Dave Obey

Mr. OBEY

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I again yield myself 30 seconds. The gentleman has just denounced the idea of having a Federal school construction program. I would point out the Republican chairman of the authorizing committee has introduced his own school construction program which at least matches the President's in size. Why can we not simply fund it, since apparently the need is recognized on both sides of the aisle?

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 30 seconds. The previous speaker just said that the answer to everything is teacher quality. If that is the case, I would like to know why the majority party cut the President's teacher quality initiatives by $527 million below his request.

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 3 minutes. Mr. Speaker, the gentleman just said that obviously all of us on the House floor agree with the first part of the motion that asks the conferees to fund education at the highest possible level. But, in fact, the conferees yesterday repeated early and often the fact that they were not willing to go one dime above the level now contained in their bill for the Labor, Health, and Education budget. It is true that our friends have now, belatedly, after 5 years of trying to savage the education programs, it is true that at this point they are above the President on some aspects of the education budget. But that is largely due to the additions in Pell Grants and the additions in special education, both of which we support on this side of the aisle. We have no quarrel with that. We believe that this country is wealthy enough that there ought to be room enough for both Republican priorities and Democratic priorities when it comes to education. When it comes to the disadvantaged, for instance, the fact is that the majority party is $85 million in total below the President's budget for Title I, and within that reduced number they have eliminated the President's request for $250 million to use to fix schools that are in the most trouble and are failing. On vocational education they are above the President on State grants, but they are $200 million below the President on voc-ed tech prep programs. And the list can go on and on. When we cut through it all, the fact is very simple: we are asking the majority to put at least $3 billion in additional funding for education into the Labor-HHS bill. If Members are for that, then vote for this motion. If my colleagues are not for it, and they vote for this motion, they will be walking both sides of the street. If we are for adding that $3 billion, then we do not need any more motions to instruct. Just bring out the conference report, and we will have a bill that can fly through both Houses, if we deal with some of the other problems that have to be fixed in the Labor Department and in the HHS Department. So when we cut through it all, in the end, what counts is whether or not we will bring to this floor a bill which in the area of education will provide $3 billion above the level that has been provided up to this point. That is what this argument is about, and that is what we are going to continue to fight for.

Mr. OBEY. Well, the last time I looked, his leadership was Republican. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the distinguished gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Andrews). (Mr. ANDREWS asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 15 seconds. Is the gentleman denying that yesterday Senator Specter told us in conference that your leadership said that we could not go one dime above the education bill that you had already put together? Is the gentleman denying that?

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 15 seconds. The position of the majority party has been that while there is $28 billion in money on the table to allocate under their budget proposal, that not one additional dime should go to education. That is crazy.

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the distinguished gentleman from California (Mr. George Miller).

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 8 minutes. Mr. Speaker, we are here on this motion today in large part because yesterday a motion to instruct conferees on this bill was made on that side of the aisle and I indicated that if we were going to get into the business of instructing conferees then we would have a significant number of motions on our own on this side. I do not particularly enjoy this process, but I do not think we can sit by while the guns are being fired by only one side on an issue as important as education, for instance. I am also disappointed, frankly, because I understood that the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Goodling), our good friend, was going to offer a motion which would have instructed the House to support the idea of making major appropriations to Title VI for the purpose of providing funding to local school districts, which they could use with great flexibility. Let me state, if that motion had been offered, I would have voted for it. My position on this, and I think the vast majority of people on this side of the aisle feel the same way, is that we are for all of the money that we can get into education and get back to local school districts. We think that is the number one priority facing the country. However, we believe that there ought to be accountability in the way that money is used, and we believe that whatever funds are provided from such a block grant, for instance, should be provided in addition to the funds that are provided to meet national priority needs, not as a substitute for funds which are provided for those priority needs. There is a second reason that we are here, because I think we need to clarify what it is that both parties are trying to do in the conference on the Labor, Health and Education appropriation bill. To explain that, I need to put it in context. Mr. Speaker, 5 years ago, the majority party, when they took over control of this House, produced a budget which, among other things, tried to cut the Education budget 20 percent below the budget of the previous year; they tried to eliminate the Department of Education, and they felt so strongly about it that they were willing to see the government shut down in order to force their budget priorities on the President. They did not exactly win that argument, and they certainly did not win the political argument associated with it. So they slowly but surely have backed off that proposition, but they continue at every opportunity to show their basic antagonism toward initiatives made by the President to strengthen education. The latest evidence of that is the fact that in the bill which moved out of the House, they made very large cuts in the President's education budget. They cut some $400 million out of after-school funding that the President had proposed. They cut $1.3 billion out of school modernization, they cut $1.7 billion out of the President's class size initiative, and instead tried to fold that money into a block grant arrangement under which a major ability to achieve accountability is lost. That is one of the places where we part company. The majority now, in conference, has chosen to add about $5.5 billion of their priorities back into the Labor, Health, Education bill, but so far, there appears to be no room in the inn for our priorities or the President's priorities. I want to make it clear. We do not believe that providing flexible funding to school districts is automatically opposed to the idea of providing specific funding for specific purposes to local districts. We think we ought to do both; and, in fact, we have provided that we do both, by supporting significant funding for Title VI. But we want to make it clear. We are for the President's efforts to provide $1.7 billion for his class-size reduction program. We are for the President's efforts to provide $1.3 billion in assistance to local school districts to renovate ancient, outmoded and dangerous buildings. I just had one closed in my district last week by the State Department of Public Construction, for instance; and we are for some other things. The majority party has increased funding for special education by a significant amount, and yet the bill does not fully reflect the amount for special education that this House indicated it wanted to see when on May 3, it passed the authorization. So we believe that there ought to be a substantial increase in special education funding above the amount provided in the House bill. We also believe that since we are providing huge amounts of money to Colombia for drug interdiction, we also ought to have a significant increase of well over $200 million in funding for drug treatment slots here at home. We also believe that we ought to substantially increase Pell Grant funding above the amount provided by either the administration or the majority party in its budget so far. Mr. Speaker, I would simply note that the problem we face is that under the newest of proposals raised by the majority party on how to deal with the surplus, they indicate that there would be about $28 billion on the table that could be used for a variety of purposes. So far, it appears that they intend to use $2 billion of that in the Energy and Water bill; it appears that the interior bill is going to come back to the House $3 billion to $4 billion above the level that it was when it passed the House originally, yet we are told that none of that money should be, none of that $28 billion should be devoted to increases in education above the amount stipulated by the majority party. We do not agree with that. Mr. Speaker, we think, therefore, that this motion is proper in both of its aspects. We simply ask that the conferees provide the highest funding level possible for the Department of Education, and we also ask that we disagree with the provisions in the Senate amendment which would fund the flexible money that goes back to school districts in the form of block grants at the expense of the President's two initiatives on school modernization and on class-size reduction. We are perfectly willing to see an increase in Title VI, provided that we have adequate accountability for those funds, but not at the expense of the President's priorities. Mr. Speaker, we believe this country is healthy enough and prosperous enough to fund both the majority party's priorities and ours and the President's, and that is the purpose of this motion to instruct today.

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I offer a motion to instruct conferees, pursuant to clause 7(c) of House rule XXII.

Mr. OBEY

Mr. OBEY. If this motion passes, I want to note, Mr. Speaker, pursuant to clause 7(c) of House rule XXII, I hereby notify the House of my intention tomorrow to offer the following Motion to Instruct House conferees on H.R. 4577, a bill making appropriations for fiscal year 2001 for the Departments of Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education: I move that the managers on the part of the House at the conference on the disagreeing votes of the two Houses on the bill, H.R. 4577, be instructed to insist on the highest funding level possible for the Department of Education; and to insist on disagreeing with provisions in the Senate amendment which denies the press the President's request for dedicated resources to reduce class sizes in the early grades and for local school construction and, instead, broadly expands the Title VI Education Block Grant with limited accountability in the use of funds. If we are going to start providing motions to instruct at this late date in the session, then I am going to have a number of motions which I think are germane to the operations of the committee.

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself the balance of the time. Mr. Speaker, this motion is going to pass by a large vote. I understand that. When the vote comes, I personally am going to vote ``present.'' As some Members have noticed from time to time, I on numerous occasions have voted ``present'' as a matter of protest in order to suggest that the House is dealing with an issue which I believe ought to be dealt with on another level of government. Often that has been the District of Columbia with respect to its own affairs, and on occasion it has been other local units of government. This is another such occasion. I simply do not think that the same rules apply in a district which is very largely composed of white, middle-class, fairly prosperous, well-knit families and then, in contrast to other districts where you have huge amounts of poverty, childhood neglect, loosely knit families, areas such as the gentlewoman from Connecticut (Mrs. Johnson) described where children literally often do not see their parents for days at a time. And so I think that this matter is best left to local school officials because they are the people on the frontlines trying to weigh the conflicting equities that they so often face not just in schools but in police work and in a number of other areas, as well. Notice of Intention to Offer Motion to Instruct Conferees on H.R. 4577, Departments of Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 2001

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentlewoman from New York (Ms. Slaughter).

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Pelosi).

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Moran).

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentlewoman from Connecticut (Ms. DeLauro).

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, how much time do I have remaining?

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman. I yield 1 minute to the gentlewoman from Illinois (Ms. Schakowsky).

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentlewoman from New York (Mrs. Maloney). (Mrs. MALONEY of New York asked and was given permission to revise and extend her remarks.)

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentlewoman from Colorado (Ms. DeGette).

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield 4 minutes to the distinguished gentlewoman from New York (Mrs. Lowey). (Mrs. LOWEY asked and was given permission to revise and extend her remarks.)

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the distinguished gentlewoman from California (Ms. Woolsey). (Ms. WOOLSEY asked and was given permission to revise and extend her remarks.)

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 3 minutes. Mr. Speaker, I frankly am of a split mind on this issue. I am fairly old fashioned, and I come from a part of the country where these kinds of subjects are not discussed much in public, and I frankly get uneasy when I walk into a lot of places and see condoms and other devices being made available on a wholesale basis. I am very uncomfortable about that. But I think it is also a complicated question. I have concerns about the motion of the gentleman from Oklahoma and actually there are a number of reasons. First of all, because I am not necessarily convinced that the best approach in my city, my hometown would be the best approach in New York or San Francisco or Lexington, Kentucky or other communities or vice versa. And I think one of the problems with the Coburn motion is that it gets in the way of local people being able to decide how they want to handle a very sensitive problem. Secondly, I think you do have conflicting views about which approach actually saves the most lives and prevents the most abortions. And I suspect that what the answer is to that question again depends on the community morals and practices and culture. And so while I understand those who say that they find issues like this distasteful and sometimes they get, in fact, angry. Mr. Speaker, I really wonder whether it is wise for the Congress to tell local school districts that one approach is better than another. The other thing I would simply say is that we are trying to close up this session, and that means we are trying to resolve differences; that means we are trying to keep as much language off appropriation bills as possible, and it seems to me that to the extent that these riders are attached, which are legislative in nature, they get in the way of our ability to finish our work before the end of the fiscal year, and that causes all kinds of turmoil. And also, frankly, if we are going to start making motions to instruct on this bill, then a number of us are going to have motions to instruct to try to accomplish policy ends that we think are important also. So if we are about to get into that business, then I guess we are going to have to get into it all the way. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, could I inquire, how much time is remaining?

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that 14 minutes of my time be allocated to the distinguished gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Porter) for purposes of control.

Mr. OBEY

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, let me make clear, that is an issue, because the administration indicates that if that tax is to be considered, and it ought to be considered in conjunction with other changes in the tax law which the administration also wants, not unilaterally in a privileged position, without any of the administration's tax preferences being taken into account. I thank the gentleman for yielding.