Dave Obey

Mr. OBEY

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, this amendment attempts to do six things. It would add $400 million for port facility security grants. The Coast Guard says that we need more than $4.5 billion over time to secure those operations. At the committee rate of only an additional $100 million per year, it would take 20 years for us to get halfway to the task that is defined for us by the Coast Guard. I do not think that is fast enough. We would also add $100 million for the Coast Guard to implement the Maritime Transportation Security Act, which passed this Congress last November, which is aimed at strengthening our ability to analyze vessel threat information. We need simply look at the newspaper headlines yesterday about explosives bound for Sudan that were picked up by the Greek government, 680 tons of explosives and 8,000 detonators in the ship Baltic Sky, which the inspectors described as being tantamount to the power of an atomic bomb. I think that makes eminently clear why we need to protect our own ports to a greater extent. Thirdly, we would add $100 million to increase the inspections of containers that are being shipped to this country. Right now we inspect only 2 percent. We would add 1,300 more inspectors. We are just scratching the surface in terms of what we need. Fourth, we would add $200 million to improve northern border security. That border is 5,500 miles long. It is highly vulnerable. I referred earlier to the some 60 aircraft that flew across that border unannounced and unflagged over the past year. We would then add $150 million for aviation security to secure airport perimeters and to strengthen our ability to screen cargo on passenger planes. It is kind of strange to provide screening for passengers if we do not provide it for cargo. Lastly, we would add $50 million for the Information Analysis and Infrastructure Protection Division in the new agency that is supposed to be the nerve center, the brain, of that agency in targeting what our biggest vulnerabilities are. We would pay for that by reducing the size of the tax cut that was passed by this Congress. We would reduce the size of the tax cut for taxpayers who earn more than $1 million a year. They are scheduled to get an $88,000 tax cut. We would reduce that tax cut to $83,000. So instead of getting $17.7 billion next year, they would only get $16.6 billion in tax reduction. I hardly think that is laying a scratch on them. Mr. Chairman, the purpose of the Budget Act was to try to force the Congress to recognize the choices and the trade-offs that are attendant to any budget. The problem is that the way the budget process has been used, we have a situation in which we have a huge disconnect between actions on the tax bill and the consequences that flow in terms of reduced services and reduced security for the country. So I would simply ask that we recognize that this amendment meets essential services. It provides essential services, and it also has the added feature of demonstrating that there is a price to pay for tax cuts primarily aimed at such high-income people, especially when it means and requires that by the time we finish our action on the tax side of the ledger, we have only table scraps left to provide needed services not just for homeland security for that matter but for education, health care, and a number of other crucial items. For those who say we are invading the jurisdiction of another committee, we did that at the expressed request of the House leadership just a few months ago on the omnibus appropriations bill. So this is nothing new, and I would urge support for the amendment, Mr. Chairman. Point of Order

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I do and I would first raise a parliamentary inquiry. Could the Chair tell us what rules were waived by the Committee on Rules for consideration of the majority committee bill and its provisions?

Mr. OBEY. (during the reading). Mr. Chairman, I ask unanimous consent that the amendment be considered as read and printed in the Record.

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I have a further parliamentary inquiry.

Mr. OBEY. Because what I think the Chair just said is that the Committee on Rules, in contrast to the way it handled majority provisions, that the Committee on Rules did not make in order a waiver for our side of the aisle. But let me ask the Chair as a parliamentary inquiry, is it not correct that on the omnibus appropriations bill just a few months ago that we amended the Medicare Act not once, but in two separate areas, to provide a 6 percent increase in funding for providers under the Medicare Act, even though that was considered invading another committee's jurisdiction? Is it also not true that on that omnibus legislation the committee was allowed to increase payments under division N, section 401(b) of the Medicare Act for rural hospitals? Is it not true that we waived the rules to allow the U.S. Customs Service to conduct vehicle inspections on the Canadian side of the U.S.-Canada border? And is it not also true that during the tumultuous debate about what to do about the dilemma of the airlines, that we waived rules again to allow the committee to include in its appropriation bill the bailout for the airlines as well as the extension of unemployment benefits to those in that industry?

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for yielding me time. Mr. Chairman, it is difficult to know how to handle the money in this bill because in my view the reorganization which took place leaves us with still a very discombobulated set of agencies, and it also I think has confused people about what our priorities are. I am proud of the fact that on four separate occasions this Committee on Appropriations on a bipartisan basis tried to add additional funding for key homeland security items even though on each of those four occasions the White House opposed our efforts. But I want to tell you that today I think the chairman has produced a perfectly reasonable bill provided that we think that the status quo is all right given everything that has happened. My problem is that I and my staff and the chairman of the full committee and his staff, have had extensive conversations with virtually every one of the national securities agencies in this country. And we got from them a year ago, a year and a half ago, and we have gotten from them as recently as a few weeks ago, their honest best estimates about where we need additional support in order to increase security of people on the home front. The problem we have today is that we cannot put the resources in this bill that we ought to be putting in because the Congress, the majority party in the Congress, has decided that instead their number one and virtually only priority is tax cuts. And those are skewed mightily to the most well-off people in this country. And the problem is that when you decide that you are going to put a trillion dollars into tax cuts, then that means that money is not available, not even a portion of it, to use to deal with our high priority needs at home, be they education or health care or, in this case, homeland security. And so what happens is that because of the way the budget process is handled, the public never gets to understand what the linkage is between the tax cut decisions that were made by this Congress and the linkage with these funding limitations for high priority security items. So very simply, I will be trying to offer an amendment that does a number of things. We will add about $400 million to the Coast Guard for port security grants. The Coast Guard estimates that their long-term needs are for $4.4 billion. We think we ought to do more than just add $100 million to it under those circumstances. We would increase our share of funding, the share of the Federal contribution for port facility security needs. The problem is, if we stay with the $100 million contained in this bill, it will take about 20 years to close the need in the estimate of the Coast Guard. We also provide $100 million to implement the Maritime Transportation Security Act to improve and analyze vessel threat information. We also add $100 million to the Customs inspectors so we can have 1,300 additional people inspecting containers shipped into the United States. Right now only 2 percent of those containers are checked. We think that is a needlessly reckless vulnerability. We are trying to increase by 6 percent the total number of inspector personnel. I think that is hardly out of line. Then we add $200 million to try to improve northern border security. As I pointed out in the Committee on Rules, during Operation Liberty Shield, 10 aircraft came across the border without clearance even while we were patrolling that northern border by air. We have no idea who or what would have been in those planes. We proposed to pay for this funding by reducing the size of the tax cut that will go to those with incomes of more than a million dollars next year. We proposed to reduce the size of their tax cut by 6 percent so that instead of getting $88,000 on average, they will get $83,000 per average. That is hardly putting them in the poor house. But it would enable us to reestablish additional support for these crucial investments. I would urge the House to allow us to consider that amendment because the public has a right to know which of us are for it and which of us are against it. They have a right to know whether we put tax cuts for wealthy people ahead of the security of this Nation.

Mr. OBEY. Well then, Mr. Chairman, I would simply say that I would urge the Chair to uphold my right to offer this amendment, because I cannot believe that the majority leadership would want to be so unfair as to waive provisions of our rules for the majority party's bill, but to not extend the same opportunity to those of us on the minority side, and to point out that I have just recited four instances where, just a few months ago, the majority leadership insisted that we provide these waivers for these nonappropriated purposes.

Mr. OBEY. Then could I move to strike the last word?

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I would simply urge the gentleman to withdraw his motion. I know of no one who disagrees with the ruling of the Chair, and I do not see why we should impose on the House when we already have seen another amendment dealt with on the subject in a proper manner. This amendment clearly was not. Everyone knew it was not in order, and there is no doubt in my mind the Chair's ruling is correct.

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I reserve a point of order on the amendment.

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, is this motion debatable?

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, then let me simply raise a further parliamentary inquiry.

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the requisite number of words. Mr. Chairman, I simply want to note in the Obey amendment, which the House was not allowed to vote on today, we would have added $150 million for airline security, including an additional $50 million for this very project, doubling what the committee has in its bill. The problem that we have is that the known-shipper system is simply a trust-the-luck system based on what we know about shippers and the people who work for them. Our concern is about what we do not know. We have just seen that TSA had a very difficult time in doing the background screening for criminal activity before they hired a number of people, and those people had to be let go. We really do not have any way of knowing what is happening within the businesses of the people who are shipping. It just seems to me that this amendment is eminently prudent and should be adopted.

Mr. OBEY. Yes, I do. I think the gentleman's last words indicate the validity of the point of order. As I understand it, under the gentleman's amendment, if States prohibit information from going to the Homeland Security agency, then the State can get no dollars under this act. My understanding of current law is that it only prohibits States from providing information to the INS. But Homeland Security, as the gentleman from Minnesota has indicated, includes TSA, it includes the Coast Guard, it includes Secret Service, FEMA, and a number of other agencies. To me, this amendment substantially expands the scope of the coverage and, therefore, I think is legislation on an appropriations bill and not in order under the House rules.

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, parliamentary inquiry.

Mr. OBEY. Is it not true that the selective waiving of the rules as cited by the Chair make clear that the DeLauro amendment and the Sabo amendment, which were offered in committee, were not protected by the rule? That is the practical effect of that language, as I understand it.

Mr. OBEY. So my understanding is that that means that the DeLauro language on corporate expatriates and the Sabo amendment with respect to CAPPS were both precluded from being considered by the House. Would the Chair answer one other parliamentary inquiry, please. What rules are waived to enable my amendment to be offered on behalf of the minority?

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, on that I most reluctantly and respectfully move to appeal the ruling of the Chair.

Mr. OBEY

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding me time. Mr. Speaker, I want to congratulate our friends on the Republican side of the aisle. This day perfectly summarizes what Republican Party values are all about. Under President Bush we have lost well more than 2 million jobs in this economy, and today we have the Republican answer. Their answer is to leave behind one million working Americans who have been out of work and cannot find work and are now no longer even eligible to receive unemployment. At the same time they are going to pass a tax bill in the dead of night which gives a huge share of the benefits in that bill to people who make over $300,000 a year. That warped and misguided and misbegotten sense of values is the major reason that I left the Republican Party a long time ago and joined the Democratic Party. The Republican Party practices the tired old game of trickle down economics. They practice the idea that if you just give John D. Rockefeller a tax break, eventually some of it will trickle down to Jay Rockefeller. Well, that is not good enough. My old friend Harvey Dueholm from Wisconsin used to say, ``The problem with Republican economics is that they want to give the poor and the rich the same amount of ice but they give the poor theirs in the winter time.'' That pretty much sums up what is happening today. We have seen a miserably mismanaged economy under this administration. We have seen this Congress swallow whole budget proposals that walk away from our commitments to education, walk away from our obligation to do something about the health care problems in this country, walk away from the problems of the people who have lost their jobs and are down on their luck and have nowhere to turn. And yet, oh, they have plenty of money for the top dogs in this society. Just once be for the average dog; be for the under dog. I know that is too much to expect, but nonetheless I would like to see it.

Mr. OBEY

Mr. OBEY. . . .

Mr. OBEY

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 3 minutes. Mr. Speaker, in closing, I want to say thank you to the people who are really responsible for putting this package together. That would be the staff of the committee on this side of the Capitol, certainly led by Jim Dyer, the most able staff chief on the Republican side of the aisle, and led by Scott Lilly, the staff chief on our side of the aisle, and all of the staff who work with them. It has become routine on the committee for that staff to be without sleep for one or two days in the row. I appreciate how hard they work. I would like to say a special thank you to the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Young), who has performed in his gracious and effective manner, helping us to balance the many equities involved, and a special thanks to the subcommittee chairs on that side, especially the gentleman from Arizona (Mr. Kolbe), the gentleman from California (Mr. Lewis) and the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Regula), for helping us through some very tough problems, and Senators Byrd, Stevens and Leahy. To those Members who are unhappy about the fact that we were not able to eliminate all of the Senate proposals, let me say batting 750 percent is not bad. Even Babe Ruth struck out 1,300 times, and I do not think any Member in this House comes close to Babe Ruth or pretending to be Babe Ruth. I would also say to the Department of Defense because I know they do not like the fact that they did not get all of the authority that they wanted, I would simply say to them the Department of Defense may not get all of the money and all the power that they asked for, but they would do well to remember that every bit of money and every bit of power that they have gotten they have gotten from this institution. I think they would be well off to remember that. Let me simply say again as I said at the beginning, this proposal came to the Congress as a blank check. It leaves here as a reaffirmation of checks and balances. That is the way it ought to be. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield 5 minutes to the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Hoyer), the distinguished minority whip.

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, could I inquire of the chairman if he is prepared to yield back? If he is, I have just 1 minute of closing comments and I would be happy to yield back.

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 10 minutes. Mr. Speaker, I want to express my gratification that we are, in fact, here with this legislation today. Frankly, it had many shortcomings. We fought out a lot of them on the floor earlier when the bill was first before us, and among the most serious shortcomings, in my view, would be what I consider to be still serious lack of funds for homeland security, but we fought that fight and lost. This bill is focused on other fights which I think are institutionally just as important for the Congress. This bill began when the administration asked for a series of blank checks totaling almost $70 billion. The bill that is here today does not provide the administration with those blank checks and, instead, reintroduces them to the concept of checks and balances, and I would like to explain how. The administration requested total flexibility and unaccountability for roughly $59.9 billion for the Pentagon's defense emergency response fund. This conference report reduces that fund to $15.7 billion and requires 5-day prior notification to the Congress before the Pentagon can obligate any of that money. That preserves to the Congress the right to review proposals for the spending of taxpayers' money. The reason that is important is because almost the sole reason for Congress' existence is so that somebody outside of that narrow circle of people who run any administration will have an opportunity to review the way the administration wants to spend public money and be able to say to the administration, wait a minute, we think that is a mistake, we want you to look at it again. That is why it was so important to have that 5-day prior notification requirement, and I am pleased that the conferees provided it. Second, the administration asked for what they call an indigenous forces fund. The President requested $150 million for the Pentagon to support so-called indigenous forces, which are forces other than the formal military units of a nation, in countries where the Department of Defense felt such support would be appropriate. This conference report eliminates that $150 million. Third, the administration asked for what they called an allied nations fund. In plain language, they wanted authority for the Department of Defense to establish a new and parallel military assistance program, parallel to that which already exists, which is under, at least initially under the authority of the State Department. This conference report reduces that request to $25 million, limits it only for military counterterrorism training and requires 15- day prior notification to Congress and requires that the Secretary of State concur in any such obligation. Also, the administration asked for a $2.4 billion Iraqi rebuilding program. The President asked for $2.4 billion in money to rehabilitate Iraq. He asked that money be directly appropriated to him for obligation to any agency. The conference report, in contrast, provides the money to the President but restricts it to the authorities under the Foreign Assistance Act and designates specific agencies that can receive direct apportionment of funds. It also requires, again, a 5-day prior notification to Congress before that money can be obligated, which is as it should be. Next, the administration asked for a $1.5 billion unallocated fund under the total control of the Secretary of Homeland Security. In other words, they wanted us to just give them a blank check to spend a billion and a half dollars on anything he wanted. In contrast, the conference report reduces this to $150 million instead of a billion and a half, and it appropriated the remaining $1.35 billion to specific accounts within the Department of Homeland Security so that this amounts to congressionally-determined funding rather than the agency determining it. Next, the conference report rejected the President's request to have a $250 million fund under the control of the President, no questions asked, and I think the Congress was right to do that. Lastly, the administration requested a $500 million fund to be under the total discretion of the Attorney General. The conference report reduces that to $20 million and requires that the Justice Department must make a reprogramming request to the Congress before disbursing any funds from this account. The remaining $480 million requested for the Justice Department, again, was specifically appropriated to other specific accounts by the Congress, not by an anonymous agency bureaucrat. So I believe that for those Members, and I assume it is all of us, for those Members who are concerned with protecting our constitutional obligation to maintain firm control of the power of the purse, I think that this legislation lives up to that responsibility, and I think that Members of both parties can be highly pleased for that performance. I have never yet met an administration that did not think that Article I of the Constitution was not a mistake, and I think it is helpful from time to time that the Congress remind all administrations that we have obligations which we have to meet, also. I would also like to take just a moment to discuss the unemployment compensation provision in this bill. The bill provides $3.8 billion in assistance to airlines. As Members know, I have minimum high regard for the idea that the airline industry even constitutes an industry. In my belief, the airline industry is composed of let-us-pretend capitalists. Every couple years, they come to the Congress for another bailout, and I think that instead of pretending that they are independent business operations, I think they ought to be regulated as a publicly necessary public utility, but they are not, and in order to keep the economy functioning, the Congress had to provide something. The problem was that the Congress took care of business, but they did not take care of the workers who were losing their jobs. So we included a provision which guarantees an additional 26 weeks in all States in the Union for workers in the airline industry and associated industries, at least upstream associated industries, and I think that that again represented the minimum of economic justice that was required. So, in my view, this is not a perfect package. There are a number of items that we had to accept from the Senate as part of the negotiating process. When you negotiate in these circumstances, you are not dealing with an empty chair. You do have people on the other side of the table, and they do have opposite views sometimes, and we might like to not take that into account, but we have no choice. So there are five provisions originating in the Senate that the committee had to accept, but we turned down far more, and I expect that in the end there will be far more gnashing of teeth on the Senate side of the Capitol than there will on the House side of the Capitol with respect to the committee's disposition of those provisions. I want to say to my Republican friends on the committee that I think every Member of Congress can feel good about the way this conference proceeded because it was one of the few times in recent years when I have seen legislators able to behave like legislators rather than politicians, and that is important. We all come here as politicians, but then we need, especially in committee, to deal with a lot of complicated issues requiring give and take, and it sometimes gets very heated. But I think we made decisions which were in the public interest. They were certainly in the interest of the Constitution. I am sure the administration does not like the fact that we did not give them the blank check which they requested, but they have ample flexibility to meet their requirements under the Constitution, and we have maintained our prerogatives. That is not important to our egos, but it is important to the system of checks and balances that we are sent here to preserve. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. OBEY. So the chairman has a subcommittee chairman who wants to make a comment?