Steven LaTourette

Mr. LaTOURETTE

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

Mr. LaTOURETTE. Mr. Chairman, I offer two amendments, amendments numbered 24 and 25, and I ask unanimous consent that they be considered en bloc.

Mr. LaTOURETTE. That is correct, Mr. Chairman. Number 25 has restrictive language. The reason for the en bloc request is it should be considered at the end of the bill as restrictive language indicating that the Coast Guard cannot spend the funds within the bill for the purpose of closing or downsizing small boat stations.

Mr. LaTOURETTE. Mr. Chairman, I demand a recorded vote, and pending that, I make the point of order that a quorum is not present.

Mr. LaTOURETTE. Mr. Chairman, I yield the balance of my time to the gentleman from Maine [Mr. Baldacci].

Mr. LaTOURETTE. Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Massachusetts [Mr. Studds].

Mr. LaTOURETTE

Mr. LaTOURETTE. Mr. Speaker, this morning at 5:50 a.m., two CH-53 Sea Stallion assault helicopters, two AH-1 Cobra attack helicopters and two AV-8 Harrier jump jets were launched from the U.S.S. Kearsarge to travel into war-torn Bosnia and rescue Capt. Scott F. O'Grady whose F- 16 jet was shot down over hostile Serb territory 6 days ago. It was a daring, risky daytime rescue. Less than 1 hour after the launch, Capt. Scott F. O'Grady ran out of the woods, pistol in hand, and safely boarded one of the massive CH-53 Sea Stallion helicopters. As the chopper took off to flee Bosnia in these most dangerous and harrowing of circumstances, its fuselage was hit by two shots and its blades were clipped by small fire. A missile was fired but missed. Still, the pilot of that 53 Echo chopper was able to safely exit Bosnia over the Adriatic Sea and return Captian O'Grady to safety aboard the U.S.S. Kearsarge. The pilot of that chopper in that extraordinarily courageous rescue mission was U.S. Marine Capt. Paul A. Fortunato, 30, the son of Paul and Gayle Fortunato of Concord Township in Northeast Ohio. Captian Fortunato's mother, Gayle, said, ``This is what they train for.'' But I would disagree. You cannot train for acts of heroism. They come from within the heart and soul. They are the products of a deep and abiding love of country. Capt. Paul A. Fortunato is the embodiment of a hero. For that, on behalf of citizens of the 19th District of Ohio and all of the [[Page H5738]] United States of America, we thank you Capt. Paul A. Fortunato, and the rest of the brave participants in this heroic and spectacular rescue mission. America is infinitely proud of you, and forever grateful.

Mr. LaTOURETTE

Mr. LaTOURETTE. Mr. Speaker, when the House debated and passed the Coast Guard Reauthorization Act of 1995 on Tuesday of last week, the issue of Coast Guard inspection fees was raised by some of my colleagues on the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee. Although the amendment failed on a point of order, I wish to associate myself with the logical arguments made on the floor that day. The Budget Reconciliation Act of 1990 requires that the Coast Guard impose user fees for some of its services. While I am in support of the concept, and recognize the importance of such an approach to assist in balancing the budget, the Coast Guard has gone off course with its fee schedule in terms of fairness and balance among different classes of boats. The Coast Guard estimates it is charging $87 per hour for the inspection service. However, my colleague from Louisiana, Mr. Tauzin, cited an example of a 1 hour inspection costing $545 under the current fee schedule. This is unacceptable. I believe in fee-for-service, but the fees must reflect the value of the services rendered. I fear that the burden of the current policy will fall disproportionately on small vessel owners and small businesses; those who can afford it the least. I am supportive of capping the inspection fees based on boat length to ensure fairness within the current system. I also believe it is appropriate for the Coast Guard to consider a fee schedule that takes into account the seasonal nature of some commercial boating operations. For example, Rutherford's Cruise Line, which operates in my district from the Grand River on Lake Erie, only operates during summer months. Under the current system, Rutherford's would pay almost $2,400 to the Coast Guard to inspect three vessels. Small cruise line businesses on the Great Lakes have a limited season and short time in which to make their operation run in the black. The current annual fee requirement, which treats a vessel in Florida the same as one on the Great Lakes, is burdensome and economically unfair to boaters in the Great Lakes region. I understand Mr. Tauzin's amendment will be the subject of hearings before the Ways and Means Committee and the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee in the near future. I am supportive of finding a rational and fair approach to the inspection fee schedule that more closely approximates the true cost of the inspection process. Recreational boating, including charter boat fishing, is an important part of the economy in my district. The 60 miles of Lake Erie shoreline I represent has seen a tremendous resurgence over the past 10 years due to a revitalized Great Lakes fishery. I am encouraged by the small businesses entrepreneurs, who are taking advantage of the opportunity to start new businesses and do not believe they should be punished with unreasonable inspection fees.

Mr. LaTOURETTE

Mr. LaTOURETTE. Mr. Chairman, first I want to commend Chairman Shuster for his leadership in bringing H.R. 961 to the floor. Mr. Chairman, I rise today in support of H.R. 961, and in particular title I of H.R. 961, which reauthorizes environmental programs that are critical to the waters of the Great Lakes region. More than $12 billion in Federal investment has brought the Great Lakes back from the brink of death and is credited for making the Great Lakes great again. A $4.5 billion annual Great Lakes sport fishing economy is a further testament that our country will continue to reap important economic benefits by passing H.R. 961 by providing $3 billion in programs such as wastewater treatment facilities. This will serve to build on the success of the Clean Water Act. H.R. 961 also seeks to address the contaminated sediments problem that clogs the Great Lakes system. H.R. 961 also contains provisions to better coordinate research activities among Federal agencies engaged in research on the Great Lakes. H.R. 961 is also supportive of making sure the fish in the Great Lakes are safe to eat. I urge passage of H.R. 961.

Mr. LaTOURETTE

Mr. LaTOURETTE. Mr. Speaker, I must admit to being a little depressed when I left here last week. With calls of ``Shame, Shame, Republican, Shame,'' still ringing in my ears, I wondered: Was I really mean-spirited? Did our welfare plan deserve the name-calling and the references to Nazi Germany? I was heartened, though, when I boarded the plane at National and the flight attendant did not tell me to sit down and shut up; further encouraged when the dog did not bite me and the kids were happy to see me; happier still when the folks back home--those who get up every morning at 5:30, carry a lunch box, pay their taxes, and obey the law-- called to say thanks for ending welfare as we know it. But it was not until Sunday morning, when I got the paper out of the tube and saw this cartoon, that my spirits truly soared and I was able to separate rhetoric from reality. My thanks to cartoonist Kelley from the San Diego Union-Tribune. In this picture, Tom has five apples and Ed has one. Tom gives three of his apples to two. The query by the cartoonist is ``How can that be?'' And the answer is ``That's a Democrat.''

Mr. LaTOURETTE

Mr. LaTOURETTE. Mr. Speaker, on Friday the 10th of March, I joined Congressman Quinn of Buffalo and Congressman Oberstar of Minnesota to introduce two pieces of legislation crafted to protect and enhance one of the world's most valuable natural resources--the Great Lakes. Representing over 90 percent of our Nation's fresh water supply, the Great Lakes' importance to our region's health and economy cannot be overstated. Currently, the Great Lakes supports a $4.5 billion recreational fishing economy. Unfortunately, historical pollution found in the sediments of Great Lakes rivers and harbors remains a severe impediment to our shipping and recreational opportunities, threatens fish and wildlife resources and places human health at risk. Mr. Speaker, my first bill, the Assessment and Remediation of Contaminated Sediments [ARCS] Reauthorization Act, will amend the Clean Water Act section 118 to continue the demonstration of innovative technologies to remediate contaminated sediments in Great Lakes rivers and harbors that was originally authorized in the 1987 amendments to the Clean Water Act. The first ARCS program provided valuable demonstrations of technologies at the pilot scale that now need to be validated for commercial use. In the reauthorization, the Environmental Protection Agency's Great Lakes National Program Office will also consider new strategies for sediment removal and containment such as those being demonstrated at the Ashtabula River and Harbor in my congressional district in Ohio. To date, the formation of a new partnership among Federal, State, local government, and industry has been successful in avoiding a new Superfund designation and will lower cost and shorten the timeframe for cleanup. This is a success story that needs to be repeated throughout our country. The second bill, the Great Lakes Federal Effectiveness Act, provides for enhanced research coordination efforts among the many Federal, State and Canadian parties across the Great Lakes Basin. By evaluating our current efforts against projected goals we can then prioritize among the agencies to ensure the best Federal investment while avoiding costly duplication of effort. It is appropriate that I dedicate the Great Lakes Federal Effectiveness Act to the memory of Peter Seidl. As Secretary to the International Joint Commission's Council of Great Lakes Research Managers, Peter pioneered the concept and was instrumental to the drafting of this legislation. On May 7, 1994, Peter was on an environmental mission for the World Bank when his plane was lost over the Andes mountains enroute to La Paz, Bolivia. To date, the most extensive search and rescue effort in the history of South America has been unable to locate his plane. While friends and family pray for Peter's safe return, I wish to memorialize his extraordinary efforts on behalf of the Great Lakes in service to both his homeland of Canada and his friends and colleagues in the United States.

Mr. LaTOURETTE

Mr. LaTOURETTE. Mr. Speaker, as a lawyer, I am the last person to suggest that everybody in my profession is a money-grubbing, scum- sucking toad. The actual figure is only about 73 percent. Ha ha, I am of course just pulling the Speaker's honorable leg. The vast majority of lawyers are responsible professionals, as well as, in many ways, human beings. But we really do need to do something about all these frivolous lawsuits. We have reached the point where a simply product such as a stepladder has to be sold with big red warning labels all over it, telling you not to dance on it, hold parties on it, touch electrical wires with it, hit people with it, swallow it, and so forth, because some idiot somewhere, some time, actually did these things with a stepladder, got hurt, filed a lawsuit--and won. My feeling, Mr. Speaker, is that anybody who swallows a stepladder deserves whatever he gets. And I am sure the vast majority of the American people would agree with me. The minority would probably sue.

Mr. LaTOURETTE

Mr. LaTOURETTE. Mr. Speaker, it is no coincidence that the work and far-reaching goals of the 104th Congress are being compared to that of the Congress of 1933. Not since that time has Congress accomplished so much in so little time, when Franklin Delano Roosevelt presided over our Nation and steered the Congress to pass a bold new agenda called the New Deal, much of it during the first 100 days of his administration. As we compare what happened then to what is taking place on the floor of this great House now, I am reminded of the prophetic words of FDR when he said, ``It is common sense to take a method and try it. If it fails, admit it frankly and try another, but above all, try something.'' ``Above all, try something.'' Those four simple words cut right to the heart of the objectives of this Congress, the Contract With America, and in particular the balanced budget amendment. Only what we are proposing is to try something that works, something done by almost every State in the Union not to mention households and business. For far too long, the U.S. Congress has been trying a method of balancing the budget which, quite simply, is a resounding failure. Today the other body has an opportunity to do something magnificent for the future of this country, to do as FDR said, admit frankly that what we have tried in the past has failed and to try something new.

Mr. LaTOURETTE

Mr. LaTOURETTE. Mr. Chairman, 50 days ago I was a county prosecutor in Lake County, OH, so I'm somewhat new at this job. I am not new, however, at hearing people gripe about the Federal Government, Washington, DC., and the Congress. It has been my experience that when folks are not chastising us for being a group of self-serving politicians, they are blasting us for being a part of the place that reeks of inefficiency and waste. Washington could literally bury itself under the mountain of paperwork it insists others complete. And do not for a moment think that thought has not crossed the minds of many a business owner. A constituent of mine, William Koeblitz of Gates Mills, OH, recently testified before the Small Business Committee, which shares a jurisdictional interest with the House Committee on Government Reform and Oversight, of which I am a member. Mr. Koeblitz's testimony was on behalf of 215,000 businesses of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce Federation. Mr. Koeblitz is a member of Chamber's Board of Directors and also serves as chairman of its Regulatory Affairs Committee. Mr. Koeblitz, the CEO of a Cleveland-area company, explained how during each Congressional cycle the Chamber surveys its Members and asks them to rank issues of importance to them. Of the 64 issues identified for this Congress, paperwork reduction was No. 3, ranking behind only unfunded mandates and welfare reform. Mr. Koeblitz and Chamber officials were kind enough to provide my office with the following examples of paperwork nightmares, all from the same Pennsylvania independent laboratory--a company with just 10 full-time employees. If these examples do not convey the message that paperwork reduction is necessary, nothing will. The company had to establish an entirely new and separate bookkeeping system just to keep up with the paperwork required by the Family and Medical Leave Act. To comply with a routine Affirmative Action Audit in 1988, the company had to expend approximately 600 hours of staff time to prepare and facilitate the process. And when we say ``mountain of paperwork'' it is no exaggeration. The completed paperwork package to comply with this, again--routine audit, weighed 13 pounds. I ask you, how much does the paperwork from an audit weigh when it is not routine? Thirty-seven pounds? One hundred and fourteen pounds? It is one thing to comply with regulations, but quite another to bury companies under excessive and needlessly complex documentation. I applaud Mr. Koeblitz for bringing this problem to the attention of the Congress and concur with the message he gave to the committee: We should let the American business community get back to the business of running their companies rather than spending ridiculous amounts of time complying with federal government edicts. I urge my colleagues to support H.R. 830.

Mr. LaTOURETTE

Mr. LaTOURETTE. Mr. Chairman, just a few days prior to the last election, in Wickliffe, OH, a man armed with a shotgun went into a middle school and began firing indiscriminately. Tragically, a long- time school employee lay dead at the conclusion of this rampage, others were wounded, and the psychological terror visited upon the staff and students has yet to be quantified. The police response time was excellent, the police work was excellent, and now the issue of the gunman's guilt or innocence will be left up to the judicial system. In the last week, Wickliffe qualified for and received a 3 year grant under the Cops Fast Program to place an additional police officer on the street. Everyone connected with law enforcement recognizes that more police officers on the street is a good thing. However, 10 new police officers would have done nothing to prevent the tragedy last November in Wickliffe. The good news is that the block grant program now under debate in this House will keep in place the additional police officer received by Wickliffe and any other locality that has received funding under the provisions passed in last year's crime bill. The better news is that the Republican block grant program will give to Wickliffe and other cities the flexibility to engage in school security measures that may have a preventive impact upon future tragedies. Local communities will have the option of applying for and receiving funds to acquire metal detectors, security guards and/or security cameras and systems for their schools if those local communities feel that that is one of the more pressing needs to fight crime in their communities. No longer will they be subject to a one size fits all solution and be required to buy off-the-rack crime prevention. Instead, they will be able to employ a tailor-made, local solution to their most pressing needs. As with many of the provisions in this year's crime bill debate, this solution just makes sense in the daily battle against crime.

Mr. LaTOURETTE

Mr. LaTOURETTE. Mr. Speaker, today this House will begin debate on the Victim's Restitution Act of 1995. While there may be honest points of disagreement in subsequent consideration of habeas corpus reform, restrictions on the exclusionary rule and the death penalty, there should be no difficulty in recognizing the absolute need within our justice system to compensate victims of crime for the horrors visited upon them by those who cannot abide by society's rules. In my tenure as a county prosecutor, the most commonly heard complaint by victims of crime was that their voices and their rights were the only absent parties from the criminal justice equation. The people are represented by the D.A.; the defendant had his high- priced or taxpayer-supported mouthpiece--but the victim, like the cheese in the children's rhyme ``The Farmer in the Dell''--stands alone. And although financial recompense cannot replace the loss of personal security one suffers at the hands of the criminal, it is wholly appropriate that the wrongdoers pay in many ways for their inability to conform their behavior to socially acceptable standards. It has become commonplace for the pendulum to swing back and forth between protection of society and protection of defendants' due process guarantees. Today it is time it swings toward victim's rights--and after today, the victims of crime will no longer stand alone.