Dave Obey

Mr. OBEY

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 3 minutes and 30 seconds. Mr. Speaker, 90 days ago the President sent the Congress an emergency message asking that we appropriate supplemental funds to help flood victims and to help meet the costs of our activities in Bosnia. Last week, instead of responding to that request, the Congress in essence decided to load up that proposal with a series of unrelated riders. One related to roads on public lands, another related to census sampling, and a third created a change in budget rules which would allow Congress to pass appropriations which it prefers but bottle up the passage of the President's budget priorities. That is not the way to establish a bipartisan relationship with the other branch of government. The President vetoed that proposal. He told us ahead of time he would. And he has told the Congress to do it right. He said, in essence, do not try to gain political leverage by using the distress of innocent Americans. Now, I do not hesitate to speak out publicly when I think the President is wrong. I think people on this floor understand that. But the fact is the President is not wrong in this instance. He is absolutely correct. He recognizes that farmers need this money to get on with their planting. He recognizes that they need it to replace livestock that were killed in the floods. He recognizes that local communities need the community development money in order to plan for their communities' futures. And he recognizes that the Joint Chiefs of Staff have indicated that they will have to stand down in terms of a number of important training exercises and other military activities unless Congress quits fiddling and sends the President the package that he has asked for. So, very simply, what will happen here tonight is this. At the end of this discussion, when the motion comes to refer this matter to committee, I will ask Members to vote no on the previous question so that, in the event the previous question fails, we can immediately ask unanimous consent to bring up H.R. 1796, which would have the effect of stripping from this proposal the three riders that caused the President to veto the bill and sending a clean bill back to the White House. It would contain every other provision that was fashioned by the majority in this House except those three political riders. That is all our motion would seek to do. What we are asking people to do is to recognize that for the people in the affected areas, who we are trying to help with this supplemental, for them, refusal of the Congress to provide needed assistance in a timely fashion is nothing but a second government shutdown. That is what it represents in those areas. So I ask my colleagues to end that second government shutdown for those purposes by voting no on this proposal to send it to the committee tonight and get on with doing this week what we should have done last week, which is to pass a clean supplemental appropriation.

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I object to the vote on the ground that a quorum is not present and make the point of order that a quorum is not present.

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the distinguished minority whip, the gentleman from Michigan [Mr. Bonior].

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3\1/2\ minutes to the distinguished gentleman from North Dakota [Mr. Pomeroy].

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 1\1/4\ minutes. Mr. Speaker, that is precisely the same line of argument we heard from the majority party last year when they announced ahead of time that they were going to shut down the Government in order to leverage the President to swallow things that he did not feel he ought to swallow. And then after he stood up for principle, then they said, see, you caused the problem, you caused the problem, after they told the country for 3 months ahead of time they were going to shut the Government down. What my colleagues have to recognize on that side of the aisle is that for the people in the areas affected by these floods, their refusal to let this legislation go to the White House in shape that can be signed is tantamount to a second Government shutdown. Now it is time that they put their own subjective judgments second to the needs of the people in the affected areas and deliver the aid that they have a right to expect. Government is either going to be on their side or it is going to be against them. In this case, unless we let this legislation go, they have a perfect right to conclude that Government is against them, and that is not where it ought to be tonight.

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from California [Mr. Fazio].

Mr. OBEY

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself the remainder of the time. Mr. Speaker, I have a great deal of respect and affection for my friend from California [Mr. Lewis], but I come from a rural area, and I know that a lot of folks in this Congress do not understand much about small towns in rural America. In fact, a lot of them do not know the difference between a jersey and a guernsey. But I have to say that, if my colleagues think that there is enough money in the disaster pipeline to deal with the problems of rural areas, my colleagues need to think again. There is not enough money in the pipeline to help with the crop planting that is essential if farmers are to recover in a number of States in this country. There is not enough money in the pipeline to deal with livestock replenishment, which is crucial to any farmer who has lost his operation orhis herd. There is not enough money in the pipeline to deal with the long-term housing problems that each of these mayors have. They need to know how to plan, and they cannot plan if they do not know what this Congress is going to do. There is enough money in the pipeline to deal with the short-term emergency problems that people have, with the exceptions of some of the agricultural problems I have just laid out, but there is not enough money in the pipeline to enable people to plan for the long-term recovery of these communities. When one is a mayor trying to hold one's city together, every day counts. What I want to say to my colleagues is simply this: The committee majority knows that these riders should not be in this bill. The committee majority tried to cooperate. In fact, the chairman of the committee--and I have great respect for him--the chairman of the committee tried to bring a clean bill to this House. But the leadership of his party had other ideas. So now, the gentleman from Louisiana [Mr. Livingston], my good friend, is once again being asked to make a good argument for a bad case. He makes a very good argument, but the case is still bad. I want to suggest that the 80-day delay which has been caused by the insistence of the majority party leadership in adding these three extraneous riders has effectively resulted in a second government shutdown for all of the areas of the country who need this help. There are 35 States who are still waiting for government to work for them, now, in their area on their problems. They are not interested in Washington games or Washington problems. They are interested in the problems of Carolina, of Florida, of California, of North Dakota, South Dakota, and Minnesota, and the other areas. That is what they want to see action on. In my view, the quickest way to end this political nonsense is to vote no on this bill, make the committee go back to work tonight, strip those riders out of this bill so that we can send the President a bill which is respectable, responsible, and can be signed. If we do not do that, this bill is going nowhere. We will all simply be back here next week doing what duty ought to require us to do this week, which is to end the Washington games and get on with helping real people with real things. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the distinguished gentleman from Ohio [Mr. Sawyer]. (Mr. SAWYER asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the distinguished gentleman from Maryland [Mr. Hoyer].

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the distinguished gentleman from California [Mr. Miller].

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Minnesota [Mr. Peterson]. (Mr. PETERSON of Minnesota asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the distinguished gentleman from North Dakota [Mr. Pomeroy].

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Michigan [Mr. Bonior], the distinguished minority whip.

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield 4 minutes to the distinguished gentleman from Pennsylvania [Mr. Murtha]. (Mr. MURTHA asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks and to include extraneous material.)

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 5 minutes. Mr. Speaker, on March 19 the President sent a request to this Congress for an emergency supplemental to pay for flood damage relief in some 35 States and to reimburse the Pentagon for additional costs incurred by America's responsibilities in Bosnia. That request was for around $5 billion. Today is June 6, almost 80 days after the President sent his request to this Congress. Today, this House is apparently about to send to the President a bill that contains considerably more money and, unfortunately, it also contains three blatant political riders which have nothing whatsoever to do with disaster recovery or military readiness. Those riders will, and, in fact, they are doing it right now, they are, for all practical purposes, resulting in a second Government shutdown for the areas of the country who are desperately awaiting relief from Washington and are not getting it because of these three riders. The first rider is a political restriction on the census. Now, I happen to agree with the language of that rider. I do not like the idea of having sample census supplement the enumeration in the census. But I also recognize that that fight ought to be made on the State-Commerce- Justice appropriation bill. It does not belong on an emergency proposal to get help to 35 States which need it very badly. There is also a second rider which has to do with constructing roads on environmentally sensitive public lands in some 17 States across the country, most especially Alaska. No matter how one feels about the provision, that language does not belong on an emergency appropriation bill trying to help the American people. Thirdly, there is another rider, which is posed as being a benign rider, which will simply extend the activities of Government at the end of the fiscal year. In fact, that rider is a pernicious effort to create a new imbalance of power between the Congress and the Presidency, because the effect of that rider is to essentially allow the majority in this House to pass through the Congress those appropriation bills which they want to cut, but it allows them to hold back any appropriation bill which contains administration priorities. That means that the President is being asked to put himself in a hole in terms of being able to defend what he considers to be legitimate national priorities. No matter how one feels about that, that language again does not belong on an emergency appropriation bill. Now, this bill is going nowhere. It is going to be vetoed over those three riders. The American people know that once again Congress is putting, by its action on these three riders, it is putting partisan political considerations ahead of the needs of the American people, and I think we ought to see to it that that does not happen this evening. What we ought to do is to stop the political games. We ought to stop the delays which are preventing real help from getting out there to real people. So I am simply going to ask people tonight to vote ``no'' on the proposition. A ``no'' vote will actually speed up the needed relief to the affected areas of the country because we could, in fact, tonight go back to conference, strip that bill of these three offending riders, and in that way enable aid to get to these areas in the fastest possible way. That is what I think we should do. We should pass the effective equal, H.R. 1796, which I have deposited at the desk today, which will contain all of the provisions in this proposition before us today except those three riders that are causing this bill to go nowhere. That is the responsible thing to do if we are worried about meeting the needs of our troops in Bosnia, if we are worried about meeting the needs of the Americans in the affected areas. I would urge a ``no'' vote on this bill, not only because it is delaying the needed aid to these areas, but because it also is rapidly getting us into a place where our military is going to have to take a number of actions which are not in the national interest of this country. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the distinguished gentleman from California [Mr. Fazio].

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield such time as she may consume to the gentlewoman from New York. (Mrs. MALONEY of New York asked and was given permission to revise and extend her remarks.)

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the distinguished gentleman from Ohio [Mr. Stokes].

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from New Jersey [Mr. Pascrell]. (Mr. PASCRELL asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. OBEY

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, it is hard for me to tell today whether I am participating in a session of the House of Representatives or a national seance. I mean this bill is going absolutely nowhere. It reminds me of the fellow who was so unlucky that he ran into accidents that started out to happen to somebody else. We do not even have a bill here. The committee produced a bill; the Committee on Rules then ripped out the guts of it, which is the foreign aid authorization. It contains the unilateral partisan description of the administration's agreement on State Department reorganization, and then it also contains what I regard as an historically arrogant action on the part of the Congress and the West in expanding NATO the way it is expanding. This bill is going absolutely nowhere, and so I am going to ask Members to vote against the previous question on the rule in hopes that if that previous question goes down, we will be able to add a third bill for consideration by the House. That bill would be simply to see to it that we can take up the contents of the conference report which has been agreed to so far relating to the emergency supplemental items now before the Congress, stripping that conference product of the three extraneous partisan riders which are going to assure that that conference report will go to the same place that this bill is going to go: nowhere. It just seems to me that since that conference report with those riders is going nowhere and the bill that this rule seeks to bring to the House is going to go nowhere, we ought to at least try to bring some degree of reality to the House floor. And I would seek to do that by simply bringing to the floor the contents of H.R. 1755 which would take all of the items that have been agreed to in conference on the emergency supplemental, minus those controversial partisan riders, and give the House an opportunity to pass that. At least then we would be doing something real for the sections of the country who need immediate relief because of the flooding which they have experienced. Mr. Speaker, I would point out that that is truly an emergency. Bringing this bill before us today represents absolutely no response whatsoever, no meaningful response to any serious problem. If we bring this rule down or bring the previous question down so that we can amend the rule, then at least we would be bringing something to the floor which would have some meaning for somebody. That might be a very rare occurrence, given what the legislative schedule is this week, but at least we could produce one piece of legislation which did something real for somebody somewhere, rather than this proposal which does nothing real for anyone anywhere. I would urge that when the previous question vote comes that my colleagues vote against the previous question so that we can take into account the fact that we do have emergencies that need responding to, we do have emergency needs for accelerated crop planting, we do have emergency needs for livestock rehabilitation, we do have emergency needs for people to be able to plan with respect to housing funds to fix some of the damage done by these floods. It seems to me if the House is intending to bring two relatively unrelated bills to the floor, as they are planning today under this rule, we might as well add a third, because at least that third will do something for somebody.

Mr. OBEY

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, reserving the right to object, I would simply say that the gentleman is correct. This motion is supported on this side of the aisle as well. I would simply ask the gentleman if he could tell us when it is the intention of the majority side of the aisle to take this bill up on the floor?

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, further reserving the right to object, let me simply say that I would have no objection to this procedure on this side of the aisle, although what I would greatly prefer is for us to strip out the irrelevant riders which are going to cause the President to veto this bill. I think it would be a much faster approach and the relief would be gotten to the portions of the country who need it if we were immediately to strip those riders out that we know the President will veto the bill over. This way we are simply going to be back next week doing what we should have done straight and clean this week. But if that is the best we can do, it is the best that can be done. Mr. Speaker, I withdraw my reservation of objection.

Mr. OBEY

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I have introduced tonight H.R. 1755, a clean supplemental which contains the items agreed to by the conference committee to this point on the emergency flood relief supplemental, but which strips the proposal from the unrelated partisan riders which have been insisted on by the Republican leadership of both houses. I had intended to try to offer a motion this evening to take that bill up today but the majority leadership did not want it cleared. I would simply say that if the leadership insists on putting nonrelated items into the supplemental, it is clear that the President will veto that legislation and we will be here next week doing what we ought to do this week, which is to pass a straight, clean supplemental appropriation bill meeting the needs of the flood victims in the various States in this country. I would hope that by tomorrow, the House leadership and the Senate leadership would either have changed its mind about insisting on those unrelated riders, or else if they have not, I hope that they will at some point tomorrow allow the motion which would allow us to bring before the House a stripped-down version of the supplemental so that we do not, in fact, needlessly tie up this legislation for another week. If we do not do this this week, we will certainly be here next week doing next week what we ought to be doing this week, and it makes no sense at all. We ought to simply see an end to the partisan games, and we ought to move this bill in the stripped-down version on its way to the White House.

Mr. OBEY

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I think this is a time for pity in the House. What is happening to this supplemental reminds me of what my favorite philosopher, Archie the cockroach, said once. He said, now and then, somebody is born who is so unlucky he runs into accidents that started out to happen to somebody else. That is what is happening to this supplemental. Here we have a disaster supplemental which we have all wanted to get to the President before Memorial Day, so there is no doubt in anybody's mind that we can get the assistance that is needed out in the field, and yet we are being held up by the fact that the other body is still droning on on almost a continuous basis on the budget resolution. The supplemental itself is being bogged down by dragging in a large number of extraneous issues, not the least of which would be the permanent CR dispute plus another large issue about Alaskan roads. There are some other issues as well which are still holding up that supplemental. Mr. Speaker, we have had around here a lot of devices in the past. We have had continuing resolutions. It looks to me like before the week is up we may need a continuing resolution for a continuing resolution, and on this one it looks to me like we are going to have to invent a new device, which is a continuing supplemental. So go the perils of Pauline, I guess. I find this very regrettable. I hope that the House will be able to find some way out of it by the time the day is over. There is no reason why this supplemental should be held up because of extraneous causes. I am confused about why this specific resolution is before us at this time, however, because certainly I share the view of the gentleman from Louisiana, the chairman of the committee, that it is highly unlikely that there will even be a supplemental vehicle that will ride along after this rule. So if we are interested in resolving the problem, I think we are going to need a lot of other action, including a speed-up of the Senate schedule, which I fully do not expect to see.

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