ignore. There are 103 operational nuclear power plants in America today, and over 3,000 shipments of nuclear fuel that were spent were moved safely in the last 40 years. So when we talk about nuclear energy, people need to understand that this is not some bold new frontier that we are talking about. I always hear people say, well, what about Three Mile Island? Mr. Speaker, there were no people killed at Three Mile Island. That does happen with other sources of energy; but the thing is, that was over 2 decades ago. Again, going back to the days of the 8-track tape player, technology has moved. I think in terms of just the cellular telephones, my first cellular telephone was the size of a brick, it weighed about the same amount and could hardly transmit a message past a couple of oak trees. Technology has moved on. Technology has moved on in nuclear power. I think that we are just fooling ourselves by not being a little more bold and aggressive about it. Again, 76 percent of the houses and buildings in France are nuclear powered.

Mr. KINGSTON. Let me ask the gentleman, why is it that the Governor of California has enough time to come on major comedian shows like David Letterman and come out in Washington for Democratic fund raisers and come back East to raise cane about George Bush, but he does not have the time to stay at home and solve the problem? Is the problem not better solved in California, rather than blaming it on George Bush, who just unpacked his bags when the crisis began?

Mr. KINGSTON. Has not Governor Davis received over $1 million from utility companies?

Mr. KINGSTON. If the gentleman would yield, does Governor Gray Davis of California think he is going to get new energy ideas from David Letterman, or is he just making a charade out of this?

Mr. KINGSTON. If the gentlewoman would yield, I think that you have really hit a great point. I do not want to say anything bad about the great State of California, where my mother lived and my sister lived and lots of my friends do, but I have to take on a little bit your Governor on politics, because here is a State that has grown economically, done real well, demand for electricity has gone up, and he will not increase the supply; would not permit some of the things that Mrs. Wilson has talked about that increase supply, the infrastructure. If my hometown, Savannah, Georgia, grew, and it has been growing. As it grows we have added new schools, we have added new hospitals, we have built new roads, we have built new bridges. In fact, the State of Georgia has had about an 18 percent growth. California, I know, has had unprecedented growth. Yet as Governor Davis would do those things, he would not add on any power plants. Now, I have to ask, common sense would say if you are going to have growth in population, certainly you have to have growth in the supply of energy. For the Governor of California to come East looking for energy, when he needs to be sitting back in Sacramento signing bills and legislation that streamlines and simplifies regulation, it is ridiculous. He is being negligent. The Governor, I understand, is going now on David Letterman. Okay, let us be real serious about our energy policy. Going on David Letterman. It is time to put the politics aside and get back to Sacramento and do your legislation.

Mr. KINGSTON. If the gentlewoman would yield, you have gone too far now.

Mr. KINGSTON. Mr. Speaker, I wanted to add to that point that in Russia, and I was recently in Russia, their pipelines that transport the oil, they actually use it for oil transportation as much as trucks, but they spill the equivalent of an Exxon Valdez-type spill every week just in transporting their oil. Here we are, we could help them through aid programs trying to get these pipelines improved, which would help the environment but also our energy supply, and the gentleman said we have the best, the strictest environmental regulations in the country, and yet our environmental policies, our radical environmental policies, want to continuously pick on America. It is interesting that in 1976, in Louisiana, that is when the last oil refinery was built in the United States of America in 1976. I bet the gentleman was cranking up his eight-track player by the time they opened that one up. In fact, the gentleman's eight-track player was probably already getting dated. The gentleman's slide rule was gone, and he was not driving his Ford Maverick anymore. That is how long ago we are talking about. Now, unfortunately, radical environmental politics, now there are 8,000 environmental groups in the country. They generate something like $3.5 billion a year in terms of checks and revenues to them. The Sierra Club out in the great State of California pays something like $57,000 a month just on rent in San Francisco. That is how big we are talking about. So we approach so many of these things emotionally to how can I best sell my membership rather than what are we going to do to have a good, balanced approach. Our great friend Kelly Ann Fitzpatrick talks about a poll that says if the people in America are polled, 87 percent say they want clean air. Her question is, who in the heck are the other 13 percent? What is going on here? We want a balance. We want clean air, clean water. We want energy- efficient cars. That is a given. It is extremely important. At this point America is not ready to throw in the keys to their internal combustion engines and say, okay, we are all going to start riding bicycles. So as long as we have cars, let us keep the supply up for gasoline.

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

Mr. KINGSTON

Mr. KINGSTON. Mr. Chairman, I yield 30 seconds to the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Obey), because I know he had some points he wanted to make.

Mr. KINGSTON. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for yielding time to me. Mr. Chairman, I stand in opposition to this amendment, but I want to say I am a supporter of art. I support, and have every year since I have been in Congress, the Congressional Art Award in my district. My father is a docent at an art museum. I have two children who are artists, and one who would like to continue being one in the form of acting for a career. But Mr. Chairman, I think we in Congress always fall in a trap that the NEA is the arts statement for America. I would like to speak about that. First of all, I want to say to the proponents of this that I am glad that the NEA has reformed somewhat. They have eliminated a lot of the art that was so controversial, the Mapplethorpe exhibits, the watermelon women, and the things that caused so much controversy. I am glad that they have reduced that. I will point out that they did it very reluctantly. It was a Supreme Court decision that said if the Federal government is funding art, then the artist does give up some freedom of expression and has to work as a contractor for the taxpayers. So there has been progress made, for whatever reason. One area they have not made any progress in, as so many of the proponents have pointed out, is that in 1975, the funding for the arts was about $150 million. It has been reduced, and that vacuum, that void, should have been replaced by private dollars. We have done this in lots of other Federal Government programs, and it was the job of the NEA to go out and seek alternative funds. I think they have done a little bit of that, but they certainly have a long way to go. Does the Federal Government support art beyond the NEA, which every year we hear, oh, this is what sophisticated countries do? They take the money out of the people who work in paper mills. They take the paycheck from the guy who works in the chicken factory. They take the paycheck from the guy who is out there driving a long- haul truck right now and spend it on art and that is the sign of a sophisticated and compassionate country. Mr. Chairman, we, in America, spend a lot of money on art education on our State level and on our Federal levels, teaching kids in all levels of school about art. We also have tremendous tax advantages, billions of dollars for write-offs if you donate to art museums or give generously. In my town, in Savannah, Georgia, we have one of the largest private art colleges in the country, the Savannah College of Art and Design. It is not only one of the largest ones, but it is privately funded and one of the most successful ones, turning out hundreds of artists into our society from all over the country every year. And, thirdly, our Federal Government does a lot of art purchasing. We buy objects of arts to put on the walls in Federal buildings and to put on the plazas, and we are major purchasers of arts and there is no ban against that. Fourth, we fund lots of art beyond this and lots of museums. I will give my colleagues an example. The Smithsonian alone gets nearly $500 million from this bill, and people should realize that we are very committed to cultural history. Finally, let me talk about art versus nature. It is as the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Regula) has said, art and beauty is in the eye of the beholder. If we look at the Grand Canyon or if we look at the forest, is it not art, maybe made by God versus made by man, but it certainly is art. What we are doing here is we are taking money out of one resource and putting it into this man-made resource. I have to say there are some provincial politics driving this. It is interesting the disproportion of speakers who have spoken today who are from New York. Well, there is a reason for that. For the NEA, 70 percent of their money is spent in New York. I know that is where lots of the art and theater companies are, but they come down South or they come down to the heartland of America, dusting off their halo and they put on an exhibition during the summertime and they feel good about themselves and then they go back home and we appreciate the visit. The reality is, 70 percent of the money for the NEA goes to New York. Where are they getting the money from? They are getting it from fire. Is there anybody in the U.S. Congress that does not know about the fires that we suffered throughout the West? This money comes out of fire suppression accounts. It comes from hazardous fuel accounts, facility backlogs, rehabilitation and restoration accounts, joint fire science so that we can prevent forest fire and volunteer fire services so that people in small rural areas can fight forest fires. That is where this money comes from. Let us talk about needs versus wants. In my opinion, we need firefighting. We might want NEA, but we do not need to have it; and we certainly do not need to have this increase. Mr. Chairman, lots of Members of this Congress would eliminate the NEA if it was up to them, but we are not on the committee doing that. We are keeping the funding level, and it is odd that a friend on the other side of the aisle has said that level funding in Washington means a cut. Well, maybe it is time to go back home and bounce that off your kid, because my daughter, Ann, who is 13 years old, she gets $3 a week allowance if she does her chores. I do not consider myself cutting her allowance 1 week to the next when I give her $3 on one Sunday and $3 on the next Sunday. That is what we have been told. Level funding is a cut; go sell that to the taxpayers back home. Again, these are the people who drive trucks, who work in paper mills, who work in farms, who work in chicken factories. They are the ones who are paying for this. This is not Congress' money. This is not Washington's money. This is not government's money. This is hard-earned taxpayers' money, and we need to be very careful how we spend it. It is 12 o'clock in the Eastern Standard Time zone. That means that there are a bunch of folks right now who are wearing hardhats who will be taking them off for 30 minutes to eat a lunch out of a lunch pail, and then at 12:30 they will be back, they will punch the timeclock and they will be back. Mr. Chairman, they are the ones paying for this, not Washington, not the Department of the Interior; and I suggest, Mr. Chairman, we should pay them the honor that they deserve for the hard work that they are doing, and we should reject this amendment and stick with what the committee has worked out under a careful compromise.

Mr. KINGSTON. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman from New Mexico (Mr. Skeen) for the time, and I wanted to also join with the gentleman from Washington (Mr. Dicks) in complimenting everybody who has participated in this debate. Mr. Chairman, I do want to say to the gentlewoman from New York (Ms. Slaughter), my good friend, that that is one of the problems with the NEA and the rest of the country. As I go around to my art community, Savannah, Georgia, is blessed with a great and a very strong active art community; but there is no NEA presence there whatsoever. I would just say, again, if I was from New York.

Mr. KINGSTON. Actually, I have not yielded to the gentlewoman from New York, but I did overhear the statement. Let me say this: again, that is one of the situations with the NEA that it is disproportionately spent in New York.