Dave Obey

Mr. OBEY

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, parliamentary inquiry. Do we have an opportunity to be heard before the Chair makes a decision?

Mr. OBEY

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, reserving the right to object, I do not intend to object. I simply would like to point out that the distinguished chairman of the committee, the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Young), yesterday asked Members to give notice of amendments that they might intend to offer so that they could be incorporated in any unanimous consent request today; and also said that the committee would know what we are doing when we are asked to either accept or reject them. I note that in the last hour there have been some eight additional amendments that have come out of the woodwork. Seven of those, I think it is fair to say, are coming from the majority side of the aisle. I would simply take note, for the benefit of Members who will want to know why we will be in so late tonight on this bill, that the committee tried to make certain that we had early notice of what the amendments were and apparently we have a lot more who desire to prolong the debate on that side of the aisle than we do on this side of the aisle. Mr. Speaker, I withdraw my reservation of objection.

Mr. OBEY

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I rise, not so much to comment on the content of the legislation, as to take note, as has the gentleman from Indiana (Mr. Visclosky) that the gentleman from California (Mr. Packard) is bringing this bill to the floor for the last time. Without getting into the merits of the bill, which are considerably constricted because of the budget resolution, which I find to be ill- advised, I simply, Mr. Chairman, wanted to say that I think that the gentleman from California (Mr. Packard) is one of the people who have added to the decency of this institution. In the years that he has been on the committee, I think he has been an extremely genial Member. I think he has been extremely fair-minded as chairman. I think he has worked very hard to try to produce a rational set of priorities in an irrational situation. I for one want to say that it has been a distinct pleasure for me to share our service in this institution. What I admire about the gentleman from California most of all is that he does not, he is not one of those Members who is prone to cheapshot the institution. He recognizes that this institution is a precious asset to the American people and tries to remind others of that fact in virtually everything he does. I simply want to congratulate him for the service he has provided to his district, to the country, to his State, to his party, and to this institution, and wish him good luck in whatever he does after he leaves this place.

Mr. OBEY

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, reclaiming my time, I would simply say the fact is those salaries are a whole lot less than every other branch of government. They still are. And it seems to me that one of the ways for people to judge Members of Congress is to judge them by whether or not they deal with their staffs the way they would like to be dealt with themselves. And, certainly, it seems to me that the country would be well served if we also had a greater ability to retain congressional employees of more experience so that we are not being advised by people who on average have been here less than 3 years. Amendment No. 25 Offered by Ms. Jackson-Lee of Texas

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I remember. My motto is: ``Forgive and remember.''

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

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the last word. Mr. Chairman, I should have asked for the gavel, because I could not believe my ears. My understanding is that the previous gentleman was inquiring about the inadequacy of the pay of Federal judges. I remember a number of years ago when the same gentleman was very active in seeing to it that this House did not provide cost-of-living increases for its own employees. I would simply say, I admire the gentleman's solicitude for people who are already making six figures, but frankly, I would like to see the same solicitude for the legislative branch of government, and by that, I specifically am thinking of the people who work for us. I am not talking about Members, I am talking about our staffs, the people who make us look a lot better than we are. I find it ironic that a gentleman who was very active in denying us that opportunity to compensate our own employees with a cost-of-living increase a number of years ago is now very concerned about the pay of the highest-paid judges in this country. I have nothing against adequate judicial salaries, but I also think we have a problem when the average length of stay for a young congressional staffer on the Hill is less than 3 years, and I think there is a serious problem when the House of Representatives on average pays its top legislative staffers $15,000 to $25,000 less on average than the United States Senate does. I have forgotten whether it is $15,000 or $25,000, so I will supply the exact number for the Record. But I just want to say that I share the gentleman's concern about adequate reimbursement for judges. I would welcome his concern about adequate salaries for the young people in this institution who work just as hard as Federal judges for about one-fifth the pay.

Mr. OBEY

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

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I do not necessarily endorse any individual peacekeeping operation. I do not believe that is my role. But when the committee says and the gentleman from Kentucky (Mr. Rogers) says that, no matter what happens in the world, that the United States, a year in advance, will declare that it will not provide more than $500 million for peacekeeping arrangements no matter what happens, then I have to say the gentleman from Kentucky (Mr. Rogers) reminds me of King Canute, the famous king who looked at the tide and said, ``Thou shalt not rise.'' I say ``good luck'' to the gentleman from Kentucky (Mr. Rogers). I am glad he is prescient enough to see ahead of time what our national needs are. I think everybody else in this Chamber is somewhat more humble about our ability to see the future.

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

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, this gentleman is not sure what the right way to proceed is on that issue. This gentleman is sure that the gentleman from Kentucky (Mr. Rogers) was not elected to be Secretary of State and neither was the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Obey) and for the Congress to, ahead of time, say that, regardless of what happens, only $500 million will be appropriated for peacekeeping is patently absurd. Why not telegraph to our enemies around the world ahead of time that once we hit the $500 million level, we ``ain't going to do nothing about anything?''

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, correction: The gentlewoman from California (Ms. Pelosi) is.

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, the 21st century in terms of American lives lost was the bloodiest in our history and the meanest, except for the 19th, in which we conducted an American Civil War which put brother against brother and from which we are still suffering some of the consequences. Now, we are turning into a different century, and it is to be hoped that America's role in the world is changing somewhat. At this point, there is no other power in the world that even comes close. We have the military might to cover any region, to reach any region, to sail any sea, to find and hit virtually any target, if we want; but we also have another role, and that role has been to try to serve not so much as a fighter, but as a separator of parties in many regional fights, in a peacekeeping role. Now, that is going to be a very messy situation. It is not always going to work, and there will be Americans who die. But if we do it right, there will be far less for America to pay in human terms than we have seen in each of the previous two centuries; that is what we try to do through the peacekeeping operations in the United Nations. Mr. Chairman, I do not happen to be thrilled with all of those peacekeeping operations, but I would point out one thing. We created the United Nations and we created the rules. Under those rules, when the United Nations votes for a peacekeeping operation in the security council, that requires a mandatory contribution from this country to fulfill our share of the financial burden. We are very lucky in comparison to a number of other countries in the world, because we more often than not do not supply the troops. We supply a little cash, and we supply a lot of advice, but we supply a very tiny percentage of the troops. We ought to be grateful for that. Now, what this bill asks us to do is to support the idea that a subcommittee of this House somehow has the right to interpose its judgment and to decide for itself just what peacekeeping operations the United Nations will support and which ones they will not. Well, that is not the way it is supposed to work. I did not realize that the gentleman from Kentucky had been confirmed as our ambassador to the United Nations and also as our Secretary of State and Secretary of Defense at the same time. I kind of missed that. I did not see those headlines. So what we have here in this bill is an attempt to say to the President of the United States and to the U.N. Security Council, ``Sorry, but regardless of the conditions in the world, you are limited to a specific dollar amount for peacekeeping operations. And the world can change overnight, but sorry, our green eye shade is more important than world considerations.'' I do not think that makes any sense, not if we are trying to preserve American power and influence; not if we are trying to prevent the loss of American lives; and not if we are trying to prevent the loss of other lives and to bring stability into the world. So what this amendment simply tries to do is to eliminate the pretentious action on the part of this subcommittee which says that this subcommittee somehow has the right, on mandatory contributions to the United Nations, to abrogate to itself the decision as to which peacekeeping operations will be undertaken. I believe that that is an ill-advised decision. I believe, as the Washington Post describes, that that is ``playing'' at foreign policy, and I think it is extremely dangerous. I congratulate the gentleman for offering his amendment, because in the end, we have no choice but to provide these funds under the rules which we ourselves wrote almost 50 years ago.

Mr. OBEY

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the requisite number of words. Mr. Chairman, this debate demonstrates just how dumb this bill is. We have the people who are offering the amendment, justifiably pointing out that the Patent Office ought to be fully funded because that office is key to innovation, it is key to economic progress, it is key to jobs, it is key to modernizing our economy. But because the majority party has decided that it is more important to give the 400 richest Americans $200 billion in tax cuts over the next 10 years, and because the majority party has decided that in the minimum wage bill, for God's sake, that gives only $11 billion worth of benefits to workers, they are going to give $90 billion in tax relief to people who make $300,000 a year or more; because of those stupid decisions, what they are doing is forcing us to choose which half of the economy we are going to cripple. So we have to choose between crippling the Patent Office, because this bill steals money from the fees in order to fund other programs; so we have to choose between doing that or gutting our ability to understand what is happening in this economy by gutting the statistical capability of the United States Government to know what is really happening on unemployment, to know what is really happening on trade, to know what is really happening with respect to price changes. Every politician from the Midwest and the Northeast on this floor is practically killing each other trying to get to the nearest microphone to crawl all over the floor about what is happening to gas prices. Then, what do they do in this amendment? They are gutting the ability of the Government to figure out what is happening, not just on gas prices, but on virtually all other price changes. This Congress passes out hundreds of billions of dollars to localities, to businesses, and to everybody else on the basis of economic statistics that are, at best, half-baked. So this Congress is being asked to continue that idiocy because this bill is at least $1 billion short of meeting its responsibilities. So we are having to decide which good, important, crucial government activity we are going to fund, and which one we are not. Everybody on this floor says, oh, I am for a smaller government; and then the first time we have a problem with gas prices, they say, why does not the Government do something to control those gas prices? Why do they not stop the gouging? The first time my colleagues do not like what is happening in the crime area, you say, why does not the Government do this? So my colleagues deny the Government the resources they need, and then they cry all over the floor when they cannot do the job that they are supposed to be doing. Mr. Chairman, this House reeks of idiocy and hypocrisy on these issues. We have a chance, because we are in an era of surpluses rather than deficits, we have a chance, if we do things right, to strengthen what needs to be strengthened in our economy, to continue this economic recovery for years to come, and at the same time, to bring along the folks in this society who are not in the top 2 percent, who have not had the big increase in income that others have had. Some of the folks are being left far behind on health care, on education, on everything else; and yet we are gutting science at the National Science Foundation. We are having this amendment which, however it comes out, we are going to cripple half the Government. What a dumb debate on what a dumb bill.

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the last word. Mr. Chairman, I find this amendment interesting and in some ways, contradictory. What this amendment does is to provide about $3 million to the U.S. Office of Trade Representative, but it really, as I understand it, does two things. It does, as the gentleman has indicated, provide additional resources to that agency to monitor trade agreements; but it also, in my view, goes beyond that and also provides additional resources for that agency to, in fact, work on new trade agreements. Now, a lot of people in this House will have no objection to that. I personally would prefer to see solid enforcement of the trade agreements we now have before we move on to new ones. Secondly, I would point out that, and I am not going to oppose the amendment, but I do want to highlight what I think the remaining shortcomings are that this Congress has still refused to meet, because what this does is to totally leave out additional funding for the agency that does the real job of on-the-ground monitoring and enforcement of our trade agreements. This still does not make available the resources which I sought to make available in my amendment that would triple the number of compliance officers and put compliance officers on the ground in China, and add 10 analysts to Japan dumping cases, and do a variety of things that the Commerce Department does in order to protect the interests of American companies and American workers. So there is no real harm in the amendment, I suppose, except that the source for funding for this amendment comes from the Commerce Department itself, and in that sense will squeeze that agency's ability to meet its responsibilities. So as I say, this is a small thing. I have no real objection to it. I do question the source. Given the problems associated with the bill, I understand why the gentleman has gone to that source. But I do not think we should kid ourselves that we have done a terrific job of enforcing trade laws and protecting American interests in those enforcement actions by adding funds only to this agency. If we do not fund the administration request for the Commerce Department enforcement, we will have, I think, provided the stem on a fig leaf, and done little more to protect the interests of either American workers or companies.

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I fully agree with that.

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, let me simply note for observation by the gentleman from Kentucky that the Rules of the House allow Members, if the majority decides to proceed under an open rule and under the 5- minute rule, the Rules of the House allow Members to strike the last word any time they want in order to make their points. All the gentleman from New York (Mr. Serrano) is suggesting is that it makes more sense to have those remarks come in direct relationship to an amendment rather than having to strike the last word after the amendment has been disposed of. We did not put this bill together on the minority side, it is put together on the majority side, and it should not be surprising that those in the minority who have no opportunity to, in fact, change the content of the bill at least want an opportunity to explain their concerns about it, which is what the normal amendment process is supposed to be all about.

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I would like to be heard. Mr. Chairman, as I indicated earlier, many times on this floor now the decision of the Republican leadership to cut over $1 billion in needed programs in this bill out of the President's budget request was caused by their desire to pass a whole series of tax packages which, among other things, gave $200 billion in tax relief to the wealthiest 400 Americans last week, and under those circumstances, because there is no----

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I would also say that I have a letter from our friend, Jerry Jasinowski, at the National Association of Manufacturers, which is in support of the full administration request for these items, and I would simply quote two paragraphs: We do not want our members to be on the alert for compliance problems only to find out that the administration lacks the resources to bring about enforcement actions on the issues we raise. It is important that the administration be able to act when we see problems. Therefore, I strongly urge you to support the administration's request for $26.6 million in funding for expanded compliance and enforcement, particularly the Commerce Department's Market Access and Compliance Initiative, into which we will be feeding the problems we uncover. This increase in Commerce's Market Access and Compliance funding in the fiscal 2001 budget is the minimum that will translate foreign commitments into more exports for U.S. firms and more high paying job opportunities for Americans. Candidly, we would like to see even more. We need this program to ensure we receive the benefits of China's entry into the WTO. Mr. Chairman, it just seems to me that if this House passed that effort 1 week ago, it, at a minimum, has an obligation to do this and then to follow on with the additional protections suggested by the gentleman from Nebraska (Mr. Bereuter) and the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Levin) down the line.

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

Mr. OBEY. The point I was making before I was interrupted is that because the majority party has chosen to put first their requirement to take every possible dollar and put it into tax cuts for the wealthiest 2 percent of people in this country, that means that we do not have sufficient room to fund the programs that are necessary in this bill in order to get a presidential signature. Therefore, I regretfully have to concede the gentleman's point of order.

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I offer an amendment.

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I am addressing the point of order; but they will be my words, not those of the gentleman from Kentucky, or else we will be here a long time. I can strike the last word and go on forever, if the gentleman wants me to.

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, 2 weeks ago the House passed the bill on China trade policy. I did not support that bill; the majority did. I am not here to enter into another argument about what we should have done on that bill, but I do believe if we are going to enter into that type of trade relationship with China, or any other country, that we have to rigorously enforce the agreement to ensure the full benefit for American companies, American workers, and American farmers. The problem is that this appropriations bill, which is produced by the majority party, which pushed so hard for eliminating the application of Jackson-Vanik to China, provides no additional funding to the agencies charged with oversight, monitoring and enforcement of that trade agreement. The office of U.S. Trade Representative, the Department of Commerce, the Department of State, the Department of Agriculture simply need additional resources to make sure that the Chinese implement and comply with that signed agreement. They have a record of not complying; and without vigilant monitoring and enforcement of that agreement by American agencies, U.S. workers, companies and consumers will have no assurance that they are going to receive the benefits that they are allegedly going to receive under that proposition. The administration's request for the trade compliance initiative was a modest $22 million in total to support compliance efforts with China and to more rigorously enforce ongoing trade agreements. Of the amount, $16.2 million is budgeted for the Commerce Department, $3 million for State, $1.3 million for the Trade Representative's Office, and $1.5 million for the Department of Agriculture. This amendment simply provides the full amount requested by the administration, including the amount requested and not provided in the agriculture bill for USDA's role in monitoring and enforcing trade agreements. What is not included in my amendment today, but what I believe needs to be considered as we move through the process, is funding for the additional oversight and monitoring of functions that were proposed in conjunction with the PNTR bill by the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Levin) and the gentleman from Nebraska (Mr. Bereuter). My amendment would simply be the first step in ensuring that expanding trade with China and any current or future trade partner is carried out with the least cost and the most return to U.S. consumers, workers, and companies. Again, the majority party in this bill has provided no additional funding to the Department of Commerce and the other trade agencies to enforce the U.S. trade laws and implement safeguard provisions, providing no assurance to U.S. companies and workers who could be hurt by a flood of imports from China. I would point out that what this bill does, for instance, is it doubles resources for import surge monitoring; it increases by 25 percent the number of analysts working on expedited dumping and subsidy investigations; it triples the number of compliance officers in Washington working on China; and for the first time, it would put compliance officers on the ground in China and create an office devoted to China dumping cases. In addition, it would double the number of compliance officers in Washington working on Japan and put compliance officers on the ground there also. It would add 10 analysts to Japan dumping cases. I have experienced that personally with a problem affecting a company in my own district. It would also create a technical assistance center to help small businesses and unions understand available trade remedies, and it would help collect data necessary to file the required cases. I would point out that, in my view, this bill is underfunded by at least $1 billion in meeting our peacekeeping responsibilities, our responsibilities to the Weather Service and other agencies under NOAA, law enforcement, Legal Services and the like; and I think this is just a small restoration of what we will eventually be required before the President is willing to affix his signature on this bill.

Mr. OBEY

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, let me simply say that I am glad my friend from Florida has gotten things off his chest. We know what the facts are. I am not going to bother to debate them. We are trying to cooperate here and to help the majority do the job that the majority has, which is to try to get bills through the House. We are trying to work that out. If the gentleman would like to accept the offer that we have raised, we are willing to proceed now. I had assumed, given the fact that the majority leader indicated what he just described, that that is what we had agreed to. I assume that still stands.