Dave Obey

Mr. OBEY

Mr. OBEY. That is not my fault. Get your leadership to put you there.

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

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I would ask why on hotels and motels, right now there is a $500,000 differential between them in the law. Under the gentleman's recommendation, there would be almost a $2 million differential between hotels and motels. And symphony orchestras, why should symphony orchestras be treated that much better than a hotel- motel operator? Mr. Chairman, my family used to run a hotel. I do not see why we should be subjected to a threshold which is over a million and a half dollars lower than a symphony orchestra. With all due respect to symphony orchestras, I prefer bluegrass. It just seems that the gentleman from Indiana is absolutely correct in suggesting that these numbers ought to be adjusted. But the adjustments that the gentleman makes are just as irrational. They will last for only 1 year. It invites this House to jockey these numbers around each and every year. That will lead to massive confusion on the part of businesses. The net result, as I said earlier, is that it eliminates protection of the NLRB for millions of workers in this country, and it also greatly raises the threshold that would apply in protecting corporations and businesses from illegitimate tactics. I would urge rejection of the amendment.

Mr. OBEY. This floor, with all due respect, does not have the information to make those judgments. Committees are supposed to serve the House by doing their own work in their own jurisdiction by developing specific areas of expertise and then bringing that expertise to the floor. If you have got the expertise, demonstrate it by getting your own committee to buy your idea. Do not plague appropriation bills with this mini-filibuster because you cannot get your problem solved in another committee.

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the requisite number of words, and I rise in opposition to the amendment. Mr. Chairman, this amendment again is just another one in a long line of amendments over the past 3 years which has tried to savage the ability of the National Labor Relations Board to defend the interests of working people. Two years ago, the majority tried to cut the National Labor Relations Board by 30 percent. They passed this amendment in the House. That was one of the issues that led to the Government shutdown. Last year they tried to cut it by 15 percent. Yesterday they tried to cut it by 10 percent. Now they are trying to, by another means, eliminate the ability of the National Labor Relations Board to protect the legal rights of workers and corporations. I would point out, first of all, that if this amendment passes, it will create a large amount of confusion because there will be many State laws which will cover more people than the Federal laws, and employers and employees alike will have to relearn all of those new relationships. I would point out that the NLRB is charged with the responsibility to see to it that collective bargaining takes place in a fair manner, they are charged with the responsibility to prevent discrimination against workers based on their support or opposition to a union. They are charged with the responsibility to see to it that workers who are fired for trying to organize a union can get back to work with back pay, because firing those workers is an illegal act, which nonetheless occurs frequently in this country. They are also charged with the responsibility of enforcing the rules against union violence and coercion on the picket lines, and they are charged with the responsibility to settle worker jurisdiction disputes between two competing unions. I have seen that problem often in my own district where an employer gets whipsawed between two competing unions. I would point out, also, that it is not the responsibility of the Committee on Appropriations to make the determination about what level ought to be in the law with respect to the jurisdiction of the NLRB. We are a budget committee. We are supposed to decide what each program merits and what we can afford to spend. It is the responsibility of the authorizing committee to bring to the floor any recommendations to change these thresholds. Virtually every fight that we have had on Labor Department issues comes on an appropriation bill because, in my judgment, the Committee on Education and the Workforce for a good many years has not done the work it is supposed to do in a lot of these areas, and I for one have had a belly full of members on the authorizing committee bringing their disputes to this floor when they cannot work them out in their own committee. That has been the case under Democratic Congresses, it is the case now under a Republican Congress, and I am much bemused by the fact that you will often have authorizing committee members cry all over this floor about actions that the Committee on Appropriations takes to impinge upon their jurisdiction and yet 10 minutes later will be asking us to put a provision in an appropriation bill which takes care of an authorizing problem that they just cannot seem to get to. And so it seems to me if you have got an argument, settle it where it ought to be settled, in the committee that under the rules of the House is given the responsibility and given the staff and has developed the expertise to deal with these issues. Do not bring them to this floor under general limitation amendments. Let me point out, for instance, that you are talking about raising the threshold to cover multimillion dollar businesses. In some industries, that may be justifiable, in some it may not. But with all due respect, our subcommittee does not have the expertise to make these judgments.

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I ask that the rules of the House be abided.

Mr. OBEY

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

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I rise in opposition to the amendment. Mr. Chairman, I do not think we should kid ourselves for a moment. In my view, this amendment does not have a whole lot to do with Impact Aid. What it does have a lot to do with is that it represents the third year in a row that certain Members of this House have decided that they wanted to wage a frontal attack on the ability of the NLRB to enforce worker rights. Mr. Chairman, in 1996, the majority in this House cut funding for the NLRB by 30 percent. That was one of the issues involved in the Government shutdown. In 1997, they tried to cut funding for the NLRB by 15 percent. This amendment cuts it by 10 percent and simply has a ``holy picture'' place that it puts the money. Mr. Chairman, I would simply make the point that whether my colleagues like the NLRB, or whether they do not, it is the only agency we have that protects workers against unfair treatment by employers and protects corporations against unfair picketing and violence by unions. To the extent that we reduce its budget, we cripple its ability to deal with both problems. I would point out that this is the Agency that is charged with the responsibility of giving workers redress when they are fired for an unfair reason, such as trying to organize a union. It is also the Agency charged with the responsibility of seeing to it that when corporations who have contracts with their workers downsize, that they do so in a fair manner, consistent with the contracts that they have negotiated, and not arbitrarily savage people outside of the requirements of law. Mr. Chairman, this reduction will result in the doubling of the backlog of cases at the NLRB. It will represent a 14-percent cut in staff. This is not, as the gentleman from Arizona [Mr. Hayworth] has suggested, a choice between children and bureaucrats. This is a question of whether or not workers are going to have taken away from them the ability to go to an agency of Government for redress of their grievances when they feel they have been treated unfairly by the corporate entity that employs them. Pure and simple, that is what this amendment is. Mr. Chairman, I would strongly urge that the House reject the amendment. If we do not like decisions that are made by executive agencies of the Federal Government, the way to go about that is to argue with the fellow who appointed them in the first place. But we should not, under the guise of improving slightly funding for Impact Aid, we should not be savaging the ability of this Government to provide a square deal to every worker who sweats for his wages 40 hours a week.

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, as has been the case often in the last 3 days, agencies are being pummeled for the sins of their predecessors. I would point out that the building into which the NLRB moved was a building, they were moved into that building under the Bush administration. The showers were in that building when the Bush administration moved the agency into that building. Second, I would point out that the linen service that the gentleman is so exercised about was discontinued 2 years ago. So I do not mind attacking agencies for mistakes that they are making at the present, but I do not believe that people should be blamed for the mistakes of either previous administrations or be blamed for practices that have been long since corrected.

Mr. OBEY

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 1\1/2\ minutes. Mr. Chairman, let me simply say in response that this is not the reform de jour. This proposal is the result of 20 years of research to determine what works and what does not, what is effective and what is bull gravy, to be blunt about it. I would also say that I do not expect that this is going to be the be all and end all in terms of improving school performance. If I had my way, I think the most important thing the Federal Government could do is to say that there would not be a single dime in Federal money to any State for education purposes until they reform their State aid distribution formulas. It is outrageous that my own State, for instance, has a State aid formula that gives Maple, WI, one of the poorest rural districts in my State, pennies in comparison to the huge amount of aid or the huge amount of money that Maple Bluff and Maple Grove, two very wealthy suburbs in my State, can spend, in part because of the unjust school aid formula. I would also point out with respect to special education that these programs have been demonstrated to greatly reduce the need for placement of people in special education by attacking the problem up front, and I think that is the way we ought to go. Mr. Chairman, I yield the balance of my time to the distinguished gentlewoman from Connecticut [Ms. DeLauro].

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 1 minute. Mr. Chairman, I would simply say that I would like to also compliment the chairman of the subcommittee for being open-minded enough to review these proposals and to recognize that this offers us an opportunity for a nonideological way to get at school reform. I also appreciate the constructive efforts of the gentleman from Pennsylvania [Mr. Goodling], the education authorizing committee chair, for his efforts, to see to it that we can proceed on a project that will help raise school performance and school standards around the country. I think we underestimate often what our kids can do if they are challenged and if the schools in which they learn are imaginative enough and well organized enough. I hope this initiative will lead to that day.

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the distinguished gentleman from California, Mr. Miller.

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I withdraw my reservation of objection.

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

Mr. OBEY. If the gentleman will yield further, we have not just made the funds available to title I schools, we have made $50 million of this available to non-title-I schools, because we think that all schools will be interested in this, not just schools that have a high percentage of disadvantaged students.

Mr. OBEY. If the gentleman will yield, I was just explaining to several of the gentleman's Members, one of these models involves taking so-called slow learners, and instead of dealing with them by putting them in remediation programs, it deals with them by in fact putting them in highly advanced intensive programs, much as you would a gifted and talented student. That is totally counterintuitive to me. But the evaluation of those programs demonstrates that it has produced some very dramatic results with those kids. In that sense, what the gentleman is saying might have some relevance to the situation, I would grant that.

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, reserving the right to object, this pertains to the school reform amendment only?

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I think it is important for every Member of the House to understand what is occurring here.

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I stand corrected. I apologize. I was looking at the amendment and I saw the name of the gentleman from Indiana [Mr. Souder] on it, who originally intended to offer the amendment. He was here and did so vote. I apologize for a case of mistaken identity.

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 1\1/2\ minutes. With all due respect to the colloquy that just occurred, this funding cannot be used to provide gifted and talented funding. The purpose of title I under which this program is funded is to promote the raising of standards in schools and the raising of performance by improving the performance of disadvantaged children. There is a separate program for gifted and talented. We cannot use an exchange between two Members to rewrite what, in fact, is the basic authorization, irrespective of their efforts to do so. I would also point out with respect to Comer schools, people can have whatever ideological reaction they want to it. The key element in Comer schools is family involvement, parental involvement, and often not just with your own child but deep involvement in the operation of the school itself and collaborative decisionmaking so that you do not have an additional round of finger pointing every time a problem develops at school, to emphasize forcing people to work together to make collective decisions which everybody takes their fair share of responsibility for.

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

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the last word. Mr. Chairman, I am frankly of mixed views on this amendment. Let me simply recite for the committee what has already transpired with respect to Goals 2000. Mr. Chairman, last year Goals was funded at $491 million level. The administration asked for a $620 million funding level this year. The bill as reported by the committee cut Goals 2000 to $475 million, which is $16 million below the previous year. On the floor, we had an amendment adopted which cut it further to $462 million, and now this amendment cuts it to $442 million. Mr. Chairman, I would simply point out to the House that this Goals 2000 issue, which has become so politicized, started out as a joint effort of President Bush and the National Governors. The person who headed up, or one of the two Governors who headed up the Governors' Task Force on Education, working with the President, was a fellow by the name of then-Gov. Bill Clinton. I remember going to a conference and talking with a number of Governors, including then-Governor Clinton, about it. Mr. Chairman, I am baffled by why it has become so politicized, and I have misgivings about this amendment. But I am willing to accept it as a gesture of goodwill, indicating flexibility on our part. But I have to say in the process that as this bill moves through, it is important to remember that there are three different groups who have to be satisfied in the end for this legislation to pass. The legislative priorities of the majority in this House have to be respected; the legislative priorities of the minority in this House have to be respected; and so do the legislative priorities of the President. That does not mean we have to rubber stamp everything that he does, and we do not have to rubber stamp everything that each other does. But I think that we are at a point where we have cut this program far enough. Mr. Chairman, I am willing to accept the gentleman's amendment. I have been a longtime supporter of vocational education. The first issue I ran on when I ran for the State legislature was reform of vocational education. When I was in the legislature, we created on a bipartisan basis an entirely new system of vocational education and technical schools in my own State. So, recognizing that, I am willing to accept the amendment of the gentleman from Pennsylvania [Mr. Peterson], but I would simply say that I think we have gone far enough and I hope we can move on and get away from using this program as a punching bag, because I think it is not the only tool that is useful, but it is certainly one of the tools which, used in concert with others, can help to raise standards and to raise performance. And that is, after all, what I think the Federal role ought to be in the area of education.

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Tennessee [Mr. Ford].

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2\1/2\ minutes to the distinguished gentleman from Ohio [Mr. Stokes], a member of the subcommittee.

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