Dave Obey

Mr. OBEY

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from Minnesota [Mr. Minge]. (Mr. MINGE asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I would say that this is a national program. it should be allowed to proceed the way the department and farmers expected it to. If other regions of the country are behind, I suspect over time that will be a self-correcting phenomenon. Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 minute and 15 seconds to the gentleman from Iowa [Mr. Boswell]. (Mr. BOSWELL asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I make a point of order against the amendment. It violates clause 2 of rule XXI. No amendment to a general appropriations bill shall be in order if it changes existing law.

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the requisite number of words. Mr. Chairman, I do not want to put this in the context of either being for or against the Neumann amendment. I would simply like to make some observations about where I am concerned we are going to be. Right now, FEMA tells us that if we proceed as the House would proceed under this amendment, that come the middle of September, they expect to have less than $200 million available to meet all problems that they are required to deal with, funds that would be unallocated at that point. I would simply make the observation, this is May 14 or 15, if my calendar is right. This is a month after the budget resolution is supposed to be finished. We have yet to pass all of our regular appropriation bills for this year. What we need to be able to focus on in this House is the passage of all of those appropriation bills if we are to be anywhere near finished by the end of the fiscal year. The last thing we are going to need to do is to have to deal again and again with more emergency supplementals because God has deigned to ignore the budget resolution and has caused natural disasters, or allowed them to happen, in any part of the country. The real fix, I would submit, is not the Neumann amendment or anything else that has been offered tonight. If my colleagues really want to get the government out of this constant hole of having to find how to finance disasters, what we really need to do is to bring to the floor of this House a new way of dealing with disasters. What we really need to do in my view is to have an insurance fund into which each of the States pay on an experience-rated basis so that if they have disasters, we do not have to go through this month after month and year after year, that there will already be an insurance fund created for the purpose of funding those disasters on a regular basis. Otherwise, no matter what budgets we adopt on an annual basis, we will constantly be jerking them around to make up for the fact that we cannot predict acts of God. Mr. Chairman, I would simply urge every Member of this House to remember, it is not an easy thing to chair the Committee on Appropriations or each of the 13 subcommittees. Most of the time, all of the choices that you have to make are bad ones. No matter what choice you make, somebody is going to be unhappy, somebody is going to be sore and somebody is going to insist that you have not made a pluperfect decision. It seems to me that the committee has made the best decision it could under the circumstances, and I would simply urge my colleagues to recognize that as we consider this and any other amendment before the House tonight.

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

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, if it is Norton, I am for it.

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I make a point of order against the amendment. It proposes to change existing law, constitutes legislation on our appropriation bill, violates clause 2, rule XXI.

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the last word. I would simply say there are no moneys in this legislation for any studies of the medicinal use of marijuana. Therefore, the amendment has absolutely no effect and it is immaterial whether it is adopted or not.

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the last word. Mr. Chairman, when this bill came to the floor, it was in shape to be supported on a bipartisan basis and it was in shape that was going to be signed by the President. At least that was my understanding. Now, with the adoption of the Gekas amendment tonight, it is pretty apparent that this bill is on a collision course with the President. I would simply observe that this body appears to be in such a hurry to get in yet another conflict with the White House that it is willing to leave the House in a State of total confusion, and the Nation as well. Three years ago, I remember being told by many Members on the other side of the aisle that the Mississippi flood should not be funded until every dollar that was expended for that flood was offset in both budget authority and outlays. Then the rule seemed to change over the past year and a half. Then the rule seemed to be, well, at least it ought to be offset only with respect to budget authority. Now, given the action which struck some $1.6 billion on a point of order tonight, this bill now has a $1.6 billion hole. So it seems to me that in addition to putting this bill on a track for a veto, which will mean the needed disaster assistance will not be delivered, it also leaves us in a total state of confusion about what the policy of this House is supposed to be with respect to whether or not disasters are supposed to be offset or not. I would simply suggest that that gives us two good reasons to vote against this bill. I do not understand how we can have a changing standard depending upon which natural disaster we are faced with. So it seems to me that this bill is in far worse shape than it was when it left here in several respects, most certainly because it is not now in balance. I did not support the Neumann amendment because I did not want to see FEMA funds reduced, but I certainly am in a massive state of confusion about what the policy of this House is supposed to be with respect to offsets. I do know this bill is not going anywhere, but if it does in its present form, it would simply mean we will have a significant addition to the deficit, and I do not think that is what Members wanted to do when they started out today.

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

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I yield such time as he may consume to the gentleman from Tennessee [Mr. Ford].

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

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, let me say that on this side of the aisle we also have no objection to the amendment and are willing to accept it.

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I yield such time as he may consume to the gentleman from Texas [Mr. Green].

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, how much time do I have remaining?

Mr. OBEY

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I am reserving the right to object, I could not hear the gentleman and I was wondering, what is the nature of the corrections?

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

Mr. OBEY

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

Mr. OBEY. Here we go again. Mr. Speaker, we hear on the majority side of the aisle in their press conferences that they are all for bipartisan cooperation with the President, all for trying to work things out and being constructive. But then they bring a rule and a proposition to the floor which invites and indeed guarantees a White House veto. What this does in my view is to give the back of the hand to the President. It rejects cooperation with the House Democrats on a wide range of issues, and it virtually assures weeks and weeks of delay in getting needed assistance to the people who have been the victims of floods and natural disasters all over the country. The rule does a number of things which I think Members ought to know about. First of all, it has a self-executing rule on WIC so that after more than a month of the majority party trying to cut in half the administration's request for WIC, it now has a self-executing provision in the rule that guarantees that there will not even be any debate on WIC, in order to cover their tracks on the issue, I guess. At least that is the way it appears to me. Then they have a provision on the FEC. The administration originally requested $1.6 million for the FEC so the FEC could pursue campaign finance violations investigations and also to provide for an upgrade of the FEC computer system. First the committee itself said, ``Oh, no, no. No money for investigations. You can only use money for computers.'' Then the gentlewoman from New York [Mrs. Maloney] announced that she wanted to offer an amendment to restore the ability of the FEC to pursue these congressional finance investigations. And so what did they do? Rather than have a debate on the issue, they have deep-sixed the whole thing because in this, if my colleagues vote for this rule, they will be automatically knocking out all of the additional funding for the FEC. Nice, nice job. Then they have amendments that they are putting out that are guaranteed to produce a veto. First of all, the CR amendment that is being proposed does nothing but turn every single remaining appropriated program in the budget into an entitlement, that is all it does, and it becomes the Bureaucracy Supremacy Act of 1997. It guarantees that there will be no further choices by Congress. It absolutely eliminates the pressure for compromise between the two parties. It guarantees status-quo Government across the board. That is some leadership. Then they have a provision being offered by the distinguished gentleman from New York which again virtually guarantees a veto. We, under a time limit of 10 minutes, are asked to consider his amendment that would totally reorder our national strategy on dealing with weapons of mass destruction in the Soviet Union, and based on 5 minutes of arguments on each side we are supposed to throw into the junk heap the Nunn-Lugar legislation which has, at the cost of less than one B-2 bomber, helped us to get rid of some 4,500 nuclear weapons within the former Soviet Union. Tell me whether or not it is responsible for this country to make that kind of major decision on the basis of 5 minutes' token debate on each side of the question. I think it is laughable. Next they propose an amendment which would in the view of the Pentagon endanger the security of American troops in Bosnia by sending a specific date for a pullout, congressionally mandated. All of us might like to see the troops out by that date, but I see no sense in advertising to every potential adversary in Bosnia exactly what the date is, after which they can behave like the irresponsible characters that so many of them behaved like before the American presence there. It has a number of provisions which, far from helping the situation, make matters worse in terms of our ability to get needed aid to the States who need it. The gentleman from New York said, ``When is politics going to stop being played on this floor''; indeed that is the question that ought to be asked. This rule is chock full of politics. These amendments are chock full of politics. It seems to me if there is a desire on the majority side of the aisle for bipartisan cooperation that a good number of these amendments that the administration itself has defined as poison pens would simply not be offered. Mr. Speaker, the way to get together on a deal is to get together on a deal. This CR amendment, simply it is the old saw of someone crying out in the wilderness, ``Please stop me before I kill again.'' We do not need this CR provision in order to stop the Government from being shut down. We need a new attitude on the part of this Congress; that is all we need. I would urge opposition to this rule, and I would urge opposition to the bill itself so long as it contains these egregious provisions. If my colleagues vote for this proposal, they will be slowing down the delivery of needed relief to those areas of the country who have disasters, they will be slowing down the assurance that we need to get to those folks who we are trying to help by restoring Federal support for needy immigrants for the 1-month bridge that is needed until the new budget agreement takes care of the problem. So I would urge Members who are interested in bipartisan cooperation to vote against this rule, vote against this bill, have the Committee on Rules go back up and bring us a rule that is truly bipartisan, not one designed to create further confrontation with the White House.

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I simply note that this rule also denies to the Republican chairman of the Committee on Appropriations the right to offer a very thoughtful and fair-minded substitute on the amendment to be offered on Bosnia. I think that alone is a very good reason to turn down this rule.

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

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

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I would simply point out his leadership is not on the floor. Where are they? It would be nice if they were providing some help in getting us together rather than pulling us apart again.

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I doubt that I will take the full time. But let me simply observe, we have had a budget deal announced by the President of the United States and the leadership of this Congress. That has been met with varying degrees by enthusiasm by different Members of Congress, and yet, whether we are for or against that budget deal, I would hope that every responsible Member would like to see a bipartisan attitude develop for the consideration of that and all others that we deal with this year. It seems to me that a very important place to start with that bipartisan attitude is on this bill. I do not think we further that cause when this House inserts into this legislation provisions which they know the White House has already announced are poison pills. I do not much care which party gets credit for some of these provisions that we are going to be debating in the bill today. I do not think that either party gains or loses when we provide aid to regions of the country that are in distress. I think the country gains, and I think those regions gain. There is no partisan approach to disaster relief, and I personally was happy to see that there will be an amendment offered that tries to restore community development block grant funding to the disaster package which this Congress is going to support. I supported that proposition in the committee. We were stopped from, we were asked by the majority in the committee not to provide an amendment at that time. They promised they would keep an open mind during the process to see whether or not a consensus could develop around it, and that has happened. So the Thune amendment is going to be offered, and I think Members will see bipartisan support for that amendment and a number of others. I think it is especially dangerous for the House to insert totally extraneous material, including an amendment which would virtually trash the program which has enabled us to eliminate 4,500 nuclear weapons that were formerly existent in the former Soviet Union. I do not see any reason on God's green Earth why we ought to do that, especially on the basis of 5 minutes of discussion on both sides. That is simply too serious a matter to be handled in such a cavalier and thoughtless fashion. I also think that it is going to do nothing but delay this proposition when we add to that the CR provision which the White House has already indicated it is going to veto. And I do not think it was fair at all in the way the gentlewoman from Ohio [Ms. Kaptur] was treated on the WIC amendment. I find it interesting that some of the same folks who originally said that we were being disingenuous when we produced the numbers that indicated that we needed the full funding for WIC, those are some of the same Members who are now saying, ``oh, gee whiz, we have to support this through a self-executing rule.'' I would also point out that this bill is not going to be paid for. When it left the committee, it was at least paid for on the budget authority side, but because of actions taken in the Committee on Rules, which they had a perfect right to take, this bill, in fact, will not be paid for on either the outlay side or the budget authority side as it leaves the House. I do not think that helps in getting aid to the areas of the country who most need it. I very regretfully urge that we vote against the rule so that the Committee on Rules can bring us a better rule which will deal with the WIC problem, which will deal with the immigrant problem, which will deal with the other disaster problems, but which will be stripped of most of the extraneous material that can only slow this much-needed proposal down.