Dave Obey

Mr. OBEY

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, further reserving the right to object, let me simply say that there are large portions of this bill to which I am strongly opposed, as the gentleman from Florida knows, including the Colombia aid package. I have expressed my view through my votes as this has gone through the process. I feel it is my institutional obligation, even though I continue to be opposed to large sections of this, to at least facilitate the House's ability to work its will. There will be, I am sure, a rollcall vote on final passage so Members will express themselves. So in the interest of moving the House forward more quickly, I do not intend to object. Mr. Speaker, I withdraw my reservation of objection.

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, reserving the right to object, I yield to the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Young) so that he may briefly explain to the Members what this is all about.

Mr. OBEY

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

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, at this point, I think it is important for people to understand that we consider those items to be merely deferred, not eliminated, because people are smoking something that is not legal if they think we are going to be able to get out of here without dealing with these problems, because the collapse in farm prices is simply not going to go away, and the Congress is going to have to respond to that.

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I think it is important to recapitulate that what occurred on the supplemental is that the majority party at the staff level had determined that there was a very large amount of money that both the Senate and the House were asking to be included in this bill for everything from citrus canker to dairy supplemental payments to you name it on the agriculture side. The decision was made by the majority negotiators to eliminate all of those items before anyone else was even brought into the conversation.

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I yield to the gentlewoman from North Carolina (Mrs. Clayton).

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I yield to the gentleman from New Mexico (Mr. Skeen).

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I am happy to yield to the gentlewoman from Ohio (Ms. Kaptur).

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I would like to ask the gentleman from New Mexico (Mr. Skeen), chairman of the subcommittee, if he can assure the Members of the House that the agriculture items contained in the supplemental will represent the House position when we take the regular fiscal year 2001 appropriation bill to conference with the other body? Mr. Chairman, I yield to the gentleman from New Mexico (Mr. Skeen).

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

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the last word. Mr. Chairman, I would like to enter into a colloquy with the gentleman from New Mexico (Mr. Skeen), chairman of the subcommittee, and the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Young), chairman of the full committee. In the Supplemental Appropriations bill that the House passed in March, $393,193,000 was included in programs within the jurisdiction of this subcommittee. The Supplemental Appropriations bill, which is coming to the floor sometime this evening apparently, or whenever the final differences of the House and the Senate can be resolved, contains only about $56 million of that amount. It is my understanding that those items were deleted without prejudice in order that the two bodies might reach agreement on urgently needed funds for the Army and for firefighting in the Western States before the July 4th district work period. I ask the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Young), is that the correct intent of where we stand?

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentlewoman for yielding me this time. The gentleman from Oklahoma (Mr. Coburn) just said that there were some Members standing on this floor who were saying it was okay to use taxpayers' money for research which is of no value. Nobody is saying that. I mean, the gentleman's comments I think simply do not accurately reflect what Members have said. What we are saying is that it is nice if there are people in this place who recognize the value of something as well as its cost. That goes to the very essence of research. We do not know ahead of time what value there will be, but we do know that there will be a very large cost if we do not engage in that research, whether it is in the case of human disease or even, I might add, if it is in the case of bovine flatulence which produces methane which has an impact on atmospheric gases. Mr. Chairman, I see nothing against the national interest in trying to determine whether an adjustment in bovine diet can lead to less impact on the Earth's atmosphere, so that we do not have to focus all of the squeeze in creating a cleaner environment on industry which has a negative impact on jobs.

Mr. OBEY. That is fine, but this is an institution that makes collective judgments. With all due respect to the gentleman, I think the committee spent more time examining this problem than the gentleman has.

Mr. OBEY. I would simply say this, we have an economy that is second to none in the world. We have an agricultural community which is second to none in the world. We did not get that way by putting green eyeshades ahead of our own judgment. Sometimes the Congress has the temerity to think that there ought to be an increase in a program because there is some other value that is served by investing that money. I would simply say that it is very easy for one Member who has not sat through hearings, who has not gone over the individual Member requests, who has not weighed the requests of one Member versus another, given the very tight squeeze on money that we have around here, it is very easy for a Member to come to the floor and just say, knock off the increase in this program, or knock off that category of grants. The reason Congress has survived as the strongest legislative body in the world is because Congress specializes, and Members are expected to learn their trade. They are expected to learn about the subject matter under the jurisdiction of their committee. If we cannot have some expectation that that committee is to be trusted to use good judgment, then we become a zoo where the amendments are adopted on the basis of what some staffer in some Member's office thinks is a clever tack. I do not think that serves the interests of the taxpaying public.

Mr. OBEY. I did not mention the gentleman.

Mr. OBEY. I yield to the gentleman from South Carolina.

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the requisite number of words. Mr. Chairman, there are a lot of problems with this bill, but I want to take just a moment to question the presumption that somehow the public interest is served if the Congress never exercises its own judgment about where a dime of taxpayers' money ought to go. There are a lot of occasions on which I oppose individual requests of Members to add items to appropriation bills. Many times I oppose them because essentially those requests have been marred by lobby groups in this town. I think Members ought to be able to represent their own districts without having to be plagued by a middleman who is simply trying to make money off the deal. But the gentleman from Washington said something which I wanted to emphasize when he talked about the tendency of some people in this institution to sometimes go after projects just because they ``sound funny.'' I remember about 15 years ago when a research project at the National Science Foundation was ridiculed on this House floor, on the Senate floor, and in most of the newspapers across the country because it was a research project involving Polish pigs. Everybody had a big laugh about the research that was being done on Polish pigs. The fact is that out of that research came one of the new, modern drugs for control of blood pressure.

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, will the gentlewoman yield?

Mr. OBEY

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentlewoman for yielding me the time. Mr. Chairman, we have had one of the wonders of congressional history plaguing every farmer in this country the past few years; it has been called the Freedom to Farm Act. And under that act, farmers have had the freedom to experience record lows in the prices they are getting for their products. Dairy farmers, for instance, are getting about 40 percent less than they were getting just a few years ago for every hundred pounds of milk they sell, and you have lots of other commodities where farm prices are in the tank. You have suicide rates in farm-dominated counties at very high levels, and one would think that a Congress, which is supposedly dedicated to the free market to letting the ``wondrous'' market forces work, would insist that you have really true markets. Mr. Chairman, but if you look at the adequacy of this budget in terms of enabling the U.S. Department of Agriculture to assure that we have the tools to prevent undue market concentration so that you can maintain real markets, you see this bill is woefully inadequate. One of the great Supreme Court justices in our history noted once that a free market is the most essential ingredient in our capitalist system for any legitimate business to function, and yet you see four companies now control 81 percent of the cattle purchases, beef processing, and wholesale marketing. You see that four companies now control 56 percent of the pork market, and you see the same concentration in other areas; poultry, for instance. And this bill is grossly inadequate to prevent that problem from getting worse. We also have seen in the supplemental all efforts to help our farmers on the commodity price front have been stripped from that bill, so at this point that bill does not do anything for farmers. It pretends to do something on allowing additional exports. But in reality, it is a drop in the bucket, because of loopholes in the provision which was put in the conference report last night after the conference report had been signed, which is why I had to remove my name from that conference report, regrettably, because I had intended to try to support that bill. I do not believe in keeping my name on an agreement after that agreement has been unilaterally altered. I think that practice is offensive or ought to be to this House. I am going to ask Members, when the time comes, to vote against this bill, because this bill certainly is not adequate to our challenges on the farm front. It is not adequate with respect to pest control. It is not adequate with respect to agricultural research. It is not adequate with respect to rural development.

Mr. OBEY

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I will withdraw my request that the gentleman's words be taken down, with the expectation that there will be no words used on this floor which can in any way be interpreted as attacking another Member.

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I object to the word ``purposely.'' Mr. Speaker?

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I demand that the words of the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Diaz-Balart) be taken down.

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I demand that the words of the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Diaz-Balart) be taken down. The gentleman has accused the gentleman from Massachusetts of making an ethnic slur. The gentleman referred to a city. The gentleman, to my knowledge, made no ethnic slur, whatsoever; and I think it is the gentleman from Florida who owes the gentleman from Massachusetts an apology.

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I think it is fitting that, at the end of a daffy day we should be discussing a daffy deal on a daffy rule that will bring a daffy bill to the floor. Let me first say that I am mystified by the way the leadership of the House is proceeding on this. My understanding of the way one is supposed to use the legislative body is that the committees are supposed to make their recommendations to the full House. Then the leadership is supposed to use the House as the vehicle that makes decisions by determining what the majority view is. That is the way we work out most of our differences out here. We bring our differences to the floor. We have an honest debate about them, and then we vote, and we see who wins and who loses. The problem that we are running into in this session is that, time and time again, when committees make recommendations that the leadership worries about, they then proceed to try to twist the rules to prevent the House from working out our differences by preventing us from even voting on them. This is another such case tonight. What is happening tonight is that the gentleman from Washington (Mr. Nethercutt) offered a proposal which I and many others supported on both sides of the aisle which would not make American farmers who are suffering record low prices the first victims of foreign policy decisions. That is a controversial action taken by the gentleman and taken by us. But now we are told that a deal has been struck. Well, let me describe what that deal is, because I think what the gentleman from Washington (Mr. Nethercutt) is buying to take home to his farmers is a bushel basket with no bottom. It is empty. What has happened is that the language which was adopted by a majority in the committee was not protected by the Committee on Rules, and so that language is now going to be stricken on a point of order on this bill in return for a promise that maybe it will be attached to the supplemental bill. The problem is that at this point all four major conferees, Senator Stevens, myself, Senator Byrd, and the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Young), have been made to understand that it is going to be almost impossible to attach that provision to the supplemental because of Senate rules. As I understand it, if that proposal is attached to a supplemental, it then becomes subject to a point of order under Senate rules. And Senator Dodd has already promised that if that language is attached to the supplemental, he will force the Senate to read word by word the entire bill, and that takes us to about next Wednesday. So we can be celebrating July 4th here in the Capitol. That is what happens if this is transferred to the supplemental bill. So what we have is the gentleman from Washington buying a deal that allows him to possibly transfer this debate to a bill which will go nowhere if this provision is attached to it. That is not going to help a single farmer in America. So I think he bought a very bad deal. I also think that it puts in jeopardy the passage of the supplemental. Now, I have opposed most of the items in the supplemental. I am deeply opposed to what that supplemental provides for aid to Colombia, for instance. I agree with Senator Stevens that that is likely to get us into a protracted war. I hope I am wrong. I have been wrong many times before; I hope this is another time. But the problem is that if we attach this provision to that bill, we will have instant controversy; and it will mean that we put at risk the passage of that supplemental. And if we put at risk the passage of that supplemental, the U.S. Army begins to have some real problems because of their drawdowns. So I do not understand why on earth the House is proceeding this way. If I were the House leadership, I would not even be bringing up this rule tonight because I would not want to put myself in a box foreclosing the possible use of this vehicle for the Nethercutt language. By adopting this rule tonight, we lock the House into a position where they have to either attach this to the supplemental or not. And if we attach it to the supplemental, we create a 50-50 chance that the supplemental is dead as the Dodo bird. Now, I do not think that moves legislation forward; and it confuses me, as someone who is trying to cooperate to help pass that supplemental, because I have lost at battles, but it is still my duty to try to help the House complete its business in conference. So in addition to that, there are a number of other problems with this rule, and there are a lot of problems with the underlying bill which I do not have time to get into, including the fact that it shortchanges antitrust, shortchanges food safety, shortchanges the budget for pest and disease control and for agriculture conservation practices. So at this point I am forced to declare my opposition to the bill, to the underlying bill, and to the rule itself. I would urge the leadership of the House not to put at risk the passage of the supplemental, because the Pentagon needs that too badly, and they are going to have to begin to do a lot of things which are going to embarrass the Congress as an institution if that supplemental cannot pass.

Mr. OBEY

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding me the time. Mr. Speaker, the drug companies vigorously support the Republican plan, because they understand that the Republican plan is like the wolf giving Little Red Riding Hood a roadmap through the woods. It is a phony deal. The Republican leadership says we can afford to provide $200 billion in tax cuts to the wealthiest 400 people in this country. They say we can afford to provide $90 billion in tax cuts to the wealthiest 1 percent who make more than $300,000 a year, but somehow we cannot afford to provide a real affordable prescription drug benefit for every senior citizen under Medicare. Under the Republican approach, they simply privatize Medicare, because they do not have the guts to let us vote on a real plan, because they know if they did, they would lose.