Dave Obey

Mr. OBEY

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, pursuant to the instructions of the House in the motion to recommit, I report the bill, H.R. 2847, back to the House with an amendment.

Mr. OBEY

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the last word.

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I did not want to get into this subject yet again, but I guess we have to. I would like to put in perspective why we are here under these circumstances. As everyone in this Chamber understands, we have, for the last 4 months, been dealing with a national economic emergency, and an absolute crisis in terms of the war in the Middle East, especially in Pakistan and Afghanistan. So this Chamber has been hugely occupied for 4 months. And now, finally, after finishing our major economic leftovers from the previous year, we're now turning to the appropriations bill. The hard fact is that everyone says they want appropriation bills to be finished individually, not collectively, in an omnibus. And yet, we only have 6 weeks to accomplish that. We have to pass 12 major appropriation bills in 6 weeks and still leave enough time on the calendar to deal with health care, to deal with climate change, to deal with the military authorization bill, and several other crucial issues. So Mr. Hoyer, the majority leader, and I, went to our friends on the Republican side of the aisle, went to both the minority leader and the ranking member of the committee, and asked whether or not we could reach agreement that would enable us to meet that schedule. And we pointed out that the schedule that we have set requires that we set aside no more than about 8 or 9 hours to debate each of the bills with all of the amendments thereto. We were told that they did not believe that they could participate in that kind of a tight schedule. So then we tried to proceed anyway. We asked Members to prefile amendments so that every Member of this House would know what they were expected to vote on. We confronted the fact that 127 amendments were filed. That will take at least 23 or 24 hours, just to debate those amendments. And that blows the entire schedule for the entire 6 weeks. One Member today said, ``Well, what's wrong if it takes 40 hours to pass this bill?'' The fact is that that would be one-third of the time remaining on the schedule for all 12 appropriation bills. We've got an obligation to get our work done. And so what Mr. Hoyer and I did was even offer the minority leader the opportunity, in a compressed number of amendments, to select their own amendments, any amendments they wanted. But they did not want to be limited in number or time. I don't fault them for it. I'm simply stating facts. Now, we have one misunderstanding around here. We have the impression that somehow appropriation bills have always been considered in open rules. The fact is, I have a sheet here which shows 25 previous occasions where appropriations have been continued under structured or modified, or even closed rules. And this is only when Republicans were in control. This does not count the more than a dozen times under Democratic control, when we had significantly limited rules for appropriation bills, including the Foreign Operations bill, D.C., the Defense Bill, Interior and the Legislative Appropriations bill. So I simply state this, not to get into a perennial argument, but to make clear we have tried every way we can to involve the minority. We've asked them several times if they could participate in a compressed schedule. I don't think that it's necessary to debate all of these bills for 40 hours. But we are giving--there are going to be 33 amendments offered to this bill under the rule, and only nine of them are Democratic amendments. The rest are Republican amendments. I think that's treating the minority especially fairly.

Mr. OBEY. Sure.

Mr. OBEY. Let me take back my time. Let me simply say that this is the third year that we've been in this situation where we've been filibustered by amendment, and we recognize a filibuster by amendment when we see it.

Mr. OBEY. I thank the gentleman for yielding. Mr. Chairman, let me simply say that I think, on this side of the aisle, the committee certainly agrees with the gentleman's assertions, and we would be happy to accept the amendment.

Mr. OBEY

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the last word.

Mr. OBEY. I just want to take this occasion to express my sympathy to the gentleman on his loss this evening. I'm not talking about anything that happened here on the floor, but I understand he was a victim in a 15-10 drubbing of the Republicans in the congressional baseball game by the Democrats. And I understand that despite the fact that the gentleman hit a triple, alas it was in a losing cause. We know how you feel. We've felt it many times in the last decade.

Mr. OBEY. Yes.

Mr. OBEY. Surely.

Mr. OBEY. I yield back.

Mr. OBEY

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I want to rise to express my concern about the ability of this House to get its crucial work done under the circumstances in which we're operating. As I think every Member of the House understands, President Obama inherited an economic crisis and a foreign policy mess, and so the Congress first had to turn our attention to dealing with that economic crisis, and we finally got that out of the way in the form of the Recovery Act. We then had to finish all of last year's domestic appropriation bills, which took a considerable amount of time, and then we had to turn to the supplemental appropriation bill which we will be debating later today to finish funding the Middle Eastern war efforts for the remainder of the fiscal year, because the previous administration had a practice of only asking for funding for that endeavor 6 months at a time. And now we are trying to bring up the first of 12 appropriation bills. And in order to stay on schedule so we can do the people's business by the end of the fiscal year, we need to deal with all 12 of those bills in the next 6 weeks. I think that means that we have a problem. In fiscal '03 there were no amendments offered to this bill. In fiscal '04 there were 10 amendments offered by Republicans and 6 by Democrats. In fiscal '05 there were 19 amendments offered by Republicans and 11 by Democrats. In fiscal '06 the number increased to 19 and 27, and in '07 we had 38 amendments offered by Republicans and 37 offered by Democrats. Today, we have had filed on this bill 127 amendments. Now, in the schedule that I announced last week for appropriation bills, we announced a schedule that would allow us to finish all of these appropriation bills by the August recess, provided that we were able to stick to that schedule. That schedule allocates about 7 to 8 hours of debate on all amendments on average for each bill. The problem that I see here with this bill is that we already have amendments filed that will take at least 23 hours, and even if amendments are considered out of order, it still takes 10 minutes or so to dispose of each of those amendments. So last week the majority leader and I met with my friend, the ranking member of the committee, and the minority leader, asking whether or not it would be possible to reach agreement on time and on the number of amendments offered so that we could finish this bill along the schedule that we had outlined; and at that time, the prospect did not seem too promising, if I can be polite about it. And I would simply like to ask my friend from California at this point, before we get into this bill, whether, in light of the time squeeze that we have, whether the gentleman would be in a position to agree to a proposition that would, in fact, limit the number and the time of amendments to that amount of, or to that number and to that amount of time, that would enable us to cut that 23 hours down to about 7 or 8 hours? And I would be happy to yield to the gentleman.

Mr. OBEY. Well, I thank the gentleman for his frankness. I regret the content of his response, but I do appreciate the fact that he is forthright and honest in laying out what the prospects would be. And Mr. Speaker, I think that that presents a dilemma to the House, because we want to finish our business, and I would point out that the schedule that we've set out can be adhered to only if we can work out reasonable time limits with each of these bills. And I would point out that what we're trying to do with that schedule is to allow ample time for discussion of these appropriation bills and also still leave time on the calendar to deal with the crucial issues of health care, of climate change and the military authorization bill, among others. So I think at this point the House has a problem. And I hope that we will face up to it forthrightly, because I think we do have an obligation to try to get the people's business done on time.

Mr. OBEY

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, pursuant to House Resolution 545, I call up the conference report on the bill (H.R. 2346) making supplemental appropriations for the fiscal year ending September 30, 2009, and for other purposes, and ask for its immediate consideration.

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 1 minute. Mr. Speaker, this is the last of last year's business. We have a huge amount of work that we have to do before the August recess. We have to pass all 12 appropriation bills, we have to make time on the schedule for health care reform, for the military authorization bill, and for historic climate change legislation. I just think we ought to get on with it. I think everybody understands what is in this bill, and the sooner we can get on with it, the sooner we can get on with this year's business. I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days in which to revise and extend their remarks and include tabular and extraneous material on the conference report to accompany H.R. 2346.

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 30 seconds. I would simply note in light of the gentleman's comments on the IMF that in 1999, the last time we voted on it, the IMF funding was attached to the Transportation bill and 162 Republicans voted for it. They didn't seem to have any problem at that time. I find it interesting that today, with a different President, they do. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I reserve my time.

Mr. OBEY. I yield 1 minute to the distinguished majority leader.

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I continue to reserve the balance of our time.

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I continue to reserve the balance of our time.

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I continue to reserve the balance of our time.

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I continue to reserve the balance of our time.

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I understand that we have the right to close, and we have only one remaining speaker. I continue to reserve the balance of our time.

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself the balance of the time. Mr. Speaker, as I noted at the beginning of the debate, this item represents last year's left-over business. It is the last item of last year's left-over business. We have been mired in a war for over 7 years. The President previous to this one has continually minimized the cost of that war by financing it on the installment plan. Instead of providing a full estimate of a yearly cost for the war, he would ask to fund that war in 6-month increments. And when he left office, there was still one 6-month increment left to go that was not yet paid for left over from his watch. And so this bill today, in the process of supporting the President's policies of trying to wind down that war, is providing the remaining funding for this fiscal year to help accomplish that. In addition, this new President is trying to change the way that that war has been breaking in Afghanistan, and by necessity, Pakistan, which is integrally tied to the Afghanistan situation. And what he is trying to do is, through a combination of military action, political action, and diplomacy, he is trying to change the mix and gradually extricate ourselves from that conflict and stabilize that region politically in the process. I doubt that that will succeed. But this President, having inherited a God awful mess both at home and abroad, has a right to try to fix this situation. That's what the American people, in part, elected him to do. And so this bill provides the financing to do that. And, yes, it added some other items that were not in the bill when it left the House. It did add funding for the IMF, about which our friends on the other side of the aisle roundly complain. But I would point out, in 1999, the last time I believe that we voted on this, the majority party then, our friends on the other side of the aisle, added IMF funding to the Transportation bill and 162 Republicans voted for it. I find it interesting that today, with a new President, they decline to provide that support. We also added something else. The GI bill education proposal that the Congress passed last year, had one remaining gap which needed to be filled. That legislation said that if you served your country in the military a sufficient length of time, you could then obtain education benefits; and if you did not use them yourself, you could convert them to the use of your spouse or your children. This bill closes a gap because the one thing that that bill did not do last year was to enable a combat veteran who was killed in combat to make that same transfer of education benefits to a spouse or children. This bill provides that expanded benefit for our fighting men and women. It was not in the bill when it left the House. It is now. If you vote against this bill, that's one of the provisions you will be voting against. We also have additional money for military hospitals that the administration did not request. We have additional help for the auto industry. I didn't think that was a Federal offense to try to provide some assistance to that industry. And, yes, we have a significant amount of additional funding for pandemic flu. Now, we tried to put that money initially in the original economic recovery package. We did put it in when the bill left the House. It went to the Senate and we were laughed at. People said, ``Oh, what does the flu have to do with the economy and with jobs?'' Well, Mexico found out when they had to shut down their entire economy for 2 weeks because of the turmoil in that country with the flu. It is now estimated that as many as one-third of Americans will be hit by that flu. This bill has billions of additional dollars to try and meet that challenge. And I would submit to you that the average American family has a greater chance of being hit by that flu than it does to be hit by any terrorist presently ensconced in Guantanamo. Now, we are also told that the IMF funding is bad because it borrows money in order to give to other countries. You know, this is a tough reality; we have to participate in the world. And when the world economy becomes shaky, we have a responsibility to ourselves to try to stabilize that world economic situation. That is one of the roles that the IMF tries to play. It certainly does it imperfectly--and I've had many arguments with them in the past--but to say that our contribution to the IMF does not benefit us is to be ignorant of history and to be ignorant of how the world economy works. The fact is that we created the IMF after World War II. Why? Because we saw what led up to World War II. We saw the world's financial system collapse in the thirties. As a result, in Germany, Hitler came to power and 50 million people died. We would kind of like to avoid that this time. And so what we're trying to do is to provide the President with all the tools he needs internationally to defend our economic stability and to stabilize the economy of our trading partners because our economy does not function and we do not create sufficient jobs in this economy unless we help create economic conditions in other countries so they can buy our goods. That's why we do it. It's called enlightened self-interest. In addition, it has been suggested that somehow money that we appropriate to the IMF is going to go to Iran. Well, let me tell you something, Mr. Speaker. Iran has not had a loan from the IMF since 1962. And under this legislation, the United States representative at the IMF is required to oppose any loan or assistance to countries such as Iran that have been designated by the Secretary of State as a state sponsor of terrorism. The United States can effectively block loans that it opposes. We've got by far the largest block of votes of any single member. And I doubt very seriously that the IMF is going to approve any loan that we don't approve of. One other thing. We've been told that somehow the President is endangering national security because he has not allowed the Congress to pass the Lieberman amendment with respect to the release of those pictures. The fact is the President sent to the conferees a letter and made quite clear that he will do everything in his power to prevent the use of those pictures. I want to quote one paragraph from his letter: ``I deeply appreciate all you have done to help with the efforts to secure funding for the troops and assure you I will continue to take every legal and administrative remedy available to me to ensure that DOD detainee photographs are not released. Should a legislative solution prove necessary, I am committed to work with the Congress to enact legislation that achieves the objectives we all share.'' Now, each of us can nitpick or object to certain specifics in this bill, but the great thing about democracy is that after we've had a chance to state our first preferences and fight for what we believe in, in the end we also have an obligation to reach consensus and move on. That's what this bill tries to do. It must be finished before we can move on to finish the rest of our appropriation bills and to get to the other huge items on the agenda, including health care and climate change. I urge an ``aye'' vote for the bill. 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