Dave Obey

Mr. OBEY

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

Mr. OBEY

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, would the gentleman continue to yield?

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding. Let me simply say I share the gentleman's desire to try to find a way to reach some type of understanding on this bill, but we have a practical problem. The problem is that there is considerable feeling on this side of the aisle that it is a might strange to ask for cooperation from the minority in setting time immediately after a martial law approach to this House was just rammed down our throats. So while I will certainly work with the gentleman and I would urge every Member who has a potential amendment to, by the time general debate is over, get the text of those amendments to both sides so that we have some idea of what the universe of amendments is and we can try to work out a proposed timetable, I am not very optimistic at this point that we can get clearance on our side of the aisle. I am told, for instance, that our leadership at this point is not contemplating providing clearance, but I would like us to continue to try to work this out. I know the possibility has been raised by myself of trying to get a time limit that would make certain that we would finish this bill. If we cannot finish it today, we could make sure that the timetable assured that we could finish it early on whatever day it was continued to. I would hope, in light of the requests we have had from both sides, that that would not be tomorrow; that if we could not finish it tonight, it would go over to Monday or Tuesday. But I frankly do not care. I will be here either time. But I think people on the majority side need to understand that it is very difficult to get clearance on this side of the aisle after martial law has just been rammed down our throats. That is not usually the way in which the majority in this House elicits the cooperation of the minority in changing the rules.

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

Mr. OBEY

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the last word. Mr. Chairman, I did not bring this amendment before us tonight, but as long as it is here, I am going to vote for it, because I do believe that the Social Security commission staff report issued last week is a cynical effort to trash Social Security and undercut its public support in order to pave the way for cutting Social Security's guaranteed benefits and turn much of the program over to Wall Street. And I do most certainly believe that that commission is a stacked deck. Every single Democrat appointed to that commission was appointed by the President. And the last time I looked, their views do not represent very many Democrats when it comes to the issue of Social Security. In my view, Social Security is the single best domestic program ever passed by this Congress, perhaps with the exception of the Civil Rights Act, and certainly Medicare is the next best after that. Obviously, we will need changes in the future, just as it has needed changes in the past in order to keep up with the times and remain solvent. But this report, in my view, is simply a scheme to frighten Americans into believing that we have to trash Social Security in order to save it. It is put forth by a commission that has already made up its mind to cut long-term benefits, and it ought to be recognized for what it is. And there is nothing wrong with being frank about that on the House floor. I have minimum high regard at best for that commission's makeup as well as its intended recommendations. I would also say I do not know why we should be surprised that the Social Security System, beginning in a few years, will pay out more than it takes in for a number of years. It was designed to do that. Mr. Greenspan and the bipartisan group that made up the original commission in 1973 specifically designed it so that we would accumulate notes over a period of years and beginning in that year we would begin to pay down the assets that had been built up. That is the way it is supposed to work. And for the commission staff or its membership, be they Democrat or Republican, to suggest that that means the system is in mortal trouble is goomwah. And I think people know what goomwah is, if they come from a rural community. So I would simply say, yes, we are going to have to take actions to strengthen Social Security, and that is why it is so tragic that the majority of this House and the White House cooperated in putting together a tax package that was so large that it took away virtually every dollar left in the surpluses that could have been used to strengthen Social Security long term, so that the tweaking that is going to be required in Social Security would have to be less than it now will have to be if we follow the misguided and misbegotten tax policies that this Congress recently imposed. So I make no apology for voting for this amendment, and I make no apology for saying I have no confidence in the membership of that commission as presently constituted. It is a stacked deck, and it is a stacked deck full of jokers.

Mr. OBEY

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

Mr. OBEY. No, I do not. I would prefer to stick to the rules of the House.

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

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the requisite number of words. Mr. Chairman, as has been said numerous times, the issue here is not how much energy the Vice President is using. No serious-minded person is going to run around the Capitol as a light switch cop or an energy policeman. Mr. Cheney happens to be the person who occupies the Vice President's residence, but this is not about him, this is about the way the office itself should be dealt with. What the issue really is here is whether or not that office is going to be treated the same as other Americans and whether the existing occupant of the office will be treated the same as previous occupants of the office. Many Members of this House know that I often quote my favorite philosopher, Archie the Cockroach, and one of the things Archie said once was, ``The cost of living ain't so bad if you don't have to pay for it.'' That is the issue that is at stake today, because if the provision in this bill passes, then whoever occupies that residency in present or future years will not have to pay for increases in the cost of living, as do other Americans. Now, my understanding is that since 1999, the energy usage at the Vice President's residence has risen from $83,000 to $135,000, and my understanding is that it is expected to be $186,000 this year. So what is at stake is a simple question here: will whoever occupies that residence be insulated from those future increases in costs, increases which the average American will not be insulated from? That is the sole question at issue here, and it has nothing whatsoever to do with whether one likes the Vice President or not. I happen to like him. I have known him since 1965. I consider him to be a good friend and a fine public servant. But I do note that like all of us, the present occupant of that office has made statements that he probably wishes he had back, and one has been previously cited, when he indicated, quote, ``If you want to leave the lights on in your house, you can, but you have to pay for it.'' The problem is that under the provisions in this bill, he will not, while everyone else does. I would point out also that if we take a look at the administration's justifications for this provision, we find the following sentence: ``The rationale for this requested transfer of responsibility is based on the fluctuating and unpredictable nature of utility costs.'' Well, as I have tried to make the point, it seems to me that we should not be singling out specific occupants of specific offices in this country for exemption from the volatility of those prices. I also note that in an article in The New York Times, they indicated that the White House said that by transferring all the President's costs to the Navy, there would be ``no need for the administration to return to Congress to ask for emergency appropriations, in the event of an exceptionally cold winter or hot summer.'' I would point out that it is interesting that they are interested in avoiding the need to ask for a supplemental by burying the cost somewhere else, but unfortunately, low-income families in this country who need programs such as the Low Income Heating Assistance Program are not subject to such delicate considerations. The budget that the White House has presented for the Low Income Heating Assistance Programs this year effectively delivers about $1 billion less than was delivered last year. So all I am suggesting is that I think offices and persons who occupy them ought to be treated the same as previous and future occupants. I also suggest that, as the gentleman said earlier, what is sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander. I do not think we ought to be seen as taking actions which exempt persons in government from some of the burdens which are so excruciatingly evident as they are applied to average citizens with respect to energy prices.

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. The distinguished majority leader suggested that this amendment is, in his inimitable styling, chicken manure. I would say that the issue of equity in a democracy is not ``chicken manure,'' it is fundamental to our ability to govern in a democracy with a very large mistrust of government and public officials. I can understand why someone who thinks that a tax bill that gives $53,000 in tax cuts to the wealthiest 1 percent of people in this society while it denies any tax cut whatsoever to 25 percent of the people who make less than $26,000 a year thinks that kind of a tax bill is equitable would think that an amendment such as this, which tries to address the issue of equal treatment, is somehow ``chicken manure.'' I think it is simply revealing of the mindset which allows people to call a tax bill like that equitable, and I am not at all surprised by it. I think the gentleman misses the larger point, and I am not surprised by that either. But I would simply say that what is at issue here is not as we have said on countless occasions, it is not what we think of the existing occupant of the Vice Presidential office. The issue is whether the second most powerful person in the land should be exempted from the same inflationary costs which are applied to every other citizen in this country. That is the issue. The issue is not whether we are trying to embarrass the Vice President or not. We did not propose the change contained in this legislation. The White House did. The only way you can object to a change proposed by the White House, if it is carried in a bill like this, is to offer an amendment to delete it. That is exactly what we are doing. And for us not to offer this amendment would be to acquiesce in the pervasive acceptance of inequality and inequity which has become, unfortunately, all too routine under the leadership of this House.

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I offer a preferential motion.

Mr. OBEY

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the last word. Mr. Chairman, I want to congratulate the gentleman from Michigan for offering this amendment and to explain why I think it is necessary. I have great misgivings about this entire Andean initiative. I think it is a dubious enterprise put together by someone who qualifies more to be permanent president of an Optimist Club than president of anything else. But, nonetheless, I think we have to work with what limited opportunities we have. My misgivings about this program were expanded even more and magnified even more by one of the provisions in this bill which this amendment corrects. Last year, as part of an effort to ease the passage of this $1.3 billion initiative in the appropriations supplemental, the administration, then the Clinton administration, accepted the Byrd amendment, which limited overall personnel in the region to 800. This bill originally sought to eliminate that cap, and the amendment being offered by the gentleman from Michigan today restores that cap. I want to tell you why I think that is important. When the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution came up back in the sixties, Senator Gaylord Nelson from my home State was determined to offer an amendment to the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution, which specified that that resolution would not be used in any way to inject troops into Vietnam. He was told by then Senator Bill Fulbright, chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee, that Fulbright was convinced that there was no need for Nelson to offer that amendment, because President Johnson had assured Mr. Fulbright that he would never use the resolution for that purpose. So Nelson reluctantly agreed not to offer that amendment, preventing the use of that resolution as an excuse to inject American troops above the advisers that were then present. Everyone lived to regret it, except for about 50,000 Americans, who did not when they went to Vietnam. That is why I think it is important to retain this cap. Better to be safe than sorry. While I appreciate the gentleman from Arizona's indication that he did not believe this amendment was necessary in order to restrain the administration, I think it is always better for the Congress in instances like this to be safe, rather than sorry. It seems to me that I have only been around here 32 years, and in that time I have had plenty of occasions where I have seen administrations of both parties lie to me. So, with all due respect to any administration, I would prefer to see the Congress retain its ability to keep us out of a mess. That is what I think this amendment seeks to do; and I hope, as we move to the Senate, we can tighten it even further. I strongly believe that this Andean effort, while well-intentioned, is misguided and misdirected. I really believe if we want to deal with the drug problem, we will only win that problem by dealing with it here at home. I firmly believe that every single dollar which we are committing to this effort would be much better spent to see to it that every single American who ought to be in a drug treatment program and is not in that program is afforded the opportunity to get into one of those programs. To me, if we want to solve the problem of drugs, we will solve it in the end by dealing on the demand side of the ledger. If you can gain a little bonus on the interdiction side, so be it. But I can recall after chairing the Subcommittee on Foreign Operations for a number of years, being told by the deputy in charge of interdiction under President Reagan that in fact we did not during all of those years interdict more than 2 percent of the drugs that were aimed at entry into the United States. I hardly think that statistic, while it has improved somewhat these days, we are not exactly having a crashing success when it comes to interdiction; and I think in the end it would be better if we used money to reduce demand in our own society. But for the moment, we do not have the ability to do that because of the rule under which we are debating this bill. Meanwhile, I think this is a good reasonable action, and I congratulate the gentleman for agreeing to this compromise. I want to express my appreciation to the gentleman from Arizona for accepting the compromise.

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I appreciate it very much. I will only take 1 minute. I want to illustrate something. What is this? That is the sound of one hand clapping. The only point the gentleman from Michigan is trying to make is that eradicating coca without giving farmers something else to do is not very effective. It produces the same results as one hand clapping. All he is trying to suggest, I believe, is that if you want to continue the spraying, at least deliver the aid that we said would be delivered in a simultaneous fashion. Because if you do not you guarantee the failure of the program. I thank the gentleman for yielding.

Mr. OBEY

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the last word, and I rise in support of the amendment. Mr. Chairman, Congress's record in handling this issue is a sorry one indeed, and I think it institutionally ought to be ashamed of itself for its total lack of guts in defending our obligations under the Constitution and our prerogatives under the Constitution. Basically, we are engaged in a war a long ways away in Colombia, rather than engaging in that war on our own streets here at home. We cannot do much about that today under the rules under which we are being forced to debate this bill. But I want to be very blunt about what I think is happening. We are right now engaged in this war, even though this Congress never had an intelligent, thoughtful debate through the normal processes of this House. We are not operating under an authorization produced by the authorizing committee. We are operating under a political compromise fashioned by the former President of the United States, Bill Clinton, and the present Speaker of the House, the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Hastert), and rammed through this House on both sides of the aisle with no real ability of the authorizing committee to effect in any way the outcome. With all due respect to the Committee on Appropriations on which I have served for over 30 years, that is not the job of the Committee on Appropriations. The job of the Committee on Appropriations is to fund programs previously authorized, and certainly it is not the job of the Committee on Appropriations to get this country in a position where we could inadvertently be sucked into a conflict that could keep us there for years. The question is not whether we like the rebels in Colombia and the question is not whether we like the President of Colombia; the question is whether or not we believe that that society, as presently constituted and constructed and organized, has the ability to make what we are doing in this program work and, in my view, based on long observations of that society, I do not believe that that is the case. Mr. Chairman, I would like to quote something said by Jim Hoagland, who I think can accurately be described as a moderate conservative columnist in The Washington Post. This is what he wrote a year ago. ``In Colombia, the United States pursues unattainable goals, largely for domestic political reasons with inappropriate tools.'' Then he says, ``Now in the rush to the quagmire, we see the following:'' and then he goes on to talk about what happens when it becomes clear that in the considered judgment of the U.S., air force officers in the Colombian military will not be able to maintain the Blackhawks under the conditions in which they will be flying has shown to be correct. He asked what will happen then. Then he simply goes on to make the point that the Congress is slipping us into this war little by little the way that Kennedy and Johnson did in Vietnam, and we all know what the disastrous results were of that operation. I am also frankly mystified by the views of our new Drug Czar, John Walters. Walters was quoted a year ago as attacking the idea that we ought to focus on drug treatment. When he was discussing the value of that idea he said this: ``This is an ineffectual policy, the latest manifestation of the liberals' commitment to a `therapeutic state' in which government serves as the agent of personal rehabilitation.'' I find that comment to be condescending and arrogant and, most of all, misguided. The fact is that if we take a look at the research done by SAMHSA, the agency charged with knowing what we are doing on drug treatment and rehabilitation, if we take a look at studies done by RAND, financed, in part, by the U.S. Army, they estimate that a dollar spent on treatment here at home is 23 times as effective as fighting a war or trying to interdict drugs internationally.

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I am for doing both, but I am not for spending over $1 billion last year and almost that amount this year over 1,000 miles away from home when we still have drug addict after drug addict roaming the streets of our cities untreated and unable to get into the drug treatment programs that we have provided in this country, simply because this Congress is too misguided and does not provide the money. It seems to me that this amendment is a token effort at what we ought to do on this program, and I, for one, intend to support it. I have no illusion that it is going to pass, but it is what we ought to do and, most of all, this Congress ought to have a full-blown, detailed debate on this issue after we have had briefings from the administration and others so that we know what the facts are on the ground and we are operating on the basis of facts, not ideology, or operating on the basis of substance, not politics. I think the leadership of both parties has been disgracefully negligent in getting us to drift into this war without any real thought about what the outcome is going to be.

Mr. OBEY

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

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Utah (Mr. Matheson).

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Bentsen). (Mr. BENTSEN asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 8 minutes. Mr. Speaker, this is certainly a far better bill than we had when it left the House, and it is certainly a far more honest bill than was the case when it left the House. The House will recall that at the time of going to conference we asked the House to consider doing three things in our motion to instruct. The first was to ask the House to drop the rescission of $389 million in previously appropriated disaster money for FEMA. The majority at that time declined to support that motion. But this conference, in fact, did adopt that position, and I think that was the correct position to take. We also asked the House at that time to provide additional funding for the victims of radiation related sickness, because many of them were in fact the victims of the conduct of their own government. This is an important issue out west. And while, again, the majority did not support the motion to recommit, we are happy that in the end they did provide a recognition that these people are entitled to this compensation, and I am happy that the matter was addressed in conference. We also asked in that motion that the House support direct funding to enable the Department of Agriculture to deal with the twin threats of foot and mouth disease and mad cow disease. The conferees there did provide $5 million of direct funding and they provided support for $30 million in indirect funding. So I think on those three items certainly this bill is a much better bill than we had when the bill first left the House. I should make some other points. This bill will have broad bipartisan support, but there are certainly a number of other areas where this bill should have acted but chose not to. I also wish that this bill had been passed faster. Certainly the committees in both Houses moved the bill as quickly as they got it, but the administration chose to withhold their request of these funds until after the tax bill was passed. And in my view, one of the reasons they did that was to hide from the House's view the implications of that tax bill for some of the critical items in this bill. And I think some of the inadequacies in this bill were purposely withheld from the House until after the tax bill was passed so that people's views of those inadequacies would not get in the way of passing the kind of tax bill the administration wanted. I should also say that there are a number of areas where the bill, I think, should have been improved. In the area of emergency disaster assistance, for instance, we have had some very severe storms all across the country, especially in the Midwest. It was strange, I thought, that this Congress originally tried to eliminate $389 million in previously appropriated funds to deal with that problem. I welcome the fact that the Congress essentially decided in the end to restore that money, but I do believe that there are still other needs to be met. And I think it needs to be clearly understood this FEMA budget is adequate only so long as Mother Nature suspends her normal course of events in producing heavy storms over the summer period. If we have one more storm, this budget will clearly be inadequate. And I think the administration knows it, and I believe that the majority in this House knows it. I would also point out that the state of military readiness that will be enabled by this bill is what is required to meet world conditions provided that nothing significant happens in the world between now and the end of the fiscal year. If it does, we are going to need additional funding mighty quick. And lastly, I think it is also clear that if we have the usual round of forest fires in the west, that this bill will be clearly inadequate. I hope that we get lucky, but I am not convinced that we will. I am also pleased that the bill did provide clarifying authority to make certain that the Department of Agriculture understands that they do have the authority to provide reimbursement to the various private groups who are helping to carry out the global food initiative. I also must say, going back to the FEMA issue, I find this bill on this subject somewhat disingenuous. The administration, in my judgment, fully recognizes that this account is probably short. Certainly the FEMA agency itself, in their conversations with me, have indicated that they expect that in the end they will probably need at least $.5 billion more, and perhaps as much as $1 billion more. And I would say that I found interesting the St. Paul conversion on the road to Damascus of the distinguished majority whip. As my colleagues will recall, he, on three occasions, insisted that we support the rescission of the funds for FEMA. We welcome the fact that he has walked away from that position, to the extent that now he is recognizing that there is probably going to be a need for $1.3 billion in additional funds for FEMA. The strangeness in this whole episode is demonstrated by the fact that while the administration has said in public comment, in newspapers, that we probably will need more money, they have declined to ask for that money. This committee has made quite clear, at least the Democratic majority in the other body has made quite clear, and we have made quite clear on our side of the aisle in this House that we would be willing to provide that money if the administration asks for it. But I guess we will have to play Russian roulette a while longer before the administration decides what it is actually going to do for the remainder of the year. So, in short, this bill has some shortcomings, but I think it is good that the committee moved as fast as it did to finish action on it. I think that we will have broad support on both sides of the aisle. I would urge support of the bill. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from North Carolina (Mr. Price).

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. McGovern).

Mr. OBEY

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, reclaiming my time, I thank the gentleman. Let me simply say that I think that is a very helpful comment from him. I think Members need to understand that we are in danger of seeing news outlets in this country virtually homogenized. We are in danger of seeing many local voices stilled by these constant mergers and mega- mergers between media corporations. We need a diversity of media expression in this country, and I hope that the FCC does not contribute to the exact opposite, as I fear they may be planning, and I thank the gentleman.

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, as the designee of the gentleman from New York (Mr. Serrano), I move to strike the last word. Mr. Chairman, it has been my intent to offer today an amendment to this bill that would have been a straight limitation on the Federal Communications Commission prohibiting the Commission from implementing any change in the current rules related to media cross-ownership and concentration of media ownership issues. I am concerned with the current level of concentration in media markets. I think there are too few media outlets in many markets across the country. A concentration of media power into the hands of a few media companies is an issue I think every one of us in this body ought to be concerned about, and I think we need to take a closer look at this issue. That was the purpose of my amendment. I am concerned that the current group of commissioners on the FCC, particularly the chairman, does not share this concern and may even be laying the groundwork for relaxing or even eliminating some of the media ownership limitations on the books at the FCC. My amendment would not have tied the agency's hands in considering proposed changes. I just wanted to make sure that the Congress had an opportunity to review the proposals in the appropriate forum before the FCC could implement any changes to those rules. My amendment, therefore, would have delayed until the end of the year the implementation of any proposed changes to the rules addressed in media cross-ownership and concentration. I know the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Dingell), the ranking member of the Committee on Energy and Commerce, shares many of my concerns; and I know he also had concerns about the amendment I was considering because he feared it would tie the hands of the Commission to respond to any court order challenging the current rules, if there is such a court order, during the fiscal year. So I would like to engage in a colloquy with the gentleman. Knowing of the gentleman's concerns regarding the issue of diversity in the media and maintaining the voice of local broadcasting, I would urge him to keep this issue at the front of the debate on the Committee on Energy and Commerce, and I would ask the gentleman one question: Can he tell us if the authorizing committee intends to hold hearings on the issue of media ownership?

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

Mr. OBEY. Let me simply say, I agree with the gentleman that the committee is making good progress. There are still a number of hurdles that we are going to have to get over tonight if we are going to be finished. It will require the cooperation of every Member in terms of limiting time on amendments which we will try to get done. We are not there yet, but I hope that we can get there if we have a reasonable sense of flexibility on Members' part.