Dave Obey

Mr. OBEY

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the last word. Mr. Chairman, I understand that shortly the gentleman from Vermont (Mr. Sanders) will be offering yet another motion to have the committee rise. Before that happens, I just want to make one point. I recall last week when the gentleman from Vermont was sitting here on the floor, and I was kidding him about how it is that the only Socialist in the House has been able to pass more amendments to appropriations bills the past 2 years than any other Member. And he told me if I wanted to have a similar success rate, I should listen more to him. And perhaps I should. And I want to point out that last week I worked with him and the committee worked with him and we were able to restructure an amendment that he had on weatherization so that the committee wound up accepting the amendments adding, I believe, $15 million to that appropriation. That happened because there were no procedural surprises, and we had the time to work out that amendment. The schedule that we worked on today has been sort of a surprise to everybody. The gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Wolf) did not know that his bill was going to come up before the Foreign Operations bill. I did not. Those decisions were made in a rather disorderly fashion because we are trying to accommodate each other in the last week of the session. I regret the fact that the amendment that the gentleman wants to offer is out of order, but I would simply point out that I have a personal track record of trying to work with the gentleman in trying to facilitate his amendments. I think the committee has tried, in general, to help Members, whether they agree with their amendments or not, to see that they have an opportunity to have them discussed before the House. But in this instance we have now had two votes and shortly, apparently, are going to have a third because the gentleman is upset because somehow either the House or the committee is seen as being to blame for the fact that the gentleman filed last night an amendment which he knew was out of order. And I, for the life of me, do not understand why the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Wolf) or I or the gentleman from New York (Mr. Serrano) or anyone else on the committee should be held responsible for the fact that the gentleman filed an amendment which he knew to be out of order when he filed it. I would like to accommodate the gentleman as often as we can, but I do not think the House ought to be held at bay because the gentleman made a mistake in drafting his amendment.

Mr. OBEY. I yield to the gentleman from Vermont.

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for yielding. Anybody who knows me knows that I am not interested in promoting the Republican agenda. I think that is a safe assumption on both sides of the aisle. But I want to say that I want to defend the subcommittee chairman in this instance. What happened today is that the schedule for these bills was changed suddenly, with the support of both sides of the aisle, and I appreciate the fact that the change was made. I think it was helpful. So this bill was brought up instead of the Foreign Operations bill. That meant that for us to proceed, we needed to have a unanimous consent agreement on the scope of amendments that would be considered by the House so that Members would have some idea of what the schedule would be. So what happened is that our staff, understanding what we were trying to do, put together their understandings of what the amendments were, and that was included in the UC agreement. The gentleman indicated that he had an amendment which is not in order under the rules and needed to be changed somewhat. My understanding is that he asked the gentleman from Virginia to agree to a unanimous consent request. The gentleman from Virginia, in essence, said I cannot do that for you without doing it for other people because then we unravel the whole UC agreement. I think the gentleman from Virginia, under the circumstances, was correct. Now, I happen to support the content of the Sanders amendment, but I have stood on this floor and I have stood in the whip's meeting, and I have stood in the Democratic Caucus, and I have said to people time and time again, if you want us to protect your amendments, please at least give us adequate notice so that we can try to find ways to do that. We cannot anticipate, Mr. Chairman. We cannot anticipate all of the amendments that Members want to offer if we have not been given enough lead time ourselves so we can work with those Members.

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman continue to yield?

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman. Even when we do get notice, sometimes we screw up, and we may have screwed up in a couple of instances today. But all I can say to each and every Member is, we try to cooperate on both sides of the aisle in protecting Members. We protected three amendments from this side of the aisle today, with which I fundamentally disagree, and there are a number of other amendments that I do not think should be here either; but we put them all in because that is what we thought the universe was. With respect to the Sanders amendment, all I can say to the gentleman is, if the gentleman had come to the committee and given us enough time to work with him, we probably could have worked this out. But I fully understand why the gentleman from Virginia thinks that he had to object. He is trying to be fair to both sides, and I think the gentleman owes us notice if he expects us to try to protect his amendments.

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

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

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, let me simply say that I will be supporting this bill, and I appreciate the approach taken by the subcommittee chairman in putting the bill together. He has, I think, been most fair and balanced in dealing with all of the pressures that were on him, and he has certainly been fair with us. Let me say, however, having said that, that I think the allocation provided to this subcommittee was totally inadequate. And as the House by now has come to understand, I have had a series of amendments trying to limit the size of the tax cut which will be going to people who make more than $1 million a year in order to free up some additional investments in programs such as education, health care and the like. We tried to do the same thing on this bill, but again, the Committee on Rules refused to make that amendment in order. And so we will not be able to offer and have considered by the House the amendment that would have used a tiny portion of those revenue resources to folks who make over $1 million a year in order to fund a number of law enforcement activities that we thought were very important. I do want to mention one provision which is in this bill, which was adopted on a bipartisan basis in the committee, which I am very pleased about. As I think most Members know, there is considerable controversy about just how much of the Nation's airwaves ought to be owned by the media giants of this country. The existing regulations had provided that no single corporation could own television stations that reached more than 35 percent of the national audience. The FCC, the Federal Communications Commission, in my view ill-advisedly, changed that to increase the percentage of national viewership that could be reached by a single corporate entity in the broadcasting business to 45 percent. There is a great deal of consternation about that across the country, and I think that consternation is rooted in the fact that the public is beginning to understand that five media conglomerates, Viacom, Disney, AOL Time Warner, Newscorp and General Electric now control a 70 percent share of homes that are watching during prime time. There are 91 major cable networks, 80 percent of which are owned by the same media conglomerates. Cable news networks are all owned by AOL Time Warner (CNN), Newscorp (Fox News), and General Electric, which is MSNBC and CNBC. The top 20 Internet news sites are also largely owned by the same media giants. So, in my view, that is a severe threat to democracy. I am pleased that the committee adopted on a 40 to 25 vote the amendment that would assure that we would return to the initial 35 percent limit, rather than expanding it to the 45 percent limit that the FCC tried to foist on the country. I want to make clear, this amendment does not go beyond television ownership. It does not get into issues such as cross-ownership between newspapers and television. I personally wish it did, because I do not like any of it. But the fact is that we have to be disciplined in deciding how much we can choose to take on at the same time without losing the whole argument. So we have chosen to confine ourselves to this, the most egregious portion of the FCC rules, in an effort to protect local values, in an effort to protect local diversity of media voices. I am very pleased that the committee has taken this position, and I would hope very much that the House would stand behind it as we move to conference with the Senate.

Mr. OBEY

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I would simply say that all of us, regardless of how we voted on the original bill, have an obligation to determine whether or not this amendment will contribute to reduced effectiveness of law enforcement or enhanced effectiveness of law enforcement, and obviously 322 Members of the House the last time around recognized it would contribute to a lowered standard of law enforcement, which is what they ought to recognize on this amendment again tonight.

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

Mr. OBEY

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, on July 15, 2003, during Rollcall 108-364 on the Paul Amendment, one of a series of rolled votes on amendments to H.R. 1950, I cast my vote in error. Had I voted as I intended, I would have voted ``no.''

Mr. OBEY

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for yielding me time. Mr. Chairman, I want to take about 5 minutes to make note of a couple of things. As the House certainly knows, I have vigorously opposed a number of appropriations bills that have come to the floor this year. One is the labor-health-education bill, for instance; another will be the transportation bill, which has not yet come to the floor, but which has substantial problems. And there have been several others. I have opposed them for two reasons. One reason is because the depth of the tax cuts passed by this House has meant that we have starved needed investment in areas like education, health, transportation, et cetera. The second reason that I have opposed some of those bills has been because I think that they have been drafted as though an ideological agenda was the most important consideration in putting them together. I support this bill enthusiastically, because I think it departs from the conditions that I have just described on those other bills in two ways. First of all, I think that the allocation to this subcommittee, while it is certainly, in my view, skinny in several areas, the allocation does not do as much damage to the programs under the jurisdiction of this subcommittee as is done, for instance, when we starve education and health care and worker protection programs, as we did in the labor- health-education bill. But, secondly, I support this bill because I appreciate the craftsmanship behind it. This bill, in my view, has been put together as a substantive, rather than a political, document. It is not driven, in my view, by ideology. I think the Chair and the ranking member have made decisions based on their individual independent judgments about policy, and that is what we are supposed to do here. We are supposed to be a legislative body, at least as much as we are a political body. In many of the bills that have come before this House so far, we have had political products. This is a legislative product; and I simply want to congratulate the gentleman from Ohio for bringing it to the floor, because this is the way this House ought to function. So I believe in strong criticism when criticism is warranted, and I believe in the opposite when the opposite is warranted; and I think this is one such occasion. As I have said, I do not agree with every judgment in this bill. In fact, I strongly disagree with two. But that is all right, because I think those differences were arrived at honestly on the basis of a different view of policy. So we can have reasonable arguments about that. I do not think the allocation has been crippling to the programs under the jurisdiction of this committee, and I appreciate that it too. So I, like the gentleman from Indiana, urge my colleagues to vote for the bill. There is one amendment that I may vote for, but that aside, regardless of the outcome of that amendment, I would urge Members to give this bill the support that it deserves.

Mr. OBEY

Mr. OBEY. What does that have to do with keeping your word?

Mr. OBEY. I yield to the gentleman from Utah.

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I would just like to observe, we have just been told by the distinguished chairman that we ought to keep our word when we make deals. If that were the case, this bill would contain $570 million more for the conservation programs that this committee and the Congress agreed that they would fund at that level 3 years ago. So if we want to keep deals, let us start with the big one, baby. Let us start with the one that guarantees that we are going to provide the $570 million that this House said it was going to provide 3 years ago when it was avoiding an entitlement. The gentleman from Alaska was the sponsor of CARA; and we all signed on to, as a substitute to CARA instead, to provide a guaranteed funding level for those conservation programs. So I do not want to hear any lectures, not this late at night, about keeping our word, for God's sake. Start with that one.

Mr. OBEY

Mr. OBEY. I yield to the gentleman from North Carolina.

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I withdraw my reservation of objection.

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, reserving the right to object, I would simply like to note a few facts. This is a bill that I happen to oppose, and yet we are trying to work with the majority to speed up consideration of the bill because we think it would suit everyone's interests if the bill is completed around eight o'clock tonight rather than eight o'clock tomorrow morning. I would also like to point out that at the request of the majority, we in the minority withheld amendments during the consideration of every appropriations bill so far at the subcommittee level except for one. We have also agreed to consideration of two bills, even though the GPO did not provide copies of the legislation as late as last Friday. The military construction bill was completed in 1 hour, with procedural cooperation from both sides. The Department of Defense bill was completed in a similar length of time; and in the process, the minority also cooperated in bypassing the need to have a rule. Three of the six bills that have been brought up so far have been brought up by unanimous consent, thereby saving everyone time in terms of the need to go to the Committee on Rules. Those unanimous consent agreements limited amendments and limited time for consideration of those amendments. So I think it is fair to say that we have helped the majority greatly run the trains on time, even if we have on occasion disagreed with the contents in the boxcars. I simply wanted to take the time to point those facts out because of some of the comments that I have heard the last 3 days from some Members of the majority about the ``lack of cooperation'' from the minority. I think there has been extraordinary cooperation, even though we have differed with the number of bills; and even though, for instance, on the labor-health bill last week we voted unanimously in opposition to it, we still cooperated in accommodating the majority in terms of schedule. So I simply want to take note of that. I am glad we have finally gotten to this UC. I do not have any objection to it; but Mr. Speaker, I wanted to make clear and put in the record what the facts have been with respect to cooperation between the two parties on these procedural matters.

Mr. OBEY

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the last word. Mr. Chairman, I would simply like to say that I am pleased to see that the proposed amendment was withdrawn, but I just needed to respond to one thing that one of the previous speakers said. I believe it was the gentleman from Virginia who indicated his disquiet about the committee provision because he said this goes to ``one of the pillars of the administration's management policy.'' That may be, but I think it is worthy to note that the administration's initiative runs the risk of screwing up one of the pillars of American excellence, which is the National Park Service. To me the value of keeping the National Park Service whole without outsourcing many vital activities of the Park Service is that you, first of all, maintain the institutional memory that comes from that dedicated service. You maintain the passion for the mission of the National Park system, which is I think part of the appeal to virtually every American citizen who visits one of the crown jewels of this country's heritage. I think it is also worth noting that the park system lives off the volunteer activities of thousands of Americans who give their time and service to help fill in the gaps in making certain that those parks are fully open to everyone. I think it is obvious, and I know I have heard many volunteers say, look, I give hours and hours of time to the parks, but I would not give one hour of time simply to improve the profitability of a corporation. I appreciate the gentleman's desire for some flexibility on this, and I know that the gentleman from North Carolina (Mr. Taylor) means what he says on that score, but I would hope that the administration will take a second look at what they are doing with respect to the Park Service. Because if there is one institution in which the public has confidence, I think it is the National Park Service.

Mr. OBEY. I yield to the gentleman from Virginia.

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, in addition to the Park Service, I think there are many other agencies that are just as professional and just as crucial, such as the Forest Service, the Bureau of Land Management, and many others. I marvel at the quality of individuals who are in many of those jobs throughout the country. The parks are a spectacular national asset, and I think we have to take great care before we mess something up. If ever we ought to follow the rule ``If it ain't broke, don't fix it,'' we ought to follow it with respect to the Park Service, the Forest Service, the Bureau of Land Management and many other services who have incredibly dedicated employees, at least as dedicated as any of us are.

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

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I would simply say I would join both gentlemen in saying that some of these amendments I guess I would refer to as the ``anything you can do, I can do better'' amendments. It sometimes seems that no matter what the committee will do someone will want to move a dollar and a half around in order to make a political point. That is legitimate. Sometimes I do it. But I think we need to recognize it for what it is. There is no reason we ought to be robbing Peter to pay Paul. We ought to be funding both of these accounts adequately, and I would expect that by the time the bill works its way through the process, we will. I thank the gentleman for yielding.

Mr. OBEY

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for yielding me time. Mr. Chairman, I am simply going to repeat most of what I said about 40 minutes ago with the sure understanding that almost nobody was listening the first time and perhaps I might catch some more ears this time. I would very much like to vote for this bill. It has, through the years, been one of my favorite bills in this place; but I am not able to and still keep my word to this institution. As I said earlier to the House, in 1964 when the country decided that we were going to begin offshore oil drilling, an agreement was made to put about $900 million dollars a year of that revenue into preservation of key pieces of land around the country with the Federal Government and the States both participating in protecting that land. The problem is over the years that commitment was not kept and gradually about a $13 billion surplus was built up in that funds. That is why 3 years ago 315 Members of this House passed what was known as the CARA legislation. And what that was was an attempt to make that prior understanding finally a reality by turning funding for a number of those conservation programs into entitlements. I opposed that. I thought we ought to be able to make conservation a high priority without turning it into an entitlement superior on claims to the Treasury on items like education or health care for that matter. I did not think they were superior. I thought they should be considered equal. And folks who had those beliefs, folks who had my beliefs essentially won the debate or at least we won the argument, and we shook hands on an agreement. And under that agreement, the gentleman from Washington (Mr. Dicks), myself, and the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Regula) on the minority side of the aisle, at that time serving as chairman of this subcommittee, agreed that we would double funding for those conservation programs and then over time have increments that would raise funding to $2.4 billion. We did that in order to stave off an entitlement; and for the first 2 years this committee stuck to the agreement. But in the omnibus appropriations bill last year, the committee backed away from that agreement; and this bill takes us some $570 million below that agreement; and that is why I cannot support the bill as it stands. We tried in the rule to have the rule defeated so that we would have an opportunity to add that $570 million to the bill and to pay for it by reducing by $3,000 the tax cut that is scheduled to go to people who make over a million dollars a year in this country. We would have reduced that tax cut from $88,000 to $85,000, making hardly a dent in it. I think most people in that bracket would have gladly said, look, the national parks and national forests are a high priority. By all means, make those changes. But the House did not do it; and so in my view at this point, this bill cannot be repaired as far as I am concerned because I believe, above all else, in keeping my word. I promised people on the other side of the debate 3 years ago that if the Committee on Appropriations did not stick to the deal that I would change my position and instead support making these programs an entitlement, and so from this point on that is where I stand on this issue. I must say I am deeply distressed that my committee saw fit not to keep the agreement they entered into 3 years ago. That was not an authorization agreement that was entered into 3 years ago. That was an appropriations agreement. And the Committee on Appropriations, as one of the great committees of this House, ought to keep its word. It has not on this bill, and that is why, regardless of other changes in the bill, I cannot vote for this bill as it presently stands. I recognize some people have other considerations, but I believe it is important that we keep our word to each other and that we keep our word to the American people. This bill is going to be seriously short; and, as a result, we will lose our ability to preserve and set aside forever key pieces of land in places such as Yellowstone, Grand Teton, nine key acres in Valley Forge. It is a shame, but that is what this House has come to on this issue.

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I offer amendments.