Dave Obey

Mr. OBEY

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker I yield 3 minutes to the distinguished gentleman from Texas (Mr. Stenholm), the ranking member of the Committee on Agriculture.

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

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I object to the vote on the ground that a quorum is not present and make the point of order that a quorum is not present.

Mr. OBEY

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Young), and continuing under my reservation, Mr. Speaker, since the gentleman from Washington (Mr. Dicks) is not here, I just would like to make one comment. I think this bill is a perfectly reasonable bill and I intend to support it. I am especially pleased with the fact that the new conservation initiative known in some corners as the Lands Legacy Variation, I am very pleased with the funding level provided in this bill for that item. As the gentleman from New Mexico (Mr. Skeen) knows, last year we had a huge argument about whether or not land purchasing programs ought to be consolidated into a giant entitlement program. It was the feeling of the committee that we could make land acquisition a high priority without turning it into an entitlement. The subcommittee was then chaired by the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Regula) and the gentleman from Washington (Mr. Dicks), and the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Regula) and myself and several others worked out the agreement at that time to maintain that as an expanded discretionary program. We indicated at the time that we intended to keep stepping that program up, to keep pace with the needs. The gentleman from New Mexico (Mr. Skeen) has seen to it that this has happened along with other conferees, and certainly the gentleman from Washington (Mr. Dicks). I am very pleased by that. I think this has been a very large step forward in the conservation area, and I think the entire Congress can be proud of it. I want to thank also the staff on the committee for the excellent work that they have done.

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

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman. Continuing under my reservation, I am happy to yield to the distinguished chairman of the committee, the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Young).

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from California (Mr. George Miller) under my reservation.

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, reserving the right to object, I intend not to object. I simply make this observation in order to afford the gentleman an opportunity to explain what it is we are doing here and to respond to several other questions that I think are in Members' minds with respect to the bill, and I yield to the distinguished gentleman from New Mexico.

Mr. OBEY

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, continuing under my reservation, let me simply say I support this resolution, and I think the entire House will as well. Mr. Speaker, I withdraw my reservation of objection.

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

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, reserving the right to object, and I do not intend to object, but I simply take this reservation in order to afford the gentleman the opportunity to explain to the House what it is we are doing.

Mr. OBEY

Mr. OBEY. Point of order, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I have tremendous respect for the chairman of the Committee on the Judiciary, and I know he is trying his best; but I am highly distressed for one simple reason: I do not, and neither do most of the Members of this House, have any real idea about what is in this bill or what the consequences are. We know some of the rough outlines; we do not know the details. This House, under the Constitution, is essentially a political body. What makes it a legislative body is the committee system, because on the committees we have people who have built up years and years of expertise. The way this has become the greatest legislative body on the face of the Earth is because we have relied upon the expertise of people on the committees who spend their lives learning what they need to know in order to see that the House makes the right judgments. When the committee system is overridden, as is the case in this instance, and when bills instead are written by a few people in conjunction with House leadership, that turns a legislative body into nothing but a political body; and it means that in the end, virtually all of the decisions made are made on the basis of political power, not on the basis of intellectual persuasion. That is a fundamental danger to a legitimate legislative body and certainly to the greatest legislative body in the world, it is a mortal blow. I do not know what the right vote is on this bill because I do not know the consequences. I do not know how much danger this bill will actually do to the terrorists. But I do know how much damage the way this bill is being considered by the House will do to this institution and none of that is because of any action taken by the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Sensenbrenner). This House must operate on the basis of shared information and shared decision-making if it is to truly get through these trying days. This is a sorry day in the history of the House.

Mr. OBEY. I thank the Chair.

Mr. OBEY

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, our Founding Fathers created the Bill of Rights not so they would be there in easy, convenient times; but so they would be enforceable in tough times. This is one of those tough times. We have had a bipartisan bill developed in the Committee on the Judiciary, and Members have been able to ask questions about that for a number of days. We were all feeling pretty comfortable with it. But now in a last ditch action, that bill has essentially been thrown out and now we have a back-room quick fix going on, and I venture to say that virtually no one in this Chamber outside of perhaps a few people on the committee have any idea what is in the bill. Why should we care? It is only the Constitution. It is only individual liberty at stake. Mr. Speaker, we have a 140-page bill coming at us. There is no section-by-section analysis, so we do not have any idea what is in the bill. We are going to be asked to vote blind, and we will be blind. This bill ought to be delayed until Monday. Instead, what we ought to have on the floor right now is the bill that passed the Senate 100 to nothing on airline security. That is what ought to be on this floor right now. It has been one full month since the disastrous events of September 11; and yet because of the hang-ups that a few people in this institution have about the size of government, we cannot get to the floor a bill that would federalize and professionalize the airport inspection service. That is harebrained. It is wrong. Mr. Speaker, that legislation ought to come first. We ought to bring that bill up here on the floor now. That would speed the day when we do have airline security, and it would give us more time on a bipartisan basis to analyze what is actually in this bill. I am sure there are many good things in the bill. That is not the question. The question is if you are defending liberty, and we have a responsibility each and every one of us to do that, the question is to know what is in the detail. The devil is in the detail. The Constitution is there not to protect bad people, but to protect every innocent American.

Mr. OBEY

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I reserve a point of order.

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself the balance of my time. Mr. Chairman, we have had some 14 amendments on this side of the aisle that we have discouraged from offering today. I do not believe we have offered a single one from this side of the aisle. I would urge that we have the same response from all quarters of the House. When, in fact, we measure accurately the amount of money in title I which is aimed at teenagers, the resulting numbers will demonstrate that we spend at least as much on abstinence directed to teenagers as we provide in direct family planning services of the traditional variety aimed at teenagers. The gentleman has already achieved parity, and this bill gives him twice as large an increase in the programs he is for as we have in the other traditional family planning programs. Mr. Chairman, I urge a ``no'' vote on the amendment. Let us keep this bill together and get out of here at a reasonable time.

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, reserving the right to object, could I ask that the gentleman amend that to 12 minutes per side?

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the requisite number of words. (Mr. OBEY asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

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

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, could we have a copy of the amendment?

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, the gentleman from Wisconsin indicated that he wanted to thank the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Regula) and I for what we have done in the bill. I think the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Regula) and I would rather have less thanks and more support. I have two things I would like to say, Mr. Chairman. First of all, with respect to the duty that I think individual Members owe the Committee, and vice versa. When the Committee produces a bill, there is a report, a printed report. The bill is printed. The House has several days' notice before the bill comes to the floor. Yet, in contrast, I have seen at least four amendments offered today on which the Committee has essentially been blindsided. Individual Members keep amendments in their pockets until the last possible moment. Then they bring them to the floor with no notice to the Committee, so that we might work with them to fashion an amendment that might be acceptable to both sides. It just seems to me if committees are expected to exhibit certain respect for individual Members, I think individual Members owe that same respect to the Committee. I would urge Members to respond accordingly. Secondly, let me point out that this is one of those amendments that I suspect no matter what we had put in this bill for IDEA, we would have been told, oh, it is not enough. This Committee is one-upped every time we turn around. I want to read to the Members. People have suggested that the Administration is in support of this amendment. That is most definitely not true. I want to read a statement from the Secretary of Education: ``We believe that solutions to these challenges; namely, in IDEA, should be addressed within the context of a thorough review of IDEA and as part of a comprehensive package of reforms.'' In other words, they do not think that we should be providing large amounts of money without reforms to the program. I want to point out what this amendment does. This amendment cuts title I. We hear about how much IDEA is not reaching all the children that it is supposed to reach. I recognize that. It would cost $17 billion to fully fund IDEA. It would cost $27 million to fully fund title I, because title I is only reaching one-third of the children who are eligible for service. Yet, this bill would cut that program to finance a program which is already $375 million above the President. I would point out that on IDEA, since 1996, this Committee has raised the funding for that program from $2.3 billion to $7.7 billion. That is not bad. That is not bad. I would point out that only one-third of eligible kids in title I are now served. Why do we not have an amendment on the floor raising that to $27 billion? It seems to me it would be just as equitable. I want to point out also that there are 8,200 schools in this country who have low-income kids at least 35 percent of their enrollment, low- income kids who do not get a dime in title I money. If we are going to start talking about inadequacies, we ought to raise that program, too. I do not see why we ought to cut vocational education, why we ought to cut title I, why we ought to cut bilingual education when we have 3.6 million kids in this country who need to understand how to read English and speak English. I do not know why we should cut education research when there is still so much debate in this country about how children learn. It would be nice if all of us could get off our biases and get into some facts. The way we do that is with additional education research. So I would say the amendment, in terms of what it wants to increase, is fine. But the source of money for that increase I think is ill- advised, to put it kindly. In my view, the Committee has struck a reasonable balance. There are people in the Senate, there are people in the Senate in my party who want to see IDEA increased far above this level, and who also want to see title I fully funded over the next 4 years so we pay for 100 percent of eligibility. Is anybody here willing to put that $27 billion on the table? This Committee has tried to be responsible. We have held down the gentleman's wish list on that side of the aisle and our wish list on this side of the aisle. I would much prefer that we be able to provide every dollar for IDEA that is suggested in this amendment, but not at the expense of title I, not at the expense of vocational education, not at the expense of educational research, not at the expense of TRIO programs.

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I reserve a point of order.

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I would urge Members again to recognize that we have hammered out over a 7-month period a bipartisan bill which does not meet anybody's idea of what is pluperfect, but represents a reasonable compromise between all of us. I urge Members to stick with that judgment.

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Pelosi), the newly elected and soon-to-be whip of the Democratic Party.