Dave Obey

Mr. OBEY

Mr. OBEY. Yes, I do, Mr. Chairman. I appreciate the gentleman's apology. Mr. Chairman, I yield 4 minutes to the gentlewoman from Hawaii [Mrs. Mink], a member of the committee of jurisdiction on this matter, the committee which should handle this issue.

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I think that there was considerable inattention to the Chair's comments, and I think that there may be confusion in terms of which order we are going to be voting in.

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I have a parliamentary inquiry.

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I certainly say I support the gentleman's amendment. As he knows, I was involved in those negotiations, and I think that they reached an extremely constructive result, and I appreciate the attitude of all of the parties involved. This is a logical action to reflect changes as HMOs deliver more and more health services, and I appreciate the gentleman's constructive attitude on it.

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

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I yield 4 minutes to the distinguished gentleman from Iowa [Mr. Ganske].

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 7\1/2\ minutes. Mr. Chairman, I grew up in an era where drug use was a rarity. I hate a lot of things that have happened to this society. I hate what has happened to our cities because of drugs, and I have to say that drugs are not just a big city problem. My hometown is a city of less than 35,000 people, and yet we have even seen the problem there. Mr. Chairman, I do not think anybody ought to use drugs, and I think we need to have a strong policy in this country that discourages drugs. I think much of the money that we spend abroad to interdict drugs is wasted. I was told several years ago by a person who had been responsible for administering the antidrug interdiction programs under the Reagan administration that their private view was that nothing was working internationally because of the nature of the capitalistic system worldwide which, unfortunately, rewards a profit motive even for evil products. So, Mr. Chairman, I do not think this issue is about whether we like drugs or not. I think we do have two fundamental problems in this country. One is how we go about effectively reducing drug use; and second, in that effort, how we do so in a way which saves the most possible lives. The wording in the bill before us reads as follows: ``Notwithstanding any other provision of this act, no funds appropriated under this act shall be used to carry out any program of distributing sterile needles for the hypodermic injection of any illegal drug, unless the Secretary of Health and Human Services determines that such programs are effective in preventing the spread of HIV and do not encourage the use of illegal drugs.'' The purpose of the amendment would knock out that exception so that if even the Secretary determined that those programs were helpful in preventing the spread of HIV, and did not encourage the use of illegal drugs, those programs still could not be carried out. Mr. Chairman, I understand the motivation of the people who offer this amendment. They are offended by the idea, as am I, that the Government should appear to be in any way encouraging the use of drugs. Nobody wants to do that. But more important than whether my sensibilities are offended is the practical result of American policy in terms of lives that are endangered or saved by that policy. That is why I must oppose the gentleman's amendment. I do so because organizations such as the American Medical Association, the American Public Health Association, the National Academy of Sciences, the American Nurses Association, the American Academy of Pediatrics, all tell us that the best public policy, if we want to prevent the spread of a variety of diseases, including HIV and AIDS, is to support the language in our bill. Mr. Chairman, I would note the public officials and legal groups who also take that position, including the U.S. Conference of Mayors and the American Bar Association. I would also point out that virtually every needle exchange program operating in this country provides referrals to drug treatment programs which, in my view, is the key ingredient in discouraging the use of drugs. Now, the Family Research Council has made an argument against this because, among other reasons, they point to what has happened in Zurich, Switzerland. The United States is not Switzerland and no American city is Zurich. As I understand it, the study that was done of the Switzerland experiment took place in a city which allows the open use of hard drugs in a number of those cities. Clearly, the Swiss experiment bears little relationship to what would be contemplated in this country. We have those who argue for the legalization of drugs in this country or at least the decriminalization of drugs and the open distribution of them in order to eliminate the profit motive. I doubt very seriously that any proposal like that would stand a chance of a snowball in you know where of being adopted by this Congress or by our Government. It just seems to me that we have a tough choice forced upon us by the complicated and sometimes perverse aspects of human nature, our culture, our society, and the outrageous insistence of certain elements of our society to make a buck regardless of the human or moral consequences. I do not know half the time which the right choice is in instances like that, but I have to come down always on the side of having science and scientific leadership guide politicians in these matters, rather than having politicians making judgments independent of scientific evidence or advice, because very often we do not have the expertise to know what, in fact, is right in the scientific arena. So I recognize the legitimate moral and social concerns raised by the gentleman's amendment. I respect deeply the worries that folks on his side of this issue have. I just think there is an honest disagreement about whether or not the gentleman's amendment will lead to more damage of human beings or not. That is the honest debate that is occurring here today. I hope Members respect that on both sides. I would urge in the interest of saving lives that we allow the Secretary to have this discretion if, after scientific review, they determine that such a program, distasteful though it is to me, will in fact contribute to the saving of lives and the prevention of a very damaging and fatal disease.

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the last word. Mr. Chairman, I am sort of in the middle between the position of the gentleman from Illinois [Mr. Porter] and the position of the gentlewoman from California [Ms. Millender-McDonald] and the gentlewoman from New York [Mrs. Lowey]. I congratulate both of them because of their concern in this issue and their leadership in trying to get Congress to face this issue. I, for one, do not feel that the Federal Government can become a major funding source for construction in the education area, but I do think there is a constructive role the Federal Government could play in the construction area. I note that the Senate has added some funding for a version of school construction in their committee bill, and I would hope that we could work out some way to use that action as an opportunity to find a constructive and well-defined role for the Congress and the Federal Government to play in helping a very narrow band of school districts around the country who do not have the financial capability to move ahead with construction so that they might get out of that box. I want to make sure that whatever initiative we proceed with is targeted at urban poverty and rural poverty alike. I also want to make certain that any formula that would be established in the distribution of funds would place a greater emphasis on the need to assist districts who have actual health and safety problems in their schools because the furnaces do not run, the plumbing does not work, the windows are in bad shape. There are a lot of incredibly dilapidated hulks in which children are trying to learn, and they are a disgrace to the country. There are some school districts who simply do not have the financial capacity to proceed with any useful construction program, and I think State governments and the Federal Government both have an obligation to try to do something about that, because the students who come out of those schools are mobile and move around the country, and we all suffer the consequences of inadequate education. So I hope that we can avoid this issue being polarized. I hope that we can move the Congress into a very narrow but, nonetheless, crucial role in dealing with our school construction shortages in districts with serious need. I understand very well where both of the Members are coming from on this issue, and I hope that we can use the Senate amendment as an opportunity to move toward a useful consensus that will meet the problem without making us vulnerable to a bottomless pit of funding which the Government clearly cannot afford.

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

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 1 minute. Mr. Chairman, there is nothing wrong under the Rules of the House when a Member points out that arguments are inconsistent with arguments made the day before, and that is what I said and that is what I meant.

Mr. OBEY. Then it is your fault, because you are not on the committee that is supposed to deal with this problem. If you have got a problem on this, take it to the right committee. Do not take it here.

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, no, I will not. The gentleman has had his time. It is my time now.

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Chairman, I would like to return to the merits of this issue. We are told that the numbers that NLRB uses in determining whether it has jurisdiction or not in any given industry are outmoded. Then we are given a new set of numbers that are supposed to be better. Mr. Chairman, I, for the life of me, do not understand why the heavy hand of the Federal Government ought to come into play when a figure of $283,000 is reached for a nursing home, but $708,000 for a hospital. I do not understand why if we are going to modernize and update outmoded numbers, we continue that kind of outlandish differential. The differential between nursing homes and hospitals under existing law is only $150,000. The differential under the gentleman's amendment would be over $500,000. The gentleman is greatly expanding the unfairness of the numbers by the adjustments he makes. Why should architectural firms be subject to the NLRB jurisdiction when their business hits $261,000, but retail businesses not subject to that same jurisdiction until they hit a figure 10 times that amount? I for the life of me do not understand why we should expand the difference.

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, reclaiming my time, I understand that. But I am amused by the fact that a number of the Members on the other side of the aisle who attacked the NLRB said that these lawyers down there were not working hard enough, and now today the gentleman is telling me that they have too much business. I do find it hard to watch arguments that go two ways on the same agency. Second, I would point out that I am persuaded by a letter which we received from the Chamber of Commerce a number of years ago which said as follows: ``Whatever the current situation in any State, it could change substantially each time the State legislature convened. Although the NLRB is not perfect, at least it rarely has changed in significant ways.'' Mr. Chairman, it seems to me that the last thing we want is to do this on the appropriations process, which is an annual process, because then we will have these numbers changing annually and that will drive every businessman in America nuts. Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time. Parliamentary Inquiry

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

Mr. OBEY. The Parliamentarian did not. The Parliamentarian said that it was germane. That does not mean it is smart to offer it to this bill. It ought to be offered to the committee that is supposed to handle this. I have had my staff check it out. We have over 500 authorization laws that some Member of this Congress is demanding to be changed, and you are all coming to the floor asking the Appropriations Committee to solve your problem. Do your own work. If you are so interested in this issue, change committees and get it done where it is supposed to get done.

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

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, taking back my time, that is exactly my point. The gentleman does not know why the original numbers were selected. Neither do we on the committee. The role of the authorizing committee is to determine what those reasons were and to determine whether or not those relative relationships still make sense in a modern economy. I would fully agree that virtually every one of these numbers probably ought to be adjusted because inflation has had an effect. My point is that I do not know what the correct level of adjustment is, and I would suggest that no Member of this House, on the basis of information which has been presented to us here today, can go out and explain to the media or our constituents why these different relationships should continue to exist. Shopping centers in many areas of the country did not even exist in 1959. I would suggest that the economy has changed so much since then that we probably need a far different level of threshold in relationship to the other thresholds than we have in the law today. I would grant that. But to simply come in here and say each of these outmoded numbers should be adjusted by the same percentage is in and of itself just as ham-handed and outmoded, I believe, as the original statute. The place to correct that is in the authorizing committee, and that is why I make an argument that may appear to be just a jurisdictional argument, but which is basically a practical argument about how this Congress can produce recommendations based on knowledge rather than bias.

Mr. OBEY. I understand that.

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, reclaiming my time, I would say to the gentleman no, I did not. The gentleman, is reading something into something that I never said. I would again appreciate it, if the gentleman is going to object to my words, that the gentleman make certain he has heard them accurately.

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

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 3 minutes. Mr. Chairman, I think some of us in this House, most especially me, would be better off if we had fewer Hershey bars. But let me simply make some observations. First of all, with respect to the comments made by the gentleman from Oklahoma, not the previous speaker, but the previous gentleman from Oklahoma, I understand that new Members cannot be expected to be fully aware of the intricacy of the rules of the House. I would note that some Members, at least two Members yesterday, or 2 days ago, in conversations with me, seemed to take great pride in that fact, which I do not understand. But nonetheless, I understand why they do not have full familiarity with it. I think it is important for all Members to understand that there is a distinction between the Committee on Appropriations being asked to carry an unauthorized appropriation and the committee searching for ways to add all kinds of unauthorized actions to bills that we have on the floor. We have often, unfortunately, on the Committee on Appropriations, been asked by Members of authorizing committees to put provisions in our appropriation bills which are not yet authorized. The Congress is supposed to work in two ways. The Congress is supposed to, first, through its authorizing committees, decide what basic law is; and then the Committee on Appropriations is supposed to determine how much we can afford to spend on each of the programs that are authorized by law. The Committee on Appropriations on many occasions has had members of the authorizing committee come to us and ask us to put unauthorized items in the bill. When we have done so, they have then gone to the Committee on Rules and attacked us for the very same things which they asked us to put in the bill. It just seems to me that authorizing committee members need to understand that we do not appreciate being yinged and yanged, and on that issue, by Members who have lost arguments in authorizing committees. I would ask the authors of this amendment these questions. Since we have not had the hearings and we do not have the expertise, why should there be a threshold of $2,600,000 before the NLRB jurisdiction kicks in for a retail establishment, but only $535,000 for a shopping center? Why should there be a threshold of $2.8 million for art museums, cultural centers, and libraries, but a threshold of only $283,000 for nursing homes? Can anyone tell me the specific reasons for the differences in those amounts? I would be very surprised if they could.

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, Members are not under the rules supposed to engage in personal attacks on other Members. The gentleman did that. I demand the words be taken down.

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I demand the gentleman's words be taken down.

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the last word. Mr. Chairman, I would simply like to commend the gentleman from Pennsylvania for raising this issue, and I think it is a fundamental issue which States are ducking. Children are mobile. A child educated in one school district will move into another school district and the taxpayers in the district to which he moves will experience the consequences of an underfunded education for that individual. I would simply say that in my own State, despite the fact that it is better than most in this regard, I think my own State has a disgraceful difference in purchasing power for these school districts. I have a small school district, the Maple School District in my own congressional district, and they spend about $5,000 per student; Maple Dale, which is a very wealthy school district in the same State, spends $10,045 per student. I do not know how any rational person can expect that we can really produce equal opportunity in this country with that kind of a huge disparity. I, for instance, strongly favor educational testing, but I think that those who favor educational testing have an obligation to recognize that if they are going to test children, then they also have an obligation to take a position at the State and national level that will push States into doing something to correct this problem. I commend the gentleman for raising it. I wish there were some way we could adopt, if not this identical proposal, at least something similar, because we do not have equal educational opportunity in this country as long as States continue to have some of these outrageous variations in support levels for providing children with basic education for the 21st century.