Dave Obey

Mr. OBEY

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Scott).

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the distinguished majority leader, Mr. Hoyer.

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Lee).

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 1 minute. Let me simply note that it was the administration that refused to provide support for including funds for the pandemic flu challenge facing the country. We have tried on this side of the aisle for more than a month to include that funding. I've even noted that it was the administration itself who originally asked for that money, as an emergency, 2 years ago. And yet they declined to support it and, in fact, insisted that it come out in this negotiation, just as they insisted that funding for low-income heating assistance come out. So I certainly agree with the gentleman's suggestion that that money ought to be in here. I said that in my own remarks. I also want it very clear why it isn't.

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Woolsey).

Mr. OBEY. What's the gentleman's question?

Mr. OBEY. Well, let me make two points. First of all, this is not all that unusual. It was not done during the time that the Republicans ran the House, but it was done often prior to that. All we have to do is to take a look at the history of the Hyde amendment and take a look at several other conference reports that were adopted, one in 1996, for instance. With respect to the two questions, or the question about the two amendments, technically, it's my understanding that they do not apply to amendments, or that the rules do not apply to amendments.

Mr. OBEY. To my knowledge, there are none.

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield 5 minutes to the distinguished gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Murtha), the chairman of the Defense Appropriations Subcommittee.

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Murtha).

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 1\1/2\ minutes. The previous speaker just complained about the fact that this has taken 110 days to finish. If I am not mistaken, he was the majority party whip when his party controlled this Chamber last year, and it took 110 days before the Republican-controlled Congress could get a supplemental to the President. So I think it comes with considerable ill grace for the gentleman to be calling the kettle black. Let me also suggest that if there has been any delay whatsoever associated with this process, it is due to two things: Number one, it is a little thing called democracy. You know what? We don't have a rubber-stamp Congress anymore. If we did have a rubber-stamp Congress, we could have finished this in 1 day. But that is not what our obligation is. And, secondly, and even more fundamentally, any delay in the process was not caused by the Congress. We had this job done 3 weeks ago. The delay was caused by fact that the President blocked the funds going to the troops when he vetoed the bill. So I would suggest that the gentleman recognize where the true responsibility lies. We have a right and an obligation to spell out what we think is in the national interest of this country. Pardon me if it takes a few days.

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 1 minute. I intend to yield the remainder of my time to close debate to the Speaker. Before I do that, and before the gentleman closes with his last speaker, let me simply thank the committee staff. Let me thank the CBO staff, the legislative counsel staff, even the White House staff, who worked with us to fashion together this package. Regardless of how Members feel about it, it took a tremendous amount of work by people whose names never get in the papers, whose pictures never get in the papers, but who do their darnedest to see to it that the will of this House is carried out with as much clarity as possible. I appreciate their work. I appreciate their dedication to this institution and this country. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time. Mr. LEWIS OF California. Mr. Speaker, I yield the balance of our time to the Republican leader, Mr. John Boehner.

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield the remainder of our time to the distinguished Speaker.

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I object to the vote on the ground that a quorum is not present and make the point of order that a quorum is not present.

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

Mr. OBEY

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, let me simply say in response to the previous speaker on that side of the aisle, he claims that efforts on our part to withdraw our troops or redeploy our troops out of a combat situation represents a slow-bleed policy. I would suggest that the existing policy is a bleed-forever policy, and it needs to be changed. The second question the gentleman asked referred to agriculture. He said, ``Gee, these agriculture disasters occurred last year; why weren't they handled then?'' That is a very good question. We weren't in charge last year. The other side was. In fact, we have had agriculture disaster legislation pending for 2 years. The President declared 70 percent of the counties in this country to be disaster areas, and yet the last Congress couldn't put together a two-car funeral when it came to addressing that problem. So we are simply cleaning up in a separate bill; mind you, we are cleaning up last year's agriculture disaster problem. It is just another one of the leftover items from the previous Congress that we are now charged with the responsibility to finish. Now let me get to what the real issue is in this bill. The Washington Post carries a story this morning describing the efforts of the administration to use Iraqi government officials to try to get the Democratic lawmakers to ease the pressure on the White House to have a timetable for the withdrawal of troops. Mr. al-Rubaie is quoted as saying the following: ``Now, nobody is talking about sliding into a civil war, as we've been able to avoid it.'' He added, ``Portraying the scene there as Shiite killing Sunni and Sunnis killing Shiites is totally untrue.'' What are they smoking? What do we see on television every day, despite the effort of the administration to shut down as much access on the part of the public to the carnage as is possible? I strongly support this rule today for one simple reason: The President has asked the Congress to give him $100 billion in additional funding to fight this war, no strings attached. The Congress passed a proposal and put it on the President's desk suggesting that there ought to be certain limitations on the President's conduct in return for getting the money. He vetoed that. He believes he is ``the decider.'' Well, under the Constitution, we are all supposed to be deciders. So now we have before us, in response to the President's action, a proposal to do three things: First of all, it would provide an opportunity to have an up-or-down vote on the issue of whether or not troops ought to be redeployed over the next year. I think that is what a democratic institution is supposed to do, to make choices like that. Secondly, what we are proposing under this rule today will allow the Congress to require the President to report to the Congress on three things: First of all, since the President has said that, as Iraqi military units stand up, we should stand down, we have a sense of the Congress provision in this legislation which says that, as the President certifies that battalions have achieved full combat capability, that a certain number of corresponding U.S. units ought to stand down. It is not mandatory. It is a sense of the Congress that that ought to happen. Secondly, we ask the President to report to the Congress on the progress that Iraq is making on the benchmarks that the President himself set out last fall as being the criteria by which we should judge Iraqi progress. And then thirdly, so that it isn't a softball report, we are also asking that the President report to the Congress spelling out which of those benchmarks have actually been achieved. Has the Iraqi parliament actually passed an adequate oil revenue-sharing law which shares that oil equitably with Sunni, Shiites and Kurds alike, because if they don't do that, the Sunnis will never stop fighting? And then, lastly, what we do is to set up a separate bill that deals with some of the domestic emergencies that we face that the President described as ``pork.'' Among those is the agriculture disaster bill. And so we are considering that as a separate bill to demonstrate to the White House and to demonstrate to our critics that they are wrong when they say that we are afraid to let these programs stand on their own. So we are going to vote on them alone, and I happen to think they are in a stronger position when we vote on them alone. It is going to be very interesting to see how many of our Republican friends from agricultural districts are actually going to support us in trying to provide that assistance. After all, we did not declare those counties disaster areas. A fellow by the name of Bush did, and he's the guy that lives in that big white house, and when he makes a declaration like that, there ought to be certain consequences that flow from it, and we're simply meeting those obligations. So that's basically what we are trying to do. As the gentleman from Washington said earlier, we simply happen to believe, those of us who are going to be supporting this proposition, we simply happen to believe that it would be nice if we were fighting the right war in the right place rather than the wrong war in the wrong place, and the right place to be taking al Qaeda on is in Afghanistan. Now, we also provide in our proposition, we say that 60 days after or 60 days from now roughly, by July 13, by the time this bill is passed, by July 13, we guarantee the administration that the Congress will have an up-or-down vote on its own request for all the money. I don't know what more we can do. What we are simply doing is we are letting the President report, letting him give his judgments to us. We then give the Congress about 10 days to absorb what the President has said, and then we vote, up or down, on two issues: number one, whether the President should get all the remaining money; and, number two, there's another amendment that would simply have us instead use that money to redeploy our troops out of combat. It's a fair, square deal. The administration gets a straight shot at what it wants and war critics get a straight shot at what they want. That, to me, is eminently fair.

Mr. OBEY

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, pursuant to House Resolution 387, I called up the bill (H.R. 2237) to provide for the redeployment of United States Armed Forces and defense contractors from Iraq, and ask for its immediate consideration.

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members have 5 legislative days within which to revise and extend their remarks on H.R. 2237.

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield 4 minutes to the distinguished gentleman from Massachusetts, the sponsor of the bill (Mr. McGovern).

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the distinguished gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Sestak).

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the distinguished gentlewoman from California (Mrs. Capps).

Mr. OBEY. In that case, I assume the administration is going to support the bill. I yield 1 minute to the gentlewoman from Illinois (Ms. Schakowsky).

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the distinguished gentleman from Rhode Island (Mr. Langevin). (Mr. LANGEVIN asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the distinguished gentlewoman from California (Ms. Lee).

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the distinguished gentlewoman from California (Ms. Woolsey).