Jack Kingston

Mr. KINGSTON

Mr. KINGSTON. Mr. Chairman, further reserving the right to object, I would inquire of the gentleman from Oklahoma (Mr. Coburn), is my good friend planning to offer this amendment elsewhere?

Mr. KINGSTON. Mr. Chairman, reclaiming my time, the gentleman is an incessant campaigner for his cause. With that, I will withdraw my reservation of objection and let the gentleman withdraw the amendment.

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

Mr. KINGSTON. Mr. Chairman, reserving the right to object, if the gentleman chooses to withdraw the amendment, I will not object, but if he is planning to insert it elsewhere, then I will object because right now the amendment is basically void, am I not correct, Mr. Chairman, since it is an inappropriate amendment?

Mr. KINGSTON

Mr. KINGSTON. If the gentleman will yield further, I want to make sure that in a nutshell what he is saying, as the usage has actually gone up, the number of arrests and enforcement has gone down?

Mr. KINGSTON. Let me again say to the gentleman from Florida that we appreciate everything he is doing, the diligence that he is showing in taking this on. I wish him the best and thank him. And I want him to know that he has the support of the gentleman from Arizona (Mr. Hayworth) and myself, and we will be following up with the gentleman and working with him.

Mr. KINGSTON. The gentleman just happens to have a chart.

Mr. KINGSTON. Where does the heroin primarily come from? Is this also Colombia?

Mr. KINGSTON. Sixteen, 14, and one 10 turning 11.

Mr. KINGSTON. As a Member of the Republican task force who served with the gentleman last year, I want to first say I commend his leadership on this because not only is he down here night after night speaking about the need for Congress to act quickly but he is doing that in committee and he is a consistent national leader on this. I am here also because I am a father of a 16-year-old, a 14-year-old and a 10 and an 8-year-old and much to my shock these children are already able to get drugs at their school, as almost all kids across America are able to get it in the school yard. The fact that he is saying, ``Let's attack the source of these drugs, let's enforce the law when you are caught with it, and let's work with treatment,'' I think that is very important. I too as a parent when the President's appointee said the statement, you know, ``Let's legalize marijuana,'' I was shocked and very concerned about that.

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

Mr. KINGSTON. If the gentleman will yield, what is the benefit to a country being certified, and why do we decertify it, and why has it become so political, because it does appear by the bipartisan findings of the gentleman's committee that Mexico is not cooperating in giving us the statistics that we need to fight drugs, but it seems to get politicized once the issue gets to the floor of the House.

Mr. KINGSTON. Mr. Speaker, if the gentleman will yield, is it not true that Baltimore also had a very aggressive, privately funded by very liberal philanthropists, a needle exchange program where addicts could have quick and easily available access to free needles? That was one of the misguided policies that led to such a dramatic increase in the number of addicts.

Mr. KINGSTON

Mr. KINGSTON. Let me just say this. I think the gentleman from Arizona is absolutely right, as certainly Jefferson was, about the vitality of the American people and may they use that strength quickly and decisively on this particular scandal. But we have got to protect our Nation and our national security interest. That is one reason why this Congress is going to move ahead to make recommendations to get rid of the spies at Los Alamos and anywhere else. But one thing I want to emphasize is that this is a bipartisan effort. That report, the Cox report, passed unanimously from a bipartisan committee. This is not about getting onto the White House. This is about national security. I think that it is very important that we all keep in mind that the Democrats and Republicans on this one are scared to death.

Mr. KINGSTON. If the gentleman will go back to the great ad that Ronald Reagan had and a philosophical question that he asked the American people about, ally sometimes and enemy sometimes. The evil empire itself, Russia. In that ad he said, ``There is a bear in the woods, but some Americans believe there's not a bear in the woods. Wouldn't it be nice to know that if there was a bear in the woods, that you would be protected from the bear?'' Now we are at the situation with China, we have a lot of people saying, oh, no, China they're our friend, everything's fine. Well, let us go back. China, I hope, is our friend, but if they are not our friend, would it not be nice to know that in a country of 1.4 billion people, that we, with 260 million, are at least protected against aggression on their part? Would it not be nice to know that should they choose to become an aggressive adversary, that we are protected? Of course it would be nice to know that. Yet, thanks to this espionage, we are not. The gentleman has pointed out, it has gone on a lot longer than the current administration. I hope that any previous administration that had knowledge of it reacted strongly. But we do know for a fact that when this particular spy in this particular scandal first came to light by the National Security Adviser in April 1996, that it was apparently ignored. We also know, and the gentleman has not pointed this out, that when the Deputy Director of Intelligence, Notra Trulock, at the Department of Energy, 3 years ago said, there's spying going on, we know that he was ignored and he was later demoted from his job. Let us hope that is coincidence, but I would have a hard time believing it.

Mr. KINGSTON. Mr. Speaker, if I can reclaim my time, I want to stop at that point for a minute. Because what is interesting is we hear these incessant defenders of this administration, regardless of what the administration does, they are automatically with them but forget the facts. They keep saying, well, it still does not matter because China has x number of nuclear warheads and America has x-number-plus nuclear warheads. But they miss the whole point. This is not about our number of nuclear warheads versus their numbers. It is about the technology. And we have now given China the know-how to catch up should they choose to. And they also have these so-called legacy codes, which are the ones that actually predict what a nuclear explosion will do; and that seems to be the reason why they signed a nuclear test ban treaty because they had stolen information and the know-how from America. They did not have to test their weapons anymore. My colleague went quickly, though, on the subject of Wen Ho Lee. Wen Ho Lee, the suspected spy at Los Alamos Lab, the weapons lab, when the FBI suspected him of spying, they went to the Justice Department to get a wiretap and they were turned down, which my colleague has pointed out. What was not pointed out was there was 700 wiretaps that year and all but two were approved by the same Justice Department. So you have to ask yourself, was this Justice Department purposely protecting an international spy? We know this was the Justice Department who turned down a special prosecutor of the Chinese money scandal, even though the FBI recommended one. But let us say, I want to give the Justice Department the benefit of the doubt and say, okay, out of the two that they turned down, 700 were approved, two were turned down, and one of them had to be the biggest spy in the history of the United States of America. Okay, you did it nobly. Well, then is it just plain old incompetence? How did you miss that one? What was it more that the FBI could have said? And maybe it is not just the Justice Department's fault. Maybe it is the FBI did not describe the situation well enough to the Justice Department. I worry about what other decisions are being made or have been made along the way.

Mr. KINGSTON. Mr. Speaker, I welcome the gentleman from Arizona (Mr. Hayworth), and also invite the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Mica) to join us. He is welcome to do so. Mr. Speaker, the biggest and the scariest espionage in the history of our country has taken place, and many of the details were revealed today in the Cox report. Now, the Cox report was a bipartisan congressional investigation, and it raised many pertinent questions. The Communist Chinese now have in their possession our top nuclear secrets. They have cut in half, certainly more than half, the years of research that it took the United States to construct such weapons. They stole this information. They saved many, many years and they saved millions, if not billions, of dollars. And while this has gone on under a lot of different administrations and over a long period of time, it is obviously clear that the Clinton administration, the National Security Adviser Sandy Berger, knew about this at least in April of 1996. He briefed the President of the United States in July of 1997, again in November of 1998, and since January of 1999, the White House has been sitting on the completed Cox report. And yet only in March of this year did they take steps to fire one potential suspected spy, Wen Ho Lee. Only then. And, actually, he is not arrested at this point. He is still only on administrative leave, I think. I do not know exactly what the term is. But the two questions here are: How big is this thing; how much information do they have on our nuclear weapons in China? And why did the administration react the way it did? I yield to the gentleman from Arizona (Mr. Hayworth).

Mr. KINGSTON. Mr. Speaker, reclaiming my time, actually it was the FBI that asked the Justice Department.

Mr. KINGSTON

Mr. KINGSTON. Mr. Chairman, I stand in support of the agriculture appropriations bill. I serve on the subcommittee and can say on a firsthand basis that the staff, on a bipartisan basis, went through this legislation thoroughly to be sure that we have balanced the needs of the American farm, agricultural community, and the American grocery consuming public. Last year's bill was $61.7 billion. This year the legislation is down to $60.8 billion. A lot of this goes back, Mr. Chairman, to the 1997 bipartisan budget agreement, which was pushed by Democrat and Republican leaders alike with the full support of the President. And to get back to that budget agreement, it had some good and it had some bad, as my colleagues can imagine in any huge piece of legislation which Democrats and Republicans come together on. Now, unfortunately, we are seeing from both sides of the aisle people who are peeling away from the agreement, people who voted for the budget agreement that are now lamenting the fact that it actually does call for some belt tightening here and there and they are beginning to walk away from it. But the staff on this subcommittee, and again on a bipartisan basis, tried to put together the actual requests of 280 Members asking for specific projects in their districts or of national scope. And it was quite a balancing act, because we do have a certain amount of institutional schizophrenia. We have, on one hand, people who say I want to cut the budget and I want it cut now, but oh, no, not in my district, not in the district that I happen to represent. And, by the way, I want to fund this particular project, which of course is not pork, it is just that it is economic development when it is in my district. So this bill, like all appropriation bills, is a balancing act. Now, Mr. Chairman, the American farmer is facing probably unprecedented challenges. They have challenges getting credit. Businesses in America, small businesses to Fortune 500 companies, have to have credit. They have to borrow both short- and long-term money. Yet for farmers, they cannot get long-term money any more. Banks, and rightfully so, facing the realities of making a profit on the farm, they will not lend them money any more. So the farmers are scrambling, and that is one of the huge challenges that is facing farmers today. A second challenge is international competition. I represent Milen, Georgia, little Jenkins County, Georgia, and farmers there can grow oats and do it very inexpensively and very efficiently. And yet at the end of the season, they can still go down to Brunswick, Georgia, and buy imported oats cheaper than they can grow it in America. And that is just one commodity. That is the story with so many of our imports now. And one reason is that our foreign competitors are heavily, heavily subsidized in comparison to the American farmers, where we have about $3.9 billion of this $60 billion bill that is spent on actual commodity-type programs. People say, oh, let us cut out the farm ``subsidies'', yet most of these are not true subsidies. But even so, it is impossible to compete against foreign competitors, even with the modern technology and all the farming techniques we know. A third challenge that our farmers are facing is that simply of the weather. We do not get the rain that we need in every growing season. Last year Screven County, Georgia, town seat of Sylvania, lost $17 million because of the drought; $17 million in farm losses. Now, that is not much for a big country like America, but tell that to somebody in Sylvania, Georgia, and tell that to a third generation farmer who is going to lose his farm because of that drought. Unfortunately, in Georgia this year, we are facing possibly another bad season because of the lack of rain. We need to help our farmers on all these challenges, Mr. Chairman, and this bill tries to do that. It is not going to do it all the way. It will not do it as well as we would like, but it takes a step in the right direction. There are a lot of things in this bill, though. There is some money for water projects, there is money for conservation projects. One thing not in the bill, that I want to try to work with the minority and the majority representatives on, is giving some tax credit for precision agriculture. Because if we can move our farmers towards obtaining precision agriculture equipment, then they would know exactly how much fertilizer to apply, exactly how much water to use, and exactly what their profits are per acre so that they can make Ag production as absolutely efficient as possible. I would also like to see more tax credits for farmers in other areas. I would like to see them taxed more on the use of their land rather than on the potential use of their land. I represent Coastal Georgia, it is a huge growth area. Bulloch County last year, 17 percent; Effingham County, 42 percent; Bryan County, 52 percent. All these are traditionally agricultural counties and now they are becoming urban or suburban counties. There are few family farms left, but they are being taxed out of existence. I would like to see some tax help for farmers in that direction. I would like to see land taxed on its actual use and not its percentage use. And I of course, Mr. Chairman, would love to see some estate tax or death tax relief so that family farms can be passed from one generation or the other. This is not going to happen in this bill but this bill takes us in the right direction. Right now, Mr. Chairman, less than 2 percent of the American population is feeding 100 percent of the American population and a substantial portion of the world. Does our ag policy work? I would say yes, it does. Americans spend about 11 cents on the dollar earned on food and groceries. We spend more than that on entertainment, jet skis, CDs, movies, vacations. We are spending more on recreation than we do on food and groceries. So the ag policy is working. It has a lot of good potential in it for improvements. We are going to continue to work on that on a bipartisan basis. I urge my Members to support the bill.

Mr. KINGSTON

Mr. KINGSTON. Mr. Speaker, I am very disturbed today. If we go back to, I guess, the 1976 presidential debates between President Ford and President Carter, one of the questions asked of Jimmy Carter was what he thought was the biggest issue, at which point he quoted his daughter, Amy, and said, ``nuclear war.'' Well, I am here to say Amy Carter was right, nuclear war is, because we are giving nuclear warheads and secrets to China, which has not exactly been our staunchest ally over the years. The W-88, which is one of the most powerful nuclear warheads in history, is now in the hands of the Chinese Communists despite the fact that the Deputy Intelligence Security Officer at the Department of Energy, as long as 3 years ago, warned the administration this was going on. Sandy Berger, National Security Adviser, was told in April 1996. The President was informed July 1997. The President was informed again in November 1998, and then in January this year. And yet, as late as March, he was denying it and saying nothing happened on his watch. There are two big issues here: Number one, what happened? Which should scare the death out of any American. And number two is, why did the administration deny this? This is not a partisan debate. This is a scary debate. And I was glad when Democrat liberal Senator Torricelli called for the resignation of Janet Reno. It is time for bipartisan support, and I hope the Democrats will join us on this one because America and America's children depend on it.

Mr. KINGSTON

Mr. KINGSTON. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to recognize the Ossabaw Island Foundation and the Georgia Commissioner of Natural Resources for their efforts to preserve Ossabaw Island, Georgia's first Heritage Preserve. Georgia's high rate of population and economic growth have created statewide expansion into previously uninhabited areas. Efforts to preserve and protect endangered natural areas is vital to the well- being of Georgia's environment. Ossabaw Island is one of the few remaining barrier islands on the Atlantic Coast to remain in an undeveloped state. The fragile ecosystems of the island should be preserved so that natural areas along the coast will work to protect estuaries, wildlife, marshes, and coastal shorelines. If Ossabaw Island remains in its natural state, it will provide needed protection for the mainland from Atlantic storms, permit the functioning of marshes which provide water and air purification essential to habitation of Georgia's mainland, and provide conditions not tainted by human intervention for environmental research. I would like to commend the Ossabaw Island Foundation, a public/ private partner with the State of Georgia's Department of Natural Resources, for diligently serving as a voice for the preservation of the island. The Foundation has worked to incorporate educational and cultural programs in the island's historical buildings and to provide appropriate access and utilization of the Ossabaw Heritage Preserve. Through the efforts of the Board of Trustees of the Foundation, Ossabaw Island was included on the National Trust for Historic Preservation's Eleven Most Endangered Properties List of 1995. The island was also listed on the National Register of Historic Places by the United States Department of the Interior in 1996. The importance of preserving natural habitats is a common belief among the members of the House of Representatives. We must not allow the natural beauty and resourcefulness of our nation to be sacrificed for lesser purposes. The benefits of protecting and preserving areas of natural habitat range from aesthetic to practical and must not be ignored. Mr. Speaker, I ask that you and my colleagues join me in recognizing the partnership and hard work of the Georgia Commissioner of Natural Resources and the Board of Trustees of the Ossabaw Island Foundation. Their combined efforts have protected and will continue to protect and ensure a healthy environment on Georgia's Ossabaw Island for many years to come.

Mr. KINGSTON

Mr. KINGSTON. I get very concerned when you raise an issue like this, that people say, well, as my colleague knows, this is a First Amendment. But my colleague has touched on it, that we are not trying to pass a new law, we are not trying to amend the First Amendment at all. We are saying, ``You know what? This is out there, and it's going to be out there, but bombarding children with it, particularly high- risk children who already maybe have trouble in their home, emotional trouble at school, drug problems, alcohol problems that are already after their minds and after their hearts; then this comes along. And, as my colleague says, instead of going out there playing soccer or football with kids where they experience interaction and teamwork and sportsmanship and so forth, they are holed up in some dark little room in the house, and they are just poking away at the keyboard or on the joy stick, and I also think one of the things is we lose a lot of our generational imparting knowledge because these kids become such, and I do not know if we have a word for it yet, but it is cyber introverts, where they can compete, communicate in cyberspace on the Internet or with high-tech video, but they cannot talk to their fellow human beings any more.

Mr. KINGSTON. Or as you pointed out that web site, and you might want to read it again, if people have the Internet, to call up the web site and that would maybe be the starting point in the search. But when you are talking about the sponsors of the Next Generation magazine, even if somebody is legitimately selling tennis shoes, which is certainly an innocuous and a healthy product, they still are sponsoring this magazine. This magazine could not get in the hands of 12-year-olds without that tennis shoe commercial. One of the things that I have always advocated to people is you have a lot of power through the voting booth but you have a lot more power every day at the cash register. If you write a letter to XYZ Widgets and say, ``I'm going to quit buying your product because of who you support through your advertising,'' they are going to respond to that if they get enough letters. Here we are right now in a society that is trying to come to grips with this terrible Columbine High School situation. We are looking for things. This is not going to solve it by itself, but is this a piece of the puzzle? I would say that it is a piece. It is part of the toxin that our children have to live, breathe and eat and sleep and be exposed to in one form or the other. And is this healthy as an influence on your child? Will this bring your child better to a healthy, normal type life-style or will it take him away from it? Then if you say, ``Oh, I'm not worried about it,'' well, how many hours are you comfortable with them playing the ``You're Gonna Die'' video? Do you want your kid playing it 1 hour, 2 hours, 3 hours, 5 hours a day? As parents we have to ask ourselves these questions. And will exposure to this move your kid along in the right direction that you want him or her to be moving in? Probably not. That is why we have to be very aware of all the things that are after our children's minds and their souls.

Mr. KINGSTON. I have had actually some of these action items which you had listed, I have done on explicit CD lyrics, and basically from the large vendors gotten the shoulder shrug. ``Your kids don't have to listen to it. We have lots of people. Your kids don't have to play it.'' If following your action items a parent wants to write the manufacturer and ask the question, do you feel proud making this, do you feel good about 13-year-olds who are on the edge, high risk kids who are left alone for hours as Klebold and Harris were doing, they played these type games, not necessarily this game but they played violent video games for hours, as I have read the news reports. If parents want to do that, how can they get the address? I know that the manufacturer's name is listed on there, but how do they get the address on who to write the letter to?

Mr. KINGSTON

Mr. KINGSTON. Mr. Speaker, I move that the House do now adjourn.