Dave Obey

Mr. OBEY

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I yield such time as he may consume to the gentleman from California [Mr. Miller]. (Mr. MILLER of California asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the gentlewoman from New York, [Mrs. Lowey]. (Mrs. LOWEY asked and was given permission to revise and extend her remarks.)

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I ask unanimous consent to strike the last word.

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I do so so that the gentleman from Illinois [Mr. Porter], the subcommittee chairman, and I may make a few comments about a departing staff member for the Labor-HHS and Education Appropriations Subcommittee. Mike Stephens served this committee for a long, long time, beginning in 1976, and served as the subcommittee clerk and staff director for the Labor-HHS and Education Subcommittee from 1990 to 1994. He then served as the chief minority staffer for that subcommittee from January 1995 until he retired from his job in January 1996. I think anyone who knows Mike Stephens knows that most of what the Congress has done in support of biomedical research through the years, it has done because of his knowledge and his guidance. No one who has served this committee, and I would certainly say no Member, knows more about the needs of biomedical research in this country or the inner workings of the National Institutes of Health than does Mike Stephens, and no one on Capitol Hill has been more responsible for the funding levels that we have provided for biomedical research through the years than has Mike Stephens. I must say as a person who came to cherish his friendship, his personal friendship, as well as his professional knowledge, I think the Congress has experienced a great loss with his decision to leave us. I know that feeling is shared by the distinguished chairman of the subcommittee.

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

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 50 seconds to simply note that despite the comment of the previous speaker, the President has never threatened a shutdown of the Government. That has come over from their side of the aisle. It has come from time to time from the very top levels of their side of the aisle. The record is pretty clear; the President has done everything humanly possible to avoid it. I would suggest that the Congress this year has done virtually nothing while we are in session, it has done virtually nothing, except to take time off to allow Mr. Dole to campaign. Then when we finally do come back to work, it passes this let's-pretend bill, which is going nowhere and is already facing a Presidential veto. That is not my idea of a Congress that is serious about its business. Mr. Chairman, I yield the balance of my time to the distinguished minority leader, the gentleman from Missouri [Mr. Gephardt]. (Mr. GEPHARDT asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman. Mr. Chairman, let me simply say that none of Mike's service would have been possible without the dedicated willingness of his wife, Sharman, and his children, David, Julie, and Sarah and we wish them all well as Mike enters a new stage of his professional life.

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

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 30 seconds. Mr. Chairman, the previous speaker indicated the President has not indicted any way to pay for his restorations. That is flatly not true. I was in a room with the President's staff director. He presented us a list of programs, of reductions that would fully pay for everything he is asking for. If you do not like his list, produce your own, but do not say he has not produced his own list. He has. If you do not know it, you ought to. Mr. Chairman, I yield 3 minutes to the distinguished gentleman from Illinois [Mr. Yates].

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the distinguished gentleman from West Virginia [Mr. Mollohan].

Mr. OBEY

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I object.

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I think that is safe to say.

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I offer a motion to recommit.

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I have a point of order.

Mr. OBEY. The matter before us is the motion to recommit. Is the gentleman not required to confine his remarks to that motion?

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I feel like the actor Bill Murray in that movie ``Groundhog Day''; we keep doing this again and again and again and again. We are 5 months into the fiscal year. We are supposed to have the appropriations bills done. Yet we have a huge portion of the budget still stuck, and this bill represents, in fact, the 10th continuing resolution, the 10th. We tried to do this 10 times to keep the Government open, and a couple of times the Congress has failed and the Government has closed. Mr. Chairman, I have voted for some versions of the lockbox, I have even sponsored some of the versions. But the fact is today that our highest priority ought to be to finally, halfway through the fiscal year, get last year's fiscal business passed. We already have three versions of this amendment sitting in the Senate deader than door nails. Why is it necessary to add a fourth when our principal purpose is simply to get the Government continued for the rest of the fiscal year? I have a very pragmatic reason to suggest my colleagues not vote for this amendment. It is just another item that slows down the process, makes it less likely that this bill is ever going to become law, makes it less likely that we are going to get out of the way and see to it that the local school districts do not have to lay off teachers, that Superfund sites, which are shut down now because of lack of funding, do not continue to stay shut down. We need to get on with the principal business of the public, which is to get this business out of the way so we can turn to new issues. That is what we ought to be doing. And yet we keep chewing the cud over and over and over again. It seems to me this is just one additional item that makes it more difficult for the bill to pass. If my colleagues want to pass lockbox, do it someplace else where it is not going to slow down our basic purpose.

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I would simply say again, you cannot now use Federal dollars to lobby the Federal Government. That is existing law. All the Istook proposition says is that to the Red Cross, the Boy Scouts, the Farmers' Union, Alzheimer's Association, Girl Scouts, the Epilepsy Foundation, churches and charities, you have got to go through this paperwork joke. It says to the giant contractors who spend billions of dollars in contracts with the Federal Government, no Washington ink is exempt. You do not have to worry about it, big boys. Mr. Chairman, I think the selectivity of this amendment is pernicious and it is cynical. It just seems to me that the best way to deal with this is to keep an even playing field, turn down this amendment. I think every Member of this House is a big enough boy or a big enough girl to handle a tough lobbying job from the Boy Scouts without having this kind of wasteful proposition intervene.

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, the gentleman is wrong. The gentleman indicates we do not want people to know how Washington works. I quite disagree. I think the gentleman is a perfect example, and so is his amendment, of exactly how Washington works: Protect the big boys and go after the little people.

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I demand a recorded vote.

Mr. OBEY

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I would simply point out that nothing in my language in any way prevents us from getting any deal that we want to get out of the contractor. But the fact is that, as the gentleman knows, items are often lost in conference because of trades. This is an opportunity for us to nail down at least $900 million in savings right now.

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield under his reservation before he does object?

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I had indicated earlier that I would be making this request in order to try to save $900 million by providing for multiyear funding for the C-17. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that during consideration of H.R. 3019, pursuant to House Resolution 372, it may be in order to consider the amendment relating to the C-17 aircraft that I have placed at the desk as though it were the amendment specified as No. 4 in House Report 104-474, except that the time for debate be limited to 20 minutes.

Mr. OBEY

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding me time. Mr. Speaker, let me try to put this proposal in context. Bills which have gone through the Congress this year have cut $33 billion in the nondefense area. They have also added $7 billion above the President's request for the defense budget. All the President has wanted to do is to add back $7 billion of the $33 billion in domestic cuts, about 20 percent of the cuts that Congress has made this year, because the President feels, and I agree with him, that we ought not to cut back on education efforts, that we ought not to cut back on environmental enforcement efforts, especially given all the problems we have in both of those areas. Now, this bill comes to the floor and adds $1 billion back out of the $33 billion which had been cut in nondefense spending. It adds $1 billion back, principally for the LIHEAP program. Other than that, there is no real change in dollar terms from the bills as they were constituted when the President vetoed them originally. Mr. Speaker, in fact this bill in some ways goes further away from a compromise than the continuing resolution under which we are now operating. For example, with the COPS Program, under the continuing resolution, the White House was allowed to continue to spend out at a 75-percent rate for the COPS Program, to help local communities add police on the beat. This wipes out that program. What this does is, I think, self-evident. In addition to that, what this bill does is add $3.3 billion in ``funny money.'' It says, in essence: ``We would like to add some money back for education, we would like to add some money back for some other items, but, by the way, that really cannot happen until we pass another piece of legislation.'' And that piece of legislation is not in existence. So it is a way for politicians to pretend that they are embracing programs which in fact they are providing no real money for. As a result, this bill is still $3.3 billion, or 13 percent, below last year's funding for education, it is still $1.5 billion below last year's funding for EPA enforcement, it is $213 million below the amount that was in the original House bill for veterans medical care, even though that bill had $1.5 billion more to play with in conference than the original House bill. So for all of those reasons, I, for one, intend to vote against the bill. This is not a real bill. This is not a real operation. What this is, is simply an effort to demonstrate movement, when in fact there is none. I think what we need, rather than having a meaningless bill on the floor, I think what we need is to have serious negotiations between the White House and the top leadership of this Congress, so that we can get these issues resolved. We are simply spinning our wheels on this, and I think it serves no one's interest. I would take note of one additional item. I would at the proper time be asking unanimous consent to amend the rule to allow the language to be added that the White House requested on the C-17. That is a fine plane, the White House wants to buy more of them, the Pentagon agrees. The White House would like to enter into a multiyear contract on the C- 17. If they do that, they can save about $900 million off what it would otherwise cost the Government to build those planes. I think we ought to do that. So I will be offering a unanimous-consent request at the proper time. I would like to think it would be accepted, but that is really up to the majority party to determine whether it will be or not. Mr. Speaker, very simply, I am going to vote against this rule and this bill simply because I think this is a meaningless exercise, which tries to give the appearance of movement, when in fact there is no real movement, and in some cases there is actually movement in the wrong direction. I think this bill does not take us any closer to a compromise. Sooner or later we have to finish action on the fiscal 1996 bills. This bill is not going to contribute to that process.

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, let me simply ask with respect to the recent comments of the gentleman from Pennsylvania [Mr. Walker] with respect to section 4002, does that mean in essence that what the gentleman is saying is that none of the funds in this bill will be provided unless we in fact go through an entire new budget process, an entire new reconciliation process? I think the gentleman from Pennsylvania indicated the answer was yes. If that is the case, I would like to know how this legislation is supposed to speed us to a compromise on these issues that are already almost 6 months overdue.

Mr. OBEY. I thank the chairman anyway. I think the gentleman from Pennsylvania [Mr. Walker] has made clear that what they evidently intend is an entirely new budget resolution and reconciliation process. This is no way to speed things up.