Alan Mollohan

Mr. MOLLOHAN

Mr. MOLLOHAN. Mr. Chairman, I am pleased to yield 3 minutes to a distinguished member of the subcommittee. We have a great subcommittee on both sides, Democrats and Republicans, who work extremely well, and every one of them brings a lot to the bill as we marked up, and Mr. Honda is certainly no exception.

Mr. MOLLOHAN. Mr. Chairman, I rise in opposition to the amendment and, at the same time, I share concern with the gentleman for our ability to monitor, carefully and comprehensively, compliance regarding our trade with China. We have an Office of China Compliance, which the gentleman wants to increase by $6 million, which about doubles the funding. There is a group in the Congress, and I am certainly one of them, who are extremely concerned about foreign competition. I am very concerned about how, as this world increasingly is becoming a smaller economic community, how we compete successfully, particularly as competition relates to the impact on traditional industries in this country and making sure that a fair and level playing field exists. That is why we have the Office of China Compliance. That is why we have funded it in this bill. The gentleman suggests that the funding level is inadequate, and we have very consciously funded it at the President's request. A $6 million increase doubles the Office of China Compliance, and given the balances that are necessary in this bill and the funding demands that exist, we feel that the level that we funded it at is adequate. Let me also comment about the gentleman's offset. He offsets the Census Bureau, the salaries and expenses account, I believe. That is unacceptable. Does the gentleman offset the salaries and expenses or the decennial census account? The decennial census account. That is a terrible offset, respectfully, because we have to prepare for the decennial census, and we have to prepare for it carefully and adequately. First of all, I think the account is funded adequately at the President's request in last year's funding. Secondly, the offset is just terrible. I would invite the gentleman to work with us as we move forward to conference and look carefully at the account and make more careful judgments about the adequacy of the funding, if he would like to do that.

Mr. MOLLOHAN. I yield to the distinguished ranking member.

Mr. MOLLOHAN. I am pleased to yield to the gentleman from Michigan. And I see I was wrong about your offset. But the point applies to your offset.

Mr. MOLLOHAN. No. It's terminal. It's a bad offset. It degrades the Census Bureau's ability to collect economic statistics, which is terrible. But please.

Mr. MOLLOHAN. Mr. Chairman, reclaiming my time, I just will stipulate to our concerns about trade with China and the necessity to review it. That is why we have this office. You are suggesting that we need additional funding. You are suggesting doubling the funding, which impacts Census in its ability to collect economic statistics, which is also extremely important to the economic viability of the country.

Mr. MOLLOHAN. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the last word.

Mr. MOLLOHAN. They do have the right take, and she obviously has picked a substantive issue to be concerned about and defend, and the gentleman is to be commended for picking it up and fighting for her and sea turtles.

Mr. MOLLOHAN. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the last word.

Mr. MOLLOHAN. I yield to the gentleman from California.

Mr. MOLLOHAN. Mr. Chairman, reclaiming my time, I point out that when the gentleman brought his interest in CASA to the attention of the committee, I pointed out to him that CASA is funded in our bill at the authorized limit of $12 million. We don't suggest that it does not merit and that the need isn't there for considerably additional funding. That is something that we can look at in the future, and I thank the gentleman from California for bringing this matter to the attention of the committee and to the attention of the full body. CASA is a vital program that is important in the lives of countless children in foster care, and we will continue to work with the gentleman on his concern of ensuring that soon every child has a CASA representative. As the gentleman represents, only 50 percent, if it is 50 percent, of those in need are served by this vital program. As my colleagues may know, 7 years ago, and as the gentleman pointed out, and we are very impressed by that fact and taken by it, adopted two foster children. There is no greater love than adopting children. We look forward to working with the gentleman as we move forward.

Mr. MOLLOHAN. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the last word.

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

Mr. MOLLOHAN. Mr. Chairman, I'm pleased to discuss this matter with the gentleman. This issue was brought before the committee rather late, after we had marked up. The point was made on a bipartisan basis that the authorization for this program was not adequate. We accepted the authorization change on our bill and supported an increase in the authorization, I believe to $30 million. The bill is already marked up, and we have funded this program at $8.9 million, recognizing that, like a lot of accounts in this bill, additional resources are needed. We would be pleased to work with the gentleman as the bill moves forward to see how we can augment this funding. That's a difficult proposition, but we do commit ourselves to looking to see how and where we might be able to find some additional resources to fund these accounts, and we look forward to working with the gentleman in that regard.

Mr. MOLLOHAN. The gentleman is totally correct. Additional funding in this area could be used. We are convinced of that. We look forward to working with the gentleman.

Mr. MOLLOHAN. Mr. Chairman, I demand a recorded vote.

Mr. MOLLOHAN. I move to strike the last word, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. MOLLOHAN. Mr. Chairman, I find myself agreeing with everything the gentleman has argued, and at the same time being, unfortunately, opposed to his amendment. It's hard for any of us to argue or to have a desire in our hearts to do anything but increase the National Science Foundation. We all understand what good work it does. NSF provides competitive, peer-reviewed granting that translates into cutting-edge research that is the foundation for the future economic viability of the Nation. Our economy is increasingly becoming an international one, and we have to be on the cutting edge. That's why we have funded NSF at a rate that guarantees its doubling in a 10-year time span. We embrace and salute the doubling and have been responsive to that need that is expressed by members and the community. Nothing is more important than funding education, and increasing NSF and its ability to develop and implement programs to facilitate education and to incentivize our best and brightest young people to go into math and science, and to choose those careers. That's what NSF does very well. The gentleman wants to facilitate that by augmenting our funding in the education accounts for math and science partnerships. I commend him for the initiative. I oppose the amendment because we have funded the Math and Science Partnership Program. We increase it significantly in our bill, and I'm sure the gentleman knows that. We increased it $20 million over the President's request of $46 million for a total of $66 million. That's a 43 percent increase. And I will say that not only is it a generous increase, but perhaps it's an increase they need time to absorb. The fact is that we have significantly increased Math and Science Partnerships $20 million over the President's request, funding it at $66 million. Where does the offset money come from? It comes from Commerce. For every one million dollars that you offset in these administration accounts, at least seven people would be laid off. We're not funding these administrative and S&E accounts with the idea that we can use this funding for amendments on the floor. We're funding these accounts at the requested level or at the levels that we've discerned are adequate pursuant to information that we've received in our hearings. We're on the level with funding in these administration accounts. Again, I think these offsets are cavalier. No matter how meritorious the object of the funding increase, it's cavalier to cut S&E accounts. The employees are saying, help. Time out. Stop. Their organizations, like the American Federation of Government Employees, AFL-CIO, are writing to us. They're saying, please stop invading these administrative accounts. With that comment, Mr. Chairman, I yield to my distinguished ranking member.

Mr. MOLLOHAN. I yield to the gentleman from New Jersey.

Mr. MOLLOHAN. With that representation, I'll be extremely pleased to work with the gentleman in that regard.

Mr. MOLLOHAN. Our bill demonstrates an upward trend in juvenile justice programs, indeed, Mr. Chairman. That has been a real focus and priority of this subcommittee as we have marked up the bill. We have increased funding in juvenile justice programs $120 million over the President's request, and that is $62 million over 2007 funding. Why? Because of efforts from Members like Mr. Murphy, who has been all over this issue, and I value very much his expertise as he has communicated with the subcommittee. He has expressed his concerns about juvenile justice, about the problems that these programs address; and he is really to be commended. He has also made it clear that Mr. Platts has been very active in this effort as his colleague, and I commend Mr. Platts as well. We look forward to working with them as we move this bill forward, but also in future years to ensure that the juvenile justice programs not only are funded appropriately but also that they are focused as they should be so that we make sure this funding is spent to maximize not only its efficiency but its effectiveness. So, Mr. Platts, Mr. Murphy, we thank you for your assistance with regard to this issue, and we look forward to working with you. Amendment Offered by Mrs. Biggert

Mr. MOLLOHAN. I appreciate the gentleman from New York's interest in this. As a matter of fact, he was the mover and shaker in the Congress in pointing out that we had 2 years of successive increases in violent crime in the country. He was the first one to point out that in the 1990s, the COPS, the Community Policing Cops on the Beat Program, was extremely effective in reducing that; and in large part, along with other Members, advocated and encouraged the committee to reactivate the COPS hiring program, and we've done that. We've done that with $100 million, which we think will fund approximately 2,700 policemen. This is a down payment. This is an initiative, and the gentleman is to be commended for providing the impetus for that initiative. So I thank him. We look forward to working with him in future years. I know this is a program that, because of its proven effectiveness in the past, is going to get increasing attention in the future.

Mr. MOLLOHAN. We're going to be up to it.

Mr. MOLLOHAN. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the last word.

Mr. MOLLOHAN. Mr. Chairman, the gentlelady offers an amendment to one of the grant programs in the Violence Against Women Office of the U.S. Department of Justice. To give a little bit of context to the amendment, the Office of Violence Against Women was funded in fiscal year 2007 at $382.571 million. The President requested $370 million, about $12.5 million less than was funded in 2007. So the President's request for the office was decreased. He requested less money than was appropriated last year. In addition to that, the President wanted to eliminate all of the grant programs, including the one that the gentlelady seeks today to increase funding for specifically. The subcommittee increased funding over the President's request by $60 million. So the subcommittee looked at the Violence Against Women Office and looked at the scourge that office addresses and fights every day and the programs that the office administers, and we said not only do we need to increase the President's request from last year's level, we need to increase this program above the President's request, and we did by $60 million. We also rejected the President's request to eliminate all of the grant programs under Violence Against Women. We retained those grant programs and those categories, and then we funded each and every one of them handsomely. So the request before us today, or the recommendation of the committee before the body today, increases over Fiscal Year 2007 funding by $47 million, over the President's request by $60 million. As for the grant program that the gentlelady offers an amendment to, we fund it at $40 million, which is 100 percent over the President's request, because he wanted to eliminate that program, and 3 percent over the 2007 funding. Now, there is no question that the Office of Violence Against Women deserves adequate funding. That is why we funded it at $60 million over the President's request. It enjoys a privileged position on our committee. Chairwoman DeLauro is aggressive in her leadership on this issue as is every member of our subcommittee. The Rural Domestic Violence Assistance Grants have been funded at $40 million and are extremely proud of that funding level. The gentlelady looks for her offset in the National Science Foundation, the premier research and development agency in the United States Government. It offers peer-reviewed granting; it looks at education programs; it looks at research programs, cutting-edge, transformational research, the research that we rely upon in order to ensure our competitiveness in the arena and also lay a foundation for our competitiveness in the global economic marketplace. Don't make any mistake about it, everyone who has testified before our committee agrees the National Science Foundation is not only an economic security issue, it is a national security issue, and it is not the place where we ought to be taking funding. There is a recognition that we need to double the funding for the National Science Foundation, and that is the track we are on with the level of funding in this bill. We should not, and hopefully we won't, reduce funding to the National Science Foundation by $10 million. That would knock us off of the track. To summarize, Mr. Chairman, funding in the Violence Against Women programs is robust: $60 million above the President's request. The particular grant programs, one of which the gentlelady addresses, each have been retained, and each of those grant programs has been funded robustly. So, like every other account in this bill, we could use additional money, and if the budget resolutions that the minority would vote for would allow us additional money, we would be pleased to look at increasing funding for violence against women programs. But given our allocation, and given the priorities and the conflicting demands in the bill, and given the importance of the National Science Foundation and the robust nature of our funding for violence against women, I must oppose the gentlelady's amendment. Mr. Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time.