Dave Obey

Mr. OBEY

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I withdraw the point of order.

Mr. OBEY

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I would like to say that as much as I would like to support this bill, I cannot, for a number of reasons. First of all, the Committee on Rules, in the action of this House yesterday, made in order a totally illegitimate amendment to this bill by adding the 300-page housing bill and authorization bill. And I want to read my colleagues something that I just picked up on the press out of U.S. News today. It said that the legislation would raise the income levels of people eligible for public housing. The bill would give greater priority to people making as much as $40,000 to be admitted to public housing, allowing them to gain housing before lower-income families. Since no new public housing is being built, and existing waiting lists are years long, these lower-income families will have no option whatsoever. A total of 3 million low-income people would be denied access to public and federally assisted housing, including 1.8 million seniors and children. It went on to quote Secretary Cuomo, HUD Secretary Cuomo, as saying it is inexcusable that we would take the few units of affordable housing this Congress has allowed to remain and remove it from the grasp of the most vulnerable Americans. This means no housing for America's most vulnerable. I think that this Congress has no business attaching a proposal like that to this bill. Secondly, I would point out that there are a number of funding level problems with this bill. The brownfields program is reduced 18 percent below the President's request. There is very broad and vague language in the report language which relates to the Kyoto Protocol on climate change. I agree with those who say that we should not be taking actions to implement any treaty before that treaty is ratified, and I would not vote for that treaty under existing circumstances because of what it does not require other countries, such as China, to do. It is simply not strong enough. But I, nonetheless, believe that the committee language is far too broad. It even presents educational information about the issue. And I think that that is clearly simply a favor to special interests and it is a long-term detriment to America's public health and to the stability of the world's economy and its climate. I would say that this also, in my view, underfunds what we ought to be doing with veterans' health care. And in my judgment, the reason that we are underfunding veterans' health care, underfunding housing, underfunding EPA, Superfund and a variety of other programs is because we have in this bill some $3\1/2\ billion of veterans' health care costs which are related to the treatment of tobacco-related diseases. And it seems to me that the taxpayer should not be paying for the treatment of those diseases, the tobacco companies should. Since the Committee on Rules determined it was going to make in order an irrelevant authorization bill, I asked the Committee on Rules to make in order a relevant authorization amendment; and that amendment would have simply said that instead of the taxpayers being stuck with that $3\1/2\ billion worth of tobacco-related health treatment cost that the tobacco companies be assessed to pay for those costs. That would have enabled us to increase health care for veterans in this bill by $1.7 billion and to do some other things about some of these drastic shortfalls that will only get worse as the problems are compounded. The Committee on Rules did not choose to do that. That means, in my view, that this bill is essentially an inadequate bill. And until it is, I have no intention whatsoever of voting for that. I do not make these statements to in any way criticize the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Stokes) or the gentleman from California (Mr. Lewis). They have done the best they can within the allocation given them. But the fact is that the allocation is stupid and the fact is that the Congress is stupid if it does not find a way to require tobacco companies to meet health care costs that the taxpayers should not be saddled with. And until we do that, we are not going to have the resources to meet the other needs facing this country. It is about time that big tobacco does not have the ear of this Congress. It is about time that big business loses the ear of this Congress. It is about time that the public interest once again prevails. And, in my view, with the priorities that have been set at a higher level than the subcommittee has the authority to do anything about, until those priorities are changed, we should not be supporting the outcome of those priorities.

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I simply want to say that I agree with the gentlewoman's observations, and that is one of the reasons that I think Members ought to vote against this bill. Again, it is not because of anything that has been done by the subcommittee, but because of what has been done by this institution previously that has put this subcommittee in this box today. And I do not think we ought to be ratifying those decisions.

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

Mr. OBEY

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I again make a point of order against section 622 on grounds that it, indeed, constitutes legislation on an appropriation bill and violates clause 2 of rule XXI.

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, again, the same point of order on section 406 for the same reason.

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, again, point of order. I make the point of order against section 407 for the same reason. It violates the same clause of the same rule.

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I withdraw the point of order.

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I reserve a point of order against the amendment.

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, for the fifth time, I think, now, I regrettably renew my objection and simply make the point of order against this provision on the same grounds that I have raised all day, that it is legislation on an appropriation bill, it is not in order under House rules and, therefore, should not be before us.

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I regrettably, but nonetheless, continue to reserve my point of order.

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I continue to reserve my point of order, and I move to strike the requisite number of words. Mr. Chairman, I would very much like to support this amendment. I happen to agree with the substance of it. And I very much would like to have had a rule on this bill today which would have allowed us to consider many issues that were in the interest of the country to consider. The rule that was adopted today on this bill eliminated our ability to deal with one of the most serious emergencies we have had domestically in a long time, the computer problem in the year 2000, which threatens the ability of the Government to deliver Social Security checks, Medicare checks, veterans checks to millions of deserving and entitled Americans. The rule that was adopted by the majority today is a lousy way to do business. It meant that 80 percent of the dollars in this bill were made vulnerable to points of order. It meant that we could not consider in a fair way the amendment that the committee had adopted on a bipartisan basis on family planning. Every Member has an amendment which they think is so important it ought to be an exception to the rule. But I would simply say to my friends on the majority side of the aisle, when you live by the sword, you die by the sword. It just seems to me that it is not fair, after the majority has imposed on this House a rule which has precluded us from dealing with many serious issues that should have been dealt with today, it is not fair for Members to then get up and say, oh, but I have one that should be made an exception. Now, I wish I could support this amendment, but the fact is that, under the rule adopted by the majority, this amendment violates the rules of the House. And I would say that at the same time that this offers token support for expanded child care, the majority has largely ignored the President's entire child care initiative, which would have greatly expanded the affordability and the quality of child care for all working families, not just Federal employees. The Subcommittee on Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education, the majority in that subcommittee, did not provide any of the President's funds requested to improve child care quality under the child care block grant program. They funded only one-quarter of the Head Start slots of the President's requested program. And they level- funded the child care development block grant, despite the fact that only one in eight eligible children are served. So, I take a back seat to no one in my concern about child care. But if I am to be consistent, I have to apply the rules to all Members. I did not make this rule. I asked the House not to adopt it. But they did, and now it seems to me they have no choice but to live with the consequences. Even in the United States Congress, people need to occasionally have to live with the consequences of their own actions. And while I recognize that the gentlewoman from Maryland (Mrs. Morella) did not vote for that ill-advised rule, it was imposed on us by her party. And under those circumstances, Mr. Chairman, I do make a point of order against this amendment. I continue to reserve the point of order momentarily.

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I continue to reserve my point of order.

Mr. OBEY. Regular order, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, with all due respect, under ordinary circumstances I would agree with that, but we have gone on this bill for most of the day. We still have another bill tonight. Many Members are going to be home. We are still going to be here dealing with legislation until the wee hours. Under the circumstances, I feel constrained to insist on my point of order.

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, the amendment is clearly legislation on an appropriation bill. It violates the same rule that I referred to so many times today. While this may be a meritorious issue, it needs to be dealt with in conference by Members who understand it, and it does not fit the rule under which we are operating today.

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I rise to a point of order against the amendment.

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, reserving the right to object, this amendment is clearly, again, legislating on an appropriation bill, and I am reluctant to do so, but I do not feel that I have any choice under the same rule I cited many times today on legislating on an appropriation bill.

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the last word. Mr. Chairman, since the proponents of an amendment that is not even before us choose to discuss why they want to offer it, I want to explain with all due respect why I objected to their offering it in violation of House rules. The story that they tell is a very disconcerting one, and there is not a member of this body who would not like to do something about it, but the fact is that this proposal has already been added to the Senate bill. That means the opportunity to deal with this issue will be fully present in conference and that means that there is no need to have it added to this bill in the House in order to have this problem considered. There is a serious problem, however, if we had chosen to add it in the House. It would have then been in both bills. It would not have been subject to conference, and the problem is that there are significant national security problems associated with providing this amendment. I would point out, for instance, that in a letter from the administration, the letter indicates that this amendment would substantially undermine the President's ability to use such assets as leverage when economic sanctions are being used to modify the behavior of a foreign state or in negotiations with that state. It said, for instance, that if private claims were allowed to execute judgments ahead of these assets, the President would be deprived of their use as leverage to gain concessions from the North Koreans in the negotiating process, because in their judgment this amendment does not just apply to Iran. It applies to all kinds of other countries, including Cuba. The administration also points out that the Supreme Court has recognized the importance of the administration retaining this authority in states. Quote, ``Such blocking orders permit the President to maintain the foreign assets at his disposal for use in negotiating the resolution of a declared national emergency.'' They also point out that with respect to Cuba there are 5,911 claims totaling $1.9 billion, but there are only $148.3 million in Cuban government assets available to justify those claims. This proposal would contribute to a first-come, first-serve approach, which would not be equitable to those people who are left out. So I would say that despite the distressing story that these gentlemen are telling tonight, the responsible thing to do, since this is already in the Senate bill, is to simply deal with it in conference, when we will have an opportunity to measure whether or not the administration's claims are in the national interest or not, and whether or not it is wise to proceed to do what the gentlemen want to do or whether we ought to do something else. That is why I objected, because I think that is the most responsible way to deal with it. I defy any other Member of this House to tell me whether they have sufficient information to deal with all of the legal questions involved in this issue. Obviously, they do not. And given that fact, this is the time-honored way that we have to make certain that if we make a foreign policy decision, we make it in a considered way. Besides that, I would simply point out that if the gentleman did have an urgent request, he could have gone to the Committee on Rules and asked the Committee on Rules to make this amendment in order under House rules. It is not in order under House rules, and I did not vote for the rule today, which made a lot of other legitimate issues beyond the ability of this House to deal with at this point. So for those reasons, I did the responsible thing and I make no apology for it.

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the last word, and I rise in opposition to the amendment. Mr. Chairman, I want to thank my friend, the subcommittee chairman, for his very sober and realistic comments on this amendment. Let me start by saying that I have a very high regard for the gentleman from Vermont. I am very fond of him personally. I think he is one of the few Members in this institution who really cares about poor people and working people. And if everybody had his heart in putting them first, this country would be a far better place. But I have to say I think he is profoundly wrong on this amendment. I opposed NAFTA. I opposed GATT. Because I thought the way that they were structured made workers of this country cannon fodder in the way this country dealt with the pressures of globalization. But I have to say that to require the Congress to have to preapprove every single action taken by any executive before they could use the Exchange Stabilization Fund would be a profound recipe for disaster. Let me explain why. All you have to do is take a look at this morning's newspaper, the first page of the business section, and you will see that our economy in the last quarter has slowed almost to zero. The reason for that is not because of anything that has happened in this country. The reason for that is because of something that has happened in a faraway place called Asia. And what we had there is a series of currency collapses which have resulted in our inability to export our goods to that market because they are in such a panic they cannot buy things. And it will also result in the future in underpriced goods coming into this country from those same countries, taking away American jobs. The best way to deal with that is to try to stabilize currencies. Now, when the administration did that a number of years ago with respect to Mexico, I had great doubts about it. At one point I even cast a vote on this floor expressing those doubts. But I was wrong. The fact is that even though I would have done it differently, we wound up making money on that transaction. I would point out that there would have been no way that we could have responded to the emergency in South Korea if we had had to have the prior approval of Congress before we did that. And the Asian collapse and its effect on the U.S. economy today would have been far, far worse. The gentleman mentioned Indonesia. I, for years, have wanted the United States to get rid of its relationship with the previous dictator in that country. I supported amendments on both the Republican and Democratic side of the aisle to eliminate military aid to Indonesia, because I thought that that army was nothing but a butcher's dream. But I would say that it is not wrong to try to stabilize the economy in that country before their instability washes over our workers and causes American workers to lose jobs. I would make one further observation. I think anybody knows that if we had to preapprove every executive action on this issue, that decisions about the use of the Exchange Stabilization Fund would be made primarily on the basis of politics and not economics. I do not think that that would be a very great credit to this Congress or a very great contribution to the country. The Great Depression was caused not by the collapse of the American stock market but by the fact that you had a successive collapse of banks and currencies around the world, and the result was that our Federal Reserve itself was frozen, as FDR said, in the ice of its own indifference. And the result was a mess for years in this economy and the world economy. I think the amendment is well meaning, but I think the amendment would be highly destructive if it were ever put into place. I would urge the rejection of the amendment so that our Treasury Department retains the capacity to move quickly to contain currency problems before they become major crises.

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I withdraw my point of order.

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I reserve a point of order against the amendment.

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the requisite number of words. Mr. Chairman, I do not favor this amendment because I do not believe that the United States ought to be involved in this agency on terms that enable us to less effectively defend our national interests than we are under the present circumstances. In substance, I think the amendment is wrong. I would say, however, that this amendment does absolutely ``nothing to nobody,'' as my friends in the old neighborhood used to say. It has no real effect. It reminds me what Congress does on foreign policy sanctions. This Congress passes item after item which places sanctions on some foreign country on something that the Congress does not like, and then it gives the President a waiver so the President can waive the sanction limitations. That means Congress as an institution gets to pose for political holy pictures. We get to pretend that we have done something. Then the President has to wrestle with the real world. That is sort of, in mini scale, what this amendment does. This amendment is simply an institutional press release which says that we want Federal Express and United Parcel Service to be cut in on the deal, rather than having the U.S. post office. Because, as the chairman indicates, this bill carries no funds for that purpose, and because the post office has plenty of funds it gets elsewhere, the practical effect of this amendment is nil. So Members can pass this if they want, they can pretend they have done something if they want, but it has no real effect. If it did have an effect, it would be negative, in my view, so I, for whatever good it will do, would oppose this amendment, but I recognize what is going to happen here.

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I make a point of order against section 645 for reasons previously cited.

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I have a point of order.