Jim Moran

Mr. MORAN

Mr. MORAN. Mr. Chairman, let me respond to my friends with whom I share many public policy objectives, but I would strongly disagree with the suggestion that we ought to stick with the status quo. Let me tell my colleagues about a family in Alexandria right across the bridge. Mr. Chairman, the mother whose husband left her 4 years ago is sleeping in an automobile. Her 6-year-old is with her in the back seat. The 4-year-old is in the front seat. They have been on the waiting list for 4 years. She has no hope of ever getting subsidized housing, and she is not unique. Because subsidized housing goes to people who have contacts, and in many urban areas, as it is in the District of Columbia, it went to people who were willing to bribe housing officials. In most suburban jurisdictions, subsidized housing goes to the elderly and the disabled, because that is where the profit margin is for building high-rise apartment buildings, and they are no threat to the community. Families with children are in great need of subsidized housing today, and those families who are willing to participate in a work participation program ought to get some incentive and ought to get some support. There are 13 million families today who qualify for housing and people in housing have no incentive to leave it, and we have no regulation that requires them to leave it. They are in there for life.

Mr. MORAN. Is the gentleman speaking in opposition?

Mr. MORAN. I say in response to my friend, the gentleman from Minnesota [Mr. Vento], who has been very active in the housing area on the Subcommittee on Housing, it does not specifically exclude the elderly and disabled, but families looking for subsidized housing are not looking for one-bedroom efficiencies. They are not in competition with the elderly or disabled. I would also say to my friend that one of the biggest problems in terms of subsidized housing being used for the people in greatest need is that the only area that most jurisdictions are willing to provide subsidized housing is for the elderly and disabled because they make more profit. The developer makes more profit in building a high-rise. They do not like to provide subsidized housing for families. That is where the greatest need is; that is, those who compose most of the waiting list, families with children, not the elderly or disabled, because most jurisdictions are more than happy to provide for the elderly and disabled. They do not want families with kids. They assume they are unruly, with kids and so on, when they come from a family of poverty. That is our biggest problem in making the best use of the limited subsidized dollars that we have. But I would also suggest that those families that are on this waiting list, they ought to have an incentive to get a job, to pursue the ultimate objectives of welfare reform, which in fact both Democrats and Republicans agree is self-sufficiency. There ought to be an incentive. This is one of the most substantial incentives we can provide. If you go out and search for a job and find a job, we are going to provide subsidized housing for a limited period of time, 5 years, so you can get on your feet. This is consistent with both Republican and Democratic philosophy. It also would make much greater priority use of the limited subsidized housing funds we have available.

Mr. MORAN. I yield to the gentleman from Minnesota.

Mr. MORAN. I would respond to my friend, the gentleman from Arizona [Mr. Pastor], the fact is this is a good amendment, regardless of what happens to section 8 or public housing. We cannot throw in the towel and ignore any improvements possible under the assumption that ultimately all housing subsidies programs are going to be eliminated. I do not think that is going to be the case. In fact, those programs that continue to exist, we have all the more reason to prioritize who gets the advantage of them. This does not affect elderly or disabled people, because families need more than one- bedroom efficiencies, which is what is available to elderly and disabled. I think many people may not be aware of fact that in terms of eligibility for housing subsidies, AFDC is counted as income. When welfare reform passes and people who choose not to go into a work program lose their AFDC, the other part of the Federal Government, HUD, is going to make it up for them. HUD is going to reduce their cost of subsidized housing so that there will be a reverse, a perverse incentive, if you are in public housing, not to participate in the work participation program.

Mr. MORAN. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Chairman, what this amendment would do, depending upon whatever welfare bill is enacted--I happen to support the Deal amendment--but what this amendment would do is to say that when you enter a work program, then in fact you go to the top of the waiting list for public and publicly assisted housing, so there would be an the support of subsidized housing. Currently, there is very little turnover in any subsidized housing. In fact, there are 13 million people who are eligible for subsidized housing. And less than 3.5 million actually receive it. Mr. Chairman, the original intent of subsidized housing was that it be transitional, that people who needed some help to get their feet on the ground would be able to take advantage of subsidized housing in the interim until they achieved economic self-sufficiency. What this is doing is providing a significant incentive for people to find work, to get themselves on the ground, so to speak, and then after 5 years they would lose their eligibility for this assisted housing. So that it will create some turnover in assisted housing as well. I would suggest to the Members they consider this with regard to welfare reform. I will bet that Members are not aware of this.

Mr. MORAN. In other words, Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman from Massachusetts [Mr. Kennedy] have a block of time to explain his position?

Mr. MORAN. Mr. Chairman, I have a parliamentary inquiry of the Chair as to the effect of granting the last request.

Mr. MORAN. Mr. Chairman, I yield 30 seconds to the gentleman from Kentucky [Mr. Baesler].

Mr. MORAN. Mr. Chairman, 10 minutes is reserved on the other side, none of which has been used as yet. I would suggest the gentleman seek time there. Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. MORAN. Mr. Chairman, I have not been informed of anyone opposed.

Mr. MORAN. Mr. Chairman, I offer amendment No. 20, printed in House Report 104-85.

Mr. MORAN

Mr. MORAN. Mr. Speaker, I thank the distinguished ranking minority member of the subcommittee, and I want to thank the chairman of the full committee for carrying this bill through to its conclusion, the gentleman from Ohio [Mr. Portman], the gentleman from Virginia [Mr. Davis], and the gentleman from California [Mr. Condit]. This has been a cooperative, bipartisan, constructive effort to address a very serious problem within this country and particularly experienced by State and local governments and the private sector. I am going to support this bill. It is a necessary bill. It should have been passed years ago. I do want to raise some issues, however, because I do have some concerns with what will happen once this bill is signed. The principal concern is with regard to appropriations. The last bill we passed included three programs that suffered very substantial reductions: lead abatement, let me make sure I have all of them, asbestos removal, safe drinking water. We had rescissions in all three programs, just passed them, $1.3 billion in reductions. But, my colleagues, there was no reduction in the mandates that States and localities must carry out to implement those programs. I think it is kind of ironic that we just imposed a more severe burden on States and localities by taking away over $1 billion that they needed to carry out Federal mandates and now, within the same hour, we are going to pass a conference report which says that they have to fully implement them. I wish that we had the provision in this as well that says that the executive agency has to seek out from the States and localities and the private industrial sectors affected the least burdensome option for carrying out the intent of the legislation. It does not include that as being subject to judicial review. That could be a serious problem if the executive branch is not in full accord with the intent of this legislation. I wish that were included. Mr. Speaker, I do think that this is going to improve the relationship between States and localities and the Federal Government. Most importantly, it is going to improve the relationship between the American people and their Government. It is a good bill. I congratulate all those who worked so hard to get to this day. I am confident the President will pass it, and I appreciate having been given the time to address these issues. I thank the chairman, the gentleman from Pennsylvania [Mr. Clinger].

Mr. MORAN

Mr. MORAN. Mr. Chairman, as a father of a 5-year-old and a 3-year- old, I got to tell you that when you rely only upon the commercial sector to produce programming that is in their interest, you do sacrifice quality and content. I doubt any of you have the opportunity to watch the kinds of shows that are put on on Saturday mornings or during the morning on weekdays. But the reality is that the only quality is that which you get on public broadcasting. What you get on the commercial networks is full of gratuitous violence, it has no qualitative content to it. There is a reason why the Corporation for Public Broadcasting has been maintained. It is because there is a vast difference between what it produces and what the commercial networks produce. And it all comes down to where the motivation is. The motivation for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting is to produce the highest quality programming, to appeal to our best instincts, and that is what we got and that is what we should keep.

Mr. MORAN

Mr. MORAN. Mr. Speaker, I thank my friend from Maryland. I know that he recalls that when action of this magnitude was taken in 1986, it was the result of 2 years of bipartisan effort to study the Federal retirement system, and they came up with a plan that fixed the Federal retirement system and, in fact, we are now taking in $62.2 billion a year and paying out $36 billion. What is being attempted tomorrow is not an attempt to fix the retirement system. It is an attempt to accumulate $12 billion in cuts in order to finance a tax cut for other Members on the backs of Federal employees who, in effect, would have to pay an increase, 12-percent increase, in their tax.

Mr. MORAN. Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?

Mr. MORAN

Mr. MORAN. Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?

Mr. MORAN. Mr. Speaker, I was not here, and the gentleman from California [Mr. Cunningham] was not here. I would tell the gentleman from San Diego and I would emphasize that we have a responsibility to maintain the contracts that we make with the American people, that this Congress does. We are standing in the seat and assuming the responsibilities of our predecessors, and, when the U.S. Congress makes contractual obligations, it is our responsibility to fulfill those obligations. I am glad that the gentleman from California made that point, made the point that we have a responsibility to fulfill our commitments, and we are going to abdicate that responsibility and violate that commitment in the markup tomorrow. At least that is the intent of getting unanimous consent to be able to meet during the legislative session. That is why we have brought up this reservation. Granted, it applies to Members of Congress; that is not the reason for the objection. Members of Congress will pay more into their retirement, and they will get much less back out of their retirement. But the people that are taking the biggest hit are Federal employees who will pay almost a 12-percent tax increase in the CSRS plan. It will go from 7 to 9\1/2\ percent and, in the new plan, from 0.8 to 3.3 percent after we assured them this would not happen. That is why this should be objected to, and I yield back to the gentleman who yielded to me, the gentleman from Maryland [Mr. Hoyer].

Mr. MORAN. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Maryland [Mr. Hoyer]. The reason why we have reserved the right to object is that we are marking up a bill that has been given very little consideration. The minority had been notified only days in advance of a markup and, in fact, of hearings. We are rushing to judgment on a retirement system that, in fact, does not need tampering with, that, in fact, was fixed in 1986 after 2 full years of deliberation, and now we are going to change that within a matter of days with very little reflection. Most of the Members of this House have no idea what we will be marking up tomorrow and bringing to the floor very shortly. What we did in a bipartisan way, after 2 years of study in 1986, was to institute a new retirement system. That retirement system is working perfectly. It is fully funded. The old retirement system is not fully funded, but in fact it is being phased out. So there is no reason to mess with that, and, when we passed legislation in 1986, we told Federal employees, we told our colleagues, we told the American public, we were not going to change this system, and now we are asking for unanimous consent to mark up a bill that completely changes it in a radical and punitive manner.

Mr. MORAN. Mr. Speaker, just as the gentleman from Pennsylvania who asked unanimous consent request, I ask that the Members of Congress realize what this means to them or, more importantly, to their staffs, in fact to all the committees' staffs, all the people who work up here on the Hill. They will see their retirement contribution requirement increased by about 12 percent, from 8 to 9\1/2\ percent. On the base that is about a 12-percent increase. They will see their accumulated retirement reduced by 2 percent. So we hit them on the front end in terms of what they contribute and on the back end in terms of what they are able to accumulate toward their retirement, but when we compare that to Federal employees, there was actually a 35-percent increase. That is 2\1/2\ percent over the current base of 7 percent, a 35-percent increase over what they are currently paying, plus there will be a reduction in what they are able to receive. And in the Thrift Savings Plan, which was designed to fix this, which we were committed to sustaining and to not changing, there will be a reduction in the employer contribution, the Federal Government's contribution, from 5 down to 3 percent. This will affect the quality of life is everyone in the Federal Government who is dependent upon a Federal retirement, whether it is in the legislative branch, or the executive branch, or the judiciary branch. This is a profound change in the assumptions that people have made when they seek and obtain Federal employment and when they plan their retirement years, and yet we get unanimous consent to mark up a bill with a few days notice, and bring it to the floor and make such a profound change with very little consideration.

Mr. MORAN

Mr. MORAN. Mr. Chairman, during rollcall vote No. 221 on H.R. 956 I was unavoidably detained. Had I been present I would have voted ``aye.''

Mr. MORAN

Mr. MORAN. I thank the gentleman for yielding this time to me. Mr. Chairman, I do not know if there are others of my colleagues who have been stockbrokers at some time in their life, but I was for 10 years. I have watched what has happened in the securities marketplace. The gentleman from Michigan [Mr. Dingell] is absolutely right: There are corporate abuses. Mr. KLINK, the gentleman from Pennsylvania, is also correct that the securities market itself is doing quite well. But the fact remains that there is an abuse within this industry that does need to be corrected. And it is focused primarily on those firms that provide the highest rate of growth to our economy, those firms that take the greatest risks, in the area of high-technology. Legent Corp., in Herndon, VA, now in Vienna, actually, they had a slight change in their earnings expectation, the stock dropped. Immediately they were hit with one of those strike lawsuits. They required 200,000 pages of documentation, many, many days of very valuable employee time was spent, and they wound up settling for $2 million in legal fees even though it was acknowledged it was a frivolous lawsuit. Metrix Corp., same thing happened; A small reduction in their earnings expectation, the stocks began to drop, and they got hit with a strike lawsuit. They had to produce 50,000 documents, 200,000 electronic messages to the plaintiffs' lawyers, 20 employees had to spend full time on this. They wound up settling for $975,000. Mr. Chairman, I want you to recognize this: The investors, the shareholders got $400 or less. The lawyer got $330,000. That is what this is all about. They are fishing expeditions for lawyers who have found a way to abuse the system. It should not be tolerated in the courts and it should not be tolerated in the Congress.

Mr. MORAN

Mr. MORAN. I thank the gentlewoman, my friend from New York [Ms. Slaughter] for yielding to me. This amendment would do 3 things: It would enable us to regulate pathogens in meat and poultry, deadly microbes in drinking water and lead in canned food. Those are the 3 specific regulatory areas we are trying to insure will continue. You heard from Mr. Barrett, who represents Wisconsin, where thousands of people in Milwaukee got sick because of cryptosporidium in the water supply. The Environmental Protection Agency was able to take that experience, and when they found cryptosporidium in the Washington area water supply, they were able to stop it. As a result, we did not have thousands of people getting sick in the Washington area. What they now need to do is to determine what the appropriate tolerable level of cryptosporidium is. They need to conduct the experiment. This would prevent them from being able to do that. You know, I cannot imagine why we would want to prevent these kinds of what are really both common sense and terribly important regulations. On the one hand you say we ought to leave it up to the administration to exercise judgment, and the rest of the time they spend criticizing the administration for exercising poor judgment. Let us get the law protecting the America.

Mr. MORAN. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for clarifying that fact, because I understand there is no higher priority in this body than to make sure that we do have duck hunting season. We will take care of that. But there are other amendments within this package of common sense amendments that we really need to take care of. It is probably so that there are Members on this side of the aisle, the Democratic side, who really believe that whatever regulation the Federal Government issues, it is needed. It is important and they would not question it. There are obviously Members on the Republican side who seem to feel that any Federal regulation is wrong and should not have been issued. I suspect, and I would suggest to the Members of this body, that the truth probably lies somewhere in between, that there are regulations that are just plain nutty and we have had those shared with us today and will tomorrow as well. There are regulations that in their implementation they are excessive. They are implemented in a cookie cutter approach, when the intent is good but the result is not what this legislative body intended. Then there are other regulations that are absolutely essential and necessary, and we would really not object to those, if we had an opportunity to fully consider them. That is, it is those regulations that we are considering in this amendment. This amendment was put together under the guise of common sense. When we talk about the asylum issue, for example, OMB has told us that under H.R. 450, they would not be able to issue those INS regulations. Now, we have been working with INS for years. It does not make sense to have 450,000 political asylum cases in limbo, waiting to be processed. It increases by 100,000 a year. There is nothing to do with the political situation in other countries. It is because people have figured out how to use this loophole. You have got people in other countries that consider themselves immigration consultants, and they tell people that ``you get on the plane, you over there and you say you are claiming political asylum. It will take 2 years before they process and by then they will never find you.'' That is what happened with Mir Amal Kansi who killed two people outside the CIA. He was on political asylum. The people that bombed the World Trade Center, political asylum. We have got thousands of people that have no business being in this United States. So we finally got a regulation that the INS issued that will make sure that they all get processed in 6 months instead of 2 years. That is a regulation that OMB tells us they will not be able to implement this year if H.R. 450 passes as is. It needs to be changed. Other amendments that have been included in this package need to be changed. I would hope that we would do so. Mr. Chairman, this amendment gets to the heart of the problem with the Regulatory Moratorium Act. This legislation assumes that all regulations are bad and that Government only works to impose new and unnecessary burdens on businesses and citizens. By arbitrarily reaching back to November 1994, this legislation attempts to impugn the motives of any regulation not implemented with the advise and consent of the new Republican revolutionaries. This is fine as political rhetoric, but it is shortsighted and destructive as public policy. My concerns focus on an individual case in point. On December 5, 1994, regulations were published in the Federal Register that provide desperately needed reforms of our political asylum process. This reform is important because the number of political asylum cases has exploded. In 1983, there were fewer than 5,000. This grew to 56,000 in 1991 and more than 150,000 last year. The backlog of unprocessed asylum cases has grown to more than 425,000 cases by the end of last year and is rising at the rate of 100,000 each year. This increase in political asylum cases is not driven by a rise in legitimate refugees seeking protection from the United States, but rather by an increased awareness of the loophole overseas. What is happening is that aliens and immigrants are coming to this country, flushing their papers down the toilet on their flight over and claiming political asylum once they land at JFK or Dulles International Airport. They are learning how to do this through conmen and immigration consultants overseas. The reason aliens are claiming political asylum, in such large numbers, is that they know they can use the process to get into the United States with little or no problem or governmental control. INS officials cannot summarily dismiss these complaints and send the aliens back home. Instead the aliens are given work permits and temporary visas while the INS reviews their claim. With a backlog of 425,000 claims, this initial review can be up to 24 months away. Even after the INS reviews the claim and rejects it, the alien simply appeals the decision and continues to live and work in the United States. More often than not we are finding that aliens are using this delay to simply disappear into the vast underground of immigrants in New York, Los Angeles, or even Arlington, VA. This system is being seriously abused. Sheik Omar Abdel Rahman and his gang, who tried to blow up the World Trade Center, had political asylum cases pending. Mir Amal Kansi, the Pakistani who 2 years ago murdered two people outside the CIA headquarters building in northern Virginia, came to the United States on a visa and then applied for asylum. Last year, the Clinton administration and the INS began the process of reforming our asylum laws and closing this loophole. The December 5 regulations will help the INS fully process applications within 180 days. The INS will focus on the new asylum claims and prevent aliens from melting into our society. In addition, asylum applicants will not be given work permits until after 180 days. The regulations will significantly improve our asylum process. But now, we are willing to throw out those regulations simply because they were implemented after the November elections. We are reopening a huge loophole in our immigration policies and telling potential immigrants to come on in. This is simply inexcusable. We must not overturn legitimate and necessary government policies simply to score political gains. The Collins-Moran amendment corrects this flaw by excluding the INS regulations from the scope of the legislation. I urge all of my colleagues to vote for this amendment.

Mr. MORAN

Mr. MORAN. Mr. Chairman, the purpose of this amendment is simple. It establishes an office within the Department of Justice which would provide assistance to State and local governments seeking to try aliens who commit crimes in this country and then flee to their homeland in order to escape justice. A classical example occurred in Arlington, VA, with an illegal immigrant from El Salvador: John Douglas was an elderly man. He was walking home from a metro, and he was shot in cold blood. Attempted robbery; I do not think he even had any money on him. But the person who killed him, Mr. Eduardo Lazarios, was an illegal alien from El Salvador. He was indicted, but he could not be prosecuted because he fled to his homeland shortly after the murder. He is not the first to take advantage of the fact that a criminal from El Salvador can flee to El Salvador and escape punishment. The only recourse for the Douglas family was to attempt to try him in his homeland. This, however, is very complicated. The witnesses do not have to be transported necessarily, but all the documents have to be gathered, they have to be translated, they have to be submitted to the nation where the offender resides. Smaller police departments cannot do this. In fact, I asked how often this occurs. Just in Arlington County alone, which is a relatively small county, there is another criminal who hit and killed a little 3-year-old girl. He was an illegal immigrant from El Salvador. He has escaped justice completely. We have another murderer who escaped justice in this way. We have two other criminals in Alexandria. We have a similar situation, a list of people who have escaped to El Salvador. Now these are just two counties that I happen to represent. There must be thousands of people across the country who have escaped prosecution by being able to go to a country that does not have a reciprocal agreement with the United States. Mr. Chairman, all we are asking that we do is to have the resources within the Justice Department to enable State and local police departments and prosecutorial offices to be able to pursue these people. Ultimately I would like to do something with foreign aid that says that rather than the millions of dollars we are giving to El Salvador and asking for very little in return, that at the very least we ask for reciprocal agreements so they send these people, these criminals, back to this country so they can be prosecuted.