Dave Obey

Mr. OBEY

Mr. OBEY. I yield 1 minute to the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Pelosi), the distinguished Speaker of the House.

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Missouri (Mr. Skelton), the distinguished chairman of the Armed Services Committee.

Mr. OBEY

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I certainly do.

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, everyone knows that I have a great deal of affection for the gentleman from Florida. I think he makes as good an argument for a bad case as you can possibly find. Let me simply say that this recommittal motion is very easy to understand, which is why it ought to be defeated. It simply gives the President all the money in this bill, unconditionally. It is simply a down payment on business as usual. It simply strips the timeline from this legislation. It renews the authority for torture. It eliminates the requirement that interrogation activities follow the Army Field Manual. Outside of those problems, it's a terrific idea. So I would simply urge a ``no'' vote on the motion to recommit. Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Murtha).

Mr. OBEY

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that when the House adjourns today, it adjourn to meet at 9 a.m. tomorrow.

Mr. OBEY

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that further consideration of the veto message and the bill, H.R. 3043, be postponed until November 15, 2007.

Mr. OBEY

Mr. OBEY. Madam Speaker, we have been here before and we know what is the content of this bill. I urge support. I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. OBEY. Madam Speaker, pursuant to House Resolution 794, I call up the bill (H.R. 3043) making appropriations for the Departments of Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education, and related agencies for the fiscal year ending September 30, 2008, and for other purposes, with a Senate amendment thereto, and ask for its immediate consideration.

Mr. OBEY. Madam Speaker, pursuant to House Resolution 794, I have a motion at the desk.

Mr. OBEY. Madam Speaker, could I inquire of the gentlemen if he has any remaining speakers.

Mr. OBEY. Then if the gentleman would be happy to yield back, I have one statement myself, and I will yield back.

Mr. OBEY. Madam Speaker, the measure we are considering today contains the same language pertaining to the Departments of Labor, Health and Human Services, Education and related agencies that the House approved by a vote of 269-142 on Wednesday evening. The statement of the managers accompanying the conference report on H.R. 3043 contains instructions and guidance to these departments and agencies, including detailed tabular material regarding the allocation of resources among the various programs, projects and activity funded in the measure pending before us today. House Report 110-424 reflects the intent of congressional guidance underlying the legislation now before the House. The departments and agencies funded in H.R. 3043 should implement these programs, projects and activities in a manner consistent with the guidance in that report. Now that I have the boilerplate out of the way, Madam Speaker, let me simply make a very few observations. Madam Speaker, it is now ``put-up or shut up'' time in the House. This is a bipartisan bill. When the bill first passed the House, we had 53 Republicans supporting it, along with every single Democrat, except one. We had every single subcommittee Republican and Democrat vote for the bill as it left committee. When it was marked up, every single amendment offered from the minority side of the aisle was an amendment to increase, not decrease, funds. The President, in the budget that he submitted to the Congress, suggested that we cut vocational education, cut special education, cut NIH funding, cut LIHEAP, and cut training for medical personnel in children's hospitals. We rejected those suggestions. We also kept a good many provisions in the bill that were sought by many minority members on the subcommittee. Also, because it is such a controversial issue, we tried to cut through the issue of abortion, and we provided several hundred million dollars in initiatives to help encourage women to carry babies to full- term, so we would offer young women something besides lectures when it came to the question of whether or not they would carry their babies to full-term or seek an abortion. After the bill left the House, we made further concessions to the White House and the minority party by cutting $1 billion out of the bill that we had voted on in the House. Now, when we voted to go to conference a week ago, at that time, as you know, the intention of the majority was to include the Defense appropriation bill in this conference report. We heard many objections from the minority side of the aisle, so we conceded the point and took Defense out. We left Military Construction in, but the Senate overruled us. So now at this point we have a bill which is exactly what so many people said they wanted, a straight-up, unadorned Labor, Health, Education and Social Services bill. I would point out that with respect to the question of earmarks, when this House started the consideration of this bill, I offered the House a chance to eliminate every single earmark with an amendment that I proposed. It was overwhelmingly defeated on both sides of the aisle, and this bill has proceeded within the spirit and the letter of the rules with respect to earmarks. It moved to the Senate, and it received almost 80 votes. So now it is really up to us. The choice is whether or not we are going to exercise our own judgment as an independent body about what requirements we have in this economy, or whether we are simply going to wire our buttons to the White House door. I would hope that we would not do that. In 2 short minutes remaining, I would like to simply remind Members what is at stake. On health care, one in six Americans is without health insurance. That is 47 million Americans. The President cut funding for the primary Federal agency responsible for increasing health care access by $600 million. This bill rejects those cuts and provides $1.5 billion above the President's request for programs to improve health care access, roughly the cost of 5 days' activities in Iraq. On education, the President cut funding for the Department of Education by $1.2 billion. This bill rejects those cuts, investing $4.5 billion above the President's request to the Department of Education, roughly the cost of operating for 2 weeks in Iraq. On job training, the President cut the largest job training program in the vocational education programs by $1.2 billion. He cut State grants for vocational education in half. We rejected those cuts on a bipartisan basis, investing $1.3 billion above the President's request, roughly the cost of 4 days of operations in Iraq. With respect to medical research, the President attempted to cut funding for medical research at the National Institutes of Health by $450 million. That would have resulted in 800 fewer medical research grants. The committee rejected those cuts, investing about $1.4 billion above the President's request, roughly the cost of 4 days in Iraq. Finally, the Low Income Heating Assistance Program, the President tried to cut that by $400 million. We rejected those cuts and invested $630 million more than he requested, roughly the cost of 2 days in Iraq. This is a balanced bill. It is a moderate bill. It is essential to make these investments, and I would urge Members on both sides of the aisle to support the proposal. I would make one last point: on earmarks, when this House voted on my amendment to determine whether or not earmarks should be retained or excluded from the bill, this House voted 53-369 to keep earmarks in the bill, and we have tried to do that. We have a 40 percent reduction in the amount of money for earmarks. It is a 40 percent reduction from the amount that this House had 2 years ago. But I want to make one practical point. I know there are some people in this Chamber who believe that if this bill goes down, if the President vetoes it, that somehow a way will be found to compromise and still protect these earmarks. I want to make it clear, I have been told many times by the White House that they have no intention whatsoever of compromising on this or any other bill that exceeds the President's wishes. If that is the case and if this bill goes down, then the only alternative left to us will be to bring in a bill at the President's level of funding. I would ask every serious-minded person in this body, if they really think there is a chance of a snowball in Hades that Members' earmarks on either side of the aisle will survive if we wind up at the President's level of funding, I think you understand that is not likely. And so I think the fate of all of the work that has gone into this bill, the fate of every project that Members have been concerned about is in your hands. I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. OBEY

Mr. OBEY. Madam Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days in which to revise and extend their remarks and include tabular and extraneous material on the conference report to accompany H.R. 3043.

Mr. OBEY. Madam Speaker, I yield myself 30 seconds. I think everyone understands what the legislation is before us, and I urge adoption of the conference report. Madam Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. OBEY. Madam Speaker, I yield 7 minutes to the distinguished gentleman from Texas (Mr. Edwards), chairman of the Military Subcommittee.

Mr. OBEY. Madam Speaker, I yield 15 seconds to the gentleman from Texas.

Mr. OBEY. Madam Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the distinguished Speaker of the House.

Mr. OBEY. Madam Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the distinguished gentleman from Texas (Mr. Edwards).

Mr. OBEY. Madam Speaker, pursuant to House Resolution 794, I call up the conference report on the bill (H.R. 3043) making appropriations for the Departments of Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education, and related agencies for the fiscal year ending September 30, 2008, and for other purposes.

Mr. OBEY. I have one remaining speaker--me.

Mr. OBEY. Madam Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my time.

Mr. OBEY. First of all, Madam Speaker, I will not take the full time, but I simply want to rise to thank the staff that has helped to put these bills together: Cheryl Smith, Sue Quantius, Nicole Kunko, Teri Bergman, Andria Oliver, Beth Chaney, Rob Nabors, David Reich, Kirstin Brost, Lesley Turner, John Daniel, Christina Hamilton, Steve Crane, Anne Marie Goldsmith, Ron Anderson, all the associate staff and the staff on both sides of the aisle. I also want to express my appreciation to Mr. Walsh. He is a good man and I think he understands these issues very thoroughly. Having said that, I would like to spend just a few moments to talk about what this debate is really about, because, so far, it has skirted around the edges. The fact is that last November the public sent two messages to Washington. The first is that they wanted a change in Iraqi policy and the second is that they wanted a change in priorities here at home. The President has decided to stiff the American public and reject both of those messages. First, what he is saying to the American people is forget what message you thought you were sending in the last election. I am the great decider and we are going to do things my way. That is what is happening here. The President isn't just stiffing the Congress when he says that he will veto any appropriation bill that departs from his budget ceiling by one dollar. He is also stiffing the American people, who made it quite clear that they thought very little of his budget and foreign policy priorities. Since that time, since the election, the President had said ``stay the course'' in Iraq, and in addition to the gargantuan defense budget that he has asked for, he is also asking for $200 billion in additional spending just to deal with the war that he started. He is also saying stay the course when it comes to the $60 billion we are providing this year in tax cuts for people who make a million dollars a year. But at the same time, Madam Speaker, he is saying oh, tut, tut, tut, we cannot afford to invest here at home, so he sends the Congress a budget which cuts $16 billion out of education, out of health care, out of science, out of law enforcement and other critical domestic national priorities. And then he threatens to veto any appropriation bill that departs from his great wisdom. Well, let's walk through where this bill would be and what it would look like tonight if we had followed the President's budget advice. If this bill did what the President wanted to do in his budget, it would be cutting vocational education by 50 percent. Is there anybody on either side of the aisle who is shortsighted enough to think that is a good idea? If we had followed his instructions, we would have eliminated every student aid program on the books except Work-Study and Pell Grants. In the area of handicapped education, there are a number of Members on the Republican side of the aisle who have made that their number one priority. They want to raise funds for special education. The President suggested we cut $300 million out of that program. Even the Republican Party objected in the House to that, and they raised the money that I had provided in the chairman's mark above the mark that we had provided, and we restored a significant amount of money to that program. The President wanted us to cut mental health services by $100 million. He wanted us to cut funds that teach medical personnel how to deal with illness in children's hospitals by 63 percent. The President wanted us to cut rural health programs by 54 percent. He wanted us to cut the Low-Income Heating Assistance Program by 18 percent. We have rejected those cuts, and this House on a bipartisan basis provided 53 Republican votes for this bill as it left the House. Now some people say this bill spends too much. This bill is a billion dollars less than it was when it left the House because we cut that in a concession to our minority party Members. We have also in the bill respected a good many Republican priorities and respected a good many Republican initiatives, and in the process we have cut $1 billion. Surely, surely at a time when we are spending $200 billion or close to it in Iraq, surely we can spend the equivalent of what we spend in Iraq in 6 weeks in order to meet high-priority domestic needs in the education, health, and job training areas. Now our Republican friends cry newly found crocodile tears because we are also marrying this bill up with the military construction bill. Well, it seems to me if we can't agree on the advisability of the war, at least we ought to be able to agree how we feel about the warriors. And what we are doing in this bill is adding $3.5 billion for veterans health care. And we paid for it. We paid for it by making an identical reduction in the Defense appropriation bill, but that didn't suit the President. He said you have to pay for it again, and so he has issued this dictate that we pay for this increase in veterans health care twice by now going in and cutting other domestic programs by $3.5 billion. And that is why we are marrying these two bills together, because we want the public to see what the specifics are. We want the public to see what the domestic priorities are that would have to be cut if the President wants us to double pay for the bill we have already paid for in increasing veterans health care by $3.5 billion. Now the President says he is going to veto any bill we send him, and the House Republican leadership says they already have the votes to sustain any veto the President makes. So we have a choice. We can sit here like potted palms and do nothing and supinely roll over to the President's dictation; or we can try to make it as uncomfortable as possible for him to be irresponsible and unnecessarily confrontational. And that's what we are trying to do. We are sending these bills to the Senate because it is the right thing to do. And as the gentleman from Texas points out, when the minority says that this is an unprecedented act, that is absolute nonsense, because they did the same thing four times themselves; nary a peep from anybody on that side of the aisle then. I would simply make one last point. We have heard the slogan ``better late than never.'' Well, last year the Republicans decided rather than being late, they chose never. And they delivered not one dollar, not one dollar in additional expenditures for veterans health care, and it fell to us after they shut this Congress down and went home without appropriating a single dollar in veterans health care. It was left to us to fix that mess and to add over $3.5 billion in new funding for veterans. We did it last year. We are doing it again this year. We have made it our number one priority. But that isn't what the boys and the girls on the other side of the aisle want to talk about. They want to obscure a few facts. And here they are: In health care, the President cut funding for the primary Federal agencies responsible for increasing health care access in this country. This conference report rejects those cuts and provides $1.5 billion above the President's request to provide programs to improve health care access for the millions of Americans that don't have it. We do that at the cost of 5 days of what we spend in Iraq. On education, the President cut funding for the Department of Education by $1.2 billion. This conference report rejects those cuts. We invest $4.5 billion above the President's request to the Department of Education, roughly the cost of 2 weeks in Iraq. And by doing that, we provide strong increases for Pell Grants, Head Start and various other education programs. In job training, the President cut the largest job training in vocational education programs by $1.2 billion. This conference report rejects those cuts and invests $1.3 billion above the President's request, roughly the cost of 4 days of the war in Iraq. In medical research, the President cut funding for medical research at the National Institutes of Health by $480 million. I have never had anybody in my life come to me and say, ``Obey, why don't you guys in Washington get together and cut cancer research.'' But that's what the previous Congress did in each of the last 2 years. They cut 1,100 grants out of the National Institutes of Health with the complicity of this President. We are saying no way. Let's have an end to that nonsense. We reject those cuts. We invest $1.4 billion above the President's request, roughly the cost of 3 days of fighting in Iraq. For economic development, in helping to alleviate poverty, the President slashed those programs by over a billion dollars. We rejected those cuts, costing roughly 4 days of what we spend in Iraq. Lastly, the Low-Income Heating Assistance Program. The President comes from an oil State. He knows energy prices have skyrocketed, but he has cut LIHEAP by $380 million in his budget. We have rejected those cuts and invested $630 million more than the President's request, roughly the cost of 2 days of activity in Iraq. So we are left with this. We are left with two arguments. We hear some of our Republican friends say we are going to vote ``no,'' we are going to vote against the Labor-Health-Education bill because we don't like the fact that the bill also contains the veterans funding. And we hear others say we are going to vote ``no'' on the Military Construction bill because we don't like the fact that it contains too much for education and health. Those are two beauties as reasons for voting against this bill. I want to see whether the minority party Members of this House, I want to see whether they are going to be following the wishes of their constituents or whether they have their votes tied once again lock, stock and barrel to the President's desk. I want to see if they came here to represent their constituents or be another set of lemmings jumping off the cliff once again for this President. We will find out on that vote tonight. I hope we see the right vote.

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

Mr. OBEY

Mr. OBEY. Madam Speaker, parliamentary inquiry.

Mr. OBEY. Are we participating in Little League politics or doing the country's business tonight?