Dave Obey

Mr. OBEY

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, let me simply say that farmers in my area have virtually given up on that expectation that they will get any kind of rational national farm policy which will be at all fair. They face, for instance, milk marketing arrangements which are ridiculously outmoded and biased against our region of the country. But at least they held out some hope that there would be some modicum of rural development which would help in terms of housing, and in terms of water, and in terms of sewer, and the problem with this en bloc amendment is that it further damages those programs. It cuts help for the program which provides people to buy their first home in rural America. I do not think that is a good idea. It amazes me that the reductions in the rural sewer, and water loan and grant programs will mean, for instance, that if this House buys the B-2 program, that we will spend more on just one B-2 bomber than the entire cost of all of those programs for 4 years on just one of those bombers. Mr. Chairman, it makes absolutely no sense to me, it makes absolutely no sense to the farmers I represent or certainly to the nonfarmers who occupy rural America in districts like mine, and therefore, while I have great respect and affection for the distinguished chairman of the subcommittee, I do not much approve of the amendment which will be offered, and I would urge Members to vote against that amendment.

Mr. OBEY

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I offer a preferential motion.

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I want to say that as one citizen of this country, I think there is a lot that is wrong in the BATF. I am also concerned about some of the things that have happened in the FBI. I think that just as I was outraged when anti-war demonstrators were treated in a way not consistent with their civil liberties during the Vietnam war, I am also outraged when individual citizens, it does not matter whether they belong to the militias or anything else, have their civil rights violated by any agency in today's America. I think we need to be equally outraged about that. But having said that, I simply want to read the language of this amendment. It says, ``None of the funds made [[Page H 7229]] available by this act may be used to provide bonuses or any other merit-based salary increase for any employee of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms.'' What that really says is that if the general at the top of the agency screwed up, that it is the PFC at the bottom who pays the price. I did not know that was the kind of fairness meted out by the House of Representatives. I thought we could do better than that. What it says is that if a Member of Congress does something stupid, their employee should be penalized. An awful lot of employees would be penalized unjustly if we allowed that principle to govern. Mr. Chairman, I would simply say that what this amendment does, clumsy as it is and misguided as it is, is it simply shoots the troops in the field for the mistakes of people running the agency. If there are mistakes in the agency, get them fixed. If there are mistakes by people higher up in the agency, correct them. Under this language, an individual employee could blow the whistle on their own agency for misconduct and they could not be rewarded by their government. Does anybody really think that makes sense? I doubt it. I hope not.

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

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I ask unanimous consent to withdraw my motion.

Mr. OBEY

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I would certainly agree with that. I would also say, however, that assuring the consuring public that they can safely consume these products to me is of utmost importance, obviously because of the public health questions involved and also because, frankly, people in the industry need to have the market security of people knowing that their products are perfectly safe. But the problem with this rule is that the gentleman from Illinois [Mr. Durbin] would not be able to offer the compromise proposal that he tried to offer in full committee, and because this rule goes out of its way to protect the base amendment, the Walsh amendment, which would not be in order normally under the rules of the House, it seems to me that we would be better off if we had another choice to choose from. But under the rule, we do not.

Mr. OBEY. I have said that on at least one other occasion in the past 2 weeks.

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding me the time. Mr. Speaker, let me simply say, because of my great respect for the distinguished subcommittee chairman, I am very reluctant to oppose the rule and the previous question on the rule but I feel compelled to, nonetheless. Mr. Speaker, I come from a district that has a lot of farmers. I come from a district that has a lot of small towns. I also come from a district that has had direct recent experience with E. coli. In my hometown just this weekend, for instance, we had another case of E. coli break out. I think that drives home to everyone, whether you work on a farm or you work in the city, the seriousness of the issue that will be debated when this bill eventually reaches the floor. Mr. Speaker, I would say simply that I would like to see some middle ground on this. I understand the reasons why the gentleman from New York [Mr. Walsh] offered the amendment, because anybody who represents small businesses, and I have an awful lot of them in my district, you are bound to be concerned about the impact of any rule and any rulemaking process on small business. I am also concerned, however, because I think that our committee frankly is not the right forum in which this issue ought to be discussed. This issue ought to be dealt with by the Committee on Agriculture. They know the most about the issue. The Committee on Appropriations is essentially a committee that is supposed to deal with budgets. If you want to have effective nonpolitical discussion of this issue, I think that it belongs in the policy committee, not a finance committee. Nonetheless, it is here. If it is here, I would prefer, for instance, that in addition to the choice of either having the Walsh amendment or not having the Walsh amendment, that we would have a third option such as that proposed by the gentleman from Illinois [Mr. Durbin] when he was in the full committee last week. It seems to me that would be a way to force compromise in the regulatory process without going to the extremes that the Walsh amendment does. For that reason, I very reluctantly would simply state that I will also oppose the previous question on the rule and the rule itself, because I believe that something like the Durbin amendment perhaps would give us a much better way to deal with this issue than having to either go up or down on the Walsh amendment, which I personally prefer not to do.

Mr. OBEY. Let me simply say that I would very much like to see something worked out, as a representative of a rural area myself. My concern, however, is that I would like to avoid a repeat of what we had on the rescissions bill where we were actually debating the language of one provision on the floor, on timber, for instance, while the language, itself, was being worked out between the administration and the committee in a room one floor below us in this building. I would kind of like to know what agreements have been worked out before we decide whether we have to deal with the specifics of the Walsh amendment or not. All we have to go on at this time is the comment from Secretary Glickman which says, ``I am writing to express my strong concerns and objections to the adoption of the amendment in question.'' Like the gentleman, I would like to see something worked out. My concern about this rule is that it does not give us the opportunity to have another approach to this problem the way the gentleman from Illinois [Mr. Durbin] would have liked to have had in the amendment that he offered. I do not have any objection to the goals that I think all of us share.

Mr. OBEY. If the gentleman will yield further, I like to hear that, because frankly you are the people that should be working the language out. Those of us on the Committee on Appropriations, I do not think, have the expertise that your committee has to deal with the issue.

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

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

Mr. OBEY

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding this time to me. Mr. Speaker, I would simply like to say that, because the gentleman from California has indicated accurately this is a rule which has been worked out between both sides, I certainly have absolutely no objection to the rule. I certainly have misgivings about the process by which we have gotten here, but I certainly do not have any objection to the specific rule and will, in fact, support the rule. Let me simply say, having done that, however, that I would like to respond to some of the thoughts that we heard from the gentleman from California earlier with respect to the need to finish the appropriations process by August. I certainly want to see that happen, too. I know of no one on this side of the aisle who does not feel a strong degree of responsibility to try to finish the appropriation bills in the House by the time we leave here for the scheduled August recess, and I want to say that I fully intend to provide whatever cooperation is required to get that done. What I do not want to see in the process, however, is to see policy issues buried and budget issues buried so we do not have adequate ability to discuss them in a manner which will make those issues most understandable to the general public who will be affected by our decisions on those issues. I think the gentleman from California [Mr. Miller] indicated earlier his concerns about what is happening, and frankly, Mr. Speaker, there are some of us who feel what is happening is this: We feel that after the original news stories came out about the kind of meetings with lobbyists that led to the deregulation bill that passed this House and was then turned down in the Senate 100 to nothing because it was looked at as simply being a lobbyists' dream list, we feel that people who are pushing those kinds of changes in regulatory practices which are desired by special interests and are not desired by the general public, we feel that there is a very high potential for the appropriations process being abused by bringing those issues into the appropriations process, burying them in an appropriations bill debate strong policy issues that have to do with the Clean Water Act, the Clean Air Act, the food inspection, basic labor law, basic rights of working people under that law, basic law with respect to housing. And we do not believe that those issues ought to be slipped into the appropriations process, debated for 5 or 10 minutes a side, and in essence have this House make major policy decisions with absolutely no ability to really discuss those issues, absolutely no ability to amend the amendments that are being offered, and no ability for the people on the committees who know the most about those issues, the policy committees, the authorizing committees, to actually participate in that discussion so that Members of this House know what they are doing when they do it. I do not want to wake up after we have walked out of here in August and discover that only then is the press able to find out what has been slipped through here on appropriation bill after appropriation bill-- something which we would not have had the ability to debate and which the press would not have had the ability to cover until after we are out of here in August. So I want to repeat: I am very willing to cooperate to see to it that we meet our responsibilities to get the budget issues through. That is the job of the Committee on Appropriations, to [[Page H 7026]] help see to it we get the budget issues through by the time we get out of here. But I do not want that cooperation to be abused by then also bringing into the mix a huge number of policy issues which on their merits deserve to be discussed in full public view, in the light of day, not at 10, 11, or 12 o'clock at night on the floor, or as was the case last week, not in subcommittee at 1, 2, 3, and 4 o'clock in the morning when certainly there is no member of the public attending, no members of the press, and the message about what has been done to people never gets out. So if we could accommodate that distinction, I think we could get along here a whole lot better than was the case Thursday night, and the public we are supposed to serve will have been served much better in the process.

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, if the gentleman will yield, I am sure the gentleman understands, however, that is these language amendments are protected by the rule, we are operating outside of the normal confines of the House rules, and that has very serious implications for some laws that are very important to the consuming public.

Mr. OBEY

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, now, I have no objection to an open and fair immigration policy, but I do have an objection when those refugees come into this country, are then dropped on the local doorstep and the Federal Government forgets its obligation to then help train and educate those children. Those local school districts should not have to carry that burden alone. All this amendment does with respect to Indian children is to recognize that the Federal Government should not be transferring large financial burdens back to local school districts to carry out what essentially is a Federal responsibility. And I would urge support for the amendment.

Mr. OBEY

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I move that the House do now adjourn.

Mr. OBEY

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

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, what mystifies me is I thought that appropriation hearings on budgets were in essence oversight hearings. I had the impression that what we had just been told is that no testimony had been collected which indicated that the agency did not need this equipment.

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

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

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, reclaiming my time, I thank the gentleman for that assurance, but let me be very blunt. I know there are a lot of militia organizations around this country that do not like to see these agencies get additional equipment that can be used in law enforcement. I must confess that I am extremely concerned that this may be another one of those cases. So under those circumstances, I do not believe we ought to accept the amendment, and I am going to feel required to push this to a rollcall vote.

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

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the last word. Mr. Chairman, I am very dubious about accepting this amendment at this point. And the reason I say that is because, as you know, in many regions of the country, I know the West is one, I know certainly in my own State, there are a number of organizations, malicious and otherwise, who simply do not like the idea that Federal agencies are purchasing or receiving additional equipment which can be used in law enforcement. I really do not believe that their judgments ought to supersede the judgments of agencies who we charge with the responsibility to enforce the law. I respect people's rights to join any organization they want, but frankly, I am suspicious of many of the forces in this society who are so suspicious of law enforcement officials, whether they be Federal or State officials, that I do not believe that we should be making a decision like this, especially at this late hour. So I do not like to do it.

Mr. OBEY. Could I ask what testimony the committee has taken that indicates that these are not needed?

Mr. OBEY. These are enforcement vehicles that have been requested by the agency?