Jerrold Nadler

Mr. NADLER

Mr. NADLER. Mr. Chairman, the needs in both areas are going up, and I would again implore the gentleman to accept the amendment because it will not affect the space station, 21 million, it is so tiny a percentage of it, but it will really affect HOPWA.

Mr. NADLER. Mr. Chairman, I yield to the gentleman from Tennessee.

Mr. NADLER. I yield to the gentleman if he has a question to ask me.

Mr. NADLER. Mr. Chairman, no, there is no point debating that specific. The fact is we have great unmet needs for housing for people with AIDS. The committee made an intelligent decision, and now to cut the budget by $21 million, by almost 10 percent for veterans needs which are also there, I do not understand the stubbornness in not accepting my amendment which I hope people will agree to. A 1 one- thousandth reduction in the space station is a heck of a lot more bearable than a 10 percent reduction in housing for people with AIDS. One doesn't really have an effect, the other has a very substantial effect, and I just hope people will think about it.

Mr. NADLER. Mr. Chairman, let me just suggest if the gentleman would accept the amendment, I would support his amendment. If he does not, I have to oppose his amendment. I think the space station, regardless of how colleagues voted on the Roemer amendment, $20 million less, $21 million less out of 2.1 billion, will not materially affect when the space station is completed; but a 10 percent reduction in HOPWA is a devastating cut, and I would ask if the gentleman would accept the amendment.

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

Mr. NADLER. Mr. Chairman, I recognize the intentions and the intelligence of the gentleman's intention to increase $21 million in funding to the veterans housing and medical care facilities. I object, however, to his wanting to take this $21 million away from the housing opportunities for people with AIDS, or HOPWA program. It is a cut in the HOPWA program compared to what the bill gives it of almost 10 percent. The HOPWA program is the only Federal housing program that specifically provides cities and States hardest hit by the AIDS epidemic with the resources to address the housing crisis facing people living with AIDS. Sixty percent of all people living with HIV and AIDS will face a housing crisis at some point during their illness because of high medical expenses and the loss of wages attendant under the disease. Major strides, thank God, have been made in treatment options for people living with AIDS, and with these advances there is new hope. But the cost of these treatments often places people in the position to decide between essential medications and other necessities such as housing. Further, individuals who have HIV and AIDS must have stable housing, access to and benefits from complex drug treatments which often requires special dietary needs. Medications must often be refrigerated and taken on a rigid time schedule. Inadequate housing is not only a barrier to treatment, but also puts people with AIDS at risk of premature death from exposure to other diseases, poor nutrition, stress and lack of medical care. At any given time, one-third to one-half of all Americans with AIDS are either homeless or in imminent danger of losing their homes. HOPWA answers this need. Mr. Chairman, increasing numbers of people have AIDS in this country and increasing numbers of people every year, luckily, because of our medical advances, are surviving and living longer, and we need more money for HOPWA. A cut of almost 10 percent makes no sense. So I would suggest, instead, and what my amendment does is takes $21 million instead away from the space station which is funded this year at 2.1 billion. So this is 1 one-thousandth, a reduction of 1 one- thousandth in the space station budget, instead of a reduction of 10 percent in the HOPWA budget.

Mr. NADLER. Mr. Chairman, I offer an amendment to the amendment.

Mr. NADLER. Reclaiming my time, Mr. Chairman, my information, and I do not have the figures in front of me, is that the number of people who died from AIDS is down, thank God, but the number of people living with AIDS is up because more people are contracting AIDS every year and fewer people are dying from it and more people are living with it. So we need these funds.

Mr. NADLER

Mr. NADLER. Mr. Chairman, I will await the ruling of the Chair on this point of order.

Mr. NADLER

Mr. NADLER. Madam Speaker, I rise to oppose this attack on the fundamental rights of American women. Members of this House have tried time and again to limit the right to choose. They have imposed restrictions on Federal employees, on those who receive Medicaid, on women in the military, on women in prison, and on women under the age of 18. But they do not stop there. We saw last week their efforts to limit access even to birth control. We even saw them argue that the birth control pill is a form of abortion. Their agenda is quite clear. Despite the fact that the Supreme Court has upheld the fundamental right of choice, it is their stated agenda not only to outlaw abortions by any means, but to limit access to birth control for millions of American women. That is why this vote today is so critical. It is an attempt to subvert the rulings of the Supreme Court and to implement phase I of their plan to eliminate the right to choice and to the availability of contraceptives. When we debated this bill a year ago we argued that it was unconstitutional and could not be enforced. Time has proven us right. In 17 States courts have enjoined so-called partial-birth abortion bans as unconstitutional because they are vague, they fail to provide physicians adequate notice as to what is prohibited, they provide no exception whatsoever to preserve a woman's health, and only a dangerously inadequate exception to preserve a woman's life. Six of these unconstitutional State laws have virtually identical language to the bill before us today. The bill is fundamentally flawed for another reason. It is based on the principle that politicians, not doctors, ought to make medical judgments about what procedures are appropriate. I would urge every pro-choice Member who may be inclined to vote for this bill to carefully consider exactly why they are pro choice. If Members are pro choice because they believe it is a woman's decision, not the government's, about whether or not to have an abortion, then they should vote against this bill. If my colleagues believe that sometimes abortions are necessary to protect the health or life of a woman, then they should vote against this bill. If they believe that doctors should not be denied the option of using a medical procedure as they deem appropriate, then they must reject this bill. If they believe in the fundamental principles of Roe v. Wade, they must not support this bill, which severely restricts a woman's rights to choose. Make no mistake, this bill is not about one particular procedure, it is about the fundamental right to choice. I urge my colleagues to defend a woman's right to choose and to reject this dangerous bill. Let me close by quoting a letter of a woman from New York City who faced a tragic situation involving a fetus with a severely deformed heart and who would have been affected by this bill had it already become law. She writes, and I quote, You must hear our voices before you vote on this misguided bill, as well as the voices of other mothers and fathers who weep over their empty cribs. We are not bad people. We are extremely unfortunate, suffering families trying to cope with personal tragedies. Please don't deepen our wounds by taking away our choices. Please vote against H.R. 1122. It could not be said better. Who are we to tell women in such tragic situations what to do? Women should make these choices, not politicians.

Mr. NADLER

Mr. NADLER. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the requisite number of words. Mr. Chairman, I rise in support of the Roemer amendment. I do so reluctantly because I have always been a supporter of the space program, and I believe that we have a bright future for manned exploration in space. But I think that it simply does not make sense to continue with this project at this time on several bases. First, I want to associate myself with the remarks of the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Obey) in terms of the priorities within this budget now in terms of our social programs here at home. Second, however, let us talk about the space program. I fear we are repeating a mistake we made in the 1970s and 1980s. Santayana defined a fanatic as one who redoubles his efforts when he has forgotten his purposes. I think that characterizes the Space Station. We are told that the Space Station is now justified for manned space exploration. But we do not have a program for manned space exploration. If we had made a national goal of reexploring the moon, of going back to the moon and starting to exploit its natural resources, of having a manned program for Martian exploration, I might support such a program; and then the Space Station would make sense as part of it. But every justification for the space program that I have seen, save one, can equally or better be done without the expenditure and the Space Station. That one is research on the long-term physiological effects of manned space flight. For that, we will need a Space Station. But we do not need that until we make the commitment to manned space flight to Mars, and then we should do that. This program is eating up NASA's budget. We saw the same thing with the space shuttle. Why are we launching satellites on Chinese rockets? Forget the controversy for the moment of the President and President Bush and Reagan about the waivers, but why do our industries want to launch satellites on Chinese rockets? Because they are cheaper, $200 million to launch cheaper. Why? Why did the United States not develop cheap space rockets, cheap launching? Because everything in that budget was devoted to the space shuttle in the 1970s and 1980s, a dead end. Our space rockets today are still based on the Atlas and Titan ICBMs in the 1960s. The Titan IV is our biggest launcher based on the ICBM. The Titan first launched in 1960 or 1961. Why? Because we had no money to develop cheaper commercially viable space launching vehicles because all our money was going into the shuttle. We should be spending money now, more money on the scientific exploration of space, on more basic research that will have the spin- offs and the benefits for medical science. We should be spending more money on programs like the X-33 to reduce the cost per pound of going into orbit. Once we have reduced that cost by a factor of 10 or 100, then we can look again at a Space Station, because then the cost of developing a Space Station will be much less because it will not cost that much to get the material into orbit. That ought to be our priority. This Space Station is too little and too early. It is too little because why are we spending $100 billion for an eight-person capacity Space Station when the Mir Space Station held six people. It is too early because it should be done once we have the capacity because of the X-33 research, perhaps 10 years from now, to launch the components into space cheaply. If the United States were pursuing a properly targeted space program, we would now have a crash program to develop cheap launch vehicles so that the Hugheses and Lorals and General Dynamics of our country would want to launch their satellites on our rockets because they are cheaper and more efficient, and we would not have to worry about the security with the Chinese. We are paying for the mistakes of the 1970s and 1980s, and now we are going to repeat that mistake on a larger scale. The space shuttle, as beautiful as it is, was a blind alley because what did it get us that we did not have? It did not reduce the cost of poundage into orbit which was the promise. It diverted us from the proper courses we are to make. At this point, we are to be spending some of this money on low-income housing units, some of this money on school, some of this money on low- income heating. We ought to be spending more of the money on cheaper, more efficient rockets, for current satellite launchers. We ought to be spending more of the money on developing the capability of launching large payloads into space at a much lower unit cost so that it makes sense for our commercial private sector to get more heavily involved with less subsidy. Finally, let me say this is distorting our relationship with our foreign friends.

Mr. NADLER

Mr. NADLER. Mr. Speaker, I would be remiss if I did not start off by congratulating the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Yates) for his over 30 years of leadership in funding for the arts and on many other subjects. Mr. Speaker, I know there is a great deal of controversy surrounding this rule, but rise today because I think it is necessary to restate the vital importance of the National Endowment of for the Arts. Thanks in part to the NEA, the non-profit arts industry now generates more than $36 billion of business annually, supports 1.3 million full- time jobs, and returns $3.4 billion in federal taxes every year. Many local agencies have formed partnerships with local school districts, law enforcement, parks and recreation departments, chambers of commerce, libraries, and neighborhood organizations. Together they have used the arts to address local community development issues. The NEA, however, does much more than just fund local arts agencies. The NEA supports nationally important work like the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, public television programs, and numerous touring artist groups that bring excellent art to local communities all across the nation. What state arts agency would spend its limited funds on touring dance or theater groups outside of their state? Only the NEA would support these types of touring arts groups who travel across the country bringing the arts to the American people. The NEA also supports arts education, which is essential in developing critical thinking skills such as reading, math and science. Last year, the NEA invested $8.2 million, 10% of its annual grants, in kindergarten through grade 12 arts programs. The U.S. Labor Department report of the Secretary's Commission on Achieving Necessary Skills cites the important role of arts education in achieving many ``core competencies'' for the workplace, including creative problem solving, allocating resources, team building and exercising individual responsibility. In short, the NEA is good for education and good for our children. NEA funds help every State in the country. The NEA is a sound economic investment by the federal government, and it plays a critical role in improving our everyday loves and promoting the general welfare. I personally feel that one thing that has been proven by its distinguished history is that, when it comes to fostering the arts, the NEA is the best option there is, the best there was, and the best that--for the foreseeable future--there ever will be. Mr. Speaker, the arts are vital in American life, and the NEA is vital to promote the arts. It has contributed to the tremendous growth of professional orchestras, nonprofit theaters, dance companies and opera companies throughout the country. Before the NEA, there were 58 orchestras in the country. Today there are more than 1,000. Before the NEA, there were 37 professional dance companies. Now there are 300. Before the NEA, only 1 million people attended theater each year. Today more than 55 million attend a year. The NEA also stimulates the growth of local arts agencies and investment in the arts by State and local government. Before the NEA, only 5 States had State-funded arts councils. Today all 50 States do. Mr. Speaker, we should not only continue funding the NEA; we ought to increase its funding substantially. That is why it is unfortunate we are considering this vital program under this silly rule. The Committee has already voted to restore the NEA's funding, and now we are here playing games with the rule that takes out this funding precisely so that we can debate putting it back in. What is most important today is that we live up to our constitutional obligation to promote the general welfare, and that means protecting and promoting the National Endowment for the Arts.

Mr. NADLER

Mr. NADLER. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the requisite number of words. Mr. Chairman, I rise in support of the DeLauro amendment. Several things are clear, or ought to be clear, as we debate this amendment. First, there is a division in this House, as there is in the country, over the question of the morality of abortions between the people who believe in choice and the people who believe that choice should not be permitted to American women on this question. Second, it is clear that the Supreme Court has declared that the right of choice for women to have abortions if they wish is a constitutional mandate. We live with that. Third, it is clear that this bill, without the DeLauro amendment, arrogates to itself the power to tell Federal employees who are women that they cannot choose the abortions if they wish, that they do not have the choice that all other women in America have. The Federal Employee Health Benefits Program is a negotiated benefit that is part of the compensation package. To say that we will not permit women who are covered by that health benefit package to use their health benefits to pay for abortions, the government will not pay for it, and neither can they, through their health insurance, is the exact equivalent of saying that because the taxpayers pay the salaries of women who work for the Federal Government, we have the right, and the power to exercise it, to say that women who work for the Federal Government may not use their own salaries to pay for abortions. It is the same thing. As the gentleman from Maryland said, we are doing it because we have the power to do it, whereas we do not have the power under the Constitution, as interpreted by the Supreme Court, to say in other respects that women may not have the right of choice. We should not arrogate this power to ourselves. Someone referred to this as arrogance. I do not know that I would call it arrogance on the part of the authors of the bill, but it would be arrogance on the part of the United States Government if the bill passes in the form it is in. Let me say one other thing. The Committee on Rules protected every other amendment, but it did not protect from a point of order the provision adopted by the Committee on Appropriations, authored by the gentlewoman from New York (Mrs. Lowey) that said that Federal employee health benefits must give women the choice of abortions; that a woman must have the ability, Federal employees, to purchase plans that will cover contraception. So now we would be saying the Federal Employee Health Benefits Program cannot pay for abortions because it is immoral, or we think it is immoral, or some people think it is immoral, and we will not permit it to pay for contraception to reduce the need for abortions. This is somewhat inconsistent. Some might even say it is little hypocritical. I will not say that, but some might say that. It is certainly inconsistent. It is certainly inconsistent. What is the reason for this? Again, because we can. Why should it not pay for contraception? Because it is immoral? Does this House think that birth control is immoral, because some religious groups think that it is against their religion? Let those adherents to religious groups refrain from contraception. Why on God's green Earth should the House of Representatives say that contraception should not be permitted to be paid for by the Federal Employee Health Benefit Program? Because Members want more abortions? Because we want to impose religious doctrines on the American people?

Mr. NADLER. Reclaiming my time, Mr. Chairman, we hear a lot of rhetoric in this House about cracking down on crime. In 1994, a Democratic Congress cracked down on crime. It passed a bill to put 100,000 new cops on the beat, to crack down on violence against women, and to enact the assault weapons ban. Now we see what the Republican leadership is trying to do: Let us take back those steps one by one and let us make sure that these three companies, who tried to evade the law, get paid without a court date.

Mr. NADLER. I yield to the gentleman from New York.

Mr. NADLER. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the last word. Mr. Chairman, I rise in support of the amendment. I think it is outrageous that this Congress is actually considering paying gun manufacturers millions of dollars because they were caught trying to evade the law and because the Treasury Department has seized the merchandise as contraband. I know we were told a few moments ago by the honorable gentleman that the poor gun makers, these merchants of death, they are not able to sell these deadly weapons in the country because the administration unfairly seized them without giving them proper notice so we have to compensate them. We should be punishing them for trying to sell these weapons in this country in the first place, for trying to evade the law. This Republican Congress cannot find a few million dollars for low income heating assistance in the Northeast, but it can find a few million dollars to pay these gun manufacturers. Now we are told that these gun manufacturers are innocent victims of the administration which put out this executive order and they did not know about it. Well, maybe. Let them sue in court. Is it our normal practice, is it our normal practice in this House that when the Treasury Department seizes contraband at the border and the owner of that contraband claims that he had a legal right to bring it in that we compensate them? Is that what we do? Or do we say to those people, go to court and make your case in front of a judge, an impartial magistrate? We have a system of justice in this country and if you can convince the judge that you were wronged, then there is compensation or the return of the contraband. No, it is not good enough for these gun makers. The NRA owns this House, so we have to pay them for it. We have to pay them for it instead of letting them go to court. I wish the administration had not been so cowardly in making this deal, because they were over a barrel and were threatened that this Congress would overturn the ban on the imports of copycat assault weapons. If I were in the administration, my advice would have been, let them try, make my day. I would love to see what the American people think in November of a Congress that overturns, that passes a special law to say, let the foreign gun makers import their merchandise that they cannot sell in their own countries here. Let them import the copycat assault weapons. But, unfortunately, they did not have that confidence in the judgment of the American people. Assault weapons are not for sport. They are not necessary to hunt deer or pheasants. They are killing machines. They kill police officers. They kill our young people. They kill our family members. They serve no legitimate purpose in our society, and they should not be permitted here. The administration should be commended for its executive order. And the authors of this provision ought to think again, what precedent do we want to set when someone tries to import something that our law enforcement agencies say is against the law to import and they disagree? They did not have adequate notice, they say. The law enforcement agency is misinterpreting the law, they think. Should Congress compensate them, or should they go to court and let the courts decide? I submit that this is a terrible precedent, this provision. The Schumer-McDermott amendment ought to pass. We should not be paying $1,000 a gun to people whose guns have been seized as contraband because they tried to evade the law as it is. If they think the law was unfair or they were not properly notified, let them go to court. Why should we bail them out? The only reason we would even think of bailing them out is because this Congress apparently is a wholly-owned subsidiary of the National Rifle Association.

Mr. NADLER. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the requisite number of words. Mr. Chairman, I rise in support of the amendment. And I realize that very few other people will support this amendment today, but I think it is important that some do. I want to first commend the author of the amendment, and I want to commend the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Hoyer) for the very elegant statement that he just made. This issue has called forth much lack of candor over the years. And it is easy in a campaign to go say, ``my opponent voted for a pay increase for himself.'' As the chairman of the subcommittee and the ranking member both said, back in 1989, with support from all groups in this House, from both parties, from the leadership, from the present Speaker, a decision was made to take this issue out of politics and to serve it in a responsible way so that Members of the House and the Senate would get paid responsibly so that future increases would only be cost-of-living increases; and then, in return for foregoing the opportunity of earning money outside the salary of the Members of the House, they would be guaranteed a cost-of-living increase like other Federal employees, like most employees of major corporations in this country, with one difference, a half a percent less than the actual cost-of-living increase that everybody else gets. And this would be done automatically so we would not have the demagogic attacks on votes every year. For those last few years, we have had those demagogic attacks because people have figured out ways of getting votes to the floor. Now, in the absence of this amendment, there would not be a vote on the floor. Yet we have a demagogic attack on a different vote as if it were a vote on this. The fact is, with every election cycle, a greater proportion of the membership of this House are millionaires. If we want ordinary men and women to continue to serve in this House, we have to allow the salary to increase with the cost of living, as all other Federal salaries do, as most government salaries do, as we should certainly want all salaries in the private sector to do. So I do not expect or ask that many people vote for this amendment today. Because the real purpose of this amendment is to undo the political mischief that was done by that dishonest and demagogic press release that was talked about a few minutes ago. The real purpose of this amendment is to enable a straight up-or-down vote on this cost-of-living increase in which most Members, because the judgment has been made that the political atmosphere is too poisoned to permit it this year, most Members will vote no.

Mr. NADLER. Reclaiming my time, the point, of course, is that the choice of contraception ought to be the employee's, not the health benefit corporation's. Most health benefit corporations, most health plans in this country, cover contraception. Most Federal employee health benefit plans do not. The choice, obviously, ought to be the purchasers, the women who are the Federal employees who need to use the contraception, not the HMOs or the corporation. Why would we not say to the corporation, if you are going to provide health benefits for employees, you must have a full range of health benefits, which normally includes contraception? Why did the Committee on Rules say that the provision in the bill that said so is the only provision in this bill not protected from a point of order because of lack of authorization? Again, I submit, it is because, well, I am not sure why people oppose contraception. It makes no sense. If you want fewer abortions and if you want women to have their rights in this country, then we should protect that right. So I urge the adoption of the DeLauro amendment. I would hope the Lowey provision can get into this bill, too.

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

Mr. NADLER. Mr. Chairman, I appreciate the clarification. Let me simply express the hope that next year and the year after the cost of living increase is permitted to go into effect in the way it was intended without a specific piece of legislation or a vote and that the rule provides that an amendment that would come on the floor should not be permitted because otherwise the entire purpose of the 1989 law is nullified, and if we want this House gradually to become the House of millionaires that ordinary men and women do not run for, that is a good way to do it, and we should not permit that.

Mr. NADLER. I yield to the gentleman from Maryland.

Mr. NADLER. Reclaiming my time, Mr. Chairman, I would simply say that I would hope in the future, and, as I said, I plan to vote for this amendment, I do not expect to urge many others to do so, but I think some of us should. But I hope in the future, whoever is in charge of the committee and the leadership of this House, that when this bill comes to the floor next year and the year after and the year after, and it provides for the cost of living increase.

Mr. NADLER. I yield to the gentleman from Wisconsin.

Mr. NADLER. I yield to the gentleman from Texas.