John Mica

Mr. MICA

Mr. MICA. I did want to come out and make a couple of comments about our page class. We have been really honored to have these young men and women come among us. They have served the Congress and their country so well. I think each of the Members know that. They have also had to endure some long speeches, some great speeches, and some terrible speeches, but they have learned a part of the process. Hopefully I have given some of both. But I did want to come out and say how much we appreciate every one of them. They are just like our own children, our own young men and women in our own homes. They come here to serve the Nation. They are really a little bit like the Congress, because we all came from so many different parts of the country, and you have your viewpoint as to what the Congress is like, you have your thoughts about what it will be like when you get here, and then you get here and you serve. The pages are reflective really of this Nation. They come here from every walk of life, and they have had so many experiences, like we do. We get to learn from each other and the Congress. They have gotten to learn from us and from each other in their service. So it has been a learning experience for them, an exciting experience for me. I have had two pages from my district here at exciting times, and they have shared them and I have shared them, and we will miss them as they leave now. But I also wanted to take just a minute, there are people behind the scenes, too, that they have grown to respect, and love and admire and who each of us love, respect, and admire, who oversee this flock. These young men and women just do not come here and are left on their own. Perry Sampson has done such an incredible job; Tim Harroun; Joelle Hall is just a treasure; and Jim Oliver in the Republican cloakroom on our side have done so much. I could not come up and recognize the pages on our side without recognizing them. But on either side of the aisle, we thank you for your service, we congratulate you as you graduate and go on, and we hope that as you graduate, you have found this as great an experience as I have in serving the Congress and the country in this fashion.

Mr. MICA

Mr. MICA. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the requisite number of words. Mr. Chairman, I often agree with the gentleman from Indiana. In fact, we have worked together many times to cut waste, fraud, and abuse from Federal Government programs. We work on the Committee on Government Reform and Oversight. In fact, when we work together and we slay dragons together, the dragons usually have a bad day. But I rise tonight really in opposition to the good gentleman's amendment and it is with some hesitation. I respect his opinion. Mr. Chairman, no one supports human rights violations in India or in any other country. Unfortunately, human rights violations occur there, they occur in the United States. And they occur in numerous other nations. In fact, I brought with me tonight, and some of my colleagues have seen it referred to, this 1996 report by Amnesty International. It details dozens of countries that have been recipients of the United States foreign assistance and their violations. Let me read a few of these. Egypt, one of the top recipients, just a few of the violations: Detention of thousands of political opponents, systematic use of torture against political detainees, increased number of political detainees who died while in custody, deliberate and arbitrary killings by armed opposition groups. Let me read just a couple more, if I may, here. Saudi Arabia, another huge recipient: Arrest and detention of suspected political opponents, torture and ill treatment during pretrial detention, alarming upsurge in numbers of executions, wide use of judicial punishments by flogging and amputations. Then we go to Bolivia, which we support assistance to and we are going to be working for: Arbitrary detentions, torture and ill treatment, rape, the same types of offenses, extrajudicial executions. The list goes on. Mr. Chairman, I say to my colleagues, why should we single out India in this fashion? This amendment will, in fact, hurt our ability to assist a close ally, to assist in the situation that we have a problem in. It will hurt us with a great trading partner. Mr. Chairman, my colleagues, we can do much more, I submit, by calling attention to human rights violations whether they are in India or anywhere else in the world. If we recognize differences, if we promote democratic institutions, if we increase trade, exchanges, communications, tonight we do not need to embarrass by singling out the world's largest democracy in this fashion. We must recognize the strides India has taken. We must help India now as it changes its government in this most historic election and this most historic fashion that we have seen the election take place the last few weeks. Let us tonight not take a step backward in our relationship with India. I admire the gentleman's interest. I opposed his potentially damaging amendment. As India steps forward, we do not need to be a Congress stepping backward.

Mr. MICA. Mr. Chairman, I yield to the gentleman from Indiana [Mr. Burton].

Mr. MICA. Mr. Chairman, I agree with the gentleman.

Mr. MICA. I yield to the gentleman from Florida.

Mr. MICA

Mr. MICA. Mr. Speaker, today the State of Florida and the Nation are really reeling over the effects of President Clinton's lack of a national drug policy, and even more so his lack of a record on drug prosecution. The Clinton record is a disaster followed by disaster and deserves the attention of this Congress and the American people. I serve on the subcommittee that oversees our national drug policy and we have recently detailed this disaster in this report. Several months ago a Clinton Federal judge let cocaine dealers off the hook when they ran away from their drug-laden car. Only after a national outrage that ensued did the Clinton appointee finally relent. Federal prosecution of drug cases, again detailed in this report, have dropped 12 percent since President Clinton took office. Drug use among teenagers, cocaine, crack, heroin, and designer drugs among our youth, has grown to epidemic proportions, again detailed in this report all this occurring in the last 3 years. All this while President Clinton parades around the country talking about Federal regulations on teen smoking. Let me tell my colleagues what is happening. Marijuana use among our teenagers has increased by 50 percent per year each year of the 3 years since President Clinton has been elected. This is the legacy of his ``just say maybe'' policy. Joycelyn Elders, who the President appointed, led our Nation as our Nation's top drug official, and now we have seen the results from her tenure. ``What ye sew ye shall reap.'' Teens now smoke marijuana that is up to 30 to 40 times more potent than that marijuana of the 1960's. While President Clinton is out talking about teens smoking cigarettes, they are, in fact, frying their brains, destroying their lives, and dying in incredible numbers while he ignores setting a national drug policy. President Clinton does not need to travel to New Jersey or other States to talk about the effects of teen smoking. President Clinton can stay right here in Washington, DC, where drugs have killed nearly 1,000 black males in drug violence since he took office. We thought the President was going to get serious about a national drug policy when he came to my State of Florida several weeks ago. We were grossly disappointed. His visit was a fiasco. They were to go to a public school and have a public student, in this case a young black student was supposed to make a presentation to the President. The White House staging people had a white private school student selected for the presentation. It caused a furor. Now, listen to this. The President's top Federal prosecutor in south Florida, an appointee who was trying a drug case, lost the drug case. First, we heard we had decreased prosecutions under his reign; then, when they prosecuted, he lost the case. And what did he do when he lost? He went to a strip bar and bit a stripper and last week resigned in disgrace. So we have a south Florida U.S. attorney forced to resign for biting a stripper, not to mention in central Florida the U.S. attorney had to resign a little over a year ago on charges of having a disorganized office and attempting to choke a reporter. Our two top Federal prosecutors. Mr. Speaker, we have a crisis in the drug war and we have a crisis in Federal prosecution. We have a crisis that I fear is really rooted in the White House and in the lack of leadership; the lack of providing a national drug policy for this Nation. So I ask my colleagues to read this report that details this disaster, and to suggest that we need some leadership on this issue or our teens are going to suffer a fate far worse, a fate far worse than smoking. They are dying in our streets and in our homes and across this country in larger numbers because of the failure of not having a national drug policy.

Mr. MICA

Mr. MICA. The Defense Department is making great uses of advances in modeling and simulation technologies of our military services, defense agencies, industry, and academia. These advances are being used for a wide range of activities, including development of new materiel, testing and evaluation, manufacturing, training, and operational planning. I believe the application of these technologies to the Department's live-fire test program would permit more thorough and realistic evaluation of new equipment for our Armed Forces and would reduce testing costs and time. Their transfer to the private sector would also increase the fidelity of testing in the automotive, aircraft, and other industrial sectors. Mr. Chairman, I would ask the gentleman from South Carolina if he would assist me in working with the Department of Defense to extend the advanced modeling and simulation technology to the live-fire test program, and if possible, would he address this potential issue with the other body as we complete the defense authorization bill?

Mr. MICA. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for his assistance.

Mr. MICA. I yield to the gentleman from South Carolina.

Mr. MICA. Mr. Chairman, I rise to engage the chairman of the Committee on National Security in a colloquy. Mr. Chairman, it is my understanding that the fiscal year 1997 defense authorization bill includes a provision which would permit the Secretary of Defense to waive certain requirements for full-scale live fire testing of the V-22 tiltrotor and F-22 fighter aircraft. I know the gentleman agrees that the live-fire test program plays a critical role in assuring the operational suitability of new equipment for use by our Armed Forces.

Mr. MICA

Mr. MICA. Mr. Speaker, I do not have a little standard here but it is interesting to hear the other side rant and rail and rave about the minimum wage. This sort of says it all, Bill Clinton, our President, in Time Magazine, February 6, 1995, that was last year, I believe, said, ``Raising the minimum wage is the wrong way to raise the income of low- wage earners.'' This is just one quote. There are other quotes with the President saying the same thing. Now, I have only been here 3 years, Mr. Speaker. The first 2 years, the other side of the aisle controlled, as I recall, the House, the other body, the U.S. Senate, and the White House. They controlled it in very large numbers. They could have brought this issue up at any time. Instead, as I recall, and I was here for that time, what they did was they passed the largest tax increase in history, and they said it would not have any effect on folks. But if you have not been to the gas station lately, I advise these people that are earning $4.25 an hour, low-income people, to look at their gasoline prices. They raised those gasoline taxes that they are paying, and it hurts the poorest of the poor. They there is another report, I submit to my colleagues, out today by the Heritage Commission. Look at that report. That report says that people have less money in their pockets, and that is the result of these policies that they did their first 2 years. This is what the President said. That is what they did. And today they are out here saying that we are not giving this issue a good opportunity to be heard. It will be heard, and we will have a solution. But this is what they said, and that is what they did.

Mr. MICA

Mr. MICA. Mr. Speaker, I come to the floor to join my colleagues from Florida and also from across the United States to honor my colleague and my friend, Sam Gibbons. I came here, too, just 3 short years ago from a different party, from a different philosophy, but I have known Sam Gibbons for a number of years even before I was elected to this Congress, and I have always held him in the highest respect. So it is indeed a great honor for me to come before the House today to pay tribute to Sam Gibbons. Most people do not realize the difficulty of this job. As I said, I have only been here 3 years, and I served in the minority and I served in the majority, and you realize the burdens of responsibility coming and representing the people of this great Nation and our great State and the tremendous personal sacrifice. Unless you have been there and done that, you just have no idea what it entails, the sacrifices for Sam personally, for Martha, his lovely wife, and for his family. But I have been here for 3 years and I have seen that he has been here for three decades and he has done that. So he deserves our praise and the credit, the thanks of a State, the thanks of his colleagues and the thanks of his Nation in this short tribute to him. Many people also see the conflict, and heaven knows we have had the conflict. Sam and I have gone at it on the floor here, and we both express our opinions and our viewpoints. But what is interesting, most people do not see, is that we come together. We come together for the State of Florida and for the country. That is the greatness of this institution, and certainly Sam does typify all those great traits and that coming together and that leadership. So we have, my colleagues, today an opportunity to honor a distinguished leader for many years of service, not just here, in our State House in Florida and, as I said, three decades of dedication in this great body. We have a distinguished veteran. He is a model for what made this country great in his service to his Nation, and we certainly owe him our debt of gratitude for his tremendous service as a veteran. Then, the part I said that is so important about Sam is his distinguished character as a family person. I know his family and his wife, and he is indeed a distinguished family man, which is so important. When all the other trappings of office leave us, you still have your family. He has certainly been a great family man, a distinguished family man, which I think is so important. So I join my other colleagues today in thanking him for his years of service, for caring about people. He is so sincere in his caring, not only for the people of Florida but for the entire country, and no matter where they came from or their persuasion or their standing in our society. I often look up here behind me at the top of the podium, the very top of the House Chamber, and remember the words of Daniel Webster. I first looked at them when I came here. Dan Webster actually asked the question when he served here, and his comment was whether we also in our day and generation may not perform something to be worthy to be remembered. Certainly, Sam, you have performed something worthy to be remembered, and you have served your generation and generations well. So I join my colleagues from the Florida delegation, from around the country, in saluting you today and thanking you for a job well done.

Mr. MICA

Mr. MICA. Mr. Speaker, I come to the House floor tonight to talk about President Clinton and this administration's supposedly new policy relating to national drug control strategy. Yesterday the President was in my State, and I was somewhat excited about the possibility of his coming to Florida and announcing a new drug strategy. Unfortunately, my hopes for some new approach to this tremendous problem facing our country, particularly under his stewardship, were immediately dashed when I first learned that the President's major activities were several Democratic fund-raising events in the Miami area and I guess a golf game and some other activities. I really thought he was going to come forth with a new strategy, but that was not the case. Then I got my hopes up until I got a copy of the national drug control strategy that was just released by the administration. I had hoped that there would be some solid solutions to some of the problems, and I find that actually it is just sort of repackaging in sort of a slick cover some of the same approaches that have proven so ineffective during the past 3\1/2\ years. What is particularly disturbing is this whole pattern from this administration relating to drug abuse, substance abuse, and it started right after the President came into office when he first of all dismantled the drug czar's office and fired the bulk of the staff. Most of the reductions in the Executive Office of the White House, the downsizing, in fact, took place in the drug czar's office. Then the President ended drug testing for White House and executive staff members. Then the President in fact appointed Joycelyn Elders our chief health officer for the Nation, and she adopted a policy of, instead of ``Just say no,'' her theme was ``Just say maybe.'' Maybe we should allow legalization. Maybe we should allow children to use drugs. Then we saw the reversal of the policy in the Andean region, where we shared information with countries that were trying to stop drug trafficking. We denied radar and intelligence sharing through a distorted policy of this administration. Then we saw the dismantling of interdiction for 2 years under the Democrat control of the House. We saw them take apart a program which had so many successes in the 1980's and early 1990's of stopping the flow of narcotics into this country. Then we saw drug treatment as the major emphasis in the drug war. I heard my colleague from Indiana, Mr. Souder, say yesterday that drug treatment as the major emphasis in a drug war is like treating only the wounded in a conflict. We see the results of it even in the President's own strategy. Adolescent drug use. If we look at this chart, in 1992 we see it going down. In 1992, when this administration took office, we see a dramatic, sharp increase. Every one of these chart figures streaming off the chart there in marijuana, LSD, inhalants, stimulants. With marijuana, marijuana use increase has dramatically leaped forward in the past 3\1/2\ years. In fact, there has been a 50-percent increase in marijuana use among our adolescents for each of the last 3 years. So we see really a lack of leadership, we see a lack of initiative, ideas, and we see packaged again the same policy. We are not even at the level of interdiction funding of the last year of the Bush administration. I look forward to working with the new drug czar, General McCaffrey, and the Members of Congress to turn this around But this is another policy for disaster. In fact, we must start getting serious about narcotics control and we must take a new, positive direction, not the path so unsuccessful in the past.

Mr. MICA

Mr. MICA. Mr. Speaker, in just a few hours the House of Representatives will probably decide one of the most important questions that has faced the Nation and this Congress. I have only been here for a little over 36 months, and there are some wonderful people in the House of Representatives that I have had the opportunity to serve with. I just wanted to give my observations of where we are at this moment as we decide on a budget, which is long overdue. Congress, in fact, has been bankrupting our Nation with good intentions from some very well-meaning and well-intended people. The debate over the past 4 months has really been the most important debate in, I think, the last 40 years. But we have found that in this debate, if we look at what has happened, over those 40 years we have created scores and scores of programs, programs in education, programs in job training, programs in environment and so on. But this is what the debate has evolved down to. However, the fundamental question being asked today is how effective are those programs. That is what this new majority continues to ask and has pressured to find the questions and the answers to. Mr. Speaker, for a moment Congress and the American people must really ask today are we paying more and getting less. That really is what the budget debate has been about. Let me, if I can, Mr. Speaker, just give a few examples of what the debate is about and how the American taxpayer is paying more and getting less. I have talked on the floor about these items. First of all, Mr. Speaker, in education. The education battle is down to not just how much money we throw at education, but what the results are. Part of the debate is these 3,322 bureaucrats out of 4,876 in a Federal Department of Education, over 3,300 right down the street in Washington, earning more than most of our teachers, and most of them have never been in a classroom. This is what the debate is about, how big that bureaucracy is going to be. The debate is about why our children cannot read, why our scores are lower, the dumbing down of the standards in this country, which are on the front page of even our periodicals. There are Head Start Programs like in my community, where I have 25 administrators and 25 uncertified teachers, and the administrators are making double what the teachers or the aides are making in our Head Start Program; about an AmeriCorps Program the President has proposed that is a volunteer program that pays more and better benefits than we are giving our veterans, and the GAO says their finances in a year for this $1 billion project, they are already in a shambles. Then we turn to job training, another question. Here is an article, a report from the State: $1 billion in job training in my State, and this evaluation in the last month says that we are spending $1 billion, and less than 20 percent of the students who enter these job training programs ever complete them and 19 percent ever get a job afterward. Then they get a low-paying minimal job; a total failure in job training programs. That is what this debate is about is changing these programs, improving them, so young people have an opportunity and a job. Finally, Mr. Speaker, about the environment: Paying more and getting less. We have heard about Superfund. We have heard the President talk about this. Superfund is a great example of a good program gone bad and that we are trying to change. It was a good idea to clean up hazardous wastesites, but it is not a good idea to spend 80 percent of the money on attorneys' fees and studies. It is not a good idea to let polluters off the hook and not have them pay. It is not a good idea to have very few sites cleaned up. Only a handful of the hundreds and hundreds of sites have been cleaned up. So these programs are failures. That is what this debate is about. It is a fundamental debate in this House, Mr. Speaker, that we clean up the act of government. We may not get another chance. Mr. Speaker, this is about paying more and getting less, whether it is in education, whether it is in the environment, or whether it is in job training. We should not pay more and get less.

Mr. MICA

Mr. MICA. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to introduce a bill that would require television broadcast stations to dedicate at least 5 percent of their advertising time to public service announcements on drug and substance abuse. Drug abuse and illegal narcotics trafficking are skyrocketing. Cocaine, heroin, marijuana and designer drug use have dramatically increased in the last 3 years particularly among our young people. Many education and expensive drug treatment programs have failed. My colleagues, it is critical that we fight illegal narcotics on four fronts: interdiction; enforcement; education; and treatment. It is critical that we reduce demand and find better, more effective means of increasing drug education. During the past few years one of the key participants in the drug education war, television, has shirked its responsibility. Television broadcasting in the United States, a publicly granted franchise, has backslided in its public responsibility and public obligation. Since 1991, support for antidrug messages in the media has decreased from one message per day to almost zero. Mr. Speaker, nothing in our society influences children and adults more than television. Television in many instances has a greater influence than home, church and school. Television has a public service responsibility to assist America in a national crisis--and we have a national crisis with drug and substance abuse. We all know how television changes perceptions and attitudes in our society. Devoting a small fraction of airtime and public airwaves to fighting the drug war and ridding our children and Nation of this scourge is long overdue. Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to join me in reversing the disturbing trend toward drug use. Help our children and all Americans by cosponsoring this important bill.

Mr. MICA

Mr. MICA. Mr. Speaker, I come before the House this evening to talk about the environment. Last evening, I spoke to my colleagues about education, and this has been Earth Day this week, and Earth Week. People talk about saving the environment. And last night I talked about paying more for education and getting less. Tonight I wanted to address the House and my colleagues about paying more for preserving and protecting the environment and getting less. Just a few hours ago the House passed, I believe, the 13th or 14th continuing resolution, and that is a temporary resolution to fund the Government for one more day, and you know we have had a tremendous amount of difficulty in trying to nail down the budget and nail down the expenditures for this year that we are in, 6 months into. What we have not been able to do on our side of the aisle is really tell the American people or convince a majority of our colleagues here that we, in fact, are paying more in education. Tonight I use as an example the environment and getting less for cleanup. And part of the contest that the Congress is engaged in is not just a question of how much more money you spend on these programs, but how you spend it: Are we protecting the environment? One of the things that I have learned as chairman of the House Civil Service Committee is where the bodies are buried or where the public servants are working in the large bureaucracy we have, with so many people employed by the Federal Government. Particularly, my concern is Washington, DC, and then some of the regional offices, if you just take a minute and look at what part of this debate is about with EPA. The total number of EPA employees has grown to almost 18,000 EPA employees. There are 6,000 EPA employees in Washington, DC. Now, that 6,000 is equal to about the total number of employees in EPA about a little over a decade ago. If this were the only figure, this 17,000, it would be huge by any measure. But, in fact, you find thousands and thousands of contract employees. If you wonder where the rest of these employees are, there are 6,000 in Washington, there is another approximately 1,200, a 1,000 to 1,300 in 10 regional offices across the country. When I get down to my State of Florida, we had a total, I believe, of 65 EPA employees in this particular fiscal year. So people who think that EPA is out there in the States protecting the environment, it is not so. They are in Washington, and they are passing countless rules and regulations. A tremendous amount is spent on administration. And then some of the programs we have heard talked about like Superfund. Superfund, I have explained to the House, over 80 percent of the funds on Superfund have been spent on attorney fees and studies. I had a gentleman visit me in my office yesterday, and he said a Superfund site in Florida was identified in 1984. He said it went through a half a dozen project administrators and they still have not done anything to resolve the problems of the Superfund site. That is in Florida. Here is a site in Nevada. Lyon County commissioners, and this is part of a release from them, asked the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to halt mercury cleanup program of the Carson River. The mercury that they were going to clean up is left over from mining operations of the Comstock Lode in the 1800's. Then we have another example, of Vermont here, Burlington, Vermont. Twelve years ago, after a site was picked there to clean up some hazardous waste left over from a coal gasification plant, nothing was done. They spent millions of dollars. Very little was done in the way of environmental cleanup. So we are paying more, we are getting less, and the more I talk about this, the more examples that are brought for me from across the country, and that is part of the debate. Republicans favor protecting the environment, preserving the environment. Republicans favor clean water, clean air, clean land. But when you spend money like this, when the money goes for a bureaucracy like this, and it does not go for a cleanup, then we have a real problem. I want to quote as I get towards the end here a comment from Carol Browner, EPA administrator, who said in the New York Times in 1993, in November: ``When I worked at the state level, I was constantly faced with rigid rules that made doing something 110 times more difficult and expensive than it needed to be. It makes no sense to have a program that raises costs while doing nothing to reduce environmental threats.'' Now, that is Carol Browner, former Florida EPA administrator, commenting on her experience in dealing with the Federal Government. So, Mr. Speaker, I call on Carol Browner, I call on this administration, I call on my colleagues, to stop paying more and getting less. We can do a better job if we concentrate and effectively utilize our limited taxpayer dollars.

Mr. MICA

Mr. MICA. Mr. Speaker, today is the day after Earth Day, and I am one of those Members of Congress from the Republican side who feels that every day should be an Earth Day because really, if you stop and think about it, most of the rest of the world is destroying our planet. We have taken some corrective actions in this Congress and through Republican efforts. The Environmental Protection Agency was first proposed by President Nixon in 1972. Republicans have a long history of supporting cleaning up the environment, not only in this country but also in the world. One reason I came to the floor today is to announce that I am reintroducing legislation that I introduced in my first term. I have only been here 38 months, but this was probably the first place of legislation I introduced as a new Member. It deals with cleaning up our global environment. As a former businessman, I had a chance in the international trade field to travel the world and see the mass destruction of our planet by so many nations. What disturbed me in traveling around the world and looking at what is going on was that in fact the U.S. policy, the U.S. financial backing was supporting some of these efforts at destruction of our planet. So one of the first bills I introduced was called the Global Environmental Cleanup Act. I introduced it; it never got a hearing with the old majority. Really never got a fair airing. I felt that it was important that the United States, through legislation and through a directive from Congress, state as a firm policy that countries who receive any type of financial assistance should in fact be obligated to clean up the environment. That is exactly what this bill will do. And I invite my colleagues to join me in being cosponsors of the legislation this week when it is introduced. Basically what it says is if you receive U.S. financial assistance, financial aid, that a certain percent of that financial aid, and whether it is to build a dam or whether it is to create an industry or some activity in a foreign nation, that in fact that portion of those funds from the United States and the taxpayer goes to clean up the environment in these countries. It is a reasonable approach and a reasoned approach. The other thing that I noticed is that because of the way other countries, third world countries and other competing countries compete with the United States in manufacturing and other activities, often using lower environmental standards. They bring products into the United States at a lower cost, with less environmental protection, less attention to environmental cleanup and protection and they compete with our businessmen and women on an unfair basis. So this is a little bit of an equalizer. This bill is also interesting because it also impacts every agency of the United States that deals in financial support or assistance or backing. The United States actually supports the finances of almost all third world nations. If we pulled out our financial backing through the United Nations, through the World Bank, through the various development banks and regional banks, many of these countries could collapse. What this bill says, in its second part, is in fact that cleaning up the environment and environmental policy will be part of our policy and our financial backing. We will direct our representatives to these organizations to express not only by their voice but also by their vote support for environmental cleanup so our taxpayer dollars will help clean up and establish a policy for cleaning up these third world nations that abuse the world environment. Let me provide examples. In Egypt, the second largest recipient of United States foreign assistance and we see pollution that would startle any environmentalist, and certainly should be a concern to every American. If you look in the Western Hemisphere in Mexico, a major trade recipient, a recipient of the largess of the United States, environmental pollution is a disaster. This bill and my colleagues' action in cosponsoring will help clean up that mess.

Mr. MICA

Mr. MICA. Mr. Speaker, I come to the floor this evening to address my colleagues in the House on the subject of education. Everywhere you turn, in fact I just read this recent article in U.S. News and World Report, there is criticism about United States education. This U.S. News and World Report article and cover story is entitled Dumb and Dumber. It talks about the failure of the United States education. Part of the debate here before Congress has been the question of how much money we throw at different programs. One of the questions I have always raised is, are we paying more and getting less? One of the criticisms of the new Republican majority is that they were cutting ``education.'' In fact, that really is not the case. If you just took a few minutes, Mr. Speaker, to look at the initial budget that we proposed for the House of Representatives and spending for education over the next 7 years, you will find that we proposed an increase over those 7 years of $24 billion in additional education spending. The question, Mr. Speaker, is not just how much money that we throw at these problems, because we have increased the expenditures in almost every educational field over the past decade by tremendous sums of money. Then we get these headlines on our magazines, Dumb and Dumber. We find the results, the SAT scores have dropped, total average of, from 1972, a score of 937 to 902 in 1994. We find our 17-year-olds scored 17 points worse in science than in 1970. We find reading also at proficient levels, the scores have fallen since 1992. In math, U.S. students scored worse in math than all other large countries except for Spain. Thirty percent of college freshmen must take remedial education courses. This is nationwide. And my community college, the president of our local community college said it is up to 70 percent of his entering freshmen need remedial education. So we must look at how we are spending these tremendous sums of dollars and the amounts. That is part of what this debate is about here, whether it is education or whether it is environment. Let me give you two more examples. Here is an article, I brought this to the House before but it is absolutely astounding. It talks about job training programs and education programs, job education programs in the state of Florida. This is just out in the last month, a State study. Florida, in Florida, State, local and Federal expenditures for these training programs were $1 billion. Listen to this: Most students who entered the program never graduated. In all, 37 percent of 347 training and vocational programs performed poorly according to this report and only 20 percent of those enrolled in high school vocational programs completed that. The report found, and listen to this, of that figure only 19 percent found a full-time job after graduating and then were employed in just above a minimum wage, at a minimum wage level and out of that position in less than six months. The examples go on and on. Here is another story that was in the Washington Post. Department of Labor spent about $305,000 for each participant in a job program in Puerto Rico. The problem is, we are paying more and we are getting less. Part of it deals with the Department of Education, which now has 4,786 employees, of which 3,322 are in Washington, D.C., just a few blocks from here. So part of this argument is paying more, getting less. Part of it is command and control in Washington. Part of it is giving these 3,322 bureaucrats down the street in the Federal Department of Education something to do. They do that. It is time that we brought that to a halt.

Mr. MICA

Mr. MICA. So that is the problem, that is where we are, and I wanted to shed that background of what we are trying to do and what some people are doing out there in the field.

Mr. MICA. I thank the gentleman for yielding and, again, we wanted to trace the trail of illegal narcotics coming into this country. As you know, Colombia traditionally has been one of the major transit areas. We have had a program to eliminate some of the kingpins, and the Colombians have been very aggressively pursued, destroying both the Cali and the Medellin cartels. In Colombia, under some pretty heavy security I might add, the Congressmen and the other members who traveled with us of our staff met with our Ambassador Myles Ferchette, who again I commend on his efforts, his incredible living conditions; as well as Defense Minister Esguerra, and Commander of Armed Forces Delgado. As I mentioned, too, nearly several dozen police officers had been killed just prior to our arriving, and I understand another several dozen people have been killed in incidents down there just the past few days, plus other terrorist activities. So you can imagine the conditions that our representatives and Ambassadors are under. It was necessary for this tight security to meet in our embassy. We met there and conversed with our DEA agents and others who were involved in the various projects. Two of the Colombian leaders, and I must say that there are questions surrounding some of the drug relationships to the current President of Colombia. There are 109 members, I understand, of the Colombia's Congress, over 100 members of the Colombian Congress that may have some problems, and there are some investigations going on there. But we met with 2 stars in their drug war, who have done an incredible job, and one is the national police chief, Mr. Serrano. He told us that they have lost over 3,000 officers in this war. As you know, the drug cartels have killed judicial members, they have killed members of congress, they have killed hundreds, literally thousands, of police officers in their struggle. We also had an opportunity to meet with defense minister and commander of the Colombian Armed Forces Admiral Delgado. So we had an opportunity to hear firsthand what they are doing, some of the problems. I might say that one of the problems that we had is in 1994 this administration reversed its policy on the drug shootdown policy. They stopped giving information and intelligence and radar to the Colombians in the Andean countries through a liberal interpretation of one of the attorneys in the administration. As you may know, Members of Congress, Mr. Torricelli, Mr. Rangel, others on the Republican side, Mr. Gilman, raised extreme concerns with the President, the vice president, the national security adviser. Congress did amend this, and there have been some changes. But some damage was done in the program. The Colombians do not shoot the planes down out of the skies with drug traffickers, but they do shoot them when they reach the ground. One of the problems that we have now is that some of the shipments are being shipped around Colombia directly into Mexico, and Mexico is now one of the greatest transshipment areas. Another problem that we have are these small cocaine producers. With the drug cartels being destroyed, we now have small producers. And they discussed that problem. They do need our assistance, continued assistance in this war, additional equipment and supplies. There are people there that are willing to fight, and they have seen how it has destroyed their country. So those are a couple of the things that we saw in Colombia. One other thing that I must mention again is the alarming news of 10,000 hectares of poppy growing, and they are now producing heroin there. And as you know, they have a great flower production, probably the flower capital of the world, and poppy is another flower. So they have an unbelievable capacity to produce a new, inexpensive, illegal narcotic, and it is flooding our schools and our communities and our society, and we will probably see even more of it. So those are some of the folks that we met with, some of the heroes I talked about, and some of the leaders in Colombia who are helping in our effort.

Mr. MICA. Well, I want to, first of all, Mr. Speaker, thank Mr. Hastert for his leadership. When this trip was originally planned, about 11 people indicated they were going to go; and as it turned out, Mr. Hastert, Mr. Souder, and Mr. Zeliff, and myself were the only Members that went. I want the Speaker and my colleagues to know that, and listen to this, despite cables indicating 22 deaths from terrorist bombings on April 10, that is just before we left, in Columbia, and the discovery of dynamite at the Colombia Supreme Court, also on April 10, codel members stood by their commitment, and those who stood by their commitment are on the floor. This trip is a culmination of some of the efforts that I and a few others, Charlie Rangel, Bill Richardson, on the other side of the aisle, have attempted to get the attention of this administration and this Congress on this issue. In the last Congress I had over 100 Members sign a letter to the former Democratic chairman of the Government Operations Committee asking for an oversight hearing on our national drug policy, and two farcical abbreviated hearing were held. Nothing was really held, until Mr. Zeliff took over this position. Mr. Clinger and Mr. Hastert have also shown their leadership. I would say that required reading, and I have seen on the floor for this, this committee is taking this very seriously, and they have produced a document that every American parent, every Member of Congress, and every member of the media should look at, and this details the epidemic drug situation in this country. It is not just with adults, it is with our children. Every single drug, marijuana, cocaine, heroin, designer drugs, are absolutely just going off the charts. This is a national tragedy. We have 70 percent of the people in our jails and in our prisons that are overloaded with people who are convicted of crimes that have some drug relation to it. We have an epidemic in this country and no one, except some of these Members, is paying any attention. And these Members risked their lives and also time with their families to go on this visit to see firsthand. The first codel in my memory in the last 3 or 4 years, and certainly in this administration. Then, also in required reading, I ask everyone to get a copy of this trip report, Mr. Speaker and my colleagues. This is an unclassified report. I know the media could not care less about it, but it details what is going on in the drug war and where we are. We have the report that details the failure, we have the report that details this delegation's travel to these countries and why they traveled to Bolivia, to Peru, to Colombia, to Panama, and to Mexico. First of all, in Bolivia and Peru, they have nearly 100 percent of the cocaine being produced. If my colleagues want to hear some shocking news, we learned in Colombia, which was originally a transit zone, even though now they are producing some cocaine, but every American, every Congressman, and the Speaker of the House should be concerned about this, there are 10,000 hectares of poppies being grown there. Heroin will be on the streets of this country in tremendous amounts. What is another concern, we learned from some agents that we met with that for the first time in Peru they found some cultivation of poppies. So we can see that we have a long way to go. Part of the history of how we got in this situation is the administration shifted most of its resources to drug treatment, which is at the far end. Anyone who looks at the problem of drugs in this country knows that we must have a four-pronged approach. It must be, first of all, interdiction, which is dramatically decreased in these countries. We must have enforcement. In this administration the number of prosecutions has dropped dramatically in drug prosecution. We must have education and then we must have treatment. But it must be a four- pronged approach, and we are losing the war. These people met with the leaders and other people who are involved in this war. And I must take just a minute, too, if I may, to tell the Members of Congress, Mr. Speaker, and the American people, that we have some dedicated people out there. I am still itching from bug bites. Our staff, almost all the staff got sick. The DEA agent that traveled with us had to almost be hospitalized by going into some of these areas, getting sick and bitten, but we came back. The good news is we came back. The other news that everyone should know is that we have hundreds of dedicated Americans, our ambassadors, our Department of Defense employees, these young men and women who are out there in the jungles working with these people that are dedicated young Americans, committed to this fight. The Department of State employees in the narcotics assistance unit. I am one of the biggest critics of AID, Agency for International Development, and a lot of their programs was wasteful, but down in these countries they are trying to work with crop substitution and other programs where we should be putting our emphasis, not on giveaway programs where we can make a difference. And the DEA people. I met a DEA agent who has been in DEA for 12 years, 6 years in South America, his name is Bill, and he is a committed person. And I cannot single out all of them, but we have dozens of these people who are out there in the jungle working every day trying to stop this narcotics trafficking, when sometimes the administration or Congress undermines their efforts. So there are American heroes, our Customs people and intelligence agency people, that are also involved and should be recognized.

Mr. MICA. I want to follow up on what the gentleman had said, Mr. Speaker. This strategy has to start right at the top. It has to start out at the White House. Listen to this. The President has really hardly talked about the issue for the last 3 years. Of the seven major addresses to the Nation in 1993 and 1994, President Clinton mentioned drugs in none of those addresses. In 1993, he gave 1,628 statements, addresses and interviews, but mentioned drugs a total of 13 times. In 1994 there were 1,742 presidential statements and he referred to the drug problem 11 times. This has to be a national priority from the administration. We have a new drug czar. He has been great to work with so far. We have a great working relationship with him. As the other Members have seen and as I saw, we need the cooperation of many agents, we need the cooperation of many committees of Congress in both bodies and everyone working in the same direction. We also must look at how we are spending these resources, and when you see that most of the drug treatment and abuse programs, at the very end, they are failures. Very few of them have any success rate whatsoever. Then the international program is 2.34 percent, and you dismantle an interdiction program at this critical juncture, you are making a mistake as far as your priorities. It has to be interdiction, enforcement, education, and there must be treatment also.

Mr. MICA

Mr. MICA. Mr. Speaker, when I came to Congress 3 years ago, I was really appalled, like many other Americans, to find out that Congress really did not have to live under the laws that they imposed on everyone else. I remember, when I ordered signs for my district office, I attempted to comply with the Americans with Disabilities Act. Then I came back to Washington and was shocked to find out that in Washington, they did not comply with the ADA Act, and they did not comply with the rest of the rules and regulations. It was ironic, shortly thereafter, that I had visiting constituents from my district and around the country who were visually impaired. I really was embarrassed to see those folks try to find their way around this place, this maze, without any proper, even common courtesy identification for those with a disability. I wrote on February 26, 1993, to the Democrat committee chairman who was in charge of the House oversight at that time. Mr. Speaker, I include that letter for the Record. The letter referred to is as follows: Congress of the United States, House of Representatives, Washington, DC, February 26, 1993. Hon. Charlie Rose, Chairman, Committee on House Administration, The Capitol, Washington, DC. Dear Representative Rose: My recent experience in ordering signage for my district offices in Central Florida has prompted me to ask why the House of Representatives should not comply with a simple and necessary provision of the Americans with Disability Act with regard to use of braille for blind and visually impaired people. After laborious efforts to get local district office signs approved by the committee on House Administration, the sign company informed me that ADA regulations also required that the suite numbers be in braille. After inquiring with committee staff as to why this was not addressed in the Congressional Handbook, I was informed that the House was exempt from the regulation. I did, however, request the addition of braille to my signs. It was ironic in that the same week this happened, representatives for the blind and visually impaired around the country were visiting their Members of Congress and no Member suites in the House Office Buildings are equipped with braille signs. I would like to request that House rules add braille directional signs located in the interior of local district offices and in the House offices buildings. I urge that consideration be given to this much needed service to our visually impaired citizens. Sincerely, John L. Mica, Member of Congress. Rather than reading the whole letter that I wrote to the chairman of the Committee on House Oversight, I will summarize it. I told him our experience, that here we are, a Congress telling people to comply with the laws, and I just had these folks with visual infirmities and disabilities in the hallways, trying to find their way around the Capitol. Why could we not at least give them the courtesy of labeling our offices in compliance with ADA? I never got a reply. I brought it up again, and I asked and begged. The American people made some changes here then. On the first day of the 104th Congress we passed, remember, the Congressional Accountability Act. That said that every Member of Congress and Congress must comply with the laws they impose on everyone else. Most people do not know that that is now the law. Sometimes around here there are great battles and little victories. I am here tonight to tell you about one little victory. Here is the little victory. Going up around the Capitol Building and in my office, and I am so proud of this little improvement, little victory, are these signs. They are placed in compliance with ADA. If you are visually impaired, you can even find out whose office you are in. This is a small success, but we said when we took control of this Congress we were going to make some changes. We were going to make Congress obey these laws. This is one little victory that I am so proud of. Not only did we do that, but how thrilled I was today to also find another sign which was going up. Heaven forbid we should have maps that should help those visually impaired to find their way around the maze of the Capitol Building, but we have these, and actually your can put your hands across these, and those visually impaired and who read Braille, they can find their way around this maze. So Republicans said they would make changes, and they are making changes. I know this is not changing the world as we know it; it is not changing everything, our freshman program, but it is a beginning. There are some other things that people probably do not know about what we have done with the Congress and the congressional budget. I want to take a minute to thank, first of all, the gentleman from California, Bill Thomas, who is chairman of the Committee on House Oversight, for his actions and leadership on this issue and other issues. Mr. Speaker, the Republicans said they would cut the cost of operating this Congress, the legislative branch, and they did. We cut a quarter of a billion, $250 million, out of our budget. That is done. Republicans said they would cut congressional staff, and we reduced the staff on the Hill somewhere in the neighborhood of 2,000 positions. I chaired the Civil Service Subcommittee, which was three subcommittees before. It had 54 staffers. We operate it with 7. We said we were going to make changes. We did make those changes. Republicans said they would privatize capital operations, and we did.

Mr. MICA

Mr. MICA. Mr. Speaker, we have heard the other side bash the Republicans about environmental policy. Unfortunately they do not want to deal with the facts. We heard them mention 40 percent of the streams still polluted in the country, or whatever percentage. That is under current law. Let us look at Superfund, one of their great examples that they want to protect as we do now. Over 2,000 sites have been identified for hazardous waste. How many have been cleaned up? Just a handful, less than 70, at a cost of billions of dollars. Where does 85 percent of the money go? For attorneys fees and for studies. That is what we are talking about here. We are talking about paying more and getting less. Of the sites that were cleaned up, a GAO report last year said the sites were chosen on the basis of political pressure, those few sites that did not address public health, safety or welfare. So they want to pay more and get less. They want to protect the 6,000 bureaucrats in Washington, DC, and EPA just down the street from here, who have not cleaned up a hazardous waste site and would not recognize one if it hit them in the face.

Mr. MICA

Mr. MICA. If the gentleman will yield, I think the gentleman makes a very good point and he has detailed this evening, Mr. Speaker, some of the differences in the philosophy between the Republicans and Democrats on this issue. Education is important but it is not just a question of spending more money, it is how we spend that money. This is really the fundamental debate in this entire Congress. It transcends not only education but every other area. I spoke this afternoon on the floor about the EPA and Superfund program. We spend more, we get less. We are spending more in those programs and we are cleaning up fewer and fewer of the sites, and we are not even cleaning up the sites that pose the most risk to human health and safety. We have detailed tonight how just in a few programs, student loans, title I, in Head Start and some of the other programs the disaster that we have come across as new Members of the Congress and found in my 37 or 38 months here and in Mr. Graham's tenure, so each of those areas we have tried to look at how a businessperson, how a parent, how a teacher, how someone interested in education would make changes. Because if you just continue the way we have, you have thrown more money at the problem, you are not really addressing the fundamental changes that need to be made in the programs. Again, whether it is education or environment or other areas, these are the fundamental debates. As a parent, I want a good education. As a parent, I want our children to be able to read their diplomas and to stop the decrease in these scores, and to stop this bureaucratic administration. Again 3,322 Federal Department of Education employees in Washington, DC. Not in the classroom, not out there teaching. But their job is to pass on rules and regulations and that is why we have a big bureaucracy in Atlanta and other regional offices, that is why you have a big bureaucracy in my State capital and in other State capitals. That is why your school boards are required to hire more administration people. That is why Head Start is top heavy with administration. It all starts here. This may be the last opportunity that this Congress has and the American people have a real opportunity to make changes in these programs. And that is the fundamental debate. Do we want to continue to pay more and get less? I think it is time to reverse that trend. I think it is time to improve education, improve the environment, improve the way taxpayer money that again came here yesterday in incredible amounts and is deducted from people's paychecks in incredible amounts. I thank the gentleman for his leadership on this issue.