Dave Obey

Mr. OBEY

Mr. OBEY. Yes. Mr. Chairman, to put that in perspective, the majority party has brought to this floor a bill which cuts the Indian Health Service by $507 million, and we objected to that. We objected to that in our minority views. Now we are being asked to believe that their effort to put $22 million from a tiny minuscule portion of the amount that they have already cut from the Indian Health Service, and we are asked to believe that that is somehow going to make a wonderful difference in the lives of Native Americans. It is obvious from the size of the numbers that this is a transparent attempt to block our ability to fund the arts as the gentlewoman from New York (Ms. Slaughter) is trying to do. We do not want to deny Native Americans every dollar that they need. But when this amendment passes, it must be clearly understood why it is here. It is here procedurally to block us from fulfilling the clearly stated wishes of the House earlier this evening when they adopted the Slaughter amendment. So the offering of this amendment is simply an effort by the majority party which will be successful in denying the gentlewoman from New York (Ms. Slaughter) the opportunity to complete her amendment. So it ought to be seen for what it is. After you have done this tonight, do not go home and brag to your folks about how much you care about the arts because it is clearly transparent that you would do anything possible to deny us the ability to raise the amount of funds for that purpose.

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

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the last word. Mr. Chairman, I simply rise to ask a question because I know the gentleman from Washington (Mr. Dicks) and a number of others are being asked a lot of questions by Members on both sides of the aisle. As I understand it, the intention announced earlier by the leadership was for the Committee rise at 6 o'clock so that Members might catch their airplanes. Mr. Chairman, I am not going anywhere. My plane has been canceled a long time ago. I rise to ask a civil question, and I would like a civil response if possible. If I could just ask. My understanding is that the Chicago airport has canceled a number of planes, that Detroit is closed, that the New England area is having rapid cancellations. And so Members are simply trying to figure out what their plans are. I would simply inquire of the gentleman, either the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Regula) or the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Armey), the distinguished majority leader, I would simply like to ask if the leadership intends to keep the commitment which was announced to the House or whether the rumors are true that we hear that they now intend to be in until 9 o'clock.

Mr. OBEY. You voted to cut the President's budget by $500 million. You voted for that.

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

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the last word. Mr. Chairman, I just want to put these numbers in perspective so that what is happening here can become transparent. The gentlewoman from New York (Ms. Slaughter) earlier asked a unanimous consent request so that she could consider all four portions of her amendment at the same time. The Committee on Rules has granted that many times to other Members. They chose not to grant it to her. She renewed her request here on the floor. She made her intention quite known when she offered her original amendment. Her original amendment, the first of four parts, was adopted by the House. Clearly the House expressed an intention to follow through on the Slaughter amendment. Now we are being asked to believe that the majority party is sincere in offering an amendment to put $22 million from that source into Indian Health.

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I demand a recorded vote.

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I move that the Committee do now rise.

Mr. OBEY. If I could simply respond to the gentleman, I was in the meeting when the commitment was made. The gentleman was not in the meeting where we discussed the times. I know that last night, I asked the staff of the distinguished majority leader whether they were indeed certain that they wanted to have the vote on the rule on HUD today, because I told them that it was my reading of the interior bill that with all of the amendments pending, they would not be able to finish by 6 if they followed through on that rule. We were told that the intention of the leadership was that we were leaving at 6, that the committee should do its best to be done by 6, but there was a clear understanding that the Members would be allowed to leave as scheduled at 6 o'clock. Preferential Motion Offered by Mr. Obey

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, reclaiming my time, I thank the gentleman for his comments. Let me simply say that the problem, as has been brought to my attention by a number of Members, is that the schedule published by the leadership indicates legislative business, no votes after 6 p.m. As I have said, my plane has long been canceled. I will be here today. I will be here tomorrow. I will be here Sunday. But I regret that the leadership has seen fit to upset the ability of each individual Member to get back to their district, planes allowing. And so if it is the intention of the leadership to go back on the understanding that was reached last night, then I very reluctantly move that the committee do now rise.

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the requisite number of words. Mr. Chairman, I will not take the full 5 minutes, but it is important to understand what this amendment is. This is the first of four amendments which, in all, will try to add $22 million to cultural programs; $15 million to the National Endowment for the Arts, $5 million to the National Endowment for the Humanities, and $2 million from museums. It is paid for out of an account which will suffer no impact if it loses that offset because that money cannot be spent. I would remind my colleagues that the agencies that the gentlewoman from New York is trying to fund are at this point funded at a level 40 percent below where they were a decade ago. I would just say, I understand the anger that persons have felt in the past when they have seen obscene art or so-called works of art that are morally offensive to large numbers of Americans, and I think that has no place in a program like this. And as you know, we have instituted many reforms to assure that, to the maximum extent possible by any human being, that will not happen again. At this point, I guess my suggestion to any Member would be: Whoever on this floor has never made a mistake or never had their staff make a mistake, whoever there is on this floor, please feel free to go ahead and criticize this agency. Because they had a 99.9 percent record of funding projects which are perfectly acceptable to everyone. I would remind you that even a stopped clock is right twice a day, and so there are times when even in the best of circumstances something wrong will occur. But as one of the previous speakers pointed out, in many of those instances, the projects that were being objected to were never funded by NEA in the first place. I would also say, I just wish that you could see one action that is taking place in schools in my district where one song writer goes into schools and takes young people who have never had exposure to this kind of program, finds out their interests, gets them to put the words down on paper that express their feelings about those interests, and then, in turn, puts those words to music. He has produced a wonderful CD as a result of that. And it is incredible what some of those kids have been able to do. We need more projects like that all over the country. It would be a terrible shame if we could not begin the new Challenge Program that Bill Ivy and the National Endowment is trying to bring forth. I congratulate the gentlewoman from New York (Ms. Slaughter) for her amendment, and I would ask the cooperation of the House so that she can achieve what she is trying to do in piecemeal fashion because the rule does not allow her to do it all at the same time.

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman from Washington (Mr. Dicks) for yielding me the time. Mr. Chairman, this is not a static country. In the next decade, we will have 20 to 25 million new people added to our population. We will have 35 to 40 percent more commercial airline flights, God help us all. We will have about 35 million more people knocking on the doors of national parks. If one does not think that those parks are overburdened, I invite them to visit Yellowstone or Yosemite or any other of a couple dozen national parks around the country and see how much people are crammed in. It is in the national interest of the United States for additional areas of special value to be preserved for future generations. Now we have heard an attack on President Clinton for abusing his power in adding 9 additional national monuments to the Nation's storehouse. I would like to cite what the record has been since 1906. Teddy Roosevelt, and I recognize that the former Speaker of the House, Mr. Gingrich, indicated that one of his goals was to eliminate the Roosevelt legacy from the Republican Party and return it to the philosophy of William McKinley, but nonetheless, thank goodness, Teddy Roosevelt served a wonderful stint as President and he acted 18 times to put aside territory just like this. William Howard Taft, that well-known ``leftist,'' acted 11 times. Harding, Harding, that terrible, terrible ``liberal,'' added 8 to the national storehouse. Calvin Coolidge, that well-known ``champion of activist government,'' added 14. Herbert Hoover, that well-known enemy of rugged individualism, let us see, he added 12. Then we had Eisenhower and Nixon. We know how far left they were. Right? They added eight. Wilson added 12. FDR was the champion of them all, 23. Harry Truman, Harry Truman is the Democrat the Republicans love to quote but hate to emulate; he added seven. So now my colleagues are beating up on President Clinton for adding nine. The fact is, out of 151 that were added to the national storehouse since 1906, nine of them have been added by this President. That is hardly out of line with the historical record for the previous occupants of that office. There is only one I see who was literally asleep on the job when it came to having an opportunity to add protected areas to the national storehouse. That was President Bush who did a grand total of one. So it seems to me that President Clinton is well within the historical tradition of the country in doing exactly what he has done. I would also say that, despite the fact that my good friend indicates that the Secretaries maintain the ability to manage these lands as their former status would indicate, as forests or as wilderness, or as wildlife refuges, the general counsel has said that is not true. So we do not believe it is true. At best, it is an open question. So it seems to me that we ought to stick with the amendment of the gentleman from Washington (Mr. Dicks). What the President is trying to do is do what this Congress has not had the gumption to do, and I congratulate him for it.

Mr. OBEY

Mr. OBEY. Madam Speaker, the problem with this bill is that it is a let's-pretend legislative document. It is the sixth time in a row that a bill was brought to the floor which is not in shape to be signed by the President. Then it is said, ``Well, this is only the second step on the way; we will fix it down the line.'' I mean, what that really says is, ``We will not take the responsibility to produce a responsible bill; somebody else at some other time will do it.'' That is a ``great'' message for this Congress to send out to the American people, somebody else will fix our mistakes. That is a really big confidence builder. I think we ought to be able to do better. Secondly, with respect to the comments about veterans. I have a letter from four veterans organizations, the AMVETS, the Disabled American Veterans, Paralyzed Veterans of America and the acting deputy executive director of the VFW; and what that letter says is on behalf of Members of AMVETS, Disabled American Veterans, Paralyzed Veterans of America, and Veterans of Foreign Wars, we are fighting ``to oppose efforts to stymie amendments by the Department of Justice to advance the lawsuit seeking to recover health costs associated with tobacco- related diseases.'' It then goes on to cite the mistakes that the Congress has made in the past, the very actions which that side of the aisle are defending, and then says ``From that point forward, veterans have been denied compensation for these disabilities. We urge you not to make the same mistake again.'' And they recognize fully that you cannot run a lawsuit unless you pay money to run the lawsuit. Now, regardless of what the other side says, the game they have played is they have said to the Justice Department, ``No, we are not going to appropriate money for you to use to pursue the tobacco suit,'' and you are denying them the opportunity to use money from any other agency to bring money back into those agencies. That hurts veterans beyond repair. Madam Speaker, for the Record, I include the following letter: The Independent Budget, A Budget for Veterans by Veterans, June 13, 2000. Hon. David R. Obey, House of Representatives, Washington, DC. Dear Representative Obey: On behalf of members of AMVETS, Disabled American Veterans, Paralyzed Veterans of America and Veterans of Foreign Wars of the United States, we are writing to oppose efforts to stymie attempts by the Department of Justice to advance a lawsuit seeking to recover health care costs associated with tobacco-related diseases. This matter is properly before the federal courts, where it will be decided on its merits. It is inappropriate for Congress to attempt to undermine this litigation by manipulating the resources needed to support this action. Two years ago, much to the outrage of veterans across the country, Congress accepted a proposal by the Administration to terminate compensation for veterans with tobacco-related disabilities. This was done despite the fact that smoking had been sanctioned, subsidized, encouraged, and part of military life and culture for decades. Many in Congress refused to listen to the arguments we put forth to counter this proposal, in large part due to the temptation to use the totally unrealistic cost savings for other purposes unrelated to veterans' needs. The needs of sick and disabled veterans were cast aside as soon as potential paper savings of $15.5 billion were transferred to help fund pork barrel highway projects in that year's transportation bill. From that point forward, veterans were denied compensation for these disabilities. We urge you not to make the same mistake again. We also believe it is important to note that the same statute that terminated compensation benefits for disabled veterans with tobacco-related diseases (the Transportation Equity Act for the 21st Century--PL 105-178) called on the Government to address this issue by proceeding with the lawsuit to recover costs of veterans' health care for tobacco-related diseases. Section 8209 of the law (copy attached) called on the ``Attorney General or the Secretary of Veterans Affairs, as appropriate, [to] take all steps necessary to recover from tobacco companies amounts corresponding to the costs which would be incurred by the Department of Veterans Affairs for treatment of tobacco- related illnesses of veterans, if such treatment were authorized by law.'' The same section called on Congress to authorize the treatment of tobacco-related illnesses upon recovery of such amounts. Any attempt now to block the lawsuit is in direct contradiction of the sense of Congress expressed in a previously approved statute to help cover the cost of, and, provide health care for these veterans. While the outcome of this litigation is in doubt, it does provide a possible avenue to help defray the enormous health care costs, past, present, and future, associated with tobacco-related disabilities. We urge you to resist efforts to attempt to restrict funding for the Department of Justice to continue this important litigation. Sincerely, David E. Woodbury, Executive Director, AMVETS. Gordon H. Mansfield, Executive Director, Paralyzed Veterans of America. David W. Goman, Executive Director, Disabled American Veterans. Robert E. Wallace, Acting Deputy Executive Director, Veterans of Foreign Wars of the United States.

Mr. OBEY. I yield to the gentleman from New York.

Mr. OBEY. Madam Speaker, the letter that the gentleman conveniently cites was written by an organization that did not know that the DeLauro amendment yesterday would have put all of the funds recovered from that suit back into the agencies that we are talking about, Medicare and the Veterans Agency. So the gentleman can quote an irrelevant letter if he wants but the fact is that he cannot convince anyone that any veterans organization is going to oppose an action which would bring many times more dollars into the veterans health care program than it would ever cost to bring the suit in the first place.

Mr. OBEY. Madam Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding me this time. Let me simply say that this is one of six appropriation bills that the President has indicated he would veto, because this is one of the bills that is scaled back by a huge amount from the President's request in order to make enough room in the budget for the Republican tax package which gives 73 percent of the benefits to people who are in the richest 1 percent category of all taxpayers. They give, for instance, $90 billion in one bill alone in tax relief to people who make over $300,000 a year. And so because they use the money for that, they have to invent ``let's pretend'' games on this bill. Previous comment was just made that this is $4 billion over last year. Baloney. Last year's budget contained $45 billion of accounting tricks that made last year's budget look $45 billion smaller than it is, and $4.2 billion of the $4.9 billion alleged increase in this bill comes because of those budget gimmicks that hid last year's spending. This bill is $6.5 billion below the President's request. On veterans, it includes a welcome increase for veterans medical care, but it fails to address adequately a number of other veterans programs. It freezes funding for veterans medical and prosthetic research, it cuts grants for construction of State veterans homes and a variety of other items. In a politically pugnacious act that is bound to cause turmoil rather than pull people together, the committee has eliminated all funding for the President's top priority, the AmeriCorps program. On housing, it does virtually nothing to improve the housing situation in this country. It appropriates no funds for the 120,000 new housing units, the vouchers proposed by the administration. It cuts the Community Development Block Grant by $276 million below current level. Assistance for the homeless is frozen, which will mean more homeless people will be frozen, too, come next winter. It provides $2.5 billion less than the President requests. On EPA, in addition to some of the other reductions in the President's budget, it totally rejects the President's proposal for $50 million to begin a major cleanup of the Great Lakes. The National Science Foundation. The President's request is cut by $500 million. I will return to that in a minute. This bill ought to be called the Tobacco Company Protection Act of the Year 2000. There is a slippery scheme going on in this Congress. What is happening is that, first of all, the Justice Department is being denied funds in the bill that funds that agency in order to pursue suits against the tobacco companies for lying to this country for 50 years about the cancer-causing nature of tobacco. The Justice Department is provided no funds in their own bill, and then, in each of the appropriation bills coming through here, the Justice Department is forbidden from going to other agencies that would benefit from our suit to recover funds to help finance it. So the veterans department will lose millions of dollars in potential additional revenue, and Medicare will lose billions of dollars in additional potential revenue. I never want to hear the other side prattle any more about their dedication to Medicare, because this ought to be called the Medicare Insolvency Act of 2000. The Republicans assure that the government cannot effectively proceed to sue the tobacco companies to get back some of the costs that Medicare and veterans programs have laid out because of the lying performance of the tobacco industry over the last 40 years. What the Republicans ought to tell the tobacco companies is that they ought to go jump in the nearest lake. But this Congress does not have the guts to do that. These provisions are in these bills for one reason. Not because they are right, but because the tobacco companies are powerful, and they ought to be stripped out. Now, I would like to return to the National Science Foundation. Every politician on this floor brags about what we are doing for the National Institutes of Health. Oh, yes, we want to get their budgets up by 15 percent, so we raise the NIH budget by 15 percent. NIH does research on all health problems in the country. But then what happens is, the committee slips a little provision in the labor-health bill which says, ``Oh, yes, we have appropriated a $3.7 billion increase, but NIH can only spend $1 billion of it.'' Which means they will have fewer new research grants going out next year than this year. And then take a look at the National Science Foundation. Economists tell us that in the past 50 years half of the United States economic productivity can be attributed to technological innovation and the science that has supported and developed it. The way science works is that organizations such as the National Science Foundation develop the basic science. And then, when they answer the key questions of nature, then that science is given to the National Institutes of Health and the National Institutes of Health do research which is more applied in nature, leading to specific cures for specific diseases. But the underlying foundation of all progress against human disease is the National Science Foundation, and the President's budget for it is being whacked by $500 billion. Now, I know that the chairman of this subcommittee is a good man. And if he had enough dollars, he would put dollars in the National Science Foundation. It is not his fault that this bill is in a shambles like this. He has done the best he can, given the fact that he was given an impossible limit on what the committee could provide in the first place. I would urge a vote against the bill, and I would also urge a vote against the rule, because the Committee on Rules made in order none of the amendments that we requested in order to try to correct this problem. They say, ``Oh, the amendments had no offsets.'' Our position is that virtually everything we are trying to do to increase funding for education, for health care, for science, can be financed by about a 20 to 30 percent reduction in the size of the tax gifts that the other side is planning to give to the wealthiest 2 percent of all Americans. That is the linkage. They resent it every time we raise it, but that is the truth. Even the amendment that was offset, that would have provided tiny amounts of additional help for housing for the elderly, for the disabled, for the homeless, and for housing opportunities for people with AIDS, even that amendment, which would have provided an offset by using funding that was already approved in passage of the authorization bill that passed this House by only four dissenting votes, even that was denied. So I urge rejection of this bill and I urge rejection of the rule. And, sooner or later, I urge the majority party to begin a process of working together so we can produce bipartisan appropriations bills rather than partisan political documents.

Mr. OBEY. Madam Speaker, let me point out that the amendment that we offered, the amendment that the Committee on Appropriations refused to make in order, specifically provided that the money would go in that veterans' account. If you do not believe it, ask the sponsor of the amendment. She is sitting right here.

Mr. OBEY. Madam Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding. Madam Speaker, my distinguished friend has just indicated that we should not use veterans' money because that money is too precious and we should not use it in a tobacco suit. Well, if you do not let the Justice Department use its own money and if you do not let the agencies who are going to receive the money from that suit, you are not going to have a successful suit. The fact is that this suit will bring in many times more dollars to the veterans' health care fund than it would ever cost to pursue that suit; and, in my judgment, if you vote against allowing that to happen, you are really voting to make the veterans' health care fund less sound than it is and to make Medicare less sound than it is.

Mr. OBEY. The point of the letter is to cover their tails over there. That is the point of the letter.

Mr. OBEY. Did the gentleman from New York tell them about the amendment he voted against yesterday? I bet he did not.

Mr. OBEY

Mr. OBEY. I thank the Chair.

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I am trying to understand the status of the suggestion that was just made by the gentleman from California. Is the gentleman asking unanimous consent to offer an amendment? Is he offering an amendment?

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, parliamentary inquiry.

Mr. OBEY. Parliamentary inquiry, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, I just wanted the Clerk to re-read the amendment.

Mr. OBEY

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the requisite number of words. Mr. Chairman, I understand the passion that we see on both sides of this issue. I simply want to say that I understand the good intentions of the gentleman who offers the amendment. He is very concerned about a very important cluster of programs. But I think the problem we face here tonight is that we are seeing efforts to move very small amounts of money around from one program to another. It sort of depends on what kind of district you come from, whether you think that is a good idea or not. If you come from a district like mine, which is heavily dependent upon a broad understanding of multiple use, so that forest lands are used for economic production, so that they are used for recreation, so that they are used for wildlife, we have one view of this amendment. If one comes from a different kind of district, one has quite another. I would urge Members to oppose the amendment because we are not going to fix the wildlife problems in this country by taking a few million dollars out of the forestry program. The real problem is that we need more money in all of these programs. We had a good excuse not to put that money there when we had huge deficits, but now we do not. So it seems to me that we need a more aggressive forest management. We need much greater investments in wildlife. We have a huge backlog in maintenance for our parks and our forests. I do not think that we do any good by playing a beggar thy neighbor game. I am going to vote against this amendment because I think the best way to deal with this is to remember what was said yesterday when the labor-health-education bill was on the floor. The main reason that we do not have enough money in this bill for all of these programs, whether it is land acquisition or forestry management or anything else, is because the majority has chosen to commit a huge amount of its resources to providing tax cuts, most of which are aimed at very high- income people, the richest 1 percent or 2 percent, so everything else that this Nation tries to do suffers. That in the end is the problem with this bill. Mr. Chairman, I would urge Members to remember that, and I would urge Members in the end, after efforts are made to reflect Members' various districts' differences, I would urge Members to vote against this bill because it is inadequate to meet the Nation's needs on a whole host of fronts, and I would urge rejection of this amendment in the process.