Jim Kolbe

Mr. KOLBE

Mr. KOLBE. Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?

Mr. KOLBE. Mr. Chairman, I want to thank the gentleman from Massachusetts for his efforts in this innovative and promising law enforcement technology program. The committee is highly concerned about the state of U.S. marine law enforcement, and the poor condition of the vessels and operational capabilities of the Custom Service's marine interdiction program. Our bill adds $1 million for the Customs marine interdiction program. That is a 20 percent increase over last year's level. While the Night Cat would be a major asset for the interdiction mission, many other issues, apart from procurement, have to be addressed in order to upgrade the condition of Customs marine enforcement. Scores of vessels are deteriorating or are in poor condition, sitting in drydock or otherwise languishing for lack of resources to operate or maintain them. Inadequate staffing and operational support is a continuing problem, as is the need for management to integrate operational intelligence, investigative efforts, and air assets far better than is currently the case. I would also expect to see efforts to secure funding through DOD channels. Nonetheless, test results do show the Night Cat could make a strong contribution to the interdiction effort along our vulnerable coastal areas. As the gentleman has indicated, it could be a useful military asset. With the understanding that we have to address a broad range of issues in supporting marine interdiction, I want to assure the gentleman from Massachusetts that we will work with him to explore ways in which we can support this program, this very useful program as we go to the conference.

Mr. KOLBE. Mr. Chairman, I am pleased to engage the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Delahunt) in a colloquy.

Mr. KOLBE. Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?

Mr. KOLBE. Mr. Chairman, I yield 30 seconds to the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Delahunt).

Mr. KOLBE. I thank the gentlewoman for her comments. I certainly concur with them. Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

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

Mr. KOLBE. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentlewoman for her very eloquent comments and remarks. I think they are remarks that I hope will be heeded by Members on both sides of the aisle. As the ranking member from the other side said a few moments ago, this has been a bill that has been carefully crafted, and I think has had the work in a bipartisan way of people on both sides of the aisle, so I would hope that we would not strike out, and it does not mean that we have agreed on everything, but I would hope that we do not get into a spirit of tit for tat, and we do not strike all the provisions of this bill.

Mr. KOLBE. Mr. Chairman, I am happy to yield 2\1/2\ minutes to the very distinguished gentlewoman from Connecticut (Mrs. Johnson), who has worked very hard on the reform of the Internal Revenue Service.

Mr. KOLBE. Mr. Chairman, I appreciate the gentleman's question and yielding to me to respond to him. Let me just say, first of all, that the gentleman from Pennsylvania has been extraordinarily eloquent and persistent on this issue, and he has made a case, I think a very strong case, not just to me, but I believe to the GSA, about the need for this in the gentleman's community, and his community is very fortunate to have the gentleman advocating on their behalf for this, I know, very important project for the gentleman's community. Let me just say the gentleman made me aware, and if I was not before, I am very aware now, for the need for renovation and expansion of the Erie Federal Courthouse that the gentleman brought to my attention both last year and again this year. As the gentleman points out, we did follow the priorities established by the Judicial Conference of the United States in this year's bill. Last year we did not have any courthouse construction, this year we do have some, and we have gone right down the list, funding as many as we can going straight down that list. It is my understanding that the Erie project is currently in the Judicial Conference's fiscal year 2001, not fiscal year 2000, construction program, but I will certainly continue to work with the gentleman on the gentleman's project as we attempt to continue funding priorities for new courthouse projects, and I hope that we can get additional funding next year to move as many projects forward as possible.

Mr. KOLBE. Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?

Mr. KOLBE. Mr. Chairman, I yield such time as he may consume to the distinguished gentleman from Erie, Pennsylvania (Mr. English) for the purposes of a colloquy.

Mr. KOLBE. Mr. Chairman, I thank both of the gentlemen for the questions and the comments that they made. I am very aware of the work done by the High Intensity Drug Trafficking Areas, the HIDTAs, and the efforts that they make in order to cooperate with local law enforcement. I think they do make a difference, and I certainly understand from the eloquent statements tonight how critical the need is in the Dallas-Fort Worth area. It is my understanding that the director plans to designate the Dallas-Fort Worth area as a HIDTA, and this legislation, I can tell my colleagues that this legislation does provide adequate funding of the overall HIDTA account to fund the creation of another HIDTA in that area.

Mr. KOLBE. Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?

Mr. KOLBE. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Chairman, before I yield for a colloquy, let me just say in response to the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Obey) that I appreciate very much his kind words about our work on this bill, my work. Certainly he and his staff have been also very helpful in getting us where we are. Obviously, the statements that I made about the Y2K, I believe very strongly that we need them. My objection earlier to the gentleman's unanimous consent request was not because I do not believe that we should have this, but because I think it is my responsibility as the chairman of this subcommittee and managing this bill to preserve the rights of the House in what the rule that they just passed says, which is not to protect that. So I am still very hopeful we are going to have this issue resolved in the not-too-distant future. Mr. Chairman, I yield such time as he may consume to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Sessions) for a colloquy.

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

Mr. KOLBE. Mr. Chairman, reclaiming my time, first of all, I would like to commend my colleague from Arizona for the hard work that he has done on the research on this issue. Our subcommittee has spent a good deal of time in the past several months reviewing the operations of the Office of General Counsel in the White House. What we have learned is that, of the 34 full-time employees in this office, there are seven attorneys that are assigned to ongoing Congressional, Independent Counsel and Justice Department investigations. We all know that appropriations cannot be used to pay an employee's personal expenses. While we know that this is the case, the General Accounting Office has found that there may be some instances in which official and personal interests of a Federal employee may overlap. It appears this is precisely the case in the current investigations of the President. I agree with my colleague that a proper distinction needs to be made between these two very separate sources of legal business, and I was pleased to include report language to this effect in the Treasury, Postal Service, and General Government appropriations bill. Mr. Chairman, as the gentleman knows, the bill before us today calls for the counsel's office to write guidelines to ensure that ``no Federal funds are used for the private defense of the President.'' The gentleman and I agree on this issue, and I look forward to continuing to work with the gentleman on this and other issues to ensure that tax dollars are not used to pay the private legal expenses of the President.

Mr. KOLBE. Mr. Chairman, our committee was not and we were not charged with making such a finding, that is correct.

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

Mr. KOLBE. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume for the purpose of a colloquy with the gentleman from Arizona (Mr. Hayworth).

Mr. KOLBE. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Chairman, tonight I am pleased that we have gotten to the point where we are and that I can bring to the floor H.R. 4104 which is the fiscal year 1999 Treasury, Postal Service and General Government appropriations bill. As reported, this bill provides $13.2 billion in discretionary budget authority for the agencies under the subcommittee's jurisdiction, and this level of funding is consistent with the subcommittee's section 302(b) allocation. Mr. Chairman, I might note that the rule that we have just adopted, I realize, places in jeopardy large portions of this bill and many parts of the bill which include legislative provisions carefully crafted and agreed upon by the Members on both sides of the aisle. So I want to say that I believe the bill, as reported by the Committee on Appropriations, is an outstanding bill. It is one which every Member, I believe, on both sides of the aisle, can be very proud. The bill that we have here today is one that is very strong for law enforcement. It is tough on drugs. It supports our efforts to restructure and reform the way the Internal Revenue Service does business. It is supportive of much-needed new court space for our judicial system. First, in this area of law enforcement we continue our commitment to the drug and law enforcement efforts of the Department of Treasury as well as to the Office of National Drug Policy drug control policy headed by General McCaffrey. In total, we provide $3.6 billion for Treasury law enforcement efforts and $427 million for the activities and operations of the Office of National Drug Control Policy. As it specifically relates to drug efforts, the mark provides $1.8 billion. That is an increase of about 3 percent over the current fiscal year and approximately the same as the President has requested. Second, we continue to target resources to restructuring the IRS management, computer modernization and customer service; and, third, we end the moratorium on the Federal construction of courthouses, providing much-needed space and security for the judiciary to meet the demands of its increasing workloads. Mr. Chairman, as my colleagues are very aware, this bill carries an emergency appropriation of $2.25 billion for ensuring that all Federal information systems are Year 2000 compliant. I cannot stress enough to my colleagues the emergency nature of this issue. The implications of an information systems crash on January 1 in the Year 2000 would be simply mind-boggling. Checks to senior citizens, to veterans, to financially-needy Americans will go unsent because the group responsible for getting these payments out, the Financial Management Service, may not be able to meet its deadline. The FMS, Financial Management Service, sends out 63 million Federal payments each month. They pay 85 percent of the government's bills. Rail systems could come to a standstill with trains sitting idle on tracks because switches are locked in place. Major power grids could be thrown into a massive blackout because nuclear power plants have gone off line, have shut down for safety reasons. FAA's contingency plan for the year 2000, that is, in the event their computers go belly-up and they do not have their mission-critical systems compliant, their contingency plan is simply to reduce the number of flights by 60 percent. My colleagues, it is obvious that this kind of solution or this kind of problem is one we simply cannot afford. In OMB's last report to the Committee on Agency Progress in Meeting the Year 2000 Deadline we were told that only 40 percent of all critical mission systems in the Federal Government are compliant. That means that 60 percent are not. We are being told that 15 of the 24 largest Federal agencies will fail to meet the January 1 deadline. Mr. Chairman, January 1, 2000, is not a date that we can slip. We cannot in this body, in this Congress, pass legislation which will postpone the beginning of the millennium, which will stop the clock in its tracks, so it is critical that agencies get the resources they need and that it gets them in a timely fashion. We cannot and we should not afford to play politics on this issue. We need to do everything possible to ensure that the agencies have the money they need and they have it when they need it, and regardless of the outcome of what happens on this bill, we must make sure that we take the steps, whether it is in this bill or a separate supplemental appropriation bill, to get that money to these agencies that is absolutely necessary. Mr. Chairman, I want to make a few general observations about several possible amendments to this bill. At this point, we have a list of some 25 different colloquies, amendments and points of order. I suspect with the adoption of the rule that we have just had there will be many other points of order that will be made. Of these only seven, seven have anything to do with an appropriations matter, with the dollars that are in this bill. The rest are all legislative in nature. I appreciate and share the frustration that we all have when important legislative issues are not and cannot be addressed through the appropriate authorization process. But there is a reason that these provisions cannot and are not moved through the regular legislative process. They are controversial, and they are difficult issues. They require the thorough vetting of a committee hearing. They require the careful consideration of the authorizing committees which are established and constituted and staffed to consider that kind of legislation. Attaching these items to an appropriation bill does nothing to address the underlying controversy. In fact, it intensifies the debate and serves to threaten and derail the very important work of the Committee on Appropriations which is to make sure that our agencies have the funds they need to carry out the tasks that this Congress has given them through the authorizing legislation. Mr. Chairman, the bill before us today supports those critical operations for the Customs Service, the Internal Revenue Service, the Secret Service, the General Services Administration. We simply cannot afford to shut those agencies down in order to advance controversial legislative items. Finally, Mr. Chairman, let me take just a moment to take this opportunity in this moment to express my sincere appreciation for the very hard work and the dedication of the distinguished ranking member of this subcommittee, the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Hoyer), and for his staff, Cory Alexander, Kim Weaver, Pat Schlueter. They have been absolutely invaluable as we moved this bill through the subcommittee, the full committee, and now to the House floor. And as I pay tribute to them, let me pay tribute to those staff members who are around me on this side of the aisle who have done such an outstanding and fantastic job: the clerk for our committee, Michelle Mrdeza; our other professional staff, Bob Schmidt, Jeff Ashford, Tammy Hughes; and our detailee from the Federal Government, from the Secret Service, Frank Larkin; and to my personal staff member, Jason Isaac; all of whom have toiled an incredible number of hours in order to get us where we are this evening. Mr. Chairman, without the cooperative work on both sides of the aisle, I do not think that we would have the bill that we have here this evening. Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. KOLBE. Mr. Chairman, yes, it is our intention to proceed through the hour of general debate, which will include a number of colloquies that we have, but not yet to open the bill at any point, not to begin the reading of the bill.

Mr. KOLBE. Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield? I would be happy to respond to that.

Mr. KOLBE

Mr. KOLBE. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days in which to revise and extend their remarks on H.R. 4104 and that I may include tabular and extraneous material.

Mr. KOLBE

Mr. KOLBE. Mr. Speaker, reserving the right to object, and I would object, Mr. Speaker, I would have to object on the grounds that this unanimous consent agreement is contrary to the rule which was just adopted by the House of Representatives, and for that reason I do object.