Zoe Lofgren

Ms. LOFGREN

Ms. LOFGREN. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the requisite number of words. Mr. Chairman, I urge every Member of this House to support the Coble amendment. I think it is a great opportunity to take a stand for innovation in the future of America's economy. Now, I say that mindful that the offsets that are offered in the bill are, indeed, not good ones; and I know that the gentleman himself has indicated that he does not favor the offsets that he identified. I am aware that he has tried for the last several days, and we have been kept apprised of his efforts, to find an offset that would work and other offsets were subject to a point of order, so this is what we ended up with. Clearly, cutting the Census is not something that we approve of on either side of the aisle at this point. Cutting the Bureau of Economic Analysis does not make any sense; none of us want to cut the Fullbrights, and I think it is true, as I am a member of the Census Caucus, that it would not be a good thing. However, having listened to the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Frank) and the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Hoyer), I must agree that these offsets in the end are not what is going to be in this bill. In fact, we know that this side referred to this bill as veto bait. I mean this bill, as currently constituted, is not going to become law. I think it is important that we take a stand for the Patent Office. Now, I am a member of the Subcommittee on Intellectual Property; and it is worth noting that our subcommittee has unanimously, on more than one occasion, indicated that we should keep the patent fees in the Patent Office. The patent community came up to bat and agreed that they would not object to increased fees for patents. It is not too often you find people saying, yes, charge us more, on the understanding that those fees would be used to upgrade the office so that patents would be dealt with in a timely and appropriate fashion. Well, what did we do? We raised the fees, but we did not live up to the other half of the bargain. They did not get the benefits of the fees. Now, I have heard the chairman of the subcommittee talk about the diversion issue, and I think technically it is correct; but I think it is important to understand that, in fact, there is a diversion. Let me illustrate. In fiscal year 1999, the Patent Office was denied $116 million of its revenue. In fiscal year 2000, $116 million was repaid, but they were denied $229 million of their fees for that year. So we have a rolling denial of fees, and as a consequence, the Patent Office is underfunded. Now, why does this matter? We are going to have 600 patent examiners and attorneys leaving the Office through attrition in this next year, and we are not going to be able to replace them unless we have additional funds. People have talked about the concern that they have about business method patents that are being issued. I am not saying that all those objections are correct. A lot of concern has been raised about patenting of the human genome, and whether we have met all the requirements under patent law as to the utility bar. We cannot do a good job in the Patent Office if we do not have adequate tools, both personnel, also good computer systems to develop prior art. That is why these funds are very important. I think it is time to take a stand as a Congress that we are not going to allow the funds to be diverted anymore. The administration, I am ashamed to say, has not fully funded it, but the bill is even worse than the administration. We need to stand up for innovation in this country. Santa Clara County, my home, is number one in the number of patents issued in the world, I believe. Our unemployment rate is 1.9 percent. The two figures are not unconnected. If Members believe in the new economy, if they believe that America will be prosperous and that our prosperity will spread across our whole population, something I feel strongly about, then Members need first to stand up for the protection of innovation. We cannot do that, we cannot begin that process, unless we support the amendment offered by the gentleman from North Carolina (Mr. Coble). I just urge those who call themselves new economy House Members to support this amendment, understanding that in the end the offsets in the amendment will not become part of this bill.

Ms. LOFGREN

Ms. LOFGREN. Mr. Speaker, on Thrusday June 15 I had the privilege to attend the high school graduation of my daughter in California and so I was unable to cast the following votes during consideration of H.R. 4578, The Department of Interior and Related Agencies Appropriations bill. On Rollcall No. 278 (Rule on VA/HUD Approps) I would have voted: ``No''. Interior Approps On Rollcall No. 279 (Nethercutt amendment to Dicks amendment) I would have voted: ``no''; On Rollcall No. 280 (Hansen amendment to Dicks amendment) I would have voted: ``no''; On Rollcall No. 281 (Dicks amendment Columbia River Basin) I would have voted: ``aye''; On Rollcall No. 282 (Stearns amendment to cut NEA funding) I would have voted: ``no''; On Rollcall No. 283 (Slaughter amendment Re Clean Coal Funding) I would have voted: ``aye''; On Rollcall No. 284 (Obey motion that the Committee Rise) I would have voted: ``aye''; On Rollcall No. 285 (Quorum Call); On Rollcall No. 286 (Sanders amendment to create a Home Heating Oil Reserve) I would have voted: ``aye''; On Rollcall No. 287 (Doggett motion that the Committee Rise) I would have voted: ``aye''; On Rollcall No. 288 (Nethercutt amendment Re national monuments) I would have voted: ``no''''; On Rollcall No. 289 (Dave Weldon amendment Re Indian Gaming in Florida) I would have voted: ``no''; On Rollcall No. 290 (Motion to recommit with instructions) I would have voted: ``aye''; On Rollcall No. 291 (Final Passage Interior Approps--passed 204--172) I would have voted: ``no''.

Ms. LOFGREN

Ms. LOFGREN. Mr. Speaker, we should vote for PNTR today. At the beginning of the millennium, we should not regress and isolate China. We should help engage China in the world community. In truth, we had a Cold War. Communism lost, capitalism won. Now our economic and political system will help deliver freedom, peace and prosperity throughout the world because free markets cannot prosper in authoritarian regimes. In a global economy, authoritarian regimes cannot long survive the impact of freedom and free markets. Engaging China and exposing China to the sunlight of free market economies and democratic values is the best way to bring about evolution towards freedom in China. We here in Congress all agree upon our goals: a strong, free, prosperous America in a world that is free, peaceful, and prosperous. But like a family, we in Congress and people in our great country can disagree on the best way to achieve that goal. It is my strong belief that helping to engage China in the world community will advance the cause of freedom.

Ms. LOFGREN

Ms. LOFGREN. Mr. Speaker, there are times when the obligation we have to be a good parent conflicts with the schedule of the House of Representatives. Tomorrow is such a day for me. Accordingly, I would like to note for the record that, were I able to be present tomorrow, I would vote in favor of the Transportation Appropriations bill the House will consider. I appreciate the assistance my district will receive because of this important appropriations bill as well as the courtesy that has been extended to me by both the Chairman and Ranking Member in considering funding requests important to Silicon Valley. In addition, I have been informed that there will likely be an amendment offered to strike the provisions in this bill that would freeze CAFE standards at their current level. I would also like to note for the record that I would vote in favor of this amendment.

Ms. LOFGREN

Ms. LOFGREN. Mr. Speaker, I pay tribute to the First Baptist Church of San Jose, the ``Church on the Hill''. The church has been a cornerstone of our community since the time of the gold miners. Even before California was established as a state, the church on the Hill was providing guidance to her citizens, under the leadership of her first pastor, the Reverend Osgood Church Wheeler. The second oldest Baptist church in the state, the church began services on May 19, 1850. In a tent made of blue jeans in the infant city of San Jose, the church first met with 8 members, 6 of whom were women. This Friday the church will celebrate its 150th anniversary. Through each one of those 150 years the congregation has grown as the community around it grew. It has endured three separate fires which each time destroyed its building, earthquakes, floods and other natural disasters. It has flourished through 30 Presidents, two World Wars, and the Great Depression, and today the church is stronger than it has ever been. Whether meeting in the rural setting of orchards and farmland, or in the center of the high tech world, the Church has continued to serve the people and touch the lives of the thousands who have walked through its doors. Pastor Dennis Henderson has the honor of presiding over the congregation today, and I congratulate him on his leadership. His vision will lead the congregation into its future complex, a facility befitting the modern community its serves. As the church celebrates its sesquicentennial, it can be proud to be a shining light in the capital of Silicon Valley. The services the members of the congregation provide greatly enrich the community of San Jose. It is my honor to pay tribute to the First Baptist Church on this momentous occasion, and I am proud to represent the community in which it has thrived for so long. I wish the Church on the Hill the best of luck for another 150 years of inspiration.

Ms. LOFGREN

Ms. LOFGREN. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Chairman, I just think that it is important to establish a couple of points about the agreement among Members. First, everybody in America is glad the Cold War is over and we are glad that capitalism won and we are glad that America won, so that is not an issue. Number two, I think everybody agrees that there are some supercomputers that should not be exported. I know that I do and I think most of the companies in Silicon Valley, my home, believe that there is some high-end equipment that can be used for a dual use purpose and that it is not generally available and should be controlled. I agree with that. The issue really is what is widely available and already accessible worldwide? And that is a changing number in terms of computing power, and once we determine that someone can get it anywhere else we are not really accomplishing anything by hampering our own economy. I mention from time to time that if one can buy it at Fry's, it is too late to control. Recently somebody said what is Fry's? Well, what Fry's is is an electronic store in Silicon Valley where a person can walk down the aisle and they can buy computer chips and mother boards, and they can buy, and believe me this stuff is small, hardware that violates our export controls at Fry's right now. If we think that there are other countries in the world who cannot also go into Fry's, believe me there is no security ID necessary to go shopping at Fry's, if we do not think that people who want to get high computing power cannot already get it, then I think we are sadly mistaken. So we need to make sure that our export controls are really keyed in to exporting power that is not available generally, and then once that decision is made there is no point in having a long, long period of time to implement it. I mentioned earlier my disappointment over the 30- and 60-day issue. I will not reiterate that, but I thought it was important to highlight where we agree and not just where we disagree. Mr. Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time.

Ms. LOFGREN. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from California (Mr. Dooley).

Ms. LOFGREN. Mr. Chairman, I yield 4\1/4\ minutes to the gentleman from New York (Mr. Gilman). (Mr. GILMAN asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Ms. LOFGREN. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. I cannot help but express my severe disappointment that this measure, which is inferior to the bill introduced with the gentleman from California (Mr. Dreier) on this subject is the best we can do here on the floor. I must point out that the better bill that the gentleman from California and I introduced won unanimous support in the Committee on International Relations. It provides for a 30-day review, which is the proper time period. Why should computers be subjected to a lengthier time review than tanks and missiles? It is preposterous. I realize that there are Members of the House, some have called them cold warriors, who disagree. But they are a small minority. If the Committee on Rules had allowed the 30-day bill on the floor, we would have seen a huge bipartisan vote for that amendment for that better approach. The leadership instead offers this weaker remedy, and it is a darn shame that we have lost this opportunity to do fully and completely what the White House and Democratic House leadership has asked for for years, a bill that provides for a 30-day review of computer exports. Mr. Chairman, our Committee on International Relations whip count indicated we would have had a floor vote of about 300 Members for a 30- day bill, with more Democrats in favor than Republicans. Democrats would have outshined the Republicans on this. That, Mr. Chairman, is why this 60-day bill is the only amendment made in order. The Republican leadership wants to look tech friendly, but here, I believe, they are putting partisanship ahead of good policy. I agree that the current export policy is wrongheaded. It means that children's toys, for example, the Sony Playstation 2 that was categorized as a supercomputer cannot be exported for half a year while we update our technology policy in the export arena. The current policy is disastrous. This amendment that is before us is, in fact, an improvement over current policy, but it is far short of what we could have done. I am greatly disappointed. I hope that in the end we can somehow rescue the 30-day provision. Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

Ms. LOFGREN

Ms. LOFGREN. Mr. Speaker, I am not a member of the Committee on Ways and Means and generally do not get terrifically involved in issues of taxation except when I, like all the other Americans, pay my taxes once a year. I know that I join many in America by saying that I do not like the current system. April 15 is not a delightful day, and I think we can agree on that on a bipartisan basis. However, the fact that the current Tax Code could be improved is really no good reason to propose to simply blow it up and thereby threaten the new economy. Now when I learned that the Republican-appointed director of the Joint Committee on Taxation had issued a report this week indicating that these proposals would require a 59.5 percent sales tax, well, heck let us round it up to 60 percent sales tax, and that that would have to be including Internet sales, I became actually pretty concerned. I do not really believe that this measure is going to become law; but if it were at this point, it would have a severe negative impact on the new economy. There are many who believe that the Internet eventually, the sale of goods on the Internet, will eventually be subject to taxation. I do not have a position on that at this point, but to suggest that a 60 percent taxation rate would be appropriate for the Internet can do no good for the new economy. Having served 14 years in local government, I would note that this would be on top of whatever local governments do. In my own county of Santa Clara, the Silicon Valley, we have a State sales tax of 6 percent; and we also have some voter-approved sales taxes that the voters have imposed on themselves to do highways and transit. So in Santa Clara County this would be a 68 percent Internet sales tax. I would urge Members to vote no.

Ms. LOFGREN

Ms. LOFGREN. Mr. Speaker, as I have listened to the words here today, I must say that I am more encouraged today than I have been since last August by what has been said. I am hopeful that we will in fact be able to achieve what I think is achievable. I think it is simply wonderful that the gentleman from Illinois and the gentleman from Michigan are going to send a letter over to the chairman of the committee and ask that we meet. I commend both of them for doing that. I was grateful to hear about the discussion that I know has been discussed privately but never I do not believe on the floor before today of how we can close the gun show loophole in a way that works that the gentleman from Illinois described and the gentleman from Michigan has described. I would just like to say that I hope that the very positive language is followed up with very positive action. I know that action is hard to do because there are forces in the country that are opposed to taking action, and it will take us all working together to make sure that this gets done. I agree with the gentleman from Illinois that there are many problems that face America. The overavailability of guns is one of them. But we know that there are people who are emotionally unstable, people suffering from untreated mental illness that go on rampages, children that have been abused or neglected and who do wrong things. All of those problems will continue to exist. But if we can reduce the availability of weapons that can hurt so many, then we will have achieved something and we will still have the other issues to work on. I would just say that I am happy to hear the words. I am eager to see the action. I am hopeful that the gentleman from Michigan and the gentleman from Illinois can sit down as soon as possible even after the vote on this motion today. The letter I think has now been reprinted and will be sent off. I am willing to do anything I can to be supportive of achieving this for the children and parents of America. We will be watching very carefully to make sure that we all do our part to make sure that this action actually becomes a reality.

Ms. LOFGREN

Ms. LOFGREN. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, for 8 months the conference committee on the juvenile justice bill has done nothing, has not met. In fact, the last and the only meeting of the conference committee that has the opportunity to deal with the issue of gun safety was in August, and was not substantive. Since then, we have seen shootings in day care centers and schools, we have seen 6-year-olds shoot 6-year-olds, we have seen firefighters shot as they try to do their jobs, and the congressional response has been simply nothing. When the President calls congressional leaders to the Oval Office to get the conference started and no meeting is scheduled, something is wrong. A few days ago, the President called the chairman and the ranking members of the House and Senate Judiciary Committees to meetings at the White House to simply ask them to meet in an open and public conference meeting, and still no such meeting has been called. We need to stop hiding behind closed-door negotiations. We cannot have a bill without a conference meeting, so we need to meet. Not having a meeting is the same as killing the bill. Time is running out, and the families of this Nation are waiting to see what we will do. I am hopeful that we can come together on a bipartisan basis to support this motion to instruct, which simply says, get the job done. Sit down. Talk to each other. Have a meeting. I hope that such a meeting will produce a bill, will produce a law that we will all be able to support. Recently I had the chance to read the statement of Robin Anderson, who bought the guns for Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, the young men who killed those kids at Columbine High School. What she says in her statement was that if there had been an instant check, if there had been a background check from the private gun dealers at the gun show where she bought the weapons that those boys used to kill all those kids, that she would not have purchased those guns. In fact, she says, ``I wish a law requiring background checks had been in effect at the time. I don't know if Eric and Dylan would have been able to get guns from another source, but I would not have helped them. It was too easy. I wish it had been more difficult. I wouldn't have helped them buy the guns if I had faced a background check.'' There has been a lot of unfortunate rhetoric in the last few days about the issue of gun safety and people questioning motives and the like. But I like the statement made by one of the Republican Members of this body at the White House earlier this morning. He said, what we want is we want to bury this as an issue. We do not want to bury any more kids. So please, let us support this motion to instruct. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Ms. LOFGREN. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, I would note that the speeches we gave to each other on August 5 have not been followed by action. The check has been in the mail for quite a long time. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from New York (Mrs. Lowey).

Ms. LOFGREN. Mr. Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.

Ms. LOFGREN. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, I would just note that the motion before the body is only that the conference committee should meet, and I hope that we can do that; and if we would meet, that we would be able to find common ground that would be of value to the safety of America's children. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentlewoman from Connecticut (Ms. DeLauro).

Ms. LOFGREN. Mr. Speaker, I offer a privileged motion.

Ms. LOFGREN. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentlewoman from Illinois (Ms. Schakowsky), a distinguished member of the committee.

Ms. LOFGREN. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentlewoman from Ohio (Mrs. Jones). (Mrs. JONES of Ohio asked and was given permission to revise and extend her remarks.)

Ms. LOFGREN. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Conyers), the ranking member of the House Committee on the Judiciary, and someone who has spent an enormous amount of time trying to forge an answer with the chairman of the committee.

Ms. LOFGREN. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from New York (Mr. Weiner), a new member of the Committee on the Judiciary.

Ms. LOFGREN. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from Texas (Ms. Jackson-Lee), a member of the Committee on the Judiciary and a member of the conference committee.

Ms. LOFGREN. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the distinguished gentleman from Missouri (Mr. Gephardt), the minority leader. (Mr. GEPHARDT asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Ms. LOFGREN. Mr. Speaker, I yield such time as she may consume to the gentlewoman from New York (Mrs. McCarthy), a leader in this country for gun safety measures.

Ms. LOFGREN. Mr. Speaker, may I ask how much time is remaining?

Ms. LOFGREN. Mr. Speaker, may I inquire what time remains?