James Oberstar

Mr. OBERSTAR

Mr. OBERSTAR. Mr. Speaker, I want to pay tribute to the gentlewoman from Missouri (Mrs. Emerson) for the splendid role she played along with the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Ney) and Mr. Peterson in bringing the coalition together that was necessary to bring this bill to the House floor. I want also to compliment the staff members, Bill Hughes, who does the budget work on the majority side, and Charlie Ziegler, with whom I have worked many years, many different capacities, for their splendid work and Ward McCarragher on the Democratic side for carrying this bill to its present exalted place and ready to be launched to the White House. In closing, I just want to recall an observation from a hearing that we held on EDA in the 1980's in which Red Robinson, member of the board of the Southern Virginia Development District, said to the committee, with her proud mountain, conservative mountain, people. We are not asking for a handout. We are just asking for the little bit of resource that we need that we cannot provide for ourselves to lift ourselves out of poverty. And he told a story of a young boy who arrived in school with a shoe under his arm, barefoot otherwise, and the teacher said, ``Johnnie, did you loose your shoe on the way to school?'' And the boy said, ``No, m'am. I found this good one.'' And Red Robinson said, ``We found a good program that helps us do good for people. Don't let it go away.'' EDA is not going away, Red Robinson. We found a good one. We are going to make it better, and we are going to make all of America better. I thank the gentleman for his splendid work and splendid cooperation, and I urge support of the pending bill.

Mr. OBERSTAR. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. OBERSTAR

Mr. OBERSTAR. Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the Committee on Ways and Means has acted. I think we all ought to recognize, though, they acted only because we had such a strong vote last week on this issue that showed we could have passed the resolution that was originally introduced. Now, if my colleagues want to be ``Congressman Feelgood,'' go ahead and vote for this resolution, this watered-down, tooth-pulled language that has no strength in it. If they want to be ``Mr. Feelgood,'' then vote for it. But if they want to be ``Congressman Do-Good,'' then let us bring this resolution back to the floor that so many of us cosponsored. What we need is some real action. We need action on voluntary restraint agreements, as we had during the Reagan administration. The gentleman from Ohio will remember that very well. We need retroactive countervailing duties assured to be imposed, once the findings are made on the countervailing duty cases that are pending. We need to have Japan reduce its exports to the United States. We need Japan to raise their prices to real market condition prices. We need tough language, not this watered-down language that we are dealing with here. The actions that can be taken with Japan, with Korea to privatize its steel industry, to bring its exports down to the level prior to this past May. And for the European Union to end their quotas on Russian steel that have cut Russian exports to the European Community countries by 50 percent, so that Russia now leapfrogs Europe and dumps their steel in the United States. Mr. Speaker, these are specific, direct actions that can be taken and we ought to be telling the administration: Do it. Do something good. Stand up for steel. Let us stand up for something that means action, not just ``significant increase,'' not just ``under existing laws,'' not ``establish a monitoring program,'' as provided in this resolution. That means nothing. As the gentleman from Indiana said, I tell my colleagues, the leadership in Japan is not quaking in their boots over this language, and neither should the Members on this floor. We ought to have something a lot tougher.

Mr. OBERSTAR

Mr. OBERSTAR. Mr. Speaker, I rise to be heard on the question of privilege. Mr. Speaker, the resolution under consideration, I believe, does constitute a question of privileges of the House, because the trade laws that the Congress has enacted over the last 60 years are designed to ensure that American workers are not hurt by unfair and illegal dumping of manufactured products, including steel. Congressional intent as represented by the Trade and Tariff Act of 1930, is being specifically ignored. This is not a partisan matter. It is a matter that concerns Members on both sides of the aisle. It is not a matter limited to the present administration in Washington, the Clinton administration. It is an issue that has spread over several administrations, going back to the 1970s, the Carter administration, later the Reagan administration, the Bush administration. This Congress, through our congressional steel caucus, on a bipartisan basis has advocated vigorous action against unfairly traded steel. I am happy to yield at this point to the chairman of the Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure, the gentleman from Pennsylvania.

Mr. OBERSTAR. I thank the Chair for the ruling. Shortly after the end of World War II a famous American historian and journalist, John Gunther, wrote: What makes America a great nation is the fact that it can roll over 90 million tons of steel ingots a year, more than Great Britain, prewar Germany, Japan, France and the Soviet Union combined. Gunther wrote: ``This is a steel age.'' We still live in that steel age. Steel is still the most versatile building material in an industrial society. We are the world's most efficient producer of steel. American steel industry has lost 350,000 jobs over the last decade, has closed over 450 plants, modernized its facilities to the tune of $50 billion of investment. We have gone from 10 man hours to produce a ton of steel in 1981 to 1\1/2\ to 3 hours depending on the type of steel today to produce a ton of steel compared with 4\1/2\ to 5 hours in Japan, 6\1/2\ hours in the European Union and 10 hours in Russia. And yet steel from those countries is being sold in the United States at below cost of production in the country of origin, and this administration, like previous administrations, until prodded by Congress, has not acted decisively to protect our domestic industry, our basic building block security industry. We need to act. This resolution that we propose as a point of privilege calls on the administration to act, we ought to bring that resolution to the House floor before this session of Congress adjourns, and I urge the Chair to rule in the interests of working men and women of America in the steel valley, the Mon Valley of Pennsylvania-Ohio, and the taconite industry of northern Minnesota and northern Michigan and in the interest of America's standing in the world community as a powerful economic force.

Mr. OBERSTAR

Mr. OBERSTAR. I thank the Speaker.

Mr. OBERSTAR. Madam Speaker, pursuant to House rule IX, clause 1, I rise to give notice of my intent to present a Question of Privilege of the House. Madam Speaker, the form of the resolution is as follows: Resolution A resolution, in accordance with House Rule IX, Clause 1, expressing the sense of the House that its integrity has been impugned because the anti-dumping provisions of the Trade and Tariff Act of 1930 (Subtitle B of Title VII) have not been expeditiously enforced; Wherease the current financial crises in Asia, Russia, and other regions have involved massive depreciation in the currencies of several key steel-producing and steel consuming countries, along with a collapse in the domestic demand for steel in these countries; Whereas the crises have generated and will continue to generate surges in United States imports of steel, both from the countries whose currencies have depreciated in the crisis and from steel producing countries that are no longer able to export steel to the countries in economic crisis; Whereas United States imports of finished steel mill products from Asian steel producing countries--the People's Republic of China, Japan, Korea, India, Taiwan, Indonesia, Thailand, and Malaysia--have increased by 79 percent in the first 5 months of 1998 compared to the same period in 1997; Whereas year-to-date imports of steel from Russia now exceed the record import levels of 1997, and steel imports from Russia and Ukraine now approach 2,500,000 net tons; Whereas foreign government trade restrictions and private restraints of trade distort international trade and investment patterns and result in burdens on United States commerce, including absorption of a disproportionate share of diverted steel trade; Whereas the European Union, for example, despite also being a major economy, in 1997 imported only one-tenth as much finished steel products from Asian steel-producing countries as the United States did and has restricted imports of steel from the Commonwealth of Independent States, including Russia; Whereas the United States is simultaneously facing a substantial increase in steel imports from countries within the Commonwealth of Independent States, including Russia, caused in part by the closure of Asian markets; Whereas there is a well-recognized need for improvements in the enforcement of United States trade laws to provide an effective response to such situations: Now, therefore, be it Resolved by the House of Representatives, That the House of Representatives calls upon the President to-- (1) take all necessary measures to respond to the surge of steel imports resulting from the financial crises in Asia, Russia, and other regions, and for other purposes; (2) pursue enhanced enforcement of United States trade laws with respect to the surge of steel imports into the United States, using all remedies available under those laws including offsetting duties, quantitative restraints, and other authorized remedial measures as appropriate; (3) pursue with all tools at his disposal a more equitable sharing of the burden of accepting imports of finished steel products from Asia and the countries within the Commonwealth of Independent States; (4) establish a task force within the executive branch with responsibility for closely monitoring United States imports of steel; and (5) report to the Congress by no later than January 5, 1999, with a comprehensive plan for responding to this import surge, including ways of limiting its deleterious effects on employment, prices, and investment in the United States steel industry.

Mr. OBERSTAR. Madam Speaker, I ask to be heard at the appropriate time on the question of whether this resolution constitutes a question of privilege.

Mr. OBERSTAR

Mr. OBERSTAR. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to recognize a very special member of the staff of the Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure, Sante Esposito, and to express on behalf of the Committee, our gratitude to Sante for his hard work, wise counsel, wonderful sense of humor, and great personal friendship. Sante has served on the Committee--and its predecessor, the Committee on Public Works and Transportation--since 1981, and as our Democratic Chief Counsel for the past decade. It is a tribute to his abilities that he has risen through the ranks under five different Democratic Chairmen or Ranking Members (depending on whether we were in the majority or minority). This month, after 23 years on Capitol Hill, Sante will be retiring from public service, leaving behind the late nights, the drafting and redrafting sessions, and the never-ending jurisdictional squabbles, and will be moving on to new challenges in the private sector. As the Ranking Democratic Member on the Committee, I will greatly miss Sante's keen mind, wise counsel and warm friendship. He has an innate ability to think and act quickly and decisively, and to communicate effectively. His understanding of the legislative and parliamentary processes, transportation, economic development, public buildings, aviation, water, and environmental issues, and the overall politics of these issues, have helped our Committee and its many Members on both sides of the aisle make decisions to build a better America. Sante Esposito, a native of Plainville, Connecticut, is a graduate of Fairfield University and holds a law degree from the University of Connecticut. He worked for the Connecticut General Assembly, and came to Washington in 1975 answering the call of our former colleague, Robert Giamo, the first Chairman of the Budget Committee. Sante served both the House Budget Committee and the Congressional Budget Office before joining our Committee to serve as our own in-house expert on the budget. As a member of the Budget Committee staff, Sante helped implement the then-new budget process of the Congressional Budget and Impoundment Control Act of 1974, which we still use today. He also helped develop the budget reconciliation process, a process that has become a staple of the budget debate in every Congress since 1980. Sante is more than just a budget expert. His imprint can be found on many significant pieces of legislation. His tireless work on the Transportation Equity Act for the 21st Century (TEA 21) in this Congress is a prime example. He was present at every Sunday morning staff negotiation and every late night Members' conference, guiding both staff and Members to compromises that allowed House and Senate, Democrat and Republican, all to claim victory. And TEA-21 is but one example. Looking back at the achievements of our Committee in the last two decades--whether the landmark highway, highway safety, and transit legislation of 1991, the Intermodal Surface Transportation Efficiency Act; the Amtrak Reform and Accountability Act of 1997; authorizing the construction of the largest Federal building outside the Pentagon, the Ronald Reagan Building and International Trade Center; or the Committee's long-standing efforts to take the transportation trust funds off budget, Sante's contribution has always been compelling, leading the way to the final compromises that became law. In all of these initiatives, Sante has always fought for what was best for the Committee, the Congress, and the country. He has always enjoyed working in a bipartisan manner when he could, or a partisan manner when he had to. In an ordinary day, Sante is just as likely to be talking to an intern who's trying to learn about Congress, as he is to be meeting with Members discussing important legislative and policy issues, or talking to executive branch agency heads. He has been invaluable to many young students as a mentor. In fact, one of these former interns that Sante took under his wing is Ward McCarragher, who has just been named the Committee's Democratic Chief Counsel. I have enjoyed working with Sante over these many years, admiring his irrepressible spirit and respecting his talent to have fun at work. He has helped each of us fully appreciate and put into practiced the universal truth: ``Blessed are those who can laugh at themselves, for they shall never cease to be amused.'' I recently saw a Frank & Ernest cartoon in the Post which pictured a smiling job applicant saying to the personnel director, ``I don't really have an employment history. It's more a series of funny stories.'' Sante Esposito immediately came to mind. What a gift he has! Bright, talented, intense and hardworking, yet able to find and enjoy every bit of humor life holds. As a friend and a colleague, Sante will be missed on our Committee. While we are fortunate to have his protege in place, Sante's spirit and sense of fun will be as difficult to replace as his expertise on the intricacies of the legislative process. We will miss his daily presence as a coworker, but we are sure to continue hearing from him in his new position as a legislative advocate. I join his many friends in wishing Sante, his lovely wife Nancy, and his children, Jennifer, Mike, Erin and Bryan all the best of everything good in the years ahead.

Mr. OBERSTAR

Mr. OBERSTAR. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to pay tribute to Mr. Carney J. Campion on the occasion of his retirement as General Manager of one of our Nation's most revered historic landmarks, the Golden Gate Bridge. For more than two decades, Mr. Campion has been admired for his effective leadership in managing the Bridge, the Bridge District's bus and ferry services, and in navigating the political waters connected with running such an important transportation enterprise. He will long be remembered as one of the most effective general managers in the history of the Golden Gate Bridge, Highway and Transportation District. During an illustrious career, Mr. Campion was instrumental in advancing numerous projects of critical importance to the District. He successfully guided to completion the redecking of the Bridge in 1986, purchased and preserved for future transportation use an abandoned Northwestern Pacific Railroad right-of-way, and implemented a public safety patrol and installed crisis communication phones to respond to emergencies on the Bridge. He reorganized the District departments to improve environmental health and safety management, and assured the District public transit system attained full compliance with the Americans With Disabilities Act. Under his leadership, the District obtained federal funding for the seismic retrofit of the Bridge, deployed new capacity transit coaches on long haul trips from Sonoma County, and purchased a new high-speed catamaran placed in ferry service in 1998. Perhaps District Board Member Ginny Simms said it best in a recent issue of the Metropolitan Transportation Commission's Transactions report: ``I don't know of anyone . . . who can state they took a bridge and turned it into a bus and ferry line. That really says something about . . . Carney's ability to look into the future and say, `Why not?' '' Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to recognize Mr. Campion for his steadfast commitment to excellence over such a long and distinguished career. We sincerely appreciate his 23 years of dedicated public service with the Bridge District and extend to him our best wishes for an active and enjoyable retirement.

Mr. OBERSTAR

Mr. OBERSTAR. Mr. Speaker, rarely, probably only one or two other times in my 24 year service in this House, have I taken the time of this body to address the House during special orders, but I do so today to express my utter astonishment over a multimillion dollar advertising campaign by the major airlines, designed to discredit a proposal by the Department of Transportation to stop unfair competitive practices against new low-fare airlines. The ads seek to arouse public opinion by totally mischaracterizing the Department's proposal. Unfortunately, consumer organizations and new entrant carriers do not have the resources to respond by purchasing a comparable amount of advertising. Typical of the airline campaign is the Brian Olson ad which shows a picture of a disappointed young man under the headline ``Vacation Canceled--Due to Government Regulation.'' The text of the ad says: Brian Olson was looking forward to the family vacation. With so many cheap air fares available, his family was planning the trip of a lifetime, but proposed Department of Transportation regulations could keep Brian home. That's bad news for Mrs. Olson. The DOT has proposed new regulations that will eliminate many discounted air fares and raise air fares for leisure travel in a misguided effort to re-regulate the airline industry. The DOT proposal described in the ad bears flow resemblance to DOT's actual proposal. Quite frankly, if the issues were not so important, the ad is so ridiculous as to be laughable. The actual DOT proposal does not contemplate any general limitations on discounted air fares. The proposal is not designed to raise air fares, it is designed to produce lower air fares by protecting the new low-fare service against unfair competition, the purposes of which are to drive the low-fare carrier out of the market and then raise fares to their prior level. The purpose of the DOT regulation is to give the so- called Brian Olson and his family more opportunities for a vacation at affordable air fares, rather than fewer or higher costs. The DOT proposal only covers those markets in which low-fare service first becomes available because a new low-fare carrier enters the market. The policy is designed to prevent the established carrier in any given market from trying to drive the new carrier out with unfair anticompetitive practices which are described in the proposed rule as follows: The established carrier matches the fare and substantially increases capacity to the point where the established carrier is losing money on the route at issue. This type of so-called ``competition'' makes economic sense only if the established carrier expects to drive the new carrier out of the market and then recover its losses by raising air fares. The DOT proposed policy declares that this type of competitive response is an unfair competitive practice prohibited by 49 U.S. Code 41712. I want to make it very clear that every carrier has a right to defend its market, its route or its hub. Carriers do not have a right to do so by unfair competitive practices in which they flood a market with unprofitable service. My years of experience in support of deregulation lead me to conclude that DOT's proposed guidelines are directed at a serious problem that has to be corrected if we are to continue to enjoy the low-fare benefits of airline deregulation. Further, the law and the legislative history of deregulation are clear that DOT has the necessary authority to issue guidelines to deal with the problem and that the type of guideline DOT has proposed is not re-regulation, but it is consistent with the principles of airline deregulation. Attorneys General from 29 states, including Republican Attorneys General from New York, Virginia, Wyoming, Arkansas and Kansas, agree. They have written in support of the DOT guidelines saying: The proposal of the Department of Transportation is not an attempt to re-regulate the airline industry. It does not propose to dictate routes or prices. It only sets out guidelines for interpreting an existing statute, and it does so in a rational way which seeks to prevent competitive strategies designed to destroy competition, rather than compete. Predatory practices are not a theoretical problem. DOT investigations and Congressional hearings have uncovered a number of instances in which major airlines have adopted money-losing strategies to drive out new entrants who have instituted low-fare service. For example, during the time when I was Chairman of the Aviation Subcommittee, in 1993, Reno Air entered the Minneapolis-Reno market. Northwest Airlines, which had dropped out of this market in 1991, apparently decided that any new Minneapolis competition was intolerable. Northwest reinstituted Minneapolis-Reno service, matching Reno's low fares and capacity, understandable, acceptable behavior up to that point. Northwest went further. The carrier also announced that it would inaugurate new low-fare service in several other markets served by Reno Air, including Reno to Los Angeles, to Seattle and to San Diego. The Department of Transportation began an investigation of Northwest's actions with a view toward instituting an enforcement case. Result: Northwest moderated its response. But the change came too late. Northwest had achieved its objective of driving Reno Air out of Minneapolis. After Reno left, Northwest raised its lowest refundable daytime fare in the Minneapolis-Reno market from $136 to $454. Northwest followed a similar strategy against Spirit Airlines. When Spirit began offering a single daily round trip of low-fare service between Detroit and Boston, Northwest matched Spirit's fares on every coach seat on the 11 daily flights it operated. Northwest's average fare was reduced from $259 to $100. After about half a year, Spirit was driven out of the market. When Spirit left the market, Northwest raised its fare to an average of $267, $12 higher than its previous number, just about. My distinguished Republican colleague, the gentleman from Iowa (Mr. Ganske) cited the following example in a letter to the Wall Street Journal: ``Predatory pricing does exist and can be a successful strategy for a major carrier. In 1995, Vanguard Airlines entered the Des Moines market. In response, the major carriers lowered fares from Des Moines to Chicago to $79. After driving Vanguard out of the market, the major carrier is now charging $800 for a business class round trip. I dare say that not only has predatory pricing driven out the competitor, but at $800 per round trip, the major airline long ago made up its losses. For comparison, a round trip fare from Omaha to Chicago is about $200.'' That major carrier was United Airlines, I might add. DOD cites 4 additional examples, without naming the carriers involved, and I will cite 2 of those cases. An established carrier responded to new low-fare service in a market by increasing its service from 41,000 seats in a quarter to 55,000 seats. The number of seats the established carrier offered at low fares below $75 increased from 11,000 to 47,000. The new entrant was selling 9,000 low-fare seats a quarter. As a result of this dumping of capacity, the established carrier's revenue dropped from $7.6 million a quarter to $3.9 million in that same period of time. Second example: An established carrier responded to a new low-fare entrant by increasing the number of seats it offered in the market from 44,000 in a quarter to 67,000. The number of seats offered at a low fare of $50 to $75 was increased from 1,300 to 50,000. The established carrier's revenues decreased from $9 million a quarter to $5.6 million. When the new entrant was driven out of the market, the established carrier reduced total capacity from 67,000 seats a quarter to 36,000 seats. Mr. Speaker, 15,000 of those seats were at a fare of over $325. The result: Total revenues went back to $9 million. Mr. Speaker, it is not surprising that Northwest Airlines has been a leader in the practice of driving out new entrants by lowering fares and dumping excess capacity. Michael Levine, now Northwest executive vice president for marketing and international, is the same Michael Levine who 10 years ago, when he was a law professor, conducted an in- depth study of airline marketing strategies. Mr. Levine concluded after an extensive analysis that a strategy of predatory pricing practices was frequently employed by major airlines and was likely to be effective. Levine found, Economists committed to a high degree of airline market contestability have historically maintained that predation is doomed to failure and is therefore unlikely, because capital assets involved in airline production are mobile. Continuing quote, This contestability analysis is unfortunately inconsistent with much observed behavior since deregulation. Many new entrant airlines such as People Express, for example, in Newark, Minneapolis; Muse Air on its routes to Texas, Oklahoma and Louisiana, and other points out of Love Field and Hobby; Pacific Express in the Los Angeles-San Francisco market and others, have been pressed and helped out of business through aggressive pricing by incumbent rivals. Continuing to quote, New entrants are very vulnerable, both to predation and to aggressive price competition between holdover incumbents and new entrants. If circumstances, including the financial condition of the new entrant, warrants, the incumbent can flood the market with low-price seats, withdrawing them almost invisibly at peak times or as competitive conditions allow. Economies of scope and perhaps of scale in these tactics allow large incumbents to use them more effectively than the smaller, newer airlines. The economies of scope are easily seen. An incumbent who uses such tactics a few times quickly develops a reputation for fierce response to entry. The smaller the route on which the predatory war takes place as a percentage of the total operations of the airlines, the more staying power the airline will have as cash is lost in operations which do not cover incremental costs. In effect, the airline lends itself money out of accounting reserves to fight a war which drains cash. If the new entrant cannot find a source of capital which will accept the information that the temporary losses are a worthwhile investment, it will not be able to sustain losses for as long a time as will the large scale incumbent. Source: Airline Competition, Competition in Deregulated Markets of the Yale Journal on Regulation, Spring, 1987. Well, Mr. Levine followed this blueprint to a tee when he became executive in charge of pricing and marketing for Northwest Airlines. The benefits of service by low-fare carriers go far beyond the service they provided to their passengers. When a low-fare carrier is successful, major carriers are forced to reduce their fares and their passengers also benefit. The savings to travelers are truly astonishing. A DOT analysis concluded that for the year 1995, low-fare competition saved more than 100 million travelers a total of $6.3 billion in air fares. DOT studies also show that many passengers and markets which are not served by low fare carriers do not receive the full benefits of deregulation. DOT studied fares in all markets under 750 miles and found that in markets served by low-fare carriers, fares had decreased by 41 percent, adjusted for inflation, since deregulation in 1978. But, for those markets not served by low-fare carriers, fares had increased by 23 percent, adjusted for inflation. The DOT study showed that average fares in markets served by low-fare carriers were $70 to $90 lower than average fares in other markets. It is very instructive that the higher fares prevailed in all markets not served by low-fare carriers. Fares were high even in markets in which established carriers competed. Conclusion: It is the low-fare carriers, not the major carriers, who drive prices down and benefit consumers. DOT has given some specific examples of fare disparities related to whether a market is served by a low-fare carrier. For example, Chicago- Cincinnati, where United competes with a major carrier, Delta. The average fare is $259. In Chicago-Louisville, a market of comparable distance where United competes with a low-fare carrier, Southwest, the average fare is $72. And there are many more such case example studies. It is clear that the traveling public has a lot to lose if low-fare carriers are driven out of the marketplace by unfair competitive practices. In competing with established carriers, low-fare carriers face obstacles beyond price-cutting and capacity-dumping. Established carriers control slots, gates, and computer reservation systems which are essential to effective competition. Established carriers can also use frequent flyer programs and travel commission overrides as competitive weapons. I know of a number of cases in which major airlines offer extra frequent flyer miles and give travel agents added commissions for flights in markets in which the major carrier was faced with low fare competition. Even more disturbing are recent trends toward industry concentration. As the number of established carriers is reduced, the surviving carriers will become even more formidable, new threats to new entrants. Furthermore, the reduction in the number of established carriers means less competition within this group, and that means that the need for competition from low-fare carriers will become even greater. When markets are controlled by established carriers, the tendency is for the carrier simply to follow each other's fare changes, with the result that fares are identical and passenger choice is limited. Since the early 1980s, there has been a long-term trend toward industry concentration. In the past few months, there have been some proposals which threaten to escalate the process dramatically to the disadvantage of air travelers. During the 20 years of airline deregulation, competition was reduced by a wave of mergers in the late 1980s, and by the bankruptcies of many established carriers and new entrants. Although a few small carriers who started operation in the post-deregulation era have survived, the new competition does not come close to offsetting the loss of competition caused by mergers and bankruptcies. Very recently there has been an even greater threat to competition: Global-straddling alliances. In the past few months, proposals have surfaced for alliances between Northwest, with 9 percent of the domestic market, and Continental, 8 percent of the market; between American, 17 percent of the domestic market, and USAirways, 8 percent; and between United Airlines, 17 percent of domestic market, and Delta, with 18 percent, although it now appears that this latter proposal may not be able to proceed because they do not seem to be able to come to agreement on a code share alliance, for the time being. In addition, there is an alliance already in place between America West with 4 percent of the domestic market and Continental at 8 percent. If, as some have suggested, alliances are the equivalent of mergers, these recent proposals indicate a very disturbing trend toward an aviation sector worldwide consisting of 3 major carriers, which Secretary of Transportation Sam Skinner warned us about in the early 1990s during hearings that I chaired at that time. The General Accounting Office found that if all of the 3 alliances proposed a few months ago were implemented, competition could be reduced for about 100 million passengers a year. Alliances between major carriers pose an especially serious threat to competition because many of these carriers are already in alliances with major foreign airlines, such as Northwest-KLM, United-Lufthansa- SAS-Air Canada, and Delta-Swiss Air-Sabena-Austrian-Virgin. America is now trying to develop alliances with British Air, TACA, Canadian, Quantas and Japan Airlines. Big powerful global-straddling carrier alliances, reducing competition and increasing fares for air travelers. These alliances have enormous market power. They control slots at the major slot constrained airports of the world: O'Hare, Heathrow and Narita. They operate in countries with which we have restrictive bilaterals that limit competition: our bilaterals with the United Kingdom and Japan. They control the major computer reservation systems through which most airline travel is marketed. They control major networks of domestic feeder airlines and some new entrants. Experience has shown that when a U.S. carrier enters an alliance with a foreign carrier, other U.S. carriers limit or terminate their service to the foreign carrier's home market. If major U.S. carriers are added to these already imposing alliances, there will be an irrevocable change in worldwide airline competition. The Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure has reported legislation to give the Department of Transportation an opportunity to review the proposed alliances between major carriers before they are implemented, very important legislation. As Robert Crandall, former chairman and CEO of American Airlines said shortly before he retired, ``The Department can promote competition by preventing any further concentration in the domestic industry, and by undoing the collusive alliances it has created in the international marketplace. Doing so will offer the consumers more choices than they have today.'' Regardless of whether our committee's alliance legislation passes, the trend toward new alliances makes it even more important that DOT ensure that new entrants are not driven out of the business by unfair competitive practices. The major airlines have tried to damn the DOT proposal by labeling it with the pejorative term ``reregulation.'' This is a gross mischaracterization. DOT is not proposing to add any new regulatory requirements. DOT is only implementing its statutory responsibility which predates the Deregulation Act of 1978 to prevent unfair competitive practices. To understand what ``reregulation'' means, we first need to understand the meaning of ``deregulation.'' Before 1978, the airlines were fully regulated. They needed authority from the Civil Aeronautics Board to change the cities they served and the fares they charged. In 1978, this regulatory regime was ended by the Airline Deregulation Act, which gave airlines the same freedom as other industries to establish their service and their fares. But deregulation did not mean that there would be no limits on airlines' business decisions. All American business is subject to controls to ensure that their products are safe and that consumers are not deceived among other protections. Some of these controls affect pricing decisions. For example, under the antitrust laws, no American business is free to set its prices by an agreement with its competitors. All businesses in America are prohibited from pricing practices which constitute unfair competitive practices violating the letter or spirit of the antitrust laws. This prohibition is found in Section 5 of the Federal Trade Commission Act, governing industry generally, and in former Section 411 of the Federal Aviation Act, which is now 49 U.S.C. 41712, which applies specifically to airlines. Since 1938 airlines have been exempt from Section 5 of the Federal Trade Commission Act, and subject to a provision specifically prohibiting unfair competitive practices by airlines administered by CAB's predecessor, and then by CAB, and since 1985, by DOT. This is the prohibition on which DOT's guidelines are based, historically established in law for the benefit and protection of air travelers. Congress has made it absolutely clear that we expect the U.S. Department of Transportation to prohibit unfair competitive practices by airlines. In 1984 when we passed legislation terminating the Civil Aeronautics Board and giving its remaining responsibilities to the U.S. Department of Transportation, we explained that, ``There is also a strong need to preserve the Board's authority under Section 411 to ensure fair competition in air transportation. Again, this is the same authority which the Federal Trade Commission exercises over other industries under Section 5 of the Federal Trade Commission Act. Although the airline industry has been deregulated, this does not mean that there are no limits to competitive practices. As in the case with all industry, carriers must not engage in practices which would destroy the framework under which fair competition operates. Air carriers are prohibited, as are firms in other industries, from practices which are inconsistent with the antitrust laws or the somewhat broader prohibitions of Section 411 of the Federal Aviation Act (corresponding to Section 5 of the Federal Trade Commission Act) against unfair competitive practices. Source, House Committee Report on CAB Sunset Act, H.R. 98-793, 98th Congress, Second Session. I cite this to be perfectly precisely clear about the legal basis for the authority that the DOT seeks now to exercise. The principal architect of deregulation, Dr. Alfred Kahn, has confirmed that the DOT proposal is not reregulation. Dr. Kahn said: The entry of these new low-fare carriers keeps the industry honest. I'm a strong advocate of competition and I don't want to go back to regulation. But you've got to distinguish legitimate competition from what is intended to drive competitors out and exploit consumers. That is Alfred Kahn, as quoted in USA Today, April 6, 1998. Dr. Kahn further says, ``When I hear `vigorous competitive' responses to describe a situation in which, within a space of a year, fares started at $260, went down to $100 in two quarters, and then back up to $270, I want to retch,'' said Dr. Kahn in the hearing on Aviation Competition of the Subcommittee on Aviation, the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation, April 23, 1998. Strong language from a man who knows what ``deregulation'' means and what ``fair competition'' is. Two other issues need to be clarified. First, the prohibition against unfair competitive practices is related to but is broader than the prohibitions of the antitrust laws. As the court ruled in United Airlines against CAB, 766 F.2nd 1107, 7th Circuit, 1985, ``We know from many decisions under both this section, (Section 411 of the Federal Aviation Act prohibiting unfair competitive practices),'' and its progenitor, Section 5 of the Federal Trade Commission Act, ``that the Board can forbid anticompetitive practices before they become serious enough to violate the Sherman Act.'' Secondly, DOT has authority to issue general rules determining that specific practices constitute unfair competitive practices. DOT is not limited to enforcing the prohibition against unfair practices through a case-by-case determination. This was the issue in the 7th Circuit Court case of United Airlines against CAB, in which United Airlines challenged the CAB's authority to issue rules determining that various practices in the operation of computer reservation systems would be unfair competitive practices. After analyzing the background of the reenactment of Section 411 in 1984, the court concluded, Congress, looking forward to the period after abolition of the Board, was very concerned to preserve in the Department of Transportation authority to enforce Section 411 . . . It is too late to inquire whether, as an original matter of interpretation of Sections 204(a) and 411, rulemaking can be used to prevent unfair or deceptive practices or unfair methods of competition. To hold that it cannot be so used would pull the rug out from under Congress's restructuring of airline regulation. Wise words rightly said by the court. There have been some proposals for legislation to stop the DOT rulemaking. I am pleased that the Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure has rejected these proposals, and instead has reported legislation to ensure that the final guidelines will include a full analysis of relevant issues, and that Congress will have an opportunity to legislate before final guidelines become effective. I agreed to this legislation as a compromise, making it clear that my support should not be construed as indicating doubts about DOT's proposal, but rather, as a means of moving the issue forward. The Secretary of Transportation has pledged to give serious open-minded consideration to all comments filed, and I am confident that final guidelines will reflect any legitimate problems which may be raised. I believe the basic approach proposed by DOT is sound. It is inconsistent with deregulation for established airlines to respond to low fare competition by adopting pricing and scheduling policies which lose money, and then when the new entrant leaves the market, raising fares to prior levels. I respect the rights of established airlines to oppose the DOT proposal, but I urge them to contest the proposal by responding to the real issue with real case studies and honest facts, rather than using their fictitious strawman claim of ``reregulation'' in their rush to ban all low-fare service.

Mr. OBERSTAR

Mr. OBERSTAR. Mr. Speaker, I move that the House do now adjourn.

Mr. OBERSTAR

Mr. OBERSTAR. I thank the gentleman for yielding me this time. Mr. Speaker, we in Minnesota and Michigan's iron ore and mining industry and the lower lake steel mills must never forget the harsh lessons of the 1970s and 1980s. We paid a terrible price for unfair trading practices in steel and iron ore. We lost 330,000 jobs in the basic steel industry in America, a 57 percent reduction in jobs, 450 plants closed, nearly 10,000 jobs permanently lost in Minnesota's iron ore, mining and taconite industry due to subsidized imports of steel from Japan, Korea, Europe and Brazil. Our domestic industry since then has modernized, spent $50 billion in new plant and equipment, producing the highest quality steel in the world. Our productivity stands at four man-hours per ton. Our plants give the best quality steel at the lowest cost. Yet steel imports have surged in May, June and July this year, 113 percent up from Japan, 90 percent up from Korea, 32 percent up from Russia, Ukraine and others. From Latin America and the Caribbean, imports stand at 4.7 million tons for the first seven months of this year alone. We are on a pace toward 36 million tons of steel imports in America, 26 percent of domestic consumption. Layoffs are already happening in basic steel and in the iron ore mining industry in Minnesota and Michigan. I say no fast track in the face of unfairly traded steel, dumped in the U.S. market at subsidized prices with the label ``Japanese steel at Russian prices imported from Latin America.''

Mr. OBERSTAR

Mr. OBERSTAR. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to pay tribute to Muriel Humphrey Brown, the first woman from the State of Minnesota to serve in the U.S. Senate. On Sunday, Muriel died at the age of 86 in Minnesota. Born Muriel Fay Buck in 1912 in Huron, South Dakota, she overcame her natural shyness to play a vital role in one of the most revered political families in American history. Muriel met Hubert H. Humphrey, Jr. in 1934 when he was working in the family drugstore and she was a bookkeeper. They married two years later. Muriel, whom Hubert always affectionately called ``Bucky,'' was the very essence of calm, grace and warmth in the intensity with which Hubert pursued elective office and public policy issues. She was constantly at his side in his public life, even while performing the equally challenging task of seeing to the day-to-day nurturing of their four children. Muriel was the ever-present picture of grace and radiance while Hubert served as Mayor of Minneapolis in 1945, U.S. Senator from Minnesota from 1949-64 and from 1971-78, and Vice President of the United States from 1965-69, and during his campaign for the Presidency of the United States in 1968. When Hubert Humphrey lost his courageous battle with cancer in 1978, Governor Rudy Perpich wisely and thoughtfully appointed Muriel to fulfill her husband's term in the U.S. Senate. She was the only woman in the U.S. Senate at the time, and only the twelfth woman ever to serve in the Senate. ``It's the most challenging thing I've ever done in my whole life,'' she said later. Muriel chose not to seek election in the fall of 1978. While Hubert was constantly in the spotlight, those who followed his career knew that Muriel was his lifelong partner and source of inner- strength, and that they made an enviable team. Muriel took up many of the causes championed by her husband: social programs and labor issues were particularly important to her. She brought together people with diverse and often contentious positions through her dedication, hard work, and diplomacy. Together, Muriel and Hubert made America a better place in which to live, work and raise a family. Recently, I heard a story that former President Jimmy Carter told about Muriel that epitomizes her inherent sense of fairness and decency. In 1964, when he [Hubert] became the vice-presidential candidate, in Georgia, it wasn't a very popular thing to be for the Johnson-Humphrey slate. . . . In that campaign, Hubert and Muriel came down to south Georgia to Moultrie for a Democratic rally. And because of my mother's loyalty, she was given the honor of picking up Muriel at the airport. And Rosalynn and my mother and Muriel and my sister Gloria went down to Moultrie to attend the rally. Senator Humphrey made a speech, and they had a women's reception for Muriel. And they were riding around that south Georgia town getting ready for the reception. Everybody in town was very excited. And as Muriel approached the site, she said, ``Are any black women invited to the reception?'' For a long time no one spoke, and finally my sister said, ``I don't know.'' She knew quite well that they weren't. And Muriel said, ``I'm not going in.'' So, they stopped the car, and my sister Gloria went inside to check and let the hostess know that Muriel was not coming to the reception. But in a few minutes, Gloria came back and said, ``Mrs. Humphrey, it's okay.'' So, she went in and, sure enough, there were several black ladies there at the reception. And Muriel never knew until now that the maids just took off their aprons for the occasion. But that was the first integrated reception in south Georgia, Muriel, and you are responsible for it. (Former President Jimmy Carter at a Washington, D.C. fundraiser in December 1977 to benefit the Hubert Humphrey Institute located at the University of Minnesota.) A year after Hubert Humphrey died, Muriel married Max Brown, a lifelong Republican whom she met when the two were sixth-graders in South Dakota. She and Max enjoyed many years of well-deserved retirement together out of the storm of public policy controversies, and tended to the personal joys of their very close, warm family circle. Hubert H. Humphrey III, known affectionately as ``Skip,'' continued the family tradition of public service, winning election to the Minnesota State Senate, and then as Minnesota's Attorney General. When he won the Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party nomination for governor in the Minnesota primary election earlier this month, Muriel was at Skip's side. ``Hubert would have been proud,'' she said after her son's victory. I offer my heartfelt sympathy to Muriel's husband, her sons Bob, Douglas, and Skip, and her daughter Nancy Solomonson, for their loss. I hope, in their grief, they know that their wife and mother made a profound difference to the State of Minnesota and to a grateful nation. Her love of family, warmth in outreach to others, and tireless teaching by example of the very best in family values will be her everlasting legacy to future generations. It is a privilege to offer my colleagues this brief, but deserved tribute to Muriel Humphrey Brown, who gave so much of herself to enrich the lives of others.

Mr. OBERSTAR

Mr. OBERSTAR. Mr. Speaker, during the consideration of suspension bills yesterday, and a motion to instruct conferees this morning, my vote was not recorded on several roll call votes. Had I been present, I would have voted ``aye'' on S. 2206 (Roll Call 426); I would have voted ``aye'' on H. Con. Res. 304 (Roll Call Vote 427); I would have voted ``aye'' on H. Con. Res. 254 (Roll Call Vote 428); I would have voted ``aye'' on H. Con. Res. 185 (Roll Call Vote 429); I would have voted ``aye'' on the previous question on the motion to instruct conferees for H.R. 4101 (Roll Call Vote 430)

Mr. OBERSTAR

Mr. OBERSTAR. Mr. Speaker, airlines realize windfall profits, sometimes amounting to hundreds of millions of dollars, from the sale of international routes which they were granted, free of charge, by the Department of Transportation. This practice not only produces windfall profits; it also imposes substantial costs on the airline purchasing the route; these costs, in turn, must then be recaptured by higher fares. Moreover, the sale of international routes sometimes prevents DOT from awarding the route to the carrier which is best qualified and best able to serve the public. Today, I am introducing legislation to prohibit this practice. Under governing law, international routes are originally awarded on the basis of a public interest determination by the Department of Transportation, following an evidentiary proceeding in which all applicants for the route have the opportunity to present their operating proposals. However, once a route is awarded, DOT permits the incumbent airline to sell the route for substantial sums, sometimes amounting to hundreds of millions of dollars. DOT has been willing to approve these sales as long as a sale would not be seriously inconsistent with U.S. international policy. The Department's approach has been to make this decision in a vacuum, without a comparative consideration of the proposals of other airlines which might be interested in the route. The effect of this policy has been that routes are frequently transferred to the largest U.S. airlines, which have the deepest pockets and are able to make the highest bid to the airline selling its routes. This approach is bad public policy for several reasons. First, it takes an asset, which was originally given to the holder free of charge in the public interest, and allows it to be sold for the highest price. The American public is the loser because the new route holder will have to raise fares to recoup the cost of the route. Secondly, the sale is inconsistent with the original rationale under which the route authority was granted: that the carrier selected can best serve the interests of the American public. Relying on the highest bid means that, potentially, a better qualified applicant will be denied the ability to provide this service to the American public. The DOT policy of approving the sale of major routes, apart from mergers, began in 1986 when Pan American was allowed to sell its Pacific Division of United. The policy of permitting routes to be sold has led to other disturbing results. Recently Northwest Airlines, pledged international route authorities as collateral to enable Northwest to draw down a $2.08 billion line of credit syndicated by Chase Manhattan. The purpose of the draw down was to provide Northwest with sufficient funds to survive a strike until its employees agreed to Northwest's terms. I find it unacceptable for a company to use its international routes-- granted in the public interest--to support its ability to prolong a strike that denies many Americans basic air service. In addition, there have been rumors that Northwest threatened that if it did not get its way in labor negotiations, it would sell off the assets of the company, including the international routes. Again, I find it unacceptable that international routes be used for this purpose. It is way past time that we stop such activities. My bill would end these abuses by prohibiting the sale of international routes. I recognize that this could be unfair if a carrier wanted to transfer a route it had previously purchased. In these cases, my bill would allow the carrier to recapture the price it originally paid. Mr. Speaker, we need to restore the original public policy premise for granting international routes: to provide the best service in the public interest. I hope my colleagues will join me in supporting this common-sense legislation which will promote the economic interests of the American traveling public.

Mr. OBERSTAR

Mr. OBERSTAR. Mr. Speaker, H.R. 3295 is a bill to designate the federal building in Oakland, CA, in honor of our colleague, Ron Dellums. For over a quarter century Ron represented the 9th district of California. Elected to Congress against the backdrop of the Vietnam War, Congressman Dellums worked to end that conflict and remained a steadfast advocate for peaceful solutions to conflict. Ron became a leader for such diverse issues as rational military policy, comprehensive and progressive healthcare, and social justice for all. He was an early and out spoken critic of the racist apartheid policies of South Africa. He was a determined advocate of Congressional authority to declare war. He led the fight against racial and sexual harassment in the military forces. He was sponsor of the alternative agendas for the Congressional Black Caucus. Ron was always a gentleman, a consensus builder, a mentor, and great friend to all members. His humor and judgment are sorely missed. With great enthusiasm I support H.R. 3295, a bill to honor Ron Dellums by designating the federal building in Oakland, CA, as the Ronald V. Dellums Federal Building.

Mr. OBERSTAR

Mr. OBERSTAR. Mr. Speaker, H.R. 2225 is a bill which will designate the federal building and United States Courthouse in Las Vegas, Nevada in honor of Chief Judge Lloyd D. George. Judge George and his family have lived in Nevada for over 6 decades. He is an active civic leader, devoted father of four children and 11 grandchildren. Judge George has received numerous awards and honors such as the Jurist of the Year award, the Liberty Bell award for public service, Distinguished Alumni Service award from his alma mater Brigham Young University, and Professional recognition from the National Conference of Christians and Jews. Judge George served the citizens of Nevada in the United States Bankruptcy Courts for 10 years prior to his appointment by President Reagan as a United States Judge in May 1984. It is fitting and proper to designate the federal building and United States Courthouse in Las Vegas in honor of Judge George in recognition of his significant civic and professional contributions.

Mr. OBERSTAR

Mr. OBERSTAR. Mr. Speaker, anniversaries are special, treasured milestones in life, a time to gather family, friends, and loved ones to remember, re-live, rejoice and to share. One such special milestone was the celebration of the fortieth wedding anniversary of Tom and Miriam Ryan, on July 25, 1998, in Pine City, Minnesota. Dozens of Tom and Miriam's friends joined their 82 children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren for a spiritually uplifting mass at Immaculate Conception Church in Pine City and a joyous reception-- lunch at the Rock Creek City Center, to re-live and remember. Tom and Miriam's inspiring forty years together. I have known and loved this special couple and their beautiful family for over thirty years, and felt very privileged to participate in their remarkable festivity. I was profoundly moved by the outpouring of love and joy from all who shared with Tom and Miriam their anniversary, whose spirituality and majesty were best summed up in Fr. Michael J. Lyons' homily and the children's Tribute, both delivered at the mass, and which I ask unanimous consent to include in the Record, in the expectation that Americans everywhere will be ennobled and inspired by Tom and Miriam Ryan's beautiful example of life together. Homily for the Fortieth Wedding Anniversary of Thomas and Miriam Ryan Immaculate Conception Catholic Church, Pine City, Minnesota, July 25, 1998 Forty years together in a union so time-prone as that of marriage calls for a special sort of celebration. And for once time is not the enemy but the celebration. The combined ages of those gathered here is testament to the influence of the union of Tom and Miriam that took place forty years ago. Their previous marriages to spouses who predeceased their present union and whose memory they continue to cherish, along with the large number of children to whom they have given life and love, suggest that this fortieth anniversary is neither silver or golden, it must surely be considered platinum. And as is the case in the mining and processing of precious metals, the years have given Tom and Miriam their share of Gethsemane to remove the dross of selfishness and produce the kind of union they have achieved. All things considered, time has assayed their marriage and has marked it as genuine. A fortieth wedding anniversary reminds us that the marriage covenant is not an instant achievement. As we say, the wedding may be for a day but the marriage is for a lifetime. Marriage calls for love, forgiveness, sacrifice, loyalty, faith and courage in shaping these virtues and through them the ongoing work in progress. We live in an age however, when it is all too easy to forget the constant faithfulness of the heart and the single- minded dedication that are needed to arrive at this hour of recognition and acclaim. Instant food and communications, the immediate availability of so many consumer goods, masks the care and well-planned preparation and personal attention that the union of marriage demands. French fries are a long way from the care and preparation that mashed potatoes need. And cell-phones do not replace the time and companionship that the friendship and intimacy of marriage requires. And I might add, no one can replace parents in the task of forming children in the values that ultimately matter. Incidentally, my personal experience of Miriam's cuisine is surely symbolic in the truest sense of the self-giving that is so characteristic of her marriage to Tom, most notably during his recent illness. I cherish the memory of the Sunday brunches at their home in Pine City, the silver cutlery, the linen and fine delft, the overall ambiance but most especially the food prepared and arranged with the touch of the excellent visual artist that she is, and always in the tradition of French cooking of course. Considering which, the notion of ``french fries'' does seem to be a contradiction in terms! Tom's dedication to Miriam too is a noteworthy as his compassion as a lawyer and politician for the poor and those who suffer injustice in any way. This compassion of his does not flow only from the genetic heritage of his revered uncle Monsignor John A. Ryan. An unrequited democrat--the Minnesota kind--Tom Ryan's concern flows also from his unwavering commitment to the preferential place which the poor are meant to enjoy in the mission and ministry of the Catholic Church, most especially perhaps here in America. Something which the Church needs to reconsider in its list of priorities frequently. In any case, keeping in mind that marriage is always a work of grace in progress, we are celebrating what is hopefully some experience of Mount Tabor for Tom and Miriam on this their fortieth anniversary. In this regard, I am reminded of another anniversary I was privileged to celebrate with my parents some seven years ago, a moment of quiet wonder and thankfulness for them and for every member of the family involved. I remember especially the way in which my parents seemed to be tolerantly amused by all the fuss, sensing at times our tendency to celebrate them as trophies. After all their love did survive the raising of myself! Behind their bemusement however, I sensed a secret quality to their happiness that not even their children could know, but which they would hopefully discover in their own marriages in due course; a subject of their constant prayer I suspect. Children it seems nearly always think of their parents as existing only from the time they have known them. Like my parents however, Tom and Miriam share times and secrets and memories that are theirs and only theirs. In Yeats' words they too: . . . have found the best that life can give,/ Companionship in those mysterious things/ That make a man's soul or a woman's soul/ Itself and not some other soul. And so, Miriam and Tom, in the words of Paul to the Corinthians--one of our chosen Scriptures for your anniversary--because of the patience and kindness of your mutual love, its humility and forgiveness, your care and compassion for your families and for all of us, we know that the ageless Christ is with us here, joyful too over all that his grace and presence have worked in you. That miracle is surely encouragement and assurance to younger couples--and God knows they need it--that His grace is always sufficient to the fulfillment of their desires and dreams. Certainly, as the Gospel of John suggests, you have proven yourselves as Christ's special friends. You have been faithful to His trust and to each other's. We celebrate you and we bless you!. Rev. Michael J. Lyons, Pastor.

Mr. OBERSTAR

Mr. OBERSTAR. Mr. Speaker, on Monday, August 3, 1998, I was en route back to Washington with family members and missed three roll call votes. Had I been present, I would have voted ``nay'' on H.R. 3743 (Roll Call vote 377); I would have voted ``aye'' on S. J. Res. 54 (Roll Call Vote 388), and I would have voted ``aye'' on the Shays/Meehan Campaign Finance Reform Substitute, as Amended (Roll Call Vote 379).

Mr. OBERSTAR

Mr. OBERSTAR. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the requisite number of words. Mr. Chairman, I have been associated with the EDA program for almost 33 years. I still have, am proud of having it, one of the pens that President Lyndon Johnson used to sign that bill into law in August 1965. EDA was created then for the purpose of responding to those communities, those regions in the Nation that did not share in the Nation's general prosperity, to pinpoint and target assistance to those communities locally or those regions that did not share in the Nation's prosperity. President John F. Kennedy was fond of saying, the national economic policies will float all boats, they will all rise. But not all boats rose with our prosperity then, and nor have all communities shared in the Nation's general economic growth and prosperity over the last 3 or 4 years. The objective of the EDA program is to give local communities, regions, groups of counties or areas like Appalachia, where we have a separate program but which dovetails with EDA, the tools they need, the financial assistance they need to create jobs and economic opportunity and outlook and hope. Hope in Appalachia, in the 1930s, the 1940s and the 1950s, was a bus ticket north to Detroit or Cleveland, Chicago or the Twin Cities of Minnesota. But with EDA and with the Appalachian Regional Commission, hope now means an opportunity to create jobs where you live, where your family ties are, where your social connections are, where you want to live. That has given us an opportunity for job growth where it counts most, like areas in the Rust Belt of Ohio, Pennsylvania, the Mon Valley, or, as the gentleman from Kentucky (Mr. Rogers) said, areas that have been stricken by base closures of the military where you have a sudden economic collapse or areas like northeastern Minnesota, dependent on natural resources, iron ore mining, timber harvesting. The national economy may do well, but our region goes down through the bottom when there is some little blip in Pittsburgh or Cleveland or the South Works of U.S. Steel in Chicago, and our economy just drops through the bottom. That is when you need this kind of targeted economic assistance. In hearings that I held, when I chaired the Subcommittee on Economic Development with my dear, wonderful friend, former member, Bill Clinger, and we held extensive hearings on the performance of EDA, in the 15 years, the first 15 years of that program there were 4.5 billion invested in projects across this country. They created a million and a half jobs. That million and a half jobs paid every year $6.5 billion in Federal, State and local taxes. Every year the Federal, State and local governments are getting more money back from EDA than we invested in 15 years. Jobs, hope, economic opportunity. The 90 percent eligibility red herring happened because Congress imposed a moratorium on EDA from designating areas. The legislation our committee on a bipartisan basis has reported out, and we hope to bring it to the floor after the Labor Day recess, will do away with that. In fact, year after year we have brought legislation to the House floor. It has passed this body, not the other body; that does away with that 90 percent figment of people's imagination. Ninety percent of the country is not eligible, and the program is not managed so that 90 percent of the country is eligible. That is just nonsense. I would just say that we have demonstrated, when you give communities the resources they need to create job opportunities as they see fit, we get an enormous return on that investment, every year more money paid in taxes than we have invested in EDA in its entire history. That is a return on investment. I would just sum up by the words of a wonderful witness, not an economist, not a specialist, no great degrees, Red Robinson from southern Virginia, who at our committee hearing said, you know, we are just proud, conservative mountain people. We are not asking for a handout. We are asking for a hand up. EDA has given us that hand up. Defeat this amendment. Give all America a hand up.

Mr. OBERSTAR

Mr. OBERSTAR. Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of S. 414, the Ocean Shipping Reform Act of 1997. This bill is the culmination of a process that began in the Transportation Committee last Congress with House passage of the Ocean Shipping Reform Act of 1995. That bill, H.R. 2149, would have drastically changed the way international common carriage by water is regulated. I was very concerned about that bill because of the unrestricted authority it gave conferences or cartels to enter into confidential contracts. The approach contained in S. 414 is much more balanced. That is why it is supported by vessel operators, manufacturers, ports, seagoing labor, and shoreside labor. Enactment of S. 414 will allow individual carriers and conferences to enter into more confidential contracts than they are allowed today. However, they must continue to disclose with the Federal Maritime Commission the commodity, volume, origin and destination port ranges, and contract duration. Similarly, carriers and conferences will no longer have to file tariffs with the Commission, but they must make their tariffs publicly available electronically, such as through the internet. S. 414 prohibits conferences from requiring its individual members to disclose their service contract terms and prohibits conferences from restricting in any way the ability to their members to enter into service contracts with shippers. Along with this, S. 414 will allow individual carriers to act independently of the conferences with notice of 5 calendar days, instead of the current 10 business days. Mr. Speaker, the changes made by S. 414 will profoundly change international shipping by increasing competition among carriers and by allowing carriers to offer a broader array of services to their customers. Not everyone is totally happy with S. 414. Under the bill, only the person operating the vessel on which the goods are actually carried can enter into a confidential service contract with a shipper. The basis for this is simple: these people have invested millions of dollars in the vessel and pay for its operating cost. Why should they be treated the same as someone who has not invested any money in the vessel on which the goods are transported? This bill attempts to give an incentive for capital investment in these ships. Others may argue that allowing people that do not operate the vessel on which the goods are transported to enter into confidential contracts will help promote competition and reduce rates. However, investment in new, more efficient ships, will also increase capacity and decrease rates. The FMC is going to continue to oversee these contracts and will be responsible for ensuring that the conferences and their members do not engage in anti-competitive practices such as voluntarily pooling information on their service contracts with each other. Mr. Speaker, I must say that I am very disappointed that an amendment to S. 414 has been added that eliminates a Senate provision that would have granted merchant mariners who served during World War II the same burial benefits as other veterans from that war. Merchant Mariners suffered the second highest casualty rate of any service during the war, second only to the Marine Corps. The convoys of ships they operated were the lifeline to England and enabled our forces to free Europe. The provisions in the bill were but a small way of our nation telling these gallant men thanks. The benefits that would have been provided for in the Senate passed bill would have been a small part of the benefits provided for by H.R. 1126, which currently has over 310 cosponsors. And why was this section deleted? Because, the gentleman from Arizona, Mr. Stump, the Chairman of the Veterans Affairs Committee, refused to agree to scheduling S. 414 for the House floor with the merchant mariners benefits provisions included, unless his bill, H.R. 3211, restricting who can be buried in Arlington National Cemetery was passed by the Senate. Why won't the Senate consider his bill? Because it does not allow for heroes like Officer John Gibson to be buried in Arlington National Cemetery under a waiver process. The gentleman from Arizona opposes burial of national heroes such as Officer Gibson in Arlington Cemetery and does not want U.S. merchant mariners who served their country during World War II buried in any national cemetery, even though 310 members of this body disagree with him. I believe this is terribly wrong and that the Republican leadership should not prevent all of these people who served our country from being buried in our national cemeteries simply because one Member is opposed. Mr. Speaker, on balance, I believe that S. 414 is a good bill. Our Committee is going to continue its oversight of international shipping to ensure that there is fair competition and that the needs of U.S. exporters are being met. Therefore, I urge my colleagues to support passage of S. 414, the Ocean Shipping Reform Act of 1997.

Mr. OBERSTAR

Mr. OBERSTAR. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to pay tribute to former Vice President Hubert H. Humphrey. Fifty years ago this week, Harry S. Truman was nominated for the Presidential ticket at the Democratic convention in Philadelphia. Another profoundly memorable event occurred at that same convention in 1948; Hubert A. Humphrey, then the Mayor of Minneapolis and candidate for Senate from the State of Minnesota, delivered a speech on civil rights that is remembered today for its eloquence, its vision, and its idealism. Many events across the country contributed to the advancement of civil rights during the past half century, including Rosa Parks' courageous refusal to sit in the back of the bus, the landmark Civil Rights and Voting Rights Acts, and dramatic acts of civil disobedience in the deep south. But it was Hubert Humphrey's principled challenge at the 1948 Democratic National Convention that catapulted civil rights to the top of the nation's agenda and launched what became a 16-year national dialogue on a race relations and racial injustice, culminating in the passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965. Hubert Humphrey's clarion call to conscience on that night 50 years ago rings as fresh and energizing today as it did then, when he challenged convention delegates and the nation to overturn social conventions and traditions that not only deprived a whole segment of the American public their rightful place in our economy and society, but even denied an honest, forthright discussion of race in America. The galvanizing appeal of then-Mayor Humphrey both inspires and challenges us now today, as it did 50 years ago: ``There are those who say to you--we are rushing this issue of civil rights. I say we are 172 years late. There are those who say--this issue of civil rights is an infringement on states' rights. The time has arrived for the Democratic Party to get out of the shadow of states' rights and walk forthrightly into the bright sunshine of human rights.'' Those words jolted American politics like a lighting strike and stirred the nation's conscience to a national debate on civil rights policy. Although divided, the convention delegates ultimately voted to endorse a new and timely commitment to civil rights. The party's decision to take a strong stand on civil rights inspired citizens throughout the nation and gave new life, purpose and charisma to the civil rights movement. Last month, the Hubert H. Humphrey Institute of Public Affairs at the University of Minnesota recognized the 50th anniversary of its namesake's landmark speech made by Hubert H. Humphrey at the 1948 Democratic Convention in Philadelphia. Journalist Bill Moyers, NAACP Chair Julian Bond, Author Richard Rodriguez, and former Mississippi Governor William Winter spoke on the legacy of the civil rights movement since 1948. I am pleased to share with my colleagues the personal remembrance that journalist Bill Moyers offered at the Institute's forum last month on Hubert Humphrey's influence on civil rights. When Steve Sandell invited me to the Twin Cities for this occasion, I accepted on the spot. Hubert Humphrey made a difference to my life. He was the friend who toasted me on my 30th birthday and the mentor who nurtured my political sentiments. Some of you will remember that it was Senator Humphrey who first proposed that young Americans be offered the chance to serve their country abroad in peace and not just in war. Newly arrived in Washington, I read his speeches on the subject and liberally borrowed from them for the speech I helped to write for Senator Lyndon B. Johnson during the campaign of 1960 when, at the University of Nebraska, he proposed what we called ``a youth corps.'' Two weeks later, on the eve on the election, Senator John F. Kennedy called for the creation of the Peace Corps. This, too, was a speech that owed its spiritual lineage to Hubert Humphrey. After the election I finagled my way on to the Peace Corps Task Force, where it was my privilege to work with Senator Humphrey on the legislation that turned the idea from rhetoric to reality. Somewhat later President Kennedy nominated me to be the Peace Corps' Deputy Director. The nomination ran into trouble on the Senate floor when Senator Frank Lausche of Ohio announced that ''a 28-year-old boy recently out of college'' was being given too much responsibility, too fast, at a salary far too high for someone so green behind the ears. Now, Senator Lausche was probably right about that (although I had informed him during the committee hearings that I was not a mere 28, I was 28 and a half!), but it didn't matter; he was no match for Hubert Humphrey, who rushed to the floor of the Senate not only to defend me but to champion the cause of youth in public service: ``I know this man well,'' Senator Humphrey said of me. ``I have spent countless hours with him on the Peace Corps legislation. He was in my office hour after hour working out the details the period of the hearings on the legislation and the markup on the legislation. If I know any one member of this Government, I know Bill Moyers'' (Some of you who knew Hubert H. Humphrey knew there should have been a fourth ``H'' in his name--for hyperbole. But the hyperbole felt good to those on whom it was showered). And then . . . Hubert Humphrey took off, his words rocketing across the Senate chamber: ``Did not Pitt, the younger, as a rather young man, prove his competence as Prime Minister of Great Britain? He did not have to be 50, 60, or 65. He was in his twenties. I invite the attention of my colleagues to the fact that most of the great heroes of the Revolutionary War period . . . were in their twenties and early thirties . . . That many great men in history, from Alexander to Napoleon, achieved greatness when they were in their twenties . . . that the average age of the signers of our Declaration of Independent was 36. I do not wish to use any invidious comparisons, but I have seen people who have lived a long time who have not learned a great deal, and I have seen people who have lived only a short time who have learned a very great deal. I think we should judge persons, not by the calendar, but by their caliber, by the mind and heart and proven capacity . . . My good friend from Ohio said that when this nomination comes to the floor of the Senate he will be here to speak against [it]. . . just as surely, I say the Senator from Minnesota will be here to speak in favor of [it].'' He was, and he did. And I have been indebted to him ever since. I wish he knew my grandchildren are growing up in his state, and I wish he could see who is here tonight to commemorate one of the great acts of courage in politics, when the mayor of Minneapolis turned the course of American history. It was the summer of 1948, July . . . three weeks after the Republicans triumphantly nominated Thomas E. Dewey and began measuring the White House for new drapes. The dispirited Democrats met in Philadelphia resigned to renominating their accidental president, Harry Truman. Truman had surprised many Americans earlier that year when he had demanded Congress pass a strong civil rights package, but now he and his advisers had change their tune. A strong civil rights plank in the party platform, they were convinced, would antagonize the South and destroy Truman's changes to reelection. The spectre of a bitter fight dividing the convention was all the more frightening to the Democrats since for the first time ever television cameras were making their debut on the convention floor and the deliberations would be carried out in broad daylight. So the party leaders decided to back away from a strong civil rights stand and offer instead an innocuous plank not likely to offend the South. The mayor of Minneapolis disagreed. Hubert Humphrey was 37. After graduating magna cum laude from the University of Minnesota he and his young wife Muriel Buck--``Bucky'', he called her--had gone to Louisiana for Humphrey to earn his master's degree. What they saw there of the ``deplorable daily indignities'' visited upon Southern blacks was significantly responsible for his long commitment to the politics of equal opportunity. He came back to Minneapolis to run for mayor . . . was defeated . . . ran a second time . . . and won. Under his leadership the city council established the country's first enforceable Municipal Fair Employment Practices Commission. He sent 600 volunteers walking door to door, to factories and businesses, schools and churches, to expose discrimination previously ignored. Their report, said Mayor Humphrey, was ``a mirror that might get Minneapolis to look at itself.'' He saw to it that doors opened to blacks, Jews, and Indians. He suspended a policeman for calling a traffic violator ``a dirty jew'' and even established a human relations course for police officers at the University of Minnesota. What Humphrey preached about civil rights, he practiced. And what he practiced, he preached. So he arrived at the Democratic Convention in Philadelphia fifty years ago with convictions born of experience. As a charismatic and articulate spokesman for the liberal wing of the party he was named to the platform committee, and when after a ferocious debate that very committee voted down a strong civil rights plank in favor of the weaker one supported by the White House, Humphrey agonized over what to do. Should he defy the party and carry the fight to a showdown on the convention floor? The pillars of his own party said no. ``Who does this pip-squeak think he is?'' asked one powerful Democrat. President Truman referred to him as one of those ``crackpots'' who couldn't possibly understand what would happen if the south left the party. It was a thorny dilemma.\1\ If Humphrey forced the convention to amend the platform in favor of a stronger civil rights plank, the delegates might refuse, not only setting back the fledgling civil rights movement but making a laughing stock of Hubert Humphrey and spoiling his own race for the Senate later that same year. On the other hand, if he took the fight to the floor and won, the southern delegates might walk out and cost Harry Truman the Presidency. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- \1\ My own recollections were rekindled by three books I highly recommend: Carl Solberg's biography of Humphrey; Robert Mann's ``The Walls of Jericho'' and Hubert Humphrey's own memoir, ``The Education of a Public Man.'' I am indebted to them and to my colleague, Andie Tucher, for their contributions to this speech. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- As he wrote in his memoir: ``In retrospect, the decision should have been easy. The plank was morally right and politically right. . . . [But] clearly, it would have grave repercussions on our lives; it could make me an outcast to many people; and it could even end my chances for a life of public service. I didn't want to split the party; I didn't want to ruin my career, to go from mayor to `pipsqueak' to oblivion. But I did want to make the case for a clear-cut commitment to a strong civil rights program.'' Years later he recalled the dilemma in a conversation with an old friend, who said to him, ``That sounds like the politics of a nunnery--you'd rather have been right than been president.'' ``Not at all,'' Humphrey shot back. ``I'd rather be right and be president.'' Which might explain in part, said the friend, why he never was. It sounds like so little now. Here's exactly what the plank said: ``We call upon Congress to support our President in guaranteeing these basic and fundamental rights: (1) the right of full and equal political participation; (2) the right to equal opportunity of employment; (3) the right of security of person; and (4) the right of equal treatment in the service and defense of our nation.'' It sounds like so little. All people, no matter what their skin color, he was saying, had the same right to vote, to work, to live safe from harm, to serve their country. But it's hard to remember now, half a century later, how radical those 50 words really were. In 1948 the South was still a different country. Below the Mason and Dixon line--or, as some blacks called it, the Smith and Wesson line--segregation of the races was rigorously upheld by law and custom, vigorously protected by violence if necessary. To most whites, this system was their ``traditional way of life,'' and they defended it with a holy fervor. To most blacks, ``tradition'' meant terror, oppression, humiliation, and, sometimes, death. Take a minute to revisit with me what life was like for black Americans in the late nineteen-forties, when Hubert Humphrey was facing the choice between dishonoring his conscience and becoming a pipsqueak. Every day, all over America but particularly in the South, black people were living lives of quiet desperation. The evidence was everywhere. You see it in the numbers, the raw measurements of the quality of life for black people. Flip open the Census Bureau's volumes of historical statistics and look under any category for 1948 or thereabouts. Health, for instance. Black people died on average six or seven years earlier than whites. Nearly twice as many black babies as white babies died in their first year. And more than three times as many black mothers as white mothers died in childbirth. Or take education. Young white adults had completed a median of just over twelve years of school, while blacks their age had not gotten much past eighth grade. Among black people seventy-five or older--those who had been born during or just after slavery times--fewer than half of them had even finished fourth grade. Look at the standard of living. The median family income for whites was $3310, for blacks just over half that. Sixty percent of white agricultural workers were full owners of their farms and about a quarter were tenants, while for blacks, the numbers were almost exactly opposite; only a quarter of blacks owned their own farms, and 70% were tenants. You could go on and on. You see it throughout the popular culture, full of cartoony creatures like Stepin Fetchit, Amos 'n' Andy, and Buckwheat, but you could look till your eyes ached for a single strong, admirable, human black character in a mainstream book or movie. There's a scene in one of the most beloved movies ever made, Casablanca, in which Bogart's lost love, the beautiful Ingrid Bergman, walks into Rick's Cafe and says to Claude Rains ``The boy who's playing the piano--somewhere I've seen him . . .'' She's referring, of course, to Dooley Wilson, who at nearly fifty was almost twice Bergman's age . . . but in those days, to white eyes, it was okay to call a black man a ``boy''. You see it in a slim book written by Ray Sprigle, an adventurous reporter for the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. With a shaven head and a deep Florida suntan he traveled through the south in 1948 posing as a black man to see what life was really like on the other side of the color line. Throughout his trip his black hosts told him horrific stories of indignities, humiliations, lynchings, and murders. While nothing untoward happened to Sprigle himself, it was because, as he put it, ``I gave nobody a chance. That was part of my briefing; `Don't jostle a white man. Don't, if you value your safety, brush a white woman on the sidewalk.' So I saw to it that I never got in the way of one of the master race. I almost wore out my cap, dragging it off my shaven skull whenever I addressed a white man. I `sirred' everybody, right and left, black, white and in between. I took no chances. I was more than careful to be a `good nigger.' '' You see it in the work of even such thoughtful observers as Willie Morris, who in his memoir of growing up in Mississippi during the '40s recalls his complicated and mysterious relationship with the black people of his town, a relationship that warped and scarred both black and white. As a small child, he says, he had learned the special vocabulary of racism: that `` `keeping house like a nigger' was to keep it dirty and unswept. `Behaving like a nigger' was to stay out at all hours and to have several wives or husbands. A `nigger street' was unpaved and littered with garbage.'' He writes of casual cruelties like the time he hid in the bushes until a tiny black child walked by, then leaped out to kick and cuff the child. ``My heart was beating furiously, in terror and a curious pleasure,'' he says frankly. ``For a while I was happy with this act, and my head was strangely light and giddy. Then later, the more I thought about it coldly, I could hardly bear my secret shame.'' In the small town where I grew up in East Texas, there were high school kids--classmates of mine--who made a sport out of ``nigger- knocking.'' Driving along a country road they would extend a broom handle out of the rear window at just the right moment and angle to deliver a stunning blow to an unsuspecting black pedestrian. Then they'd go celebrate over a few beers. While I never participated, it was my secret shame that I never tried to stop them. There was a study done in 1946 by the Social Science Institute at Fisk University, the black college in Nashville, about white attitudes toward black people. In interview after interview, average citizens throughout the south never talked of overt violence or flaming hatred--but their detached and imperturbable calm was in some ways even more grotesque than physical violence. Listen to their voices: A woman teacher in Kentucky: ``We have no problem of equality because they are in their native environment. If we permitted them to be equal they wouldn't respect us. We never have any riots because their interests are looked after by the white people.'' A housewife in North Carolina: ``They are as lovable as anyone in a lower order of life could be. . . . I had to go see an old sick woman yesterday. We feel toward them like we do about our pets. I have no horror of a black man. Why, some of them are the nicest old black niggers. They are better than a barrel of monkeys for amusement.'' A businessman in North Carolina: ``I have a feeling of aversion toward a rat or snake. They are harmless but I don't like them. I feel the same toward a nigger. I wouldn't kill one but there it is.'' Or a mechanic in Georgia: ``During the war I was stationed at a northern naval yard. The southern Negro was given the same privileges as white men. He was not used to it, and it ruined a good Negro. In the south he is treated as a nigger and is at home here. He knows his treatment is the best for him. . . . We have a good group around here. It's years and years since we've had a lynching. It's not necessary to lynch them. The sheriffs in this county take more care of the darky than the white man.'' By now these words are probably making you twist and cringe in your seats. I have trouble forcing them out of my mouth. But these words, and others like them, were the coin of the realm in 1948. After more than two centuries of slavery and nearly another of Jim Crow segregation, black people were still struggling to realize their most basic rights as human beings, let alone as citizens. The framers of the Constitution made their notorious decision in 1787 that for census purposes each black American--nearly all of whom were, of course, slaves--would count as three-fifths of a person. In the minds of many white Southerners in 1948, that fraction still seemed about right. Yet something was beginning to change, and the old ways were coming under tough new challenges. The steadfast but quiet resistance long practiced by many southern blacks was now being strengthened by a new development: thousands of black veterans were coming home from Europe and the Pacific. These men had fought for their country--some had even fought for the right to fight for their country, not just to dig ditches and drive trucks and peel potatoes for their country. They had served in a segregated army that had accepted their labor and their sacrifice without accepting their humanity. Some of them had come home heroes, others had come home embittered, and many had also come home determined that things would be different now--that they had earned the respect of their fellow Americans and it was time they got it. And that started at the ballot box--a tool both practical and symbolic in the struggle to ensure their status as full citizens. All over the South, where for decades blacks had been systematically harassed, intimidated, or overtaxed to keep them from voting, intense registration drives for the 1946 campaigns had swelled the rolls with first-time black voters. And the white supremacists were fighting back. Sometimes it was brute and random violence: in Mississippi a group of black veterans was dumped off a truck and beaten up. In Georgia two black men, one a veteran, were out driving with their wives when they were ambushed and shot by a mob of whites. The mob then shot the women, too, because they had witnessed the crime. In South Carolina, a black veteran returning home by bus after fifteen months in the South Pacific angered the driver with some minor act that struck the man as uppity. At the next stop the soldier was taken off the bus by the local chief of police and beaten so badly he went blind. Permanently. Under pressure from the NAACP, something unusual happened: the chief was put on trial. Then normalcy returned. The chief was acquitted, to the cheers of the courtroom. But the demagogues also made deliberate efforts to stop the black vote--by whatever means necessary. In Georgia, Gene Talmadge ran for governor and won, on a frankly, even joyfully racist platform. ``If I get a Negro vote it will be an accident,'' he declared, and his machine figured out ways to challenge and purge the rolls of most of them. The few brave black voters who went to the polls anyway often paid dearly for their rights; one, another veteran, the only black to vote in Taylor County, was shot and killed as he sat on his porch three days after primary, and a sign posted on a nearby black church boasted ``The first nigger to vote will never vote again.'' In Mississippi, Theodore Bilbo was re-elected to the Senate with the help of a campaign of threats and violence that kept most black people home on Election Day. ``The way to keep the nigger from the polls is to see him the night before,'' Bilbo was fond of saying. But this time black voters fought back and filed a complaint with the Senate. Nearly two hundred black Mississippians trekked to Jackson-- and its segregated courtroom--to testify about the myriad pressures, both subtle and brutal, that had kept them from voting. But their eloquent testimony failed to convince the honorable members. Bilbo was exonerated by the majority of the committee members--despite (or perhaps because of) having used the word ``nigger'' seventy-nine times during his own testimony. It was a toxic word, a poisonous and deadly word. And it was still prevalent as a term of derision in the early 1960's. In August 1964, following the death of his father, the writer James Baldwin said on television: ``My father is dead. And he had a terrible life. Because, at the bottom of his heart, he believed what people said of him. He believed he was a nigger.'' So when Hubert Humphrey of Minnesota stood up at the Democratic convention in Philadelphia and urged the delegates to support his civil rights plank, he could have had no doubt how ferociously most southern delegates would oppose his words--and how desperately all southern citizens, white and black, really needed to hear them. It was a short speech and it took less than ten minutes to deliver--doubtless some kind of record for the man whose own wife reportedly once told him, ``Hubert, you don't have to be interminable to be immortal.'' Most of the time he couldn't help being interminable. Someone said that when God passed out the glands, Hubert took two helpings. He set records for the number of subjects he could approach simultaneously with an open mouth. One day, at a press conference in California, his first three answers to questions lasted, respectively, 14, 18, and 16 minutes. No one dared ask him a fourth question for fear of missing dinner! But in Philadelphia in 1948, Hubert Humphrey delivered a short speech. And these not interminable words became immortal because they were right. He had agonized, he had weighed the odds as any politician must--remember he was a politician, and this was a time when the way to get ahead was not to go back on your party. But now he was listening to his conscience, not his party, and he was appealing to the best, instead of the basest, instincts of his country, and his words rolled through the convention hall like ``a swelling wave.'' ``There are those who say to you--we are rushing this issue of civil rights. I say we are 172 years late. There are those who say--this issue of civil rights is an infringement on states rights. The time has arrived for the Democratic party to get out of the shadow of state's rights and walk forthrightly into the bright sunshine of human rights.'' We know of course what happened when he finished. A mighty roar went up from the crowd. Delegates stood and whooped and shouted and whistled; a forty-piece band played in the aisles, and the tumult subsided only when Chairman Sam Rayburn ordered the lights dimmed throughout the hall. The platform committee was then overruled and Humphrey's plank voted in by a wide margin, and all of Mississippi's delegate and half of Alabama's stalked out in protest. The renegades later formed the Dixiecrat party on a platform calling for ``the segregation of the races and the racial integrity of each race,'' and nominated Strom Thurmond for their candidate. ``There's not enough troops in the Army to break down segregation and admit the Negro into our homes, our eating places, our swimming pools, and our theaters,'' Thurmond would declare on the campaign trail, and a majority of the voters in South Carolina, Mississippi, Alabama, and Louisiana agreed with him. But Harry Truman didn't lose. The Minneapolis Star got it right the morning after the convention when it said Humphrey's speech ``had lifted the Truman campaign out of the rut of just another political drive to a crusade.'' Harry Truman won--and the southern walkout to protest civil rights actually ended up helping the civil rights agenda. If a Democrat could go on to win the presidency anyway, even without the solid South behind him, then the segregationist stranglehold on the party was clearly weaker than advertised, and even the most timid politician could see that supporting civil rights might not be a political death sentence after all. Not bad work for the mayor from Minneapolis. The late Murray Kempton once said that ``a political convention is just not a place from which you can come away with any trace of faith in human nature.'' This one was different, because Hubert Humphrey kept the faith. There were other forces at work of course. Just this week the Star Tribune said rightly that it would be misleading to suggest the democratic ship turned on a few eloquent phrases from a young upstart, or that the party had experienced a moral epiphany. Politics is rarely that simple or intentions that noble. There were other forces at work--the need of America during the Cold War to put its best face forward, the need for Democrats to consolidate their hold on the northern industrial states, those returning black veterans. But it would be equally wrong to underestimate what Hubert Humphrey did. An idea whose time has come can pass like the wind on the sea, rippling the surface without disturbing the depths, if there is no voice to incarnate and proclaim it. In a democracy a moral movement must have its political moment to crystalize and enter the bloodstream of the nation, so there can be no turning back. This was such a moment, and Humphrey its embodiment. But nineteen forty-eight wasn't the end of the struggle, of course; it turned out to be just the beginning. Sixteen years later, in 1964, Lyndon Johnson, another accidental president, staked his reputation on getting a comprehensive Civil Rights bill passed into law. And Hubert Humphrey, now Senator Humphrey, was the man assigned the gargantuan challenge of shepherding the bill through Congress in the face of a resolute southern filibuster. Once again I was privileged to work with him. By now I had become President Johnson's policy assistant, and the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was our chief imperative. By then the face of the segregated South had changed-- somewhat. The landmark Supreme Court decision Brown vs. Board of Education had given legal aid and comfort to the long moral crusade to open the public schools to all races, while courageous activists were putting their own bodies on the line in determined efforts to desegregate the buses, the lunch counters, the beaches, the rest rooms, the swimming pools, and the universities of the South. But all the court decisions and sit-ins in the world had not changed the determination of the diehard segregationists to defend their vision of the South ``by any means necessary,'' and the few federal laws on the books were too weak to stop them. A lot of this story, while awful, is familiar; we may think we have a pretty good idea what was at stake when Hubert Humphrey made his second great stand for civil rights. We've all seen the photographs and the television images; we all know about the ugly mobs taunting the quiet black teenagers outside the schools and inside the Woolworths, we know about the beatings and attack dogs and fire hoses, we know about the murders. During Freedom Summer--the very same summer the Senate completed work on the civil rights bill--Mississippi endured 35 shootings, the bombing or burning of 65 homes and churches, the arrest of one thousand activists and the beating of eighty, and the killing of three volunteers with the active connivance of the Neshoba County sheriff's department, their bodies bulldozed into an earthen dam. But we don't know as much about another, more silent tactic of white resistance that was just as oppressive, and in some ways maybe even more effective than the violence. I mean the spying, the smearing, the sabotage, the subversion, all carried out by order of the highest officials in states across the south. We were reminded of the twisted depths of official segregation just this spring, when after decades of court battles Mississippi was ordered to open the secret files of something called the State Sovereignty Commission. This was an official government agency, bountifully funded with taxpayer money, lavished with almost unlimited police and investigative powers, and charged with upholding the separation of the races. Most of the southern states had similar agencies, but Mississippi had a well-deserved reputation as the worst of the bad. I've seen some of those Sovereignty Commission files. I've read them. And I understand how a longtime activist in Jackson could recently tell a reporter I know, ``These files betray the absolute paranoia and craziness of the government in those times. This was a police state.'' The Commission devoted astonishing amounts of effort, time, and money to snooping into the private lives of any citizens who supported civil rights, who might be supporting civil rights, or whom they suspected of stepping over the color line in any way. It tracked down rumors that this northern volunteer had VD and that one was gay. It combed through letters to the editor in local and national newspapers, and wrote indignant personal replies to anyone who held a contrary opinion. It sent agents to a Joan Baez concert at a black college to count how many white people came, and posted people at NAACP meetings to write down the license numbers of every car in the parking lot. It stole lists of names from Freedom Summer activists and asked the House Un-American Activities Committee to check on them. It went through the trash at the Freedom Houses and paid undercover informants to report on leadership squabbles and whether the white women were fornicating with the black men. The most incriminating documents were purged long ago, but buried deep in those files is still ample evidence of violence and brutality. I am haunted by the case of a black veteran named Clyde Kennard. When he insisted on applying to the local college, one that happened to be for whites only, he was framed on trumped-up charges of stealing chicken feed and sent to Parchman, the infamous prison farm, for seven years. While there he developed colon cancer and for months was denied treatment. Eventually, after prominent activists brought public pressure to bear on the governor, Kennard was released, but it was too late. In July 1963, a year before the passage of the Civil Rights Bill, Clyde Kennard died following surgery. He was 36 years old. Reading these files you are struck not only by the brutality but by the banality of the evil. You find in them the story of a divorced mother of two who was investigated after the Commission heard a rumor that her third child was fathered by a black man. An agent arrived to interview witnesses, confront the man, and look at the child. ``I had a weak feeling in the pit of my stomach,'' he reported; he and the sheriff ``were not qualified to say it was a part Negro child, but we could say it was not 100 percent Caucasian.'' After that visit, the woman's two older boys were removed from her custody. You can read about how a local legislator reported to the Commission that a married white woman had given birth to a baby girl with ``a mulatto complexion, dark hair that has a tendency to `kink,' dark hands, and light palms.'' A doctor and an investigator were immediately dispatched to examine the child, then shelled out $62 for blood tests to determine its paternity. The tests came back inconclusive but a couple of months later shots were fired at night into the family's home and a threatening letter signed by the KKK, referring to ``your wife and Negro child,'' showed up on their doorstep. They moved out immediately. It was crazy--and it was official. This was the rampant and unchecked abuse of state power turned against citizens of the United States of America. And this was the background music to Lyndon Johnson's 1964 Civil Rights bill, which called for the integration of public accommodations, authorized the attorney general to sue school districts and other segregated facilities, outlawed discrimination in employment, and further protected voting rights. When Hubert Humphrey accepted the assignment as floor manager for this bill, he knew how crucial as well as how difficult it would be to gather enough votes to end the southern filibuster; no one had ever managed to invoke cloture with a civil rights bill before. He also knew his own career was again on the line, since LBJ was using the assignment to test Humphrey's worth as his vice presidential candidate. The filibuster began on March 9 and went on, it seemed, forever. But Humphrey was prepared and organized. A couple of times during those long months of debate I slipped into the gallery of the Senate to watch him lead the fight. The same deep fire of justice that burned in him at the 1948 convention, burned within him still. He was utterly determined. He had regular strategy meetings. He issued a daily newsletter. He enlisted one colleague to focus on each title of the bill. He schmoozed and bargained with and coaxed and charmed the key men whose support he needed. He persuaded the Republican Leader, Everett Dirksen, to retreat from at least 40 amendments that would have gutted the bill. He orchestrated the support of religious organizations until it seemed the corridors and galleries of Congress were overflowing with ministers, priests, and rabbis). ``The secret of passing the bill,'' he said, ``is the prayer groups.'' But the open secret was Hubert Humphrey. As Robert Mann reminds us in The Walls of Jericho,'' his good humor and boundless optimism prevented the debates from dissolving into personal recrimination. Once again he kept the faith. As he told his longtime supporters at the ADA after more than two months of frustration and delay, ``Not too many Americans walked with us in 1948, but year after year the marching throng has grown. In the next few weeks the strongest civil rights bill ever enacted in our history will become the law of the land. It is not saying too much, I believe, to say that it will amount to a second Emancipation Proclamation. As it is enforced, it will free our Negro fellow-citizens of the shackles that have bound them for generations. As it is enforced, it will free us, of the white majority, of shackles of our own--for no man can be fully free while his fellow man lies in chains.'' As we know, his skills and commitment paid off. Seventy- five days later, on June 10, the Senate finally voted for cloture with four votes to spare. A California senator, ravaged with cancer, was wheeled in to vote and could manage to vote yes only by pointing to his eye. After cloture ended the filibuster, the bill passed by a wide margin. On July 2 President Johnson signed it. During all that time Hubert Humphrey broke only once--on the afternoon of June 17, two days before the historic vote. Summoned from the Senate floor to take an urgent call from Muriel, he learned their son Robert had been diagnosed with a malignant growth in his throat and must have immediate surgery. There in his office, Hubert Humphrey wept. As his son struggled for his life and the father's greatest legislative triumph was in sight, Hubert Humphrey realized how intermingled are the pleasure and pain of life. We talked about this the last time I saw Hubert Humphrey. It was early in the summer of 1976. He came to our home on Long Island where I interviewed him for Public television. We talked about many things . . . about his father who set such high standards for the boy he named Hubert Horatio; about his granddaughter Cindy (a little pixie, he called her); about waking up on the morning after he had lost to Richard Nixon by fewer than 511,000 votes out of 63 million cast; about the tyrannies of working for Lyndon Johnson (Said Humphrey of Johnson: ``He often reminded me of my father-in-law and the way he used to treat chilblains. Grandpa Buck would get some chilblains and he said the best way to treat them was put your feet first in cold water, then in hot water. And sometimes [with LBJ] I'd feel myself in hot water, then I'd be over in cold water. I'd be the household hero for a week and then I'd be in the dog house.'') We talked about the necessity of compromise and the obligation to stand firm against the odds, and the difficulty of making the distinction. We talked about the life- threatening illness he had himself recently endured and what kept him going through the vicissitudes of life. Growing up out here on the great northern plains had made a difference, he said: ``I used to think as a boy that in the Milky Way each star was a little place, a sort of light for somebody that had died. . . . I used to go pick up the milk--we didn't have milk delivery in those days--I'd go over to Dreyer's Dairy and pick up a gallon of milk--I can remember those cold, wintry nights and blue sky, and I'd look up and see that Milky Way and I'd think every time anybody died they got a star up there. And all the big stars were for the big people. You know, like Caesar or Lincoln. It was a childhood fantasy. But it was a comforting thing.'' He was called ``The Happy Warrior'' because he loved politics and because of his natural ebullience and resiliency. I asked him: ``Some people say you're too happy and that this is not a happy world.'' He replied: ``Well, maybe I can make it a little more happy . . . I realize and sense the realities of the world in which we live. I'm not at all happy about what I see in the nuclear arms race . . . and the machinations of the Soviets or the Chinese . . . the misery that's in our cities. I'm aware of all that. But I do not believe that people will respond to do better if they are constantly approached by a negative attitude. People have to believe that they can do better. They've got to know that there's somebody that's with them that wants to help and work with them, and somebody that hasn't tossed in the towel. I don't believe in defeat, Bill.'' He lost some elections in his long career, but Hubert Humphrey was never defeated. More than any man I know in politics, he gave me to believe that in time, justice comes . . . not because it is inherent in the universe but because somewhere, at some place, someone will make a stand, and do the right thing, and seizing the helm of history will turn the course of events. So the next time you look up at the Milky Way, look past the big stars, beyond the brilliant lights so conspicuous they can't be missed . . . the Caesars and the Lincolns . . . and look instead for the constant star, a sure and steady light that burns from some deep inner core of energy . . . and remember how it got there and for whom it shines. He was one of your own.

Mr. OBERSTAR

Mr. OBERSTAR. Mr. Speaker, I rise in opposition to the bill before us and in support of the Dingell substitute.

Mr. OBERSTAR

Mr. OBERSTAR. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to express my grave concern that the debate today on managed care reform has deteriorated into a politically-driven exercise to serve the narrow and partisan goals of the majority party. Neither the Republican leadership bill nor the Dingell/Ganske substitute were subjected to the cleansing legislative process, in which the American people expect public hearings, open and full debate, a committee amendment process, and a meaningful opportunity to make specific changes to the legislation. At each of these normal checkpoints of legislative procedure, the public and their elected representatives were denied the opportunity to participate fully in the legislative process, to offer and debate amendments and vote on them to produce a legislative output that hopefully reflects a solid consensus, or, at least, the end result of a democratic process. Instead, we are engaged in a debate without the opportunity to make substantive and necessary changes to either piece of legislation through floor amendments, and we will be compelled to vote these competing measures either up or down without meaningful change. Given the opportunity, I would have preferred that both bills be neutral on the issues of abortion and assisted suicide. While there has been a good faith attempt in the Dingell/Ganske legislation to address these two matters, I strongly believe that the language on such issues must be so clear as to withstand judicial scutiny that health care plans are not required to provide assisted suicide or abortion services. Given the opportunity, I would have offered the following language that would achieve this important objective: Amend Section 108 and 109 of H.R. 3605 by adding the following new subsection (c): ``(c) Nothing in this Act shall be construed as requiring a group health plan or health insurance coverage to provide, pay for, refer for, or ensure the availability of or access to any benefit or service, including the use of facilities, related to an abortion or any item or service for which use of Federal funds is prohibited under the Assisted Suicide Funding Restriction Act of 1997. Nothing in the preceding sentence shall be construed as allowing a group health plan or health insurance converge to deny any benefit or service related to treatment for medical complications resulting from an abortion.'' Amend Section 141 of H.R. 3605 by adding the following new subsection (b)(3): ``(b)(3) Nothing in this Act shall be construed to cause a group health plan or health insurance issuer to violate its ethical, moral or religious benefits.'' I have been assured by the distinguished gentleman from Michigan, Mr. Dingell, the Ranking Democrat of the Commerce Committee, that it is his intent that the legislative history should reflect that his legislation seeks to be neutral on these two issues. With that statement of legislative intent, I plan to support the Dingell/Ganske substitute. I want to make it clear on this point that I will seek inclusion of the legislative language that I have just referenced in any further managed care legislation that this Congress may consider.