Jim Kolbe

Mr. KOLBE

Mr. KOLBE. Mr. Chairman, parliamentary inquiry.

Mr. KOLBE. Mr. Chairman, is the unanimous consent in order at the time that we are considering a point of order?

Mr. KOLBE. Mr. Chairman, reclaiming my time, I was ready to and I did allow this brief discussion of this, but I do feel compelled to rise to make the point of order against the gentleman's amendment because it seeks to amend the paragraph in this bill that has already been read under the 5-minute rule, and the House Manual states very clearly in section 872 that when a paragraph or section has been passed it is not in order to return thereto. While I am tempted to debate the issues here, I regret that to say the gentleman's amendment does come too late, and I would ask for a ruling from the Chair.

Mr. KOLBE. Mr. Chairman, I reserve a point of order. Mr. Chairman, I would like to hear the gentleman explain his amendment but would reserve the point of order.

Mr. KOLBE. Mr. Chairman, I do object.

Mr. KOLBE

Mr. KOLBE. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Chairman, the gentleman from Vermont [Mr. Sanders] may wish his amendment did that, but it does not do that. Mr. Chairman, I yield the balance of my time to the gentleman from California [Mr. Dreier].

Mr. KOLBE. No, I do not have the time to yield. The gentleman from Vermont [Mr. Sanders] has his own time. He got 5 extra minutes on the earlier motion. Let me just clarify a few other things about what is being proposed. The earlier ``Dear Colleague'' letter that Members received from some of the sponsors, talked about this is dealing with the multilateral agreement on investment. In fact, it talked about the role that the multilateral agreement, or MIA as we will call it, has with the World Trade Organization, or WTO. But there is not any link between the MIA and the WTO. To say there is a link between those two is simply incorrect. The fact is, however, that the new multilateral agreement on investments builds upon 1,000 bilateral investment agreements that are already in force around the world. All of those agreements have some kind of investor dispute settlement mechanism in them. Most of them are done through the World Bank's International Center for Settlement of Investment Disputes. The center has been in existence since 1966. It is one of the primary forces for settling these kinds of disputes. We have to have something to settle disputes when investors get into some kind a dispute. This is the first comprehensive multilateral investment agreement that we have had, and in that sense it is new, but it is certainly high time. We have an increasingly complex world of trade out there, an increasing complex economic situation, and we have to have agreements and we have to have institutions that can deal with settling disputes. That is why we have this multilateral agreement on investments, and that is why we need to have some kind of mechanism for dealing with these. Let us talk a little bit about what the WTO has done and what the WTO has not done. There is a lot of confusion about that. People say that we are giving up our sovereignty to this organization. But we don't. The WTO is like a lot of other institutions; we have them in a whole range of other areas for settling disputes when disputes arise. We have an increasing amount of trade in the world, so we have an increasing amount of disputes in the world. The first five cases that we have taken to the WTO we have won. We won against Japan on their liquor taxes. We won against Canada on their restrictions on magazines. We won against the European Union on their banana imports. We won against the European Union on their hormone ban. And we won against India on their patent law. As a result of having been able to threaten actions in the WTO, we have gotten significant settlements in other disputes with Korea, with the European Union, with Japan, with Portugal, with Pakistan, with Turkey, with Hungary, a whole variety of them. Mr. Chairman, let me just conclude by saying this: This issue does not have anything to do with the WTO at all. The rhetoric may, but certainly the amendment does not. This amendment is about policy. It suggests a major policy change. Thus is the reason why we should not debate this kind of thing on appropriation bills. It is the kind of thing that needs to be considered very carefully, in a very complex proposal in the authorizing committee, and I would urge us to not be misled by the rhetoric we have heard here today. (Mr. ROGERS asked and was given permission to speak out of order for 1 minute.) Legislative Schedule For Tonight

Mr. KOLBE. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 3\1/2\ minutes. Mr. Chairman, as the gentleman from Virginia pointed out, this amendment is very different than the debate that we have been having here tonight. Let us understand what it is and what it is not. The amendment would shift $1 million from the Department of Commerce to the U.S. Trade Representative's Office, period. That is all it does. The rhetoric is about a lot of other stuff, but the rhetoric has nothing to do with the actual amendment. Since we have just gotten an amended budget request from the President on the USTR to add money to USTR, it may be not a bad idea. If this amendment passes, we will certainly use it for that purpose, since the USTR needs the money to hire some attorneys to carry out their activities, but certainly not anything dealing with this.

Mr. KOLBE. Mr. Chairman, we have just one speaker and we have the right to close. So I will reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. KOLBE

Mr. KOLBE. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from New York [Mr. King].

Mr. KOLBE. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to take from the Speaker's table the bill (H.R. 2378) making appropriations for the Treasury Department, the U.S. Postal Service, the Executive Office of the President, and certain independent agencies, for the fiscal year ending September 30, 1998, 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 balance of my time.

Mr. KOLBE. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 2 minutes. Mr. Speaker, I just want to give a little history. The gentleman from Arizona [Mr. Hayworth], my colleague and friend, spoke about performance and that we at this time should not receive any kind of a cost-of-living adjustment. I think it is worth the time for Members to understand where we have been legislatively with this. It goes back before some of the Members who will speak on this were here. Because of the very great difficulty that we had with the issue of the pay raise, in 1989 this Congress passed a provision to permanent law, I want to underscore that, ``permanent law,'' which took it out of the hands of Congress so that we would not engage in the kind of demagogic debate that sometimes goes on in this body over this particular issue. And we said that there would be a committee that would survey private sector wage rates for the previous year and the Federal employees would get an increase, a cost-of-living adjustment equal to that and that those at the very top of the scale, Cabinet officers, SES judges, executive service judges, and Members of Congress would get a cost-of-living adjustment that was half a percent below that, so that Members of Congress get a cost-of-living adjustment half a percent below what all other Federal employees would get. Subsequent to that, of course, this Congress has entered into a number of debates on the subject. Despite the fact that we took it out of our own hands, we have entered into this debate and we have denied ourselves even the cost-of-living adjustment that was going to all other Federal employees. It was specifically in order to avoid this debate of having Congress vote on whether it was raising its own salaries or giving itself a cost-of-living adjustment that we created that provision, that we adopted that procedure. I think it is important for Members of this body to know that that is the procedure that this body adopted. Mr. Speaker, I yield 4 minutes to the gentleman from Louisiana [Mr. Livingston]. (Mr. LIVINGSTON asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. KOLBE. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from California [Mr. Cunningham].

Mr. KOLBE. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 2 minutes. Mr. Speaker, let me just cover once again what this bill is and what it is not, what this motion is and what it is not. The Treasury, Postal Service and general government appropriations bill that is before us does not have any provision dealing with Members' pay; it does not have any provision dealing with Federal employees' compensation or cost-of-living adjustments or Member's cost- of-living adjustments. There is, let me repeat, no provision in this bill dealing with compensation for Members or Federal employees. There is no provision dealing with this at all in our bill. I think it is important that we keep that in mind because a lot of people have been saying that a vote on this bill has to do with a cost- of-living increase, a pay increase, increase in compensation for Members. It does not. And that is because this body and the other body, the Congress of the United States, decided in 1989 to take this issue out of our own hands and to make it that Members of Congress would get a cost-of-living adjustment and nothing else based on the increase in the ECI index, and that index with complicated formula which is different for Federal employees than Members of Congress because of the locality pay, but it is established that Members of Congress can never get beyond what a Federal employee gets in an increase in the cost-of- living adjustment. That is the permanent law. That is the permanent law, and if Members of Congress do not like that, where are the bills to repeal that section? Why do we not have bills introduced? Why do we not get that debate on that issue? It is not an appropriation issue. There is no account in Treasury, this appropriation bill, for Members' salaries because Members are constitutional officers. There is no reason for us to vote on this bill and assume that we are in any way voting for an increase in Members' compensation. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. KOLBE. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, before I yield the balance of my time to the distinguished majority whip, let me respond to a comment made a moment earlier about this bill being slipped through. It was done in the middle of the afternoon. It had been on the whip notice for 2 weeks that it was coming up when we finished the interminable debate over Labor-HHS. If in 48 minutes Members cannot find their way to the floor and offer an amendment, I do not know why. Maybe it says something. Maybe the cost of living adjustment is not justified under those circumstances. There was no attempt to be deceitful. There was no attempt to do anything that was not above board. Mr. Speaker, I yield the balance of my time to the gentleman from Texas [Mr. DeLay], the distinguished Majority Whip. The SPEAKER pro tempore [Mr. LaHood]. The gentleman from Texas is recognized for 4\1/2\ minutes.

Mr. KOLBE. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of the motion of the gentleman from Maryland [Mr. Hoyer] to instruct conferees. I think he has outlined very well the importance of the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. It is a very small part of our bill, it is a very small part of the funding, but it is a critical part. A few months ago, during our hearing process, I went over to Virginia and visited this office. It breaks my heart when I see some of the posters that are on the wall, some of the letters that are there from families who have lost their child, who desperately want help in trying to find that child, and turn in sheer despair, with no other place to go to but to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. Sometimes it is hard for us in Congress to take a lot of credit or a lot of pride in the things we do. But if there is anything we can take pride in, it is the fact that we have funded this National Center. It is one, as the gentleman from Maryland [Mr. Hoyer] pointed out, that had its beginnings with John Walsh, whose son, Adam, was brutally kidnapped and murdered in Florida more than a decade ago. John Walsh started a private foundation. Due to the work of some other people, we came along a few years ago and we joined hands and created the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. We provide about $2 million to the Secret Service to assist in the investigations of missing children, mostly for fingerprinting, identification, handwriting analysis. The $514,000 that is the subject of this motion here is earmarked specifically for the exploitation unit which has been established. We think it is absolutely critical that we deal not only with the children who are missing, but those who are being exploited by, as the gentleman from Maryland [Mr. Hoyer] said, the demented souls who would use them, use children for pornography, who would abuse them mentally, who would abuse them physically. That is what this Center for Exploitation deals with. We have never had a specific unit in the National Center dedicated to this before. We would earmark these funds in order to be sure that this is adequately funded and that we really can focus on this issue. That is really the subject of what we are debating here today. I certainly hope that we will go to conference with a strong message urging our conferees to stand by our language on this so that we can go to the Senate and say ``This is something we strongly believe in.'' Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. KOLBE. Mr. Speaker, I am not opposed to the motion to instruct conferees.

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 motion to instruct the conferees on H.R. 2378, and that I may include tabular and extraneous material.

Mr. KOLBE

Mr. KOLBE. Mr. Chairman, the chart below reflects final House action on H.R. 2378. [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] TE18SE97.000 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] TE18SE97.001 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] TE18SE97.002

Mr. KOLBE

Mr. KOLBE. Just to say, reluctantly, I accept the point of order, that it is legislation on the appropriations bill. Given the circumstances of bringing this bill to the floor, this would not be in order on this bill.

Mr. KOLBE. Mr. Chairman, we also concede the point of order. This was a spirited debate in our subcommittee and full committee, but it is clearly, given the fact of the circumstances under which this bill has been brought to the floor, it is legislation on an appropriation and clearly would not be protected as a result of that.

Mr. KOLBE. Mr. Chairman, I also accept the amendment. I would like to reserve the option to review the resource requirements that OMB has when this bill proceeds to conference with the Senate. I realize it does not create any new money, but it earmarks money within the OMB. What the gentleman from New Hampshire [Mr. Sununu] is trying to do I think is correct, to provide for efficient implementation of the Congressional Review Act, but I would simply like to review this issue when it does get to conference. But I would accept the amendment of the gentleman from New Hampshire.

Mr. KOLBE. Mr. Chairman, I move the Committee do now rise and report the bill back to the House, with sundry amendments, with the recommendation that the amendments be agreed to and that the bill, as amended, do pass.

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