Donald Manzullo

Mr. MANZULLO

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

Mr. MANZULLO. That is correct.

Mr. MANZULLO. Mr. Chairman, the Secretary of HHS would be authorized to issue regulations as to the form of written notice.

Mr. MANZULLO. Mr. Chairman, the problem is that they have read it as parental consent. Ours is parental notification. The gentlewoman has used ``consent'' during the course of the argument. I am sure that is the way they phrased it.

Mr. MANZULLO. Mr. Chairman, I want to respond that the Congressional Research Service has supplied a memo dated July 28, 1997, stating the title X regulations do not require that title X providers report cases of incest or statutory rape. We are trying to change that law. We are trying to make it mandatory on the part of title X providers, that they have the same reporting requirements as State people do. It is just that simple. So it is incorrect to state, as many Members on the other side have said, that title X providers are already required to report these violations.

Mr. MANZULLO. Mr. Chairman, all laws have faces, and every statute we pass in this body has a consequence. Let me tell you about a consequence as a result of title X that has occurred in the district that I represent. She was 13 when she was first molested by her 37-year-old teacher. The relationship went on for a year and a half. He, tired of using condoms, took her to the McHenry County Illinois Health Department, at that time she was 14, where, without the knowledge of her parents, she was injected, her arm pierced by a hypodermic needle containing the powerful drug Depo-Provera. This happened on at least two or three occasions at the age of 14. Under no circumstances could she consent to sexual relations, so the people who gave her the shots knew that she was being statutorily raped, and there was no report of that made. She became anorexic and her parents finally asked her what happened, and today she is in therapy 5 days a week, because, for a year and a half, this little girl's incident was not reported to the authorities because of the confidentiality requirement under title X. All acts have consequences. Depo-Provera, the very chemical that is used in the State of California for sexual predators who voluntarily want to be chemically castrated, Depo-Provera, the very chemical whose side effects include blood clotting. Depo-Provera, the controversial hormonal agent injected into her arms, without the knowledge of her parents. Depo-Provera, drugs being ingested, given to children as young as 12 years old, and it happened 6,500 times in the past 2 years in the State of Illinois. This is what is happening in these title X clinics. And I do not blame the health providers. I blame the U.S. Congress, which has said over the past several years that parents have absolutely no role to play in their children's sexual involvement. A child being injected with such a powerful drug. In fact, the ACLU said that they objected to the California prisoners who wanted voluntary chemical castration based upon the cruel and unusual punishment because of the tremendous side effects of that drug. That is what is going on in America today. This amendment does two things: No. 1, it restores the parent as the person in charge of the household. No. 2, it sends a message, that the confidentiality requirements of title X do not shield health care providers from reporting that children that young are involved in sexual activities. That is what this amendment is about. If, as they say, well, the title X providers are already covered by this particular reporting law, then do not worry about it, the next State may not. If it applies, it applies; if it does not apply, it does not apply. But we guarantee under Federal mandate that the rape that is taking place in this country, that the Guttmacher Institute, which is the research arm of Planned Parenthood, is saying that little girls are becoming younger in age and their sexual partners are becoming older in age. We have wholesale rape going on in this country. We are saying the U.S. Congress should make it a policy that whoever takes Federal funds is bound by the State reporting laws. Yes, if she had gone to a high school clinic or principal or teacher, that person, under penalty of 1 year in jail, would have had to report that to the authorities. What this law does is very simple: It allows for unrestricted information and counseling. It requires a title X clinic to provide notification to the parent or legal guardian for minors seeking contraceptive services and devices. It allows for judicial bypass as an exemption for emancipated minors. It attempts to include parents in the conversation. In McHenry County, IL, where there is no requirement for parental notification, 52 percent of the children receiving these services already have parental involvement, and included in that 48 percent was this precious 14 year old who was in daily counseling because nobody reported that, at age 14, it is illegal for her to have sex in the State. What the amendment does not do, it does not prevent the treatment of or testing for sexually transmitted diseases. That answers the question of the gentlewoman from New York [Mrs. Lowey]. Parental notification is not required for minors to be treated for STD's. It does not deny services to teens, and it does not require parental consent. This is a very reasonable amendment. This amendment says the following: Who is in charge of the children of this Nation? Is it the U.S. Congress or is it the parents? The amendment says something else, that anybody who receives one dime of Federal dollars is bound by the same State reporting laws as the States are.

Mr. MANZULLO. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes and 15 seconds to the gentleman from Utah [Mr. Cannon].

Mr. MANZULLO. I yield to the gentleman from Oklahoma.

Mr. MANZULLO. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the requisite number of words. Mr. Chairman, I would simply say this in response to the gentlewoman from California, that the gentleman from Oklahoma [Mr. Coburn] is the one who is in the trenches. Here is a man who understands what is going on with the AIDS epidemic in this country, and he has come to the floor today to pour out his heart and his soul to make sure that money is used for the people for whom the money has been intended. And I think it would be grossly unfair to say that the gentleman is exploiting the very people whom he is trying to help.

Mr. MANZULLO

Mr. MANZULLO. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the requisite number of words. Mr. Chairman, I rise in support of the McIntosh amendment. It is amazing, just absolutely astounding, that here the U.S. Congress proposes in this Labor, Education and Health and Human Services bill to increase the bureaucratic account of another one of the 10,000 agencies and programs that we have here in Washington, and really it is at the expense of local school boards that have to bear more and more of the burden under IDEA. It really strikes me that this is the complaint about Washington, this is the complaint about big government when 435 Members here assembled in the House of Representatives can take a document and increase the amount of money to run a particular agency or bureaucracy, and yet, when a movement comes, when an amendment comes to take the money that would go from the Washington, DC, bureaucrats and to send it home not to local school board bureaucrats, because every dollar that would be sent back home to fund IDEA is not going to more bureaucrats, it is going to the children, the children that are the beneficiaries of IDEA, the children that suffer with these incredible handicaps, the children whose handicaps and disabilities are so overwhelming that this House voted 432 to 3 in order to pass a program like that, it is the children. And the services that are given to the children at the local level, they are the ones to whom we must look and say and ask this question on the McIntosh amendment: Who is more worthy of receiving Federal dollars, the children with the disabilities or increasing the bureaucratic account to which the gentleman from Indiana [Mr. McIntosh] has addressed his amendment? That is the issue.

Mr. MANZULLO. I yield to the gentleman from Illinois.

Mr. MANZULLO. Mr. Chairman, I do not come from the city of Chicago, and I do not claim any of the Illinois politics. All I know is that every additional dollar that goes back to the school district in my school district, not one more cent goes to a bureaucrat. They do not hire more bureaucrats. They may hire more staff to deal with those disabled children, but that is the purpose for which IDEA is intended.

Mr. MANZULLO. I understand, but it is our job to stop bureaucracies from being wasteful here in Washington. It is the jobs of the folks back home to stop bureaucracies there. But it is also our job to make sure we do not have any more of these unfunded mandates. That is the purpose of the McIntosh amendment. IDEA should have been fully funded a long time ago. And how we do it, we take the money out of these bureaucratic accounts and send it to the kids.

Mr. MANZULLO. Is the gentleman saying that money is spent more wisely in Washington than locally back home?

Mr. MANZULLO

Mr. MANZULLO. Mr. Chairman, I object.

Mr. MANZULLO. Mr. Chairman, I withdraw my objection to the request of the gentleman from Illinois for unanimous consent.

Mr. MANZULLO. Mr. Chairman, I object.

Mr. MANZULLO. I do not want to cut it off.

Mr. MANZULLO

Mr. MANZULLO. Mr. Speaker, I received a letter from Gary Hall, dated July 4, 1997. Dear Congressman, I am sitting here at my dad's grave, missing him so much. He was not only my father, financial adviser, supervisor, the best farm adviser I know. He was my best friend. Now the family attorney says time is getting short. You have to decide what is being sold to pay all these taxes. The family farm, 1,900 acres, appraised at $5.5 million, estate taxes, $4.26 million. He says, why does the Government deserve to squander or blow dad's hard work away? The Federal Government taking 80 percent, 80 percent of the family farm. It is unconscionable. But the good news is, we have passed a bill. It will save him a little bit of money. But we have a long way to go so America's farmers can pass land on to their children without the Government squandering it away.

Mr. MANZULLO

Mr. MANZULLO. Mr. Chairman, OPIC provides a unique service to this country. It provides political risk insurance. That does three things: currency and convertibility, political violence, and seizure of assets. That is pretty unusual. There is a statement made that OPIC, if it is really great, can be privatized. The answer is no. I have a letter here from Zurich Insurance Group that is addressed to me in direct response to a Dear Colleague letter sent around by the gentleman from California [Mr. Royce] and the gentleman from Ohio [Mr. Kasich] asking if Zurich America intends to enter the same market as that of OPIC, if OPIC is eliminated. The answer to that is no. Sean Cassidy, the vice president of Federal Affairs, said that Zurich does not intend to compete directly with OPIC, but rather, complement OPIC's coverage. So, therefore, there is no company that is ready to pick up OPIC should it be privatized. Second of all, here is how OPIC makes money. This is Price Waterhouse's statement for the past year. OPIC takes in $299,000, and here it comes, through political risk insurance premiums, that is $81 million, investment financing, $52 million, interest on U.S. Treasury securities, $166 million. Even if we take out the interest on the U.S. Treasury securities, it still comes up making about $45 million a year. It actually makes money. OPIC makes money and it provides an insurance service that nobody else can provide in this country. What amazes me is the fact that OPIC steps into very unique situations and makes projects nobody else can do. Look what is going on just in Africa alone: In Uganda, Agro Management; in Tanzania, NBS Card Service in Africa; in Ethiopia, the Louisiana-Baton Rouge Schaffer & Associates; in Tanzania, a small business with ACG Co.; with Tanzania suppliers, ADCO. All over Africa we see OPIC stepping into the gap, so we have small, emerging companies that are getting a foothold, and then after a while, such as in Hungary, OPIC backs out because it is no longer necessary to have political risk insurance, because when a country becomes a member of OECD it no longer is eligible for political risk insurance under OPIC. So we have an organization here that actually makes money; not on paper, it actually makes money. We would urge the defeat of that amendment.

Mr. MANZULLO. Mr. Chairman, I would cite with authority Article I, section 8, clause 3 of the United States Constitution that it is within the powers of this body to regulate commerce with foreign nations, and if I could make my point, then I would be glad to yield for a question from my constitutional friend. In what we are doing here with these 3 bodies, Ex-Im, OPIC and TDA, are we regulating commerce? You bet we are. We are involved in an international global war. If the amendment offered by the gentleman from Texas [Mr. Paul] were presented somehow in an international body, and I would dread that because we would have a one-world government, then I would say let us go ahead and do what he is doing because there are 73 export credit agencies, there are 36 international equivalents of OPICs. So what that means is that if we get rid of these specialty types of credit agencies, where are we? What we have done is we have effectively thrown up our hands and we have left it to the Finns and Germans to take over. Let me give my colleagues an example that is in my backyard, Beloit Corporation. There is one of 3 manufacturers of paper making machines, 3 worldwide manufacturers of paper making machines, engaged in trying to get a contract in Indonesia. The only other 2 manufacturers are in Europe. One are the Finns and the other one are the Germans, and the Finns and the Germans go through extraordinary lengths in order to, if my colleagues want to use that word, subsidize, grant favorable financing so that these sales can take place. So what happened was Beloit Corporation applied to Ex-Im in working with Members on both sides of the aisle, including the gentleman from Wisconsin [Mr. Barrett] over here from Milwaukee. We were able to see Ex-Im grant a $275 million loan guarantee which has to be paid back with interest at a good premium for the purpose of making sure that Beloit Corporation was put in a level playing field to sell those machines. Those were 2 machines that cost over $150 million a piece, and there are several more in the lot. Let me finish my thought here. Now what is going on here dynamically is this. Worldwide there is an effort, there is an effort to eliminate OPIC and Ex-Im types of financing. For example the OECD met and said that what we will do is we will have an agreement that a Nation can only subsidize the spread; that is, the actual amount of interest as charged worldwide on the open market with what a Nation wants to pay to a certain extent, and they continue to narrow that gap so that nations will be involved in less core subsidizing of the loans for the exports.

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

Mr. MANZULLO. Mr. Chairman, back in those days the main income for the United States was international tariffs. We have these incredible tariff barriers, and that is how we supported the economy of the Nation before the income tax. I mean nobody wants those tariffs. I know the gentleman is a libertarian and does not like the tariffs, but that is what was going on 200 some years ago when the Nation was founded, and I think when this was put into the Constitution it says to regulate, meaning this body, the United States Congress, is given the power to make sure that we can operate internationally.

Mr. MANZULLO. I yield to the gentleman from Nebraska.

Mr. MANZULLO. Mr. Chairman, I just heard my colleague from Florida say that Zurich American is ready to take over OPIC, and I put into testimony a letter from Zurich American. They are not interested in taking over OPIC. Zurich American does not want to take over OPIC. We cannot privatize it because no one wants to go into that market, period. That should settle that argument. Second of all, this is the rate of loss. It is 1 percent. It is one of the smallest rates of loss that any company can have. And it is not corporate welfare because American companies, multinational corporations, if they do business in more than one country they are multinational, they have to pay very high premiums to buy this insurance. It is the premium risk insurance that accounts for most of the profits that OPIC turns back. Fourthly, today we are here not to get any new money from the government treasury for OPIC but to use the money that OPIC has made in terms of profits.