Dave Obey

Mr. OBEY

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentlewoman from California [Ms. Woolsey].

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I yield 4\1/2\ minutes to the distinguished gentlewoman from New York [Mrs. Lowey].

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

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentlewoman from New York [Ms. Velazquez].

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Oklahoma [Mr. Brewster]. (Mr. BREWSTER asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from California [Mr. Becerra].

Mr. OBEY. I yield to the gentleman from New York.

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, reclaiming my time, I would simply say that I did not see that side of the aisle getting any double hernias trying to do heavy lifting in order to get the lockbox adopted on the rescissions bill. In fact, I saw them after they accepted the Brewster amendment, the rescission bill in this House, applying the lockbox principle to all of the savings, both near year and outyear in the rescissions bill. I did then see them swallow a process in which all of the outyear dollars were diverted for the tax cut, rather then for deficit reduction. I find it interesting that the lockbox will be used to provide tax cuts for somebody making $200,000 a year, but we will also pretend we are going to make additional savings in this bill for people at the lower end of the economic scale, when in fact we know that all of the savings you are going to have in this bill have already been made, they have already been cut, and, again, they are being used to justify a tax cut.

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Texas [Mr. Stenholm]. (Mr. STENHOLM asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Minnesota [Mr. Minge].

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 5 minutes. Mr. Chairman, I know that there is a drive here to provide a great deal of de-regulation in order to provide much more freedom in this society. That may very well be legitimate, but I think we ought to ask who is going to be free, what will they be free to do, and who will they do it to? I want to give my colleagues some examples of who they will do it to. Take Jack Gray Transport, Inc. Truck drivers who worked in their facility in North Carolina began an organizing campaign in January of 1994, and they signed cards trying to recognize the union. In response their employer coercively interrogated those employees about their union activity, they threatened them with a loss of jobs if they did not sign a letter disavowing support for the union, and finally they laid off eight members of the organizing committee. Based on the facts, the district court used the injunctive relief at NLRB which is now available to prevent further action by that company, and they helped save those workers' jobs. That injunctive authority would be eliminated by this bill. Krist Oil Co. in Michigan and Wisconsin. In 1993 a man by the name of Richard Johnson found out that their pay was being cut by being required to perform additional duties for insufficient compensation. They met at a park to discuss what appeared to them to be a wage crisis. They wrote a letter politely raising a number of questions. Two days later the company fired Mr. Johnson, in part, it conceded later, because of that letter. Cashiers Yvonne Mains and Jodi Creten were fired after presenting the complaints by their store employees to a supervisor during a meeting at one of their homes. Mains told the boss that the employees were considering contacting the union. The company wrote a letter notifying Mains of her termination because she was, quote, creating a mutinous situation, end of quote. Again the NLRB used their injunctive relief to provide those workers with help. That would be gone under this bill. Wilen Manufacturing Co.: On June 2 of 1994 the union was certified on the day of the election itself. The employer interrogated employees about their election, about their election votes, and threatened them with discharge and other reprisals for voting for the union. The board sought 10(j) injunctive relief in order to prevent further damage to the workers. One example of workers who are not protected: On August 28, 1989, the Gary Enterprises company fired Jerry Whitaker for having previously filed an unfair labor practice charge with the Board. The Board decided in Mr. Whitaker's favor. The company ignored both the Board and the report. After being discharged, Whitaker had a hard time finding work, and finally took a job hauling logs. He had a heart condition, and frequently complained to his wife that the driving job was killing him. He was required to spend nights away from home, and had no money for lodgings. He slept in his truck. One morning, while the contempt case was pending before the court, Whitaker was found dead in his truck from a heart attack at age 55. The Board is still trying to collect the backpay owed to his estate by the company. That is the kind of case that today could be considered for the injunctive relief which is being squeezed out of the law by the legislative provision in this bill. People on that side of the aisle talk about OSHA as though it was created by a bunch of left-wing social engineers. The father of the OSHA statute was a man by the mane of Bill Steiger, a respected Republican Member of Congress from Wisconsin who, when I came to this House as a freshman, was my best friend here. We have had some successes under OSHA. The fatality rate is down 57 percent for workers in this country, and OSHA has contributed to that in a very significant way. Along with Silvio Conte I helped create at OSHA the first fine-free consultation service, and we provided for some narrow exemptions in the case of small business and small farms. We did that all on a bipartisan basis. Mr. Chairman, I would urge our Republican friends not to walk away from a bipartisan commitment to OSHA, to OSHA enforcement and worker protection. I urge them not to make this issue a partisan issue. Vote against this bill because of these provisions.

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I yield 4 minutes and 10 seconds to the distinguished gentlewoman from California [Ms. Pelosi], a member of the subcommittee.

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman form California [Ms. Waters].

Mr. OBEY. I am awaiting my last speaker. I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to myself in the meantime. Let me simply say, Mr. Chairman, that we have been told many times today by our Republican friends that we have to cut the deficit. Of course we do. And I am certainly willing, and so are the rest of us, to see education, and job programs, and seniors programs take their fair share of deficit reduction. But what we are not willing to do is to see them take a double hit so that they can spend $70 billion on the F-22, which we do not even need for 15 more years, or that they can continue to spend almost $1\1/2\ billion a plane to buy more B-2's than the Pentagon itself has asked for. We also do not think we ought to continue three different separate subsidies for the nuclear industry. We are not willing to gut the NLRB and the protections it affords to workers in this country so that we can free up corporations to deal with their workers like chattel instead of dignified human beings. And we are certainly not willing to see these programs take a double hit so that we can provide a $20,000 tax cut for somebody making $300,000 a year. There are some 17 separate special riders in this bill that have no business here. Many of them are flat-out gifts to special interests. There is absolutely no reason in the name of deficit reduction to provide those slippery-slope riders, none whatsoever, and so I think that on all grounds there is a very good reason to oppose this bill.

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

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, may I inquire of the gentleman, does he have just one remaining speaker to close?

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I yield the remainder of my time to the gentleman from Missouri [Mr. Gephardt], the distinguished minority leader. (Mr. GERHARDT asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Chairman, on the first amendment offered by the gentleman, we have no objection. Mr. Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I yield 4 minutes to the distinguished gentleman from Missouri [Mr. Clay], the ranking member of the Committee on Economic and Educational Opportunities. (Mr. CLAY asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the distinguished gentlewoman from Connecticut [Ms. DeLauro].

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 3 minutes. Mr. Chairman I yield myself this time to answer the nonsense that I just heard from the gentleman from Texas [Mr. Bonilla]. The gentleman from Texas is objecting to the fact that we are not offering the amendments on the House floor that we offered in the subcommittee. The answer is, we cannot do that because the rules of the House prevent that kind of en bloc transfer. I would be happy to do that if the gentleman wanted to vote on them, but he does not want to. I do not blame the gentleman for being sensitive on the issue of surplus Medicaid compensation in some States. To correct the gentleman, we did not cut Medicare. What we tried to do is take into account the fact that my State winds up getting from the Feds only 55 cents out of every dollar for the cost of dealing with a Medicaid patient. Texas only gets from the Federal Government 64 cents out of every dollar for the cost of dealing with a Medicaid patient, but the State of Louisiana gets 75 cents out of every dollar. The gentleman from Texas consistently, in the subcommittee, voted to take money out of his own State of Texas and give it to Louisiana, because he voted against amendment after amendment to try to equalize the formula between States. So, Mr. Chairman, the gentleman voluntarily, in his own committee, voted to give away from the State of Texas $66 million for summer jobs. He voted to take away $21 million from Texas for dislocated worker training. He voted to take away $29 million under Goals 2000. He voted to take away almost $100 million from Texas under title I, because he insisted on seeing to it that it kept going to States like Louisiana. I do not blame the gentleman for being sensitive on that issue. I would also make one additional point. He said ``Let us have it our way for a year.'' The reason we have gotten in this debt is because Ronald Reagan came into office and told us if we just passed his budget in 1981, that in 4 years we could cut taxes, we could double military spending, and still balance the budget. Mr. Chairman, this chart demonstrates the promise versus what happened. These bars demonstrate that in 1981, President Reagan said: Pass our package, the deficit will go down from what was then $55 billion to zero over 4 years' time. Guess what? The Congress did it the gentleman's way. The Congress swallowed the Reagan budget and guess what. We only missed the deficit target by $185 billion, because under the policies rammed through this place by the party of the gentleman from Texas, with 29 or so misguided souls on my side of the aisle mistakenly joining them, the deficit went from $55 billion not to zero, as Ronald Reagan promised, but to $185 billion. Mr. Chairman, If the gentleman from Texas cannot get his story straight about what happened in subcommittee, he should at least get history straight.

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the distinguished gentlewoman from Hawaii [Mrs. Mink]. (Mrs. MINK of Hawaii asked and was given permission to revise and extend her remarks.)

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Chairman, I have often had constituents ask me the following question: Why does Congress always seem to have so many riders attached to bills that have nothing whatsoever to do with what those bills are supposed to accomplish? If this bill passes, they are going to be asking a lot more of those questions, because this baby sets a new record in terms of illegitimate legislation on what is supposed to be a budget bill. There are 29 pages of legislative riders stuffed into this bill, which is supposed to be a budget bill to fund education and health care and social service and labor programs, 29 pages. I want to tell the Members, there is a clear pattern emerging in this House. We saw it on the bill earlier this week, the HUD bill, on the environment, and we are seeing it all across the board on this bill. There are 17 different items that should not be here that were stuffed in because either Members have individual gripes with programs or agencies, or else because the authorizing committee chairmen do not apparently have the courage to bring these bills before us out of their own committees, so that we can debate those policy issues and have amendments offered to them the way we can in the authorizing process, and we cannot do that in the appropriations process. Therefore, I think we are having a clear pattern. Whether the issues affect women, whether they affect workers, whether they affect health, safety, or bargaining rights, they are rolling back basic law in a bill which is not supposed to write new law but only supposed to provide funding for budget items. I want to give the Members one example. Virtually every time I am in my district going through some plant or some business I run into somebody in an office, usually a woman at a typewriter, with a device on her wrist. I say, ``What is the problem?'' She says, ``I have carpal tunnel syndrome.'' OSHA is in the process of trying to develop a standard to protect workers from a malady which costs $20 billion a year, motion injuries, $20 billion a year. Yet, they are not going to be allowed, under a legislative rider attached to this bill, they are not even going to be allowed to collect data on those injuries. They are not even going to be allowed to prepare a possible standard, because the whiz kids on that side of the aisle have said, ``No way. We know better than the agency charged with the responsibility for enforcing the law.'' We have another provision which says that the President cannot weigh in and try to help workers who will see their jobs replaced when they go on strike by permanent strikers. I will tell a little story. Last year I was in my district. A company that I helped get an industrial park for, so they could develop their company in a new location in my district, that company decided they wanted their workers to have to work Sundays. The workers had been willing in most cases to work Sundays, but they wanted to maintain the option, because some of them wanted a little room for family and a little room for church on Sundays. Therefore, they went on strike when they could not get the company to leave working Sundays on a voluntary basis. Three days after they went on strike, that company started advertising to hire permanent replacement workers. Shame on people like that, shame on that company. Yet, what you do is ram a provision in this bill which says that the President cannot take any action whatsoever to help on that front. Then there is the Istook amendment. This is the Constitution of the United States, article 1. Unless Members have read it, if they have not read it lately, let me read what it says: ``Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof, or abridging the freedom of speech or the press, or the right of the people peaceably to assemble and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.'' Yet, we have the Istook amendment, which says that if you happen to get any kind of a Federal grant, even if you are using your own money, you have to zip your lip. You can no longer lobby the Government on matters of public policy. Does it say that for defense contractors? Oh, no. Lockheed can continue to run full-page ads supporting this multi-billion dollar or that multi-billion dollar program. Do we try to stifle them? No. It is only the nonprofit organizations, who are trying to in many cases help people in this society who are at the lowest rung of the ladder. Mr. Chairman, there are some people on the Republican side of the aisle who are offended by that. We already have laws on the books about illegal lobbying. That is clear. What they are trying to do in addition to that is to stifle freedom of expression and the right to redress one's own Government with one's own money. That is going too far. A lot of Republicans on this side of the aisle know that, as well as a lot of Democrats. This bill has traditionally been a bipartisan bill. I appeal to my Republican friends on this side of the aisle, do not abandon that bipartisan tradition on this bill. They know this goes too far on a number of items, including these legislation items that have been attached and rammed through this bill, many times over the objection of the chairman himself. Mr. Chairman, I would urge the Members, return this bill to the middle ground. Get rid of this stuff. If Members want to bring these legislative items up, have guts enough to do it through the right process. Have the right chairman from the right committee who has jurisdiction bring it up and debate it here, full-blown, so we can amend these crazy items, and possibly get them in a position where we can have both parties support them. If they are not willing to do that, I ask them to take out the junk. We also got it removed in the HUD bill last week. We lost by one vote. Let us hope we have a better result this time around. Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. OBEY

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, reserving the right to object, I simply want to make sure I understand what has been suggested by the gentleman from Illinois [Mr. Porter]. Is the gentleman in fact simply removing the last sentence?

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