Dave Obey

Mr. OBEY

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I thought that Members were required to be addressing the matter at hand.

Mr. OBEY. Point of order, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I am perfectly willing to hear the gentlemen debate this matter when their bill is on the floor. But the last time I looked, I thought an appropriations bill was on the floor; and, just for the heck of it, I would like us to stick to the rules and consider the matter before us. We have spent 2 hours on a nonsensical, symbolic amendment that has very little relationship to the bill; and it seems to me this House is getting considerably far afield.

Mr. OBEY. Point of order, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. OBEY. Point of order, Mr. Chairman. I am not under the impression that the rules of the Energy and Commerce Committee are now before the House. I am under the impression that the Agriculture appropriations bill is before the House, and it would be nice if we could focus our discussion on that.

Mr. OBEY. Point of order, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. OBEY. The gentleman is not discussing the matter at hand.

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, point of order. The gentleman can raise any question he wants with the gentleman from Michigan but not on an appropriation bill.

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, point of order. This is not a matter pertaining to the subject at hand.

Mr. OBEY. Yes, I do. The gentleman is not addressing the matter at hand. This is not the United States Senate where anything is possible.

Mr. OBEY. Point of order, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. OBEY. Perhaps the gentleman can tell us what the name of the Secretary of Agriculture is. That would at least get us close at hand to the subject we are supposed to be debating.

Mr. OBEY. Madam Speaker, point of order.

Mr. OBEY. The House is not debating the issue of Medicare Advantage. The House is debating an Agriculture appropriations bill, and the gentleman has an obligation to stay on the subject.

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, as the gentleman from California pointed out, we have now probably expended in terms of salaries for the clerks, the cost of air conditioning for the Chamber, the cost of lights for the Chamber, we have probably now expended more money than would be saved by this $50,000 amendment; and so what I think this amendment is about is something very different than in fact we are hearing from our friends. What I think this is about is that, last year, if you take a look at the appropriation bills that have been considered so far this year, last year, approximately 86 hours were spent debating those bills. This year, we have had about 152 hours expended debating the same bills. Why is that? Last year, there were 144 amendments offered by those on this side of the aisle then in the minority. This year, the now minority has offered 339 amendments. So it is obvious to me what is going on. I don't think this debate is at all about either fiscal responsibility or the fact that the amendment purports to save $50,000. This is simply a device which allows the sponsors and the supporters to tie up the time of the House and eventually deny this House the ability to get its work done before it leaves for the August recess. That is what this is about. And all of the rhetoric to the contrary notwithstanding, I think every Member of the House knows that is what it is about. From the beginning, it has been apparent that there are a small number of Members on the other side of the aisle who would prefer to engage in filibuster by amendment, no matter what that means in terms of the quality of the debate, no matter what that means in terms of the inconvenience to Members, and no matter what that means in terms of the ability of this House to finish its business in a timely fashion. So let me simply say we will hear a lot of rhetoric tonight about fiscal responsibility. Keep in mind what the real debate is, and we will give all of that rhetoric the attention that it deserves, which is very little.

Mr. OBEY. Will the gentleman yield?

Mr. OBEY. The gentleman has complimented me for the way we have handled appropriations bills.

Mr. OBEY. I appreciate the compliment. But let me suggest that I would appreciate it, if we have conducted ourselves the way the gentleman thinks we should, then I would appreciate that he would not visit his frustrations on other legislation on the appropriations process when we have produced bills in what you readily admit is the correct fashion. If you have an argument in your own bailiwick, it would be nice if you kept it there so that the House might get its work done.

Mr. OBEY

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I rise in opposition to the amendment.

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I think everybody ought to speak English in this country, and I think we ought to have policies that encourage it. What I don't believe is I don't believe that the Congress of the United States has any business whatsoever predeciding a court case, and when the Congress ahead of time tells the EEOC that they cannot even bring a suit, that means that Congress is substituting political judgment for legal judgment on an issue that ought to be decided in a court of law. Congress has the right to pass legislation saying whatever it wants about immigration and about who is going to get Federal aid, things like that. But it is dead wrong, it is wrong morally, it is wrong constitutionally, for the Congress to prejudge what the outcome of a court case is going to be. And if they deny funds to the Equal Employment Opportunity Agency in this government, the agency that is supposed to enforce civil rights laws, if they deny funds to that agency on a hit-or-miss basis based on what can get a majority on this House floor, God help us all. Mr. Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. OBEY

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the last word.

Mr. OBEY. You know, Mr. Chairman, we've had a game going on in this Capitol for the last 6 years. It's called ``Shift the Shaft,'' and nowhere is it more clear than in what has happened with law enforcement funding. As I said yesterday, we've had a Kabuki dance going on in this Congress for years. What happens is each year the President comes up with a budget. He's looking for things he can squeeze out of the budget to make room for tax cuts for millionaires. And so what does he do? He cuts the guts out of our assistance to local law enforcement, and then we wonder why the crime rate has gone up the last 2 years. He cuts the guts out of law enforcement, and then each year the previously Republican-controlled Congress comes in, they restore about one-third of those cuts, they say, oh, what good boys are we. Look at what we've done to help law enforcement. And at the end of that time, we're $1.5 billion below where we were in 2001 in terms of our assistance to local law enforcement. Now, maybe that makes sense to some folks; it doesn't make sense to me, not with the explosion of meth problems all over the country, not with the explosion of drug problems. The prior Speaker of the House had a big thing about going after drug production in Colombia. We're spending hundreds and millions of dollars in Colombia, but we're not spending nearly enough money here at home to reduce the demand for those same drugs that are being produced in Colombia, and this amendment would cut that further. The same crowd talking is the crowd that didn't mind providing $600 billion in borrowed money in order to finance that misbegotten war in Iraq. It's the same crowd that is willing to provide $57 billion in tax cuts to millionaires this year, paid for with borrowed money. But then they divert the public's attention from the cause of those on-the-cuff expenditures by saying, oh, we're going to focus a 1 or a 2 percent cut on law enforcement, a 1 or 2 percent cut on the National Science Foundation so we can get people to think that that's the problem that's causing the deficit and not our profligacy for the last 2 years. Now our friends on the Republican side of the aisle say, oh, we've got this terrible tax cut coming in the farm bill. Baloney. What we're trying to do in the farm bill is to increase support for domestic nutrition programs so that, in addition to having 44 million people in this country who are walking around without health insurance, we don't also have a lot more kids walking around who are hungry. And we're talking about paying for that not by raising taxes on middle-class Americans, but by closing the loopholes on offshore foreign corporations. Now, I'm not at all surprised that the Republican leadership cannot tell the difference between closing tax loopholes on special interests and raising taxes on the middle class. The difference is that on this side of the aisle we can, and that's why we're voting against your amendment. Mr. Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the last word.

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, the last comments I think demonstrate that this debate is in danger of descending into something that resembles a high school debate, and we appear to be edging toward having a dictionary debate, arguing about whether something is a ``cut'' or an ``increase''. With all due respect, in an adult world, that's not the issue. In an adult world, the question is what is the size of the problem you're trying to attack, and is our response to it sufficient? And with all due respect to those on the other side of the aisle who are objecting to this bipartisan product, with all due respect, we think we have a serious problem that requires a serious response. In the area of law enforcement, we have seen our support for law enforcement grants drop by $1.6 billion since fiscal 2001. That is almost a 36 percent drop. That isn't a dictionary problem. That's a problem on the street for every community in America. We also see at the same time we have a rise in the crime rate, which requires a response, regardless of our dictionary definition, and we also have an explosion of meth use. Have you ever seen how screwed up a kid can be after meth has gotten done with him? It's a god-awful sight, and I've seen plenty of it. So what we're trying to do is to have an adequate response, and the reason that we are having a significant increase in law enforcement funding this year is because we're trying to dig out from that hole that we've been put in since 2001 by these systematic reductions in law enforcement assistance, at the same time that the crime rate is rising. And then the second thing we are trying to do is to recognize that we're going to have a lot more people in this society in the next 10 years. We're going to have a lot more low-paid workers all around the world from China to you name it competing with American workers for jobs, and we've got two ways to combat that. One is education, and the other is technology. And the only way we're going to stay on the cutting edge of technology is if we make much larger investments in the National Science Foundation. Politicians in both parties fall over themselves talking about what they're going to do for the National Institutes of Health, but I don't hear many discussions about what we're going to do to provide support for the even more basic science research that is then used by everyone else in this society to determine what kind of a future we have. Without that investment in science, our economy lags. If our economy lags, our jobs lag. If our jobs lag, our wages lag, and that means that we wind up with a huge family income deficit. We wind up with a huge education opportunity deficit. We wind up with a huge scientific knowledge deficit, and that cripples our country's future. And that's why we're not going to engage in this silly little debate about whether something is an ``increase'' or a ``cut''. The question is, does it have a good impact or a bad impact on America? And this amendment is being sponsored by people who know the cost of everything and the value of nothing. That's the difference between us.

Mr. OBEY

Mr. OBEY. I thank the gentleman for the time. Let me simply say that I do appreciate very much the initiatives that are being taken by this subcommittee with respect to the climate change problem facing the globe. These are small initiatives; they are nonetheless important. They are not nearly sufficient to deal with the long-term problem, but we will have to mount a much greater effort on this front in the years to come. I would like to comment on what has happened with respect to local law enforcement assistance over the past 3 years. We have had a Kabuki dance going on for years between the White House and the Congress of the United States. Each year, the President proposes very deep cuts in the law enforcement assistance grants to localities, and each year the Congress only partially restores those cuts. It then pats itself on the back, says, ``Oh, what a good boy am I. Look how much we added to law enforcement,'' when, in fact, all they did is restore a small portion of the President's reductions. As a result, these programs, which were funded at the $4.4 billion level in fiscal 2001, are now funded at about $2.8 billion, $1.6 billion below the high watermark. That is ill- advised, in my view. I appreciate the fact that this bill provides a substantial increase in that funding for local law enforcement, $1.7 billion, or 53 percent, above the President's request. I think that is essential. The committee also recognizes that State and local law enforcement benefits from the criminal investigation resources and capabilities of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and so this bill provides $148 million over the President's request for that purpose. I think that money is very badly needed. Having said that, I have to confess a significant degree of discomfort with the way the FBI has performed in recent years. As we know, investigations of the use of national security letters by the FBI have told us that the FBI issued approximately 8,500 of those in 2000. The March 2007 Senate investigation of the Justice Department's Inspector General puts that number now at over 143,000 NSLs issued between 2003 and 2005. The same investigation found serious FBI abuses of NSL regulations. And what is even more alarming is the report that the FBI's own lawyers counseled against the illegal use of emergency letters requesting telephone and Internet information, and still the practice continued for 2 years. This practice continued for 2 years, despite counsel's recommendation to cease, and Congress only found out about the situation upon public release of the IG report when the FBI's general counsel had been briefing special agents in charge on reversing the practice for 2 months prior to that. I am disconcerted by that fact, and I have talked to the director of the FBI about this on two occasions. I was pleased when he got the job in the first place, but I am not pleased with the way this has worked out. I would certainly hope that the agency would shape up so that it does not continue to be an embarrassment in terms of its declining to adhere to rule of law. With that said, I also am pleased that the Legal Service Corporation is funded at a level $66 million higher than the President's request. All I can say about that is that it is about time.