Jerry Lewis

Mr. LEWIS of California

Mr. LEWIS of California. Mr. Chairman, I demand a recorded vote.

Mr. LEWIS of California. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself the balance of my time. Mr. Chairman, we have discussed this earlier, but the intriguing thing about the amendment of the gentlewoman from Ohio [Ms. Kaptur], which is different than the amendment she had earlier, is that she is recommending that one take $234 million and transfer it from FEMA to the public housing modernization account. That is a reflection of my earlier commentary that we are hopeful that that modernization account will become a vehicle for a new war on drugs in these very same facilities that we are worried about. We are all in the same ballpark in that connection. Mr. Chairman, the problem lies in that if you take all that money from FEMA, suddenly you have no disaster assistance. If we were actually talking about budget authority instead of outlay, we would be busting the budget and it would not be in order at all. Having said that, we do not want to zero FEMA, and let me suggest why we do not need to. As we said earlier, within the current public housing modernization accounts, in this year's proposal there is $2.5 billion. Left over in former accounts from former years there is another $6 billion. To say the least, those accounts do not just spend out slowly; the agency has not been very good at using those moneys. Now, I think between the gentlewoman and myself and my ranking member we can encourage them to tap some of that money and make sure it is used for this purpose without having to strip FEMA. Mr. Chairman, I do not want to lessen the commitment any more than the gentlewoman does, but we do not want to find ourselves in a position where we zero out FEMA, and, only because of that, I have to ask for a ``no'' vote on the gentlewoman's amendment.

Mr. LEWIS of California. Mr. Chairman, I proudly yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Florida [Mr. Shaw].

Mr. LEWIS of California. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the last word. Mr. Chairman, I will be asking for a broader unanimous consent request in a few moments, but initially I ask unanimous consent to proceed with the Kaptur amendment, with a limitation of time of 20 minutes, 10 minutes on each side.

Mr. LEWIS of California. Mr. Chairman, I would tell the gentleman, I would hope to be able to proceed with [[Page H 7896]] the amendment offered by the gentlewoman from Ohio [Ms. Kaptur], for 10 minutes on each side, if we can get that approved, get this agreed to, and then proceed with the gentleman's colloquy, subsequent to the Kaptur vote.

Mr. LEWIS of California. Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?

Mr. LEWIS of California. Mr. Chairman, the next amendment would be the Kaptur amendment and a time limit of 10 minutes on each side, and the gentleman and I could have this conversation, as we go forward.

Mr. LEWIS of California. Mr. Chairman, if the gentleman will continue to yield, if we could proceed on the next amendment and the gentleman and I discuss it, I think that would be helpful. I find the gentleman to be very instructive when I have those discussions.

Mr. LEWIS of California. Mr. Chairman, I appreciate the gentleman inquiring. I, frankly, did not intend to discuss it before he and I could sit down and chat about it, because there is not a deal until the gentleman and I have signed off on the deal. In the meantime, I have, as the gentleman knows, wanted to get through this evening, if at all possible. It is very apparent that we are going to have difficulty doing that before 2:00 in the morning. So we are attempting to take a series of items and have time limitations on them that could involve the rolling of a couple of votes and then could involve a couple of, three or four items that would be voted on tomorrow, if the authors of the amendments agreed to roll them over. Having said that, I do want the gentleman and I to talk about the specifics before we go further. That could get us out of here somewhere close to 10:00 tonight, but the unanimous consent request would also include a provision that we could debate on items like the space station item, like the gentleman's amendment that would eliminate language and so on tomorrow and have the debate limited to those amendments that are in the Record now so we could start at 9:00 in the morning and be through for certain by 3:00 in the afternoon. That is the pattern that we are going in. We are looking at time limits, but I want to discuss it with the gentleman personally before we finally agree to that.

Mr. LEWIS of California. Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?

Mr. LEWIS of California. Mr. Chairman, I want to commend my colleague for his tenacity on this issue. Not a day has gone by when he did not push me and other members of the committee on this matter. Adequate care for the veterans in northern California is clearly a priority for him and for the many members of Operation VA. I truly regret that budget realities forced us to omit funds for a full medical center; however, in response to the gentleman's specific questions, I can assure the gentleman that he is going in the right direction in the assumptions that he has presented. The committee will appropriate all the necessary funds in fiscal year 1996 for the clinic with the VA's help in identifying the amounts needed. Any previously appropriated but unspent funds may be used for that clinic. Further, it is the committee's intent that the outpatient clinic will be built at Travis Air Force Base and will be able to share facilities with David Grant Medical Center. Mr. Chairman, I must say that my colleague has been more than persistent. The gentleman has developed a base of knowledge and understanding of the needs of the people in all those counties in that huge territory of California. The gentleman has communicated that well to me, and also to people in the Veterans' Administration, as well as our committee, and I appreciate it.

Mr. LEWIS of California. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself the balance of my time. I know full well the intent of the Kennedy amendment and I have not just empathy for but great concern about fair housing laws and their implementation across the country. As they operate presently, the legislation regarding fair housing requires that States be responsive to those requirements in place. The subject we are dealing with here, though, that relates to insurance involves the promulgation of regulations by the Department that exceeds their authority and it exceeds the parameters of the fair housing law itself. Historically insurance laws in this country have been controlled by the individual States because of the great variety of circumstances within the States. The gentlewoman who just spoke and I served in the State legislature together and we worked together to see how best we could get our State to deal with these problems in California. I remember very specific conversations when I was on the finance and insurance committee with the gentlewoman about this problem, and I was concerned about this problem. In many other States there has been responsiveness. I do not now what has happened in Massachusetts, but I would guess that legislature has been sensitive to this problem. Insurance laws controlled by the States have existed because of the great variety of needs across the country. I personally feel very strongly that we should continue to put pressure on the States where we see difficulties. But to presume a cookie cutter from the Department of Housing in Washington can serve the needs of the entire country, I must say, is a mistaken presumption. In this case, I strongly support the concern expressed by my colleagues here. At the same time I strongly oppose the amendment by the gentleman from Massachusetts [Mr. Kennedy]. I would urge a ``no'' vote. Mr. Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. LEWIS of California. Mr. Chairman, I yield such time as he may consume to the gentleman from California [Mr. Royce]. (Mr. ROYCE asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. LEWIS of California. Mr. Chairman, reclaiming my time, I take the [[Page H 7886]] problem back to those of us who have served in state legislatures who may have made some bad judgments about this whole subject area. People of very good heart years ago in California were concerned about people being institutionalized in mental institutions, and we closed those down and suggested that people could go back to their communities and receive clinical service. We never kept the promise of clinical service. A high percentage of the people who are in the streets are people who have mental difficulties, people who suffer from various kinds of addiction. We need to rethink those past policies to help HUD do a better job. I, frankly, think that HUD has failed to think the problem through carefully. I empathize with the gentlewoman's concern, and because she was expressing that concern so well, I wanted to share this exchange.

Mr. LEWIS of California. I yield to the gentlewoman from North Carolina.

Mr. LEWIS of California. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Chairman, I would like to share with the gentlewoman my own concern about the subject area, because I think she expresses very well what should be the concern of all of us. We have, since I have been in the House, truly seen an explosion in the spending for housing, in programs that proliferate in many forms. Some have worked very well, and some have not worked so well. My concern is this: While housing has increased by 50 percent over the last 4 years, since 1990 homeless funding has tripled. There are some homeless programs that have worked very well; there are many that have not worked at all. You clearly can see across the country, in urban center after urban center, growing numbers of people on grates in the wintertime sleeping in the cold. All of us have to be concerned about that. My consternation is the fact that we have spent so much on housing in general over the last decade. Yet this problem has come upon us, and we have not found a solution. We are helping some individuals, but the problem seems to grow. That is another reason I feel we need to shake this agency, to rethink the way they are using dollars. I am very concerned about this.

Mr. LEWIS of California. Mr. Chairman, no, they are not.

Mr. LEWIS of California. Mr. Chairman, if the gentleman will yield, I will be glad to respond.

Mr. LEWIS of California. Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. LEWIS of California. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume, and I rise to oppose the Vento amendment. The amendment of the gentleman from Minnesota [Mr. Vento] is designed to provide assistance where we are currently providing assistance. He would add $184 million to homeless assistance grants and $30 million to FEMA's emergency food and shelter grants. The latter was only a $130 million account in the first place. We cut $30 million out of it. We believe it is a good program. Mr. Chairman, in terms of the homeless assistance grants, I think it should be said that there was a $297 million deferral that came through the rescission process. It would be applied to the amount that is appropriated in this bill. So we have attempted to use that, combined with the appropriated amount, to make this account whole, relative to the 1995 year. Mr. Chairman, the fact is that while these are difficult times, we are concerned about the homeless assistance grants. We wanted to make sure that there was funding to allow them to go forward with the programs in place, still hoping that those programs would be much more effective for the homeless than they had been thus far. Mr. Chairman, having said that, the amendment of the gentleman from Minnesota takes the money from all of FEMA's emergency assistance. I mean literally, he zeroes those accounts. The import that that will have on people who are homeless for other reasons is very real. That is not the account to take it from. Mr. Chairman, I would urge the gentleman to recognize that we have attempted very seriously to balance these accounts carefully. To zero the FEMA accounts in the face of some of those problems that we know exist would be a very big mistake for the House. Therefore, Mr. Chairman, I urge a ``no'' vote on the amendment of the gentleman from Minnesota [Mr. Vento].

Mr. LEWIS of California. Mr. Chairman, I probably will not use those 2 minutes. Mr. Chairman, I appreciate the point that the gentleman from Wisconsin [Mr. Roth] has made. There have been serious problems raised about the management of HUD and the funds that flow from HUD in local communities; Washington, DC, is one, Baltimore is another. There are a number of others. We do need to carefully review what we have done in the past so that we can correct some of the difficulties in the future. I appreciate my colleague from Wisconsin raising the point, for it is an important consideration. Mr. Chairman, I would like to mention in closing that 2 weeks ago an Assistant Secretary at HUD was quoted in a Washington Post editorial as saying that funding in the account that we are dealing with here could consume the Department entirely if nothing is done to curb spending there. That editorial and quotation essentially made my point here. Assisted housing is important, but it has been growing. It is at $19 billion, almost $20 billion now; it will be at least $30 billion by the end of this century. This cap is designed to assist and help HUD, and perhaps, to put their house in order. Mr. Chairman, I urge a no vote on this amendment.

Mr. LEWIS of California. Mr. Chairman, if the gentleman will yield, the $297 million was a part of the rescission package which was not signed into law until today. We have awarded most of this money. They had not been obligated because obviously most of the money had not been available prior to the signing of the rescission bill. This funding does flow into next year, it supplements the program, and I think it makes it whole. Frankly, Mr. Chairman, it is not all that we would like to do, but we are operating with a limited pool of resources. The gentleman and I know very well, if the gentleman looks at Oklahoma City and other places, what zeroing FEMA might mean. So this is taking money from the wrong place when we have tried in very difficult circumstances to make adjustments that at least cause us to get through this year in a reasonable way in these accounts.

Mr. LEWIS of California. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Chairman, I regret to say that I rise to oppose the amendment offered by the gentleman from Ohio [Mr. Stokes]. He and I discussed our own frustration with what has been going on with HUD accounts across the board. We have spent a lot more money year in, year out, over the years, and yet it seems in many instances the money that we are spending has not really gotten to those people that we want to serve the most. I am particularly concerned about the accounts that the amendment offered by the gentleman from Ohio [Mr. Stokes] addresses in this case, for we are talking about assisted housing. In this bill assisted housing has $19,939,000,000. We have put a cap on that spending amount and are saying to HUD, ``You'll stay within that limitation because this is the account that [[Page H 7882]] has grown way beyond inflation over the years.'' As we have discussed many times today, HUD spending has increased by 50 percent over the last 4 years. In assisted housing, at its current rate and pattern of growth, by roughly the year 2000, this account will have grown to roughly $30 billion. If that is the case, it will eliminate other programs that have worked very well. It literally will sequeeze out CDBG, homeless assistance, grant programs like public housing operating subsidies, and the HOME program. We have to get HUD to do more than talk about getting control over their own agency. This cap is designed to force them to have very tough accounting, make sure they know what is going on in this program during the next year. If we do not do that, then all these programs are going to suffer. It is for that reason, Mr. Chairman, in an attempt to get some control over excessive spending and unacceptable growth rates, that we want to have the caps remain. So I oppose the amendment offered by the gentleman from Ohio [Mr. Stokes]. Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. LEWIS of California

Mr. LEWIS of California. Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?

Mr. LEWIS of California. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that during the consideration of H.R. 2099 pursuant to the provisions of House Resolution 201, the Chairman of the Committee of the Whole may postpone until a time during further consideration in the Committee of the Whole a request for a recorded vote on any amendment, and that the Chairman of the Committee of the Whole may reduce to not less than 5 minutes the time for voting by electronic device on any postponed question that immediately follows another vote by electronic device without intervening business, provided that the time for voting by electronic device on the first in any series of questions shall not be less than 15 minutes. Mr. Speaker, I would mention that we have a gap in time today of 2 hours between 2 and 4 when Members want to go to the Korean Memorial ceremonies.