Dave Obey

Mr. OBEY

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, if the gentleman will continue to yield, why on Earth, if this facility is to be funded by the Government, should it be funded in a manner that allows them to seek sole source contracts with no competition and why should this not be peer reviewed? And if it is so important, why is FEMA resisting providing money for it without that kind of proper review?

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

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I would simply like to make one additional point.

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

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, the argument has been made that this research needs to be conducted. I am sure the gentleman would agree that no one questions that. Certainly I do not question that. The question is, why should this research proceed under conditions which enable the contractor to obtain sole source noncompetitive contracts? Why should it proceed when there has been no peer review to determine whether or not this is the right way to proceed? Why should we proceed when a large number of universities and many people in the scientific community have expressed their concern that they will not be able to use the simulator because of the costs associated with this contract? It has been suggested, for instance, that a number of insurance companies have gone bankrupt because of other disasters. Why then should the insurance industry not do as FEMA wants it to do, namely to share in the cost of producing this research facility? Certainly if they will gain millions of dollars in saved claims from its research, they should be willing to help finance it. I would simply say in very frank terms what this is is a nice arrangement by one State which has working arrangements with several other universities, but the taxpayers' interests are not protected because of the way this research project is being designed. It will be very convenient for Lockheed Martin, the contractor, but not for anybody else, as far as I know. And it seems to me under those circumstances, this ought not to proceed until we have the proper peer review processes built in. I would suggest also that with the veterans health budget being some $500 million short of current services, it is not even a close call as to where this money is needed the most.

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I demand a recorded vote, and pending that, I make the point of order that a quorum is not present.

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

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, since the gentlewoman indicated that we ought to put support for veterans ahead of everything else, can I assume that she will vote for my amendment to eliminate the pork project in Idaho so we can add money to the veterans health care budget?

Mr. OBEY. So in that case the veterans will come second?

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

Mr. OBEY

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the requisite number of words. Mr. Chairman, I am of a split mind, frankly, on the Istook amendment. I am concerned about some of the issues that he raises, and I frankly think that some of the tribes have abused their ability to have land put in trust. And I think, for that reason, that the authorizing committee in charge of basic law ought to hold hearings and ought to produce a legislative vehicle that corrects that problem. While the Istook amendment is advertised as attacking a problem such as the differential in tax law that the gentleman has referred to, in fact that is not what this amendment does. This amendment simply says, cold turkey, that none of the funds may be made available for the purposes of acquiring trust lands. That goes too far. It is not consistent with the traditions or obligations of this country, and for that reason I think that the amendment ought to be defeated. I would also say that I would be much more inclined to vote for the gentleman's amendments in the future if they are not accompanied by an effort to use the congressional frank in order to send material into other Members' districts which is essentially misleading and is not descriptive of the actual amendments before the House. I am very willing to respond to legitimate suggestions for change in the law, but I do not respond very well to lobbying pressure from anybody, especially when it comes from another Member of Congress. It seems to me that Members of Congress have an obligation to tend to their own districts. I think they ought to be very careful about the nature of mail which they send into other Members' districts under the frank. The frank is a privilege that Members of this House have that should not be used to create internal lobbying. The gentleman from Oklahoma is well-known as someone who does not like to see Federal agencies or Federal grantees lobbying with Federal money. I also do not like to see Members of Congress lobbying with Federal money, especially when they are lobbying each other through the use of the frank and when frank material is sent into congressional districts which is not consistent with amendments that are actually offered on the House floor. So, Mr. Chairman, I would simply say that I think there are two problems with the gentleman's approach. First, I do not, for one, think that it is appropriate to engage in what is in essence a lobbying operation with taxpayers' money by sending franked material into other Members' congressional districts. Second, if that material is sent in, I think it ought to accurately reflect the situation which exists in each of those States, and the material I saw did not. And, third, I would suggest that the amendment ought to be offered which in fact attacks the problem that is described in the speeches accompanying the amendment. Eliminating all ability to take land in as trust lands is not the correct remedy for the problem at hand. The gentleman from Oklahoma is correct about the problem. I, for one, very deeply resent the fact that some of the tribes have used existing law to take land into trust and then operate casinos on that land far from their reservation. I think that is an outrageous abuse of the trust privilege.

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I also think that it is wrong to convey a misinterpretation of what some of our Governors and some of our State legislatures have been able to negotiate by way of agreements with tribes so that they do, in fact, collect the correct amount of tax revenues from those States. I would simply say that the gentleman is partially correct in his concern, but this is not the way to go about it. I do not think it is legitimate to wipe out the Secretary's ability to take land into trust across the board when, in fact, the problem is much narrower than this amendment would lead one to believe. Mr. Chairman, I thank the House for its indulgence in allowing me the additional minute.

Mr. OBEY

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

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, those of you who know me know that I often quote my favorite poet, Archie the Cockroach. It is not my religious bible, but it is my philosophical bible. I want to read my colleagues something that Archie wrote a long time ago: He wrote it about the movies, but you can just as easily say it in reference to the arts or the humanities. He said this: They are instinctively trying to preserve for the public some kind of stuff that wins an audience away from the often sordid surface of existence. They may do it badly. They may do it obviously. They may do it crudely. But they do have a hunch that what the millions want is to be shown that there is something possible to the human race besides the dull repetition of the triviality which is often the routine of common existence. And every now and then they blunder into doing something with just a touch of the universal. Now, to me that is what the Endowment for the Arts and the Endowment for the Humanities is all about. I would just suggest that if Members want to save money, I can show them 50 line items in appropriation bills that I will serve the American public. This is a tiny little amount, but it is crucial to seeing to it that we can spread the basic foundations of our society and western values as broadly as possible in this society. Is it done error free? Of course not, because everyone is human. But I say that the routine of common existence would be just a little less rich without the services that this appropriation provides, and this Congress would be out of its head to pass this amendment.

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I object.

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

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, also a distinguished former alumni of the University of Wisconsin.

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the requisite number of words. Mr. Chairman, I think this amendment that is being brought to the House is an example of Members who understand the cost of everything and the value of nothing. I just heard a prior speaker, a few speeches ago, lecture us about the $100 million-plus a year that this endowment costs the taxpayer. It is true. It does. But the same gentleman who spoke voted last week to require this country to buy nine B-2 bombers that the Pentagon did not want. Each one of those B-2 bombers cost $1.2 billion. This Congress chose, over the advice of the Pentagon, to buy nine of those. The cost of those nine B-2 bombers would fund this account for the next 99 years. So who is kidding whom? This is not about whether taxpayers' money is going to be saved or not. This issue is whether or not we are going to make a small investment to preserve the best of American heritage and to help us to the best of our ability to rise above the lesser aspects of our natures. That is what the humanities are all about. Let me explain what the National Endowment for the Humanities does. It provides exhibits. It helps libraries all over the country to preserve some of their prize possessions. If you ask any historian what is the greatest historical loss to mankind's base of knowledge in the history of the world, they will say it was the loss of the Egyptian library at Alexandria. We lost all of the treasures, all of the institutional memory of that ancient age. And it took humanity literally hundreds of years to begin to reaccumulate that knowledge and that understanding. This endowment helps to preserve books. It helps to preserve documents. It helps to preserve archival material. It helps to preserve historical newspapers. It has produced films which have won Peabody awards, Emmys, you name it. It does not serve the cultural elite of this country. The cultural and economic elite of this country, any time it wants, has access to this kind of material. They have got the bucks to pay for it. They have the leisure time to experience it. And they have the family history that makes children sensitive to it. It is the average family in this country that does not live in a city which has a great university, it does not live in a city with one of the outstanding libraries in the country. Members of Congress take for granted the fact we can go down to the National Archives, see the great documents of our history. We think nothing of that. Most Americans would give their eyeteeth to have that opportunity. It is the small towns, it is the people of average means, it is the people of average life experience who most need the benefits that this appropriation produces. Yet we are told we cannot afford that. We are told that by one of the same Members who stood on the floor or stood on the floor of the Committee on Appropriations just 3 days ago and argued that we ought to continue subsidizing tobacco. I ask my colleagues, what is a better investment in American tax dollars? There is very little doubt in my mind. Has the Endowment occasionally been embarrassed by an idiotic use of one of their grants? Yes, they have. Have you ever been embarrassed? Has any Member of Congress ever been embarrassed by an idiotic act that we ourselves have committed or an act of our staff? Of course we have. I wish any Member of this House had a batting average as good as the National Endowment for the Arts or the Humanities. We make as many mistakes in a day as they make in a year. Members can vote any way they want.

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, the amendment before us is not even a serious legislative effort. It is very clear what is going on here is simply ``Operation Cover Your Tail.'' We have had a lot of people in this House who promised to vote for funding the arts, but yesterday they chose to assassinate the arts behind the cover of the Ehlers amendment. Mr. Chairman, this is a smokescreen amendment, and I think the comments of the Chair of the Committee on Education and the Workforce indicate just how unreal this proposal is as an alternative. What he really indicated by his remarks is that this is just a time filler. It is a device by which to kill the National Endowment for the Arts, and then they figure out later how they are going to explain it to the folks back home and come up with some other scheme to cover what they have done. What he said in response to the comments of the gentleman from Illinois [Mr. Yates] is, ``Well, if this amendment passes, then what we'll do is, we'll pull our committee together and we will really then figure out what it is we really want to do, and then we will send it on to the conferees.'' When he was asked would he do that same thing if the Ehlers amendment is not adopted, he said no. That indicates that this Ehlers amendment is nothing but a device by which you accomplish the assassination of the National Endowment for the Arts. That is all it is, and it just seems to me that that is not what a majority of Members in both parties in this House want to do. Now I have served, when I first came to the Congress I served, on this subcommittee as one of my first assignments. I remember for years the wonderful bipartisan support that we had for the Endowment. People now complain about a couple of the grants that the Endowment was involved in because they say that they produced art that is not consistent with American values. There is no question about that, and I agree with that. But they have had about a 99 or 97 percent success rate. Mr. Chairman, I would like to meet the Member of Congress who has that high a performance by any standard, no matter who would determine that standard. Let us be very clear about it. The arts community is against the Ehlers amendment. The State arts agencies who would receive a very large share of the funds under this amendment do not want this amendment. And the idea that we are going to turn this over as an orphan program to the Department of Education, which at least a third of my colleagues on that side of the aisle have been trying to abolish, indicates just what a slapdash operation this really is. So it seems to me if my colleagues are serious, if they want to cast a vote that will keep continued pressure on to resurrect a meaningful arts program, they will vote this down and they will insist that the committee in conference resurrect the National Endowment.

Mr. OBEY. If the gentlewoman will continue to yield, I know that is the way the gentleman approaches things, but as he knows sometimes things are decided above our pay grade, and I think we need to know whether we are operating in the atmosphere of reasonableness or of sharks.

Mr. OBEY. I would certainly take the gentleman at his word. I would simply ask that he check with his own Whip's office to make certain that that is not the case. If the majority party wants to really blow up this place, that is a good way to do it; and I do not think it would be very smart to try it.

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I would like to ask one question. I have just been told that one Member of the leadership of the gentleman from Ohio [Mr. Regula] has indicated that if this bill goes down on final passage, that all Democratic projects are going to be stripped out of the bill. I would like to know if that kind of blackmail is going on on the part of his leadership or not.

Mr. OBEY

Mr. OBEY. My point is I want assurances that the debate on NEA will not occur while we are in full committee marking up because we cannot be in two places at the same time and everyone feels very strongly about that.

Mr. OBEY. One additional question. It is essential that we not be in the committee marking up the transportation bill tomorrow when the NEA vote comes to the floor. Do we have an assurance that that double duty will not occur?

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman.