Dave Obey

Mr. OBEY

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I would simply like to make the point that on the item that the gentleman mentioned in connection with Secretary Brown there is, in fact, a request from the Pentagon on that point, and that would not be covered by this amendment.

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

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, let me simply say I find this discussion highly interesting and entertaining. The fact is that the item mentioned as far as the Commerce Secretary's plane is concerned is a hypothetical with respect to this bill. The Congress never put that money in. This amendment does not apply to something that Congress does not do, it only applies to something Congress does do.

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, if the gentleman would continue to yield, again, this amendment cannot make up for congressional lack of effectiveness, but this amendment does not attack something Congress has not done.

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, if the gentleman would yield once more, the gentleman from Wisconsin is hardly a Member who always takes the advice of the Pentagon over the services, but I would simply say that this is an honest attempt to try to save some money. For every project the gentleman can point out that might be essential to national interest, I will show you 50 that are straight pork, and I would urge a vote on this amendment.

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

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, let me point out that we are not eliminating the hurricane-seeking capability that the gentleman is talking about. They can use existing aircraft for that, and the Air Force testified to that. All we are saying is if we are going to buy new replacement airplanes, wait 1 year so that we can save $8.5 million a copy. Given the squeeze on the budget, I do not think that is an unreasonable request since the agreement has already been reached that any planes that are bought next year will be $8.5 million cheaper.

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, I offer an amendment.

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Chairman, this amendment would simply cut $1 billion of the roughly $2 billion appropriated in the bill to continue research and development for the F-22 fighter aircraft. The amendment would direct the Air Force to use the remaining $1 billion to restructure and delay the program by 5 years for one simple reason: Because the General Accounting Office said it ought to be delayed 7 years, and it seems to me that that being the case, we ought to delay it at least 5 years. Mr. Chairman, the reason, as I see it, is very simple. The Air Force and the F-22 supporters want us to spend some $70 billion to buy 442 F- 22 replacement planes for the F-15E's. The fact is that we right now have 734 F-15E's. They are estimated to have a military useful shelf life to at least 2010. So, Mr. Chairman, it seems to me, therefore, that it is absurd for us to buy replacement aircraft for the best fighter aircraft in the world 7 years or more before we need to. I recognize that there is tremendous pressure to proceed with this purchase and this expenditure. They have subcontracts salted in virtually every State in the Union, and I understand why so few people are going to vote for this amendment. But that does not mean that cutting out this expenditure at this time is the wrong thing to do. Mr. Chairman, it is the right thing to do. We are seeing a squeeze on the budget all over, whether we are looking at what is happening on housing, whether we are looking at what is happening on the environment, on education, and in fact and indeed other defense programs. It seems to me, therefore, that we ought to listen to the accounting arm of the Congress itself, the General Accounting Office, when it says that we ought not to replace these planes early. I realize that I just misspoke, Mr. Chairman. I indicated that the military useful shelf life of the existing F-15E's took us out to at least 2010. I misspoke. It takes us out to at least 2015, so we have plenty of margin. We have incredible overlap by this purchase. It seems to me that we ought to save the billion dollars that I am talking about in this bill by stretching out the purchase of this new fighter for at least 5 of the 7 years recommended by the GAO. Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, could I ask who has the right to close?

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Chairman, let me simply read two quotes from the senior DOD official who gave the background briefing on March 1, 1996, who said the following: ``We're committed to it (the F-22) even though I can't project a threat right now that justifies an F-22.'' That was said by the Defense Department official who provided the background briefing. The GAO report in March 1994 said, ``Our analysis shows that the F-15 exceeds the most advanced threat system expected to exist * * * Thus, the F-22 initial operational capability can be delayed 7 years.'' Now, I know the usual game on this bill. We have military contractors all over the country and because this country is doing very little else to generate jobs and employment, the Defense Department is having its budget used as a fancy public works program. But the fact is, Mr. Chairman, it is ludicrous for us to spend $70 billion on a new system that we do not need for at least 7 years and probably twice that long. It is absolutely ludicrous. There is only one reason that this Congress is proceeding, and that is because it is being lobbied to death by all kinds of contractors and subcontractors. I do not doubt that there are some Members of the House who intellectually feel that this is a good system, but we are going to be in a budget squeeze. We have to recognize that just because the service wants something, we cannot necessarily afford to give them everything they want. The fact is that on the merits, especially given competing priorities in the Defense Department as well as out, we ought to delay this. That is what this does. This does not end the program; it simply delays it. There is no reason to rush to building a new $70 billion system for which, in the words of the DOD official doing the background briefing, there is no threat that he can cite right now to justify moving ahead with this aircraft.

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, if there are no other requests pending, might I be recognized?

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, the Air Force wants to buy C-130-J transport aircraft but they only wanted to buy one of them. The Air Force, instead, is getting six more planes than they expected. I do not really know whether they need those additional planes or not, that is up to somebody who knows a whole lot more about the military requirements of the Air Force on this point than I do. But the problem is that they do not need these planes for more than a decade, and the real kicker is that the Air Force documents, which were obtained by the General Accounting Office, indicated that the Air Force and Lockheed have agreed that the price will drop in fiscal 1998 by $8.4 million a plane or $50 million total for the six aircraft. In other words, all we have to do to save the $50 million is to wait 1 year. Now, it seems to me under those circumstances that the decision to buy in bulk before the discount defies common sense, but that is exactly what we are going to do. The issue here is very simple. There will be a lot of people who will want to buy these planes. I am not getting into that argument. All I am saying is if the Air Force needs the planes they can get them next year at a discount. But by buying them this year it will cost us $50 million more. That is very expensive $50 million ride the taxpayers are being taken on, and so I would simply, in the interest of economy, say go ahead and buy these planes, but do not buy them until next year because we can save $50 million if we simply wait 1 year. It is a done deal.

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

Mr. OBEY

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I simply want to note that one of the previous speakers mentioned the House passage of the Wisconsin welfare reform proposal last week. As Members know, what happened last week is the House passed the waiver request sent in by the State of Wisconsin, eliminating the 30-day public comment period. The Milwaukee Journal carried a story yesterday that hidden in those waiver requests were provisions that allowed employers to scale back employment for regular workers, to cut their hours, to cut their benefits, to interfere with their scheduled promotions in order to hire welfare recipients. The main Wisconsin bureaucrat who was supposed to be in charge of administering the program said in the Milwaukee Journal, ``Gee, we had no idea why that provision is there.'' The main legislative sponsor in the proposal in the State assembly was quoted as saying that he did not know that that was in the waiver request until he read it for the first time over the weekend. Today, Wisconsin announced that it was a big mistake and that they were going to have to change their waiver request. What this means is that the proposal which the House voted to bless just a week ago tells workers that we do not like the fact that welfare workers are going to be unnecessarily gobbling their tax dollars, but instead we are going to allow them to unnecessarily gobble their jobs. I do not think those workers are going to be very pleased about that. I think what happened last week, in fact, showed the wisdom of those in the House who supported the substitute that we proposed, which asked to maintain the regular waiver process, and which allowed the public to continue to be able to comment for 30 days so just that kind of problem could be avoided. Mr. Speaker, I would point out it was not any Wisconsin politician who discovered the problem, it was a member of the general public, a member of the press. So much for rubberstamping what we get sent by legislators these days.

Mr. OBEY

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

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for his comments. Let me simply say, I think we need to understand that in addition to everything else I have said, in the meantime the Khmer Rouge are continuing to plant new land mines every blessed day they can. That further displaces innocent Cambodians, and it just seems to me that the worldwide community has an obligation to respond to this problem. I would say that, with the concurrence of the subcommittee chairman, I will withdraw this amendment with the understanding that if we cannot get some language that really does the trick this year, and if we cannot get other action coming in other ways as the gentleman from Nebraska suggested, then blunt instrument or no, it will leave me with no alternative but to go after IMET next year and I intend to do it with a vengeance.

Mr. OBEY. I thank the chairman. As I say, I recognize that IMET is a blunt instrument to use, so it may be the wrong way to proceed. We will now have a year to find out, and if we do not get some real action that affects things in real ways on the ground, we will have no choice but to go back at it next year.

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I ask unanimous consent to withdraw the amendment.

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Chairman, having dispensed with all of that, let me new explain what it is that has motivated me to bring this proposal before the body. Mr. Chairman, I will acknowledge that choosing the route of limiting IMET funds in order to get at this problem is a blunt instrument. The problem is that there are no other instruments available at this point. We have a very serious problem in that we are concerned about continuing timber sales by the Khmer Rouge, sales which are occurring with the complicity both of the Cambodian Government and the Thai military. Last year this committee heard allegations that both the Cambodian and Thai military were cooperating in facilitating the sale of tropical timber from areas controlled by the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia. As a result, last year's bill contained language which is repeated in this year's bill which requires the President to terminate assistance to any country organization that he determines is cooperating tactically or strategically with the Khmer Rouge and military operations or which is not taking steps to prevent a pattern or practice of commercial relations between its members and the Khmer Rouge. Now, for those of my colleagues who have forgotten, the Khmer Rouge are those people who are responsible for the slaughter, the wholesale slaughter, of millions of innocent people because they were even more fanatic than the Red Guards under Mao Tse-tung in China, and they just wiped out millions and millions of people. Mr. Chairman, the problem with the language that was contained in the bill last year is that it was worded in a way as to be worthless because it does not fit the facts of what is going on. In fact, the Thai military is allowing private Thai companies to develop commercial relations with the Khmer Rouge to buy their timber and then allow its transport through their territory. So the pattern of commercial relations takes place between the companies themselves and the Khmer Rouge, not the military in the Khmer Rouge; and therefore the language of the bill last year was circumvented. I am told that that means that the Khmer Rouge are, through this device, through this ruse, are obtaining $10 million or $20 million a month. Now, I do not think Americans want to see the Khmer Rouge get a dime, and I certainly do not think they want us to have an aid relationship with a country, with a government, which is facilitating the delivery of that kind of assistance to some of the most blood thirsty people in the history of the planet. And so I offer this language because it was the only way that we could reach either of the governments in power. I would say that the Prince of Cambodia himself was recently quoted in the press as saying, quote, ``Thai traders in the Khmer Rouge would surely find a way to make a deal to export felled logs from its controlled area so the legitimate Cambodian Government would lose income.'' So I guess what he is saying is ``If you can't beat them, join them.'' It seems to me that we have got to find a way to shut this down, and that is why I suggested this amendment. But I know the administration has great concerns about going after IMET; in this case for other reasons. And so what I would like to do is to withdraw the amendment, with the understanding that the subcommittee chairman would help in conference so that we can try to strengthen the language which is in the existing bill so that we do not, to the greatest extent possible--we end the fact that government to which we are providing aid seems to be cooperating in a device by which money is allowed to flow to the hands of some of the bloodiest fools in the history of this world.

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Chairman, let me first of all take just a moment to comment on the remarks of the gentleman from Virginia [Mr. Wolf] with respect to Kuwait. I am certainly not familiar with the incident to which he referred, but let me say that, as one Member of Congress, I have to say that I have never in my life found a government or a royal family as arrogant or as condescending as the Kuwaiti Government and royal family, and I have never seen a government more quick to pursue its own personal and political interest above the interests of its own people more than the Kuwaiti Government. I will never forget going to Kuwait City after Kuwait had been liberated by NATO and United States forces, talking to a good many Wisconsin GI's who were in Kuwait who told me that, when the first United States aid came into Kuwait City, that we had Kuwaiti officials saying to them, ``Yes, do send it into this neighborhood; no, don't send the aid into that neighborhood,'' because the latter neighborhood had been populated by people who were not political supporters of the royal family. So they were perfectly willing to see loyal Kuwaiti citizens denied assistance after that war simply because of their political beliefs. So I would certainly join with the gentleman from Alabama [Mr. Callahan] in expressing the desire to do whatever can be done from the outside to affect the conduct of that government, which I found to be incredibly arrogant and insufferable through the years that I have had any experience dealing with them. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Texas [Mr. Wilson] before I make my statement on the amendment that is before us, after which I will withdraw the amendment.

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I yield 4 minutes to the gentleman from Indiana [Mr. Roemer] who has some comments he wants to make about an amendment that was left out of the agreement.

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

Mr. OBEY

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, the first thing I would like to do is to say something about the gentleman from Illinois [Mr. Durbin], who as Members know is serving his last year in this House because he has had the bad judgment to decide he wanted to run for the U.S. Senate. Mr. Chairman, I think that it is fair to say that if people put together any list of the 10 Members of Congress who they would describe as being the most honest and the most passionate in terms of defending the public interest, the gentleman from Illinois [Mr. Durbin] would be on it. There is no question that any time he comes to the floor he knows his subject. He is speaking because of what he believes, and he always does it with grace and with honor, and I think has represented the finest traditions of the history of this House. He is as close to a perfect definition of being a true public servant as any human can possibly be. We are going to miss him greatly. We are going to miss his talent. We are going to miss his sense of fairness. We are going to miss his sense of judgment and his insistence on always putting the public interest first. That does not mean I have always agreed with him. I have not. But he has been a tremendous addition to this committee and this House. He is a worthy and will be a worthy successor to Paul Simon. He is in that tradition of clean as well as effective government, and he continues that proud tradition that Senator Paul Douglas established so many years ago. He was Mr. Integrity. Senator Douglas was also a man who understood as much about the way this economy works as almost anybody in the history of this Congress. I think the people of Illinois and the people of America will be served by Mr. Durbin's service in the other body, should the people of Illinois be wise enough to elect him to the U.S. Senate, and I am confident they will. I would also like to take a moment to talk about this bill. It is being brought to the floor by a chairman, the gentleman from New Mexico [Mr. Skeen], who everyone understands is a legislator's legislator. He always finds a way to try to work out problems in a fair-minded and intelligent way, and he has performed in fine, bipartisan tradition, and I respect that very much. I enjoy the opportunity to serve in the same Congress with the gentleman. Mr. Chairman, I would like to make just a couple of comments about the bill itself. Coming from a rural district, I regret the fact that the committee could not find a way to provide more support for rural sewer and water. Members have to come from a rural district to understand how important programs like that are. I have many communities in my district that are 200, 300, 400 people; not exactly the large metropolitan areas of this world. I have many, many communities, the majority of households from those communities are headed either by women or someone who is retired. Communities like that do not have the income base, they do not have the property tax base to meet the environmental cleanup needs that face so many of those communities. They really need much more help than they are getting from both their State governments and the Federal Government, and I think that we have an obligation to try to find ways to provide more help to them because they are, in essence, when they are faced with environmental cleanup requirements, they are faced with the responsibility to clean up problems that somebody from yesterday left those communities. I hope that as this bill moves through the process, we will find ways to help those communities more. Second, I have to say a word about something that is not in this bill. The last farm bill that went through this House, the authorizing bill, contained a provision which allows a few States in the northeast section of the country to set up what I would define as a dairy cartel. Under that proposal, the northeastern States can band together. They can, in effect, establish tariffs on dairy products that are produced outside of the northeast region and sold in that region of the country. That cartel could also be used to artificially subsidize dairy products that are exported from that region of the country into other regions of the country. I do not believe that that is fair to my farmers. I do not think it is fair to farmers in any other section of the country. When we add that to the already egregious and incredibly unfair milk marketing order system which will pay farmers from one region of the country $2 and $3 per hundred pounds of milk more than they will pay them if they come from my region of the country, I think that that is just another example of how the Federal Government has screwed up national dairy policy. Mr. Chairman, I would like to offer an amendment which eliminates that provision, but I think, frankly, there is no point in doing that, given the way things have been brought about in this Congress on that provision. But I would certainly hope that the administration itself does not allow that northeast dairy cartel to come into being, and if they proceed to try to do it, I would hope that in the courts it would be declared unconstitutional. I wish that there were a way to effectively get at that in this bill. I have been thinking about offering an amendment, but I recognize reality, and I think we will have to rely on the administration and the courts to do what needs to be done to provide fairness and justice for farmers in all regions of the country. With that, Mr. Chairman, I again congratulate the gentleman from Illinois and wish him well in the election, and I thank the gentleman from New Mexico [Mr. Skeen], chairman of the subcommittee, as well.