Jim Kolbe

Mr. KOLBE

Mr. KOLBE. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days within which to revise and extend their remarks on the bill (H.R. 4104) making appropriations for the Treasury Department, the United States Postal Service, the Executive Office of the President, and certain independent agencies, for the fiscal year ending September 30, 1999, and for other purposes, and that I may include tabular and extraneous material.

Mr. KOLBE. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding time. I rise in strong support of this rule. The gentleman from Colorado and I were here the other night. The outcome was not a very good one. I hope today that we will have a better outcome to the rule for this conference report. Let me say a little bit about why I do support this conference report. I guess maybe it sounds a little bit like a Government 101 lecture, and I apologize if it seems that way. I think we have to face some of the realities. The reality is that to get a conference report adopted and to the President for signature, you have to do two things: You have to get it out of the conference, and that means getting a majority of Democrats and Republicans on the conference to sign a conference report. The second thing you have to do is to get it passed in both houses. The only way we can do that is with the bill that we have here this afternoon. Now, there are provisions in here that are very controversial and some that I strongly supported. Let me just deal with the four issues that are different from where we were the other night when we got only 106 votes for the rule, with only 17 votes from the minority side of the aisle to support a rule that had in it things that they said they strongly, strongly supported. One of those was expanding contraceptive coverage for Federal employees covered by Federal health programs. That expansion of coverage is something that passed here in the House, it passed in the Senate, but they were very, very different provisions and they were very, very controversial. Members will remember the controversy we had when that occurred on the floor of the House. It caused a tremendous weight to be added to this bill. It was very difficult for us to deal with those who oppose this kind of expansion of contraceptive coverage for Federal employees. I happen to believe we should have it. But I also have a responsibility to the 165,000 Federal employees that are covered by this who would be out of work this weekend if we do not have the conference report signed. The second is the Haiti Refugee Assistance Act. Now, this is also very controversial. There is bipartisan support for this from Republicans and Democrats in Florida and opposition to it from people on both sides of the aisle. It is a provision which clearly does not belong on this bill. It is not even vaguely related to the Treasury- Postal bill. If this is very important, it is an issue which can be addressed again in the ongoing discussions about the omnibus spending bill which will cover those bills that we cannot get passed on the floor, those conference reports that we cannot get adopted. This provision can be addressed in that bill. The third thing is the day care provision, a whole title that was added by the Senate. Some people are very strongly supportive on this side of the aisle, but there are some jurisdictional problems about this provision. There are issues about day care that those chairmen of those subcommittees of jurisdiction had real questions about, and it was controversial. And finally there was the FEC provision, the appointment authority for the General Counsel of the FEC, a highly controversial provision that had been added because some people on this side of the aisle believed that the general counsel of the FEC has been patently unfair in the kinds of rulings that he has given, and because there is no provision right now for getting rid of that individual. He is there literally until retirement because they cannot get votes to get rid of this person. So there was a provision to provide for an appointment authority for the general counsel. Now those four provisions, Mr. Speaker, are the provisions that are being dropped out of this bill. We could not get this bill to the floor without taking those out. Now I begged, I pleaded, with my colleagues on the other side of the aisle the other night to support that rule. Three of those provisions: those dealing with day care, with the Haiti refugee assistance and with the contraceptive coverage, were strongly supported by most or many and most of the Members on the other side of the aisle. The other issue, on dealing with the FEC, was not, but they made it clear that three out of four was not good enough. It had to be four out of four. Mr. Speaker, I cannot get the bill to the floor, and we cannot pass this bill with that. As my colleague, my ranking member from the other side, has said time and again, this is a good bill. It provides for good money for law enforcement, to increase the amount of money we have for drug interdiction for our Customs agents, it increases the flying hours for the black hawks. This is good law enforcement provisions in this bill. This is a good bill that covers the IRS reforms that we passed by wide margins in this Congress just a few months ago, to implement those reforms and get us moving forward with an IRS that is more user friendly. This is legislation that we need, and, Mr. Speaker, we need to pass this bill tonight. So we have dealt with this in a fair way. We have said we will take out all of the provisions that are controversial, and all four of the provisions that are in this bill that were controversial have been taken out. So what we have now is a bill that does, as it should do, an appropriation bill that deals with appropriations, that funds the agencies it says it is going to fund, that funds the agencies it should fund. And that is what this bill does, and it deserves the strong support, this rule deserves the support of this body, this conference report deserves the support, and I urge my colleagues to vote for it.

Mr. KOLBE. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time, and I move the previous question on the conference report. The previous question was ordered. Motion to Recommit Offered by Mr. Hoyer

Mr. KOLBE. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my time. Mr. Speaker, I rise in opposition to the motion to recommit, and I urge my colleagues to vote against that, when we come to that vote. I urge them to vote for the passage of the conference report. Let me say that I support very strongly providing contraceptive coverage for women. My record on these issues has been very clear since I have come to this body, and I have taken more than my fair amount of heat at home from some of my more conservative members of my party on this issue, but I strongly support it because I think it is the right thing to do. I favor expanding the coverage. I believe that women who work for the Federal Government should have more options than they do now. But I want to make it clear that without this provision that passed the House of Representatives, a very controversial provision, and it was, if Members will recall, a very tough fight when we had it, but it passed the House of Representatives, by eliminating this we are not eliminating contraceptive coverage for any woman who works for the Federal Government. We are not providing any denial of coverage. We are not putting any limitation on what kinds of contraceptive coverage any Federal health plan can provide. That is a determination that the health plan can make. That is a determination that any person who signs up can make, as to whether they want to be in that plan. We are retaining the status quo. We are where we are with the law today. Those on this side of the aisle and the minority side of the aisle would argue that it is not enough. I would agree. I think we should have an expansion. I think there should be more coverage. There are those over here who would want to ban any contraceptive coverage in a Federal health plan. We have neither position. Neither position has been able to work its will here. So we have a law today that allows coverage, but it does not mandate it. Eighty-four percent of the Federal plans do provide for some kind of coverage. Forty percent of them provide for all of the contraceptive coverage. There is virtually no woman working for the Federal Government that does not have access to a plan that has some kind of coverage. So I would prefer the position that has been articulated by those over there, but we could not get it out. My colleagues on that side of the aisle would not support it last Thursday when we had this vote up. It was not important enough to them then. Tonight it is important to them, so they want us to defeat this and recommit this, but it was not important enough to them last week. I have a responsibility, as the chairman of this subcommittee, and the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Hoyer) has been there himself, to get this bill to the floor, to get this conference report done, to make sure that 163,000 Federal employees that are supported by this bill continue to work if we somehow do not have an omnibus bill on Friday; that they will continue to work; that they will continue to do the work of collecting the taxes for the Federal government, of doing the work of the IRS of processing tax returns; that they will continue to do the work of Customs, of checking the borders, of interdicting drugs from coming into this country; that they will continue to do the work of the Secret Service, that provides protection for the president and fights against counterfeiters; that they will continue to provide the money for the Drug-Free Communities Act, so that we will be able to continue the work of the drug war through the Media program; that we will continue to be able to do all of these programs. But Mr. Speaker, if we recommit this bill tonight, it is dead. We do not have contraceptive coverage. We do not have the good things that the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Hoyer) spoke about earlier in this bill. There is no way we can get that out of the conference committee. My colleague knows that. We have gone over this. We have talked about it. We cannot get it out, so we simply cannot pass the legislation. Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues in the strongest possible terms to reject the motion to recommit. Let us move forward with the bill that is a good bill for the agencies that it funds, a bill that does not have extraneous legislative provisions on it. Defeat the motion to recommit, pass the conference report tonight, and keep the Treasury-Postal agencies in business.

Mr. KOLBE

Mr. KOLBE. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that the conference report to accompany the bill (H.R. 4104) making appropriations for the Treasury Department, the United States Postal Service, the Executive Office of the President, and certain Independent Agencies, for the fiscal year ending September 30, 1999, and for other purposes, be recommitted to the Committee of Conference.

Mr. KOLBE

Mr. KOLBE. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding. Mr. Speaker, in a few moments, after we have heard from some others, I am sure I will have a few things to say about some of the negative things that are going to be said about this rule and this conference report. But I would like to start off, I hope, on a constructive note and one in which I urge my colleagues to support the rule and the conference report because I believe that it should be passed. This is a good piece of legislation. Even the ranking Democrat of the Committee on Rules agreed that this is an important bill that funds vital, necessary parts of the Federal Government. Let me just highlight a few of these. As agreed by the conferees, we have $13.4 billion in discretionary spending for the coming year. That is an increase of $700 million in budget authority over the current fiscal year. The conferees, working together in a bipartisan way, have fashioned this bill to target three critical areas: enhancing the drug efforts of the Office of National Drug Control Policy and the U.S. Customs Service; second, supporting ways to reform the way IRS interacts with the taxpayers; and third, ensuring that our judicial system can respond to its increased work load by making sure that we have secure and adequate space by providing courthouse construction. In the interest of time, let me just highlight a few of the key provisions in the bill. One, we provide $1.59 billion for drug-related activities. That is an increase of about 1 percent over 1998 levels. Included in that is $185 million for the second year of the National Media Campaign to prevent youths from using drugs, something that we know is vitally important. We have $20 million for the Drug Free Communities Act, which Member after Member has told us how important this is for their communities. For the Customs Service, we provide $1.8 billion. That is down slightly from the President's request. It includes $54 million for new narcotics detection technologies for both sea and land ports of entry, as well as $15.2 million to address badly needed maintenance needs of the air and marine interdiction program, including, Mr. Speaker, $14.2 million to return 3 Blackhawk helicopters to operational status, to increase flight hours for the entire Customs Blackhawk fleet from 18 hours to 30 hours per month. We need to get those Blackhawks up and flying. We need to use them in this interdiction effort, and this bill provides the funds to do that. We provide $7.9 billion for the Internal Revenue Service. This body, by an overwhelmingly bipartisan vote earlier this year, voted to reform the IRS, and we provide the funds to make that reform work so that it will be more user friendly, more consumer friendly, more taxpayer friendly. We have $128 million over the current fiscal year for the IRS. Included in that is $21 million for ongoing efforts to revamp the IRS computer system, which is so badly in need of being upgraded; $25 million to restructure the way the IRS does business with taxpayers; $103 million for improved customer service activities; and, as my colleague from the Committee on Rules said earlier, the money for Y2K will come in a separate bill. Mr. Speaker, I cannot say how many Members have spoken to me about their new courthouse construction projects. This is not pork barrel construction. This list comes right from the list provided to us by the Judiciary. We do not add any projects. We take just the first 14 courthouses that they have ranked as the most important ones in the United States to construct. Last year we had a moratorium on construction. We just did not have the money in the building fund. We have been able to find it this year and we have been able to support the requests of the Judicial Conference for the coming year. Yes, Mr. Speaker, we do have a number of legislative provisions in our bill. We have a restriction on the use of funds for abortion. That has been in this legislation for a long time. We have a requirement for the Federal Employees Health Benefit Program to provide coverage for contraceptives. We have a new title on child care services within Federal agencies. We have a new title granting lawful permanent resident status to current Haitians and, yes, as the first speaker on the other side has already said, we have revisions to the appointment and reappointment authority of the general counsel and staff director of the FEC. We will have more time to discuss that, and I hope that there will be some more discussion about the good provisions in this bill and why we should get this conference passed so that we can provide for the vital functions of the government to go forward.

Mr. KOLBE. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Colorado for yielding time to me. I want to especially thank the chairman of the Committee on Rules for the comments that he made earlier. I think he is right on target. Mr. Speaker, this is about getting a bill to the floor. This is about the necessary compromises that have to be made in the legislative process that all of us learn very painfully as we go through this process. We do not get everything we like. There are things in here which I would prefer not to see in here. Mr. Speaker, this is about compromise. It is about teamwork. But as I listened to the arguments from the other side for the last hour, I think the comment that was made by the distinguished ranking member of the Committee on Rules at the outset put it right into perspective. He said, this is really about firing one person. This is about one person. This whole bill, this whole rule, is about one person. Who here tonight is going to say that this one individual, this general counsel of the Federal Elections Commission, is not a powerful person? Here we are, threatening to take down a $27 billion appropriation bill that supports 163,000 good working men and women in the Federal Government. We are going to take it down because we do not like what it is doing to one single person. We want to save the job of one career bureaucrat. We are willing to take down this bill, this appropriation bill, because one person, the minority says to us tonight, may not be able to muster up four votes to save his job; a majority, that is how we pass bills around here, a majority of the Federal Elections Commission, to save his job. That is what this debate tonight is all about. Mr. Speaker, we are willing to defeat this bill, that gives the Customs Service another $15.2 million to put 16 Black Hawk helicopters in the air, to increase their flying time from the current 18 hours to more than 30 hours each month. We need those Black Hawks along the border, I can tell Members that. I represent one of those areas. We need those in the drug interdiction fight. This bill gives us the money to put those helicopters back in the air, to give them the time to fly, to help them interdict against the drugs. Who says the general counsel of the FEC does not have power? He can ground the entire Customs Service fleet of Black Hawk helicopters in order to save his job. The Democrats are willing to sacrifice $7.9 billion for the Internal Revenue Service, including $103 million for customer service initiatives, $25 million in restructuring and reform, to keep one man in his job. By a huge bipartisan vote earlier we passed IRS reforms on this floor. This gives us the money to put those into place, to make the IRS a more taxpayer-friendly, a more consumer-friendly place. But no, some people are willing to sacrifice this bill and the money it has for IRS reforms to save the job of one career bureaucrat. The fact is, we do not fire the current general counsel, we simply require that he has to get a majority of the votes from the Federal Election Commission in order to stay on the job every 4 years. The FEC is supposed to be a bipartisan group. If the general counsel cannot get a bipartisan vote in order to stay on this job, then why should he stay on for a lifetime? Why should he not find other employment? The fact is, the House of Representatives here is debating the job security of one single person in the United States government who apparently cannot get four out of six people to think he is doing a fair job. That is unconscionable. What else are we going to sacrifice? Are we going to sacrifice $3.4 million to stop cybercrime and the smuggling of child pornography? We are talking about giving up $3.2 million for the support of the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, $20 million for drug-free communities. Letter after letter I have had from the majority and minority side saying how important this money for drug-free communities is. There is $185 million for the second year of a national media campaign to keep our kids off of drugs. We have a good start on that program this year, but no, we are willing to give that up to save the job of one career bureaucrat if he cannot get four votes, a majority of votes, the same thing we have to have to pass any bill in the House and Senate, the same thing we have to have to confirm any person in the cabinet or in the Federal government, when he is confirmed by the United States. No, we are willing to give that up to keep that one person. There is $183 million for high-intensity drug trafficking areas, in areas like Dallas and Fort Worth, and a new one that is very important, central Florida; Washington and Baltimore; Miami; the Midwest, for the methamphetamine reduction. All of these are in danger. In Southern California, Mr. Speaker, in Los Angeles, in San Francisco, in Detroit, in Chicago, in El Paso and Arizona, and yes, along the Arizona and southwest border, all of those high-intensity drug trafficking areas could be endangered, and certainly the new ones will be endangered by not passing this rule and this bill. And oh, yes, to save this career bureaucrat's job, we are willing to give up low-income taxpayer clinics we provide for in the IRS legislation, so that low-income taxpayers can get some service from the Internal Revenue Service; and yes, provisions that Members of this body have come to me about for land transfers in Racine, Wisconsin, and a very important one in Dade County, Florida. That, too, will be lost as a result of defeating this rule tonight. A 3.6 percent pay increase for Federal employees could be in danger as a result of defeating this rule. Finally, we are willing to zero out the funding for courthouses, not courthouses put in here as pork barrel projects, but courthouses that come from the Federal judiciary, as their list of priorities. I am looking down here, and I see that the majority of them are in Democratic districts. These are the ones that the Federal judiciary have said are important in Little Rock, Arkansas; in San Diego; San Jose; Denver, Colorado; Jacksonville, Florida; Orlando, Florida; Springfield, Massachusetts; Biloxi, Mississippi; Cape Girardeau, Missouri; Brooklyn, New York; Eugene, Oregon; Greenville, Tennessee; Laredo, Texas; Wheeling, West Virginia. All of those could be in danger by failing to do this. We could lose the money for the anti-gang grant program, $13 million for that, and $27 million for the youth crime gun interdiction initiative. These are just some of the things, Mr. Speaker, that are jeopardized by the failure to pass this rule this evening. Mr. Speaker, we should not let this rule go down, because we should not let this conference report go down. It is, as my good friend, the distinguished gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Hoyer) just said, a good bill that we have worked hard on. I urge my colleagues to support the rule, support the conference report. Pass this tonight.

Mr. KOLBE

Mr. KOLBE. Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong support of H.R. 4578, the Republican plan to preserve 90 percent of the budget surplus for Social Security reform. In supporting this bill, Republicans demonstrate our commitment to the 44 million people currently receiving Social Security benefits and the 82 million beneficiaries who will retire and begin collecting Social Security three decades from now. This bill sets aside $1.4 trillion dollars for Social Security--funds that will be used to strengthen a system that keeps millions of seniors out of poverty. Students of history will note this is $1.4 trillion dollars more than the Democrats set aside during their 40-year control of this chamber. In supporting this bill, Republicans demonstrate that we are pro- active problem-solvers. Although the Social Security Trust Fund currently is running a surplus, we know that changing demographics-- including the retirement of baby boomers like me--will threaten the long-term viability of the program. By setting aside $1.4 trillion, we guarantee that Congress will have the resources needed to implement a reform plan and preserve Social Security in perpetuity. As Chairman Archer said earlier today, Republicans are committed to preserving Social Security and giving middle Americans much needed tax relief. Despite what the Democrats believe, these two are not mutually exclusive activities. The health of today's economy and a balanced budget generated from the prudent fiscal policies of GOP leadership give us the opportunity to do both. Mr. Speaker, I take exception with the rhetoric coming from the other side of the aisle on this topic. The Democrats accuse Republicans of raiding the Trust Fund, yet these same members sat in a Ways and Means Committee hearing last week and heard Judy Chesser, Deputy Commissioner of the Social Security Administration say that wouldn't happen with a tax cut. When Ms. Chesser was asked whether this bill would affect the OASDI Trust Fund, she replied simply and clearly, ``No.'' The smear campaign Democrats are waging against this bill is irresponsible and absolutely false. America is fed up with lying; to set the record straight: This bill ``steals'' nothing--it ``saves'' money for Social Security. This bill ``robs'' from no one, it ``gives'' $1.4 trillion to our senior citizens.

Mr. KOLBE

Mr. KOLBE. Mr. Speaker, today, I am pleased to support another piece of legislation which will let our constituents, especially our middle class constituents, keep more of their hard earned paychecks and savings. The money we take as taxes belongs to those who earn it, not to Congress. It is our duty to make sure that we take only that money absolutely necessary to carry out legitimate Federal Government activities. Our citizens know better how to spend their funds than Washington bureaucrats. This bill doesn't complete the job. It is just another down payment-- another bit of a piecemeal approach, but in my view, allowing those who earn the money to keep it is worthwhile whether it be piecemeal or a part of a comprehensive plan to reform the tax code which I hope we see on this floor in the near future. My Democrat colleagues are very disingenuous when they say we're raiding the Social Security trust fund to pay for these tax cuts. For 40 years, they raided the trust fund to pay for new spending on programs that brought power and taxes to Washington. Now that Republicans have cut spending, given tax relief, built a booming economy and accumulated our first surplus in decades while still setting aside funds to shore up that trust fund, we hear them cry that we can't have tax cuts. Since when is putting 90 percent of the surplus to save Social Security and giving 10 percent of it back to the people who pay taxes a raid on Social Security? Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to support marriage penalty relief for 24 million couples. I am pleased to let 68 million savers keep the first $200 in interest on their savings accounts. I am pleased to let 3.3 million self employed individuals deduct their health insurance premiums just like big corporations. These steps are not nearly enough, but they are steps in the right direction. They are steps away from bigger government and more spending. I urge my colleagues to join me in supporting the Taxpayer Relief Act of 1998.

Mr. KOLBE

Mr. KOLBE. Mr. Speaker, I do rise in support of this rule and for the legislation granting fast track authority to the President. Mr. Speaker, it is a sad day to have to listen to many of the speeches that we have heard here today. The fear that some members have for America's future, their fear about America being able to compete in the world. Do they have so little confidence in America that they do not think that American workers and American citizens can compete in this world? We have been hearing a lot about how NAFTA is the source of our problem. Maybe NASTA explains why our unemployment rate is at an all- time low. Maybe it explains why we have created so many jobs in this world, more than 6 million jobs created since 1994. We heard about 400,000 lost jobs. How about the 6 million that have been created? Maybe we should attribute all of those to the creation of NAFTA. The fact of the matter is, we have had a tremendous surge in exports over the last several years. Look at this chart, at how exports have grown 3,000 percent over the last 35 years. That has created jobs for American workers who produce those exports that have gone overseas. We are the beneficiary of growing exports. And just in the last 12 years, look at the increase in the gross domestic product of this country attribute to trade--$500 billion. That would not have been there otherwise if we had not had foreign trade. So why do we need fast track now? Because there is much that remains to be done. There are many things that we need, to have negotiating authority for this President to be able to attempt to reduce the 100 percent tariff that Indonesia has on American automobiles, to eliminate the European Union's 25 percent tax on our trucks and try to get those down, and Brazil's inordinate tax on computers. Next year we are going to begin negotiations on agriculture. We are the world's largest agricultural exporter. We need to have this authority so that we can sit at that table with the rest of the world while they talk about it and so that we can reduce those tariffs for the United States. We need fast track authority, as President Clinton himself has said. I urge my colleagues to vote for this rule and for fast track authority.

Mr. KOLBE

Mr. KOLBE. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding time to me. Mr. Speaker, I would like to respond to a few of the arguments that I have been listening to in this debate today. One, of course, that we have heard over and over again is about how trade and trade agreements are going to drive down incomes, they are going to drive down wages. It is ironic that argument should be raised today. Here on the front page of the Washington Post, ``Poverty rate fell, incomes rose in 1997. Income for the typical American household rose at a rate nearly twice that of inflation in 1997, and income and poverty figures returned to the levels that the Nation hasn't seen before the last recession,'' more than a decade ago. So it is just false. We have had a 3,000 percent increase in trade over the last 35 years, a tremendous increase in the last 7 to 10 years. It is absolutely false to say that income levels are falling, that jobs are being lost. How can they argue that jobs are being lost when 6 million jobs have been created in the last few years, and unemployment is at the lowest possible rate? We have to be putting our heads in the sand, imagining things, to say that employment has been lost. The second argument I want to raise is one we have heard a lot of on the floor the last several years, why we need to provide the funding for the IMF. I happen to believe that is important. I do think part of our world responsibilities is to have this funding to maintain stability in currencies. However, I would like to ask my colleagues who urge us to vote for IMF, and then turn around and vote against fast track, how do they think these countries are ever going to generate the economy, the wherewithal, to repay the loans they get from the IMF? Or do they just believe there should be international welfare, that we should shell this money out, but those countries are never going to be able to have the income in order to make the repayments to the International Monetary Fund? It is another phony argument. Finally, there is the political argument that somehow this is just being done for political reasons. There is politics that are being played. This President said last year he was for IMF, or for fast track. He said in his State of the Union speech this January he was for it. Now he is against it, but next January he will be for it again. If he was not off raising funds today, if he was here in the United States campaigning, if he was here in Washington campaigning for this, we might be able to pass this today. I urge my colleagues to vote for this. Vote for America. Vote for our future. Vote for fast track.

Mr. KOLBE

Mr. KOLBE. Mr. Chairman, I rise in opposition to this amendment, I appreciate the motives of the proponents of this amendment which would eliminate funding for the U.S. Army School of the Americas (SOA). But I disagree with their assessment of the school and its graduates. The closure of the SOA would be detrimental to our relationship with Latin American countries, and could hinder progress in human rights efforts in those countries. The School of the Americas was established as part of President John F. Kennedy's Alliance for Progress. It was created from the existing U.S. Army Caribbean Training Center in Panama. In 1984, the SOA was moved from Panama to Fort Benning, George. The purpose of the SOA is to provide guidance to Latin American military personnel so they can respond to drug trafficking, natural disasters, and human rights challenges in their countries. The SOA emphasizes the role of a professional military force in a democratic society. I support these objectives, as democratically elected civilian governments of Latin America support them. Each year, soldiers from Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, Columbia, Costa Rica, the Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico, Paraguay, Peru, Uruguay, Venezuela and the United States attend the SOA. No other school in the world with such a small operations budget brings together future civilian and military leaders of 16 countries in a purposeful effort to prepare for the future, strengthen alliance within a hemispheric region, to reinforce the principles of democracy, and increase mutual understanding and cooperation among neighboring countries. The SOA has a very difficult task. It is charged with teaching students from countries with long histories of dictatorships and abuse, the value of promoting human rights. The curriculum is structured so that each student receives, on average, 30 minutes of human rights training and/or exposure every day. Of course, it is impossible to qualify the number of abuses that the SOA's human rights training has prevented. Consequently, the debate often turns to a finger-pointing game of highlighting the infrequent, but certainly reprehensible, lapses of judgement by a few SOA graduates. Those who want to see the School close its doors focus their criticism on a few short passages (some less than a sentence in length) from three U.S. Army Intelligence training manuals provided to students in a few SOA classes in the 1980's. Most important is the fact that it has never been established that any of these passages were actually used or taught in a classroom at the School, nor was the ``manual'' developed by the SOA. Furthermore, not a single human rights violation can be reasonably linked or attributed to the School or its training manuals. Yes, some 100 of the 60,000 graduates have been guilty of documented human rights abuses. But let's not forget about the other 59,900 graduates. Over 100 of these SOA graduates served or currently serve their nation and its people from the very highest levels of civilian and military office--from chief executive to commander of major military units. A fair and objective assessment of Latin American history over the last 50 years will demonstrate that the U.S. Army School of the Americas saves lives. For example, in the early 1980's, El Salvador was accused of about 2,000 human rights violations per month; in the latter part of the decade, that figure dropped to approximately 20 each month. Although SOA cannot take all the credit, almost 50 percent of El Salvadoran officers have graduated from the school since 1986. Not even the most vehement opponent of the School can deny that the overwhelming majority of graduates honorably serve their countries as professional men and women. While failure do occur, I challenge any opponent to demonstrate any correlation between reported misconduct by individual SOA graduates and the professional education and training they received at the School. If Congress were to close the SOA, it would negatively affect our ability to have a meaningful and cost-effective vehicle to promote democracy and human rights within the ranks of the Latin American military. The State Department, Pentagon, and participating Latin American governments all agree that the SOA program is the best approach to achieving important national security and foreign policy objectives. If the program were abolished, training for Latin American military personnel would become unavailable or more expensive. Fewer officers and enlisted personnel would be exposed to U.S. training and democratic values. In my view, that is not the way to promote human rights abroad. I urge my colleagues to vote ``no'' on this ill-advised amendment.

Mr. KOLBE

Mr. KOLBE. I yield to the gentleman from Wisconsin.

Mr. KOLBE. I yield to the gentleman from Maryland.

Mr. KOLBE. I yield to the gentleman from Wisconsin.

Mr. KOLBE. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days to revise and extend their remarks on the motion to instruct and that I might include tabular and extraneous materials.

Mr. KOLBE. Mr. Speaker, I would agree with that, and I think that is what I want to accommodate and I am trying to accommodate here, and if there is an understanding that we can expedite this discussion making, and we had a full discussion on this, I might add, on the floor during the debate on the bill on this exact issue, and if we can understand that there would not be the gentleman's suggestions of other procedural road blocks being thrown up at this point, then I would withdraw my objection if that is agreeable with both sides. Does that understanding conform to the gentleman from Wisconsin as well?

Mr. KOLBE. Mr. Speaker, I withdraw my reservation of objection.

Mr. KOLBE. Mr. Speaker, I have no further speakers, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. KOLBE. Reclaiming my time, Mr. Speaker, the gentleman is correct.

Mr. KOLBE. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, let me just say that this issue was completely debated on the floor of the House when our bill was considered in July. It is, as the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Hoyer) has suggested, an extraordinarily important issue. When we say ``Y2K'' we are talking about the transition of our electronic and computer systems to the new millennium. We have shortened that terminology to an acronym, Y2K. I tell you this so that those who are listening or reading this debate at a later time might understand what we mean when we say ``Y2K''. There is no question that the debate over how we handle Y2K is extraordinarily important. It is also a difficult issue for the Federal Government and for the private sector. I think that we have much on our side to commend itself. The United States is probably well ahead of where many other countries are. We are behind in government efforts compared to the private sector, particularly the banking industry. But we are ahead of the efforts of other governments. On the other hand, we get constant revisions in the amount of money that is going to be required for this program. Let me just review for my colleagues the estimates the Office of Management and Budget, which has the overall responsibility for this problem. Here is what they have estimated, going back, not very far, to May of last year. In their first quarterly report in May of 1997 they said the fix was going to take about $2.8 billion. They revised that the next quarter, in August, to $3.8 billion; that was an increase of 1 billion. They revised that in the third quarter, in November, to 3.9 billion; that was an increase of only $100 million. They revised it in the fourth quarter to $4.7 billion, an increase of 800 million. They revised that in the fifth quarterly report, in May of this year, to $5 billion. Now we saw an increase of another $300 million. And now we have in this sixth quarterly report an estimate of $5.6 billion, another $460 million increase. And so, Mr. Speaker, I would just point out that we have a lot of money that is involved in this issue. What we have decided, what the Republican leadership has decided, I think wisely so, is to include this with all of the other issues dealing with emergency supplemental appropriations. I know the gentleman from Maryland was with us yesterday when the Members of the House Committee on Appropriations listened to the State Department talk about the requirements for embassy security. So, we have funds for embassy security facing us as an emergency supplemental. Then, we also have farm aid as a possible emergency appropriations, we have Bosnia, and then we have the Y2K. So all of these issues are clearly going to have to be dealt with before this Congress adjourns, before the 105th Congress becomes history. We have begun those discussions with the Senate, with our counterparts in the Senate at the subcommittee level. Discussions are occurring at the chairmanship level, and it is happening at the leadership level. We know this matter must be dealt with. We recognize it is something that must be dealt with, but we also believe that it ought to be dealt with in an emergency supplemental that is separate from this appropriation bill so that we can look at these issues separately. So I would just urge my colleagues to defeat this motion with a full understanding that none of us, none of us, are making light of the seriousness of this matter. Indeed some of us have made it very clear that we believe the Office of Management and Budget and the White House has not given this matter the consideration that it deserves, and we have been urging them to give it more attention. But I do not believe that this motion to instruct helps us to move along the path where we need to get in order to have a resolution of this issue. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. KOLBE. Further reserving the right to object, I yield to the gentleman from Maryland.

Mr. KOLBE. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to take from the Speaker's table the bill (H.R. 4104) making appropriations for the Treasury Department, the United States Postal Service, the Executive Office of the President, and certain Independent Agencies, for the fiscal year ending September 30, 1999, and for other purposes, with a Senate amendment thereto, disagree to the Senate amendment, and agree to the conference asked by the Senate.

Mr. KOLBE. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the right to object at this point, under my reservation, Mr. Speaker, we have gone through a little bit of backing and forthing on this motion. I was quite prepared on the last one, which is one that we had had some discussion about, to accept that. But I am not inclined to accept a unanimous consent agreement on this particular motion. I would be willing to, on the one that was previously offered, to accept a unanimous consent agreement.

Mr. KOLBE. I yield to the gentleman from Maryland.