Dave Obey

Mr. OBEY

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I yield 5 minutes to the distinguished gentlewoman from New York (Mrs. Lowey), the ranking member of the Foreign Operations, Export Financing and Related Programs Subcommittee. (Mrs. LOWEY asked and was given permission to revise and extend her remarks.)

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I yield 4 minutes to the gentlewoman from Texas (Ms. Jackson-Lee). (Ms. JACKSON-LEE of Texas asked and was given permission to revise and extend her remarks.)

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I yield 3 minutes to the distinguished gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Hoyer), the minority whip.

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, how much time remains?

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Missouri (Mr. Skelton), the ranking member of the Committee on Armed Services.

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, how many speakers does the gentleman have remaining?

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I am the last remaining speaker on my side. How much time do I have remaining?

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 6 minutes and 50 seconds. Mr. Chairman, I would like to make four points. Information is the lifeblood of democracy. If the public does not get sufficient information, they cannot perform their duties in a citizen-based democracy. If this Congress does not get adequate information, it cannot make the right choices in providing checks and balances to any administration. We have gotten precious little information about the administration's plans for war before the war. We have gotten precious little information about their plans during the war, and we certainly are getting precious little information from them now. The full cost of this war is being revealed a little bit at a time on the installment plan, and information that the Congress has asked for has not been forthcoming. Example, section 9012 of the 2005 DOD appropriations bill requires, it does not request, it requires the administration as a condition of getting the previous money, it required the administration to give the Congress its best estimate of what our costs would be in the Iraqi war over the next 5 years. They were supposed to have that information by January 1. Last time I looked, we are past January 1. Still no information. I have already referred previously to the information we have seen in the papers about the activities, the under-the-table classified activities that DOD appears to be engaged in without informing the Congress about those activities. The gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Hoyer) referred to oversight responsibilities. I think this Congress has done a miserable job in meeting its oversight responsibilities on this war. There are notable exceptions. But I do not believe that we have insisted on the information that we need to have in order to meet our responsibilities fully and well. I certainly do not think that we have measured up to our obligation to protect taxpayers' money. We tried in full committee to win support for the creation of a Truman-like committee to conduct ongoing investigations of profiteering in Iraq by contractors. We were turned down. We asked the Committee on Rules to make a similar amendment in order. We were turned down. This article demonstrates why we need that committee. This appeared in the Washington Post this morning. ``Pentagon audit questions Halliburton costs in Iraq. Pentagon auditors found more than $100 million in questionable costs in one section of a massive no-bid Halliburton Company contract for delivering fuel to Iraq according to a summary of their reports released yesterday. The audit summary written in October 2004 but withheld from public release covers one out of 10 sections from a $2.5 billion contract under which Halliburton was tapped to deliver fuel, fight oil well fires, repair oil well facilities in Iraq after the U.S.-led invasion in the spring of 2003.'' And then it goes on to tell the story. This article alone demonstrates why we need that kind of a committee. Now, Harry Truman during World War II when he was a member of the Senate conducted over 400 hearings. He issued almost 50 reports. That was a Democratic Congress investigating a Democratic administration and no harm was done to the country in the process. But a lot of taxpayers' money was protected and a lot of embarrassments were avoided. That is what ought to happen now, but we are being stonewalled by the majority and by the White House on this issue. I hope that changes. I would also like to simply say with respect to my comments earlier about the Department of Defense appearing to undertake covert activities which in the past have been within the purview of the CIA, I want to read the concluding paragraph from an editorial in the Minnesota Daily which reads as follows: Human intelligence is a risky business. When missions go awry, the consequences can be far-reaching. Congressional oversight assures that spymasters remain accountable for their foul-ups. It might indeed be necessary to give the Pentagon more control over human intelligence but that is a decision Congress should make, not Rumsfeld. And that is my point. I do not know whether the activities that are being discussed in the newspapers are wise or not. I have my doubts about some of them. But it seems to me that in the end this is a judgment that needs to be made by elected officials, not an independent agency that feels it is too powerful to listen to anybody else in government. Mr. Chairman, I will vote for this bill, but I want to make it quite clear, this is the last time we are going to be supporting a bill like this if we do not have adequate oversight and we do not have adequate information on the part of the administration. I think it is fair to give the administration and the majority parties notice that this is the last time as far as I am concerned unless we get better information. I would urge support for the bill and simply note that it appears that many, many Members of this body who voted to go to war in Iraq are now planning to vote not to pay for the war which they agreed to support in the first place. I find that position most interesting indeed.

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, does the gentleman from California (Mr. Lewis) have more than one speaker remaining?

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

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the last word. Mr. Chairman, I rise to support the gentleman's amendment. As the gentleman has made quite clear, this is his second choice. He would prefer to offer an amendment which directly establishes a Truman-like committee to investigate profiteering in Iraq. The fact is that the majority has chosen to use the technicalities of the rules to prevent that from happening. Given the fact that they have done that, the gentleman's only choice is to proceed in the manner he has proceeded in the amendment he has just offered. It seems to me that the purpose of the amendment is clear. The purpose is to see to it that a committee is formed which will have as its sole responsibility the reviewing of the use and misuse of taxpayer funds in Iraq. This bill seems to me to be a perfectly appropriate vehicle to accomplish the end that the gentleman seeks. This bill appropriates over $80 billion of taxpayer money. I think the taxpayers, many of whom have substantial doubt, not just about the war but about the conduct of some of the contractors during and after the war, I think the taxpayers would like to know that if we are going into their pockets for an additional $80 billion today, at least we are doing the utmost possible to see to it that that $80 billion is spent in accordance with the law and is spent in accordance with good judgment. I, for the life of me, do not understand what the problem is with the gentleman's efforts. It seems to me if this Congress is looking for ways to achieve the maximum support for the administration's policy, they would certainly support efforts to see to it that that policy is being conducted in such a manner that embarrassment is not eventually brought to the President, to this Congress and to our effort in the country and in the region. So while this certainly is not our preferred solution, it is far better than doing nothing and I would urge support for the gentleman's amendment.

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the last word. Mr. Chairman, if the previous speaker is going to describe something I did in committee, I wish he would get his facts straight. The fact is, contrary to what the gentleman said, when the majority brought its recommendations to the full committee with respect to the provision in the bill which raised life insurance benefits from $250,000 to $400,000, with respect to that provision, the committee had applied it retroactively only to those persons who died in Iraq and Afghanistan. Contrary to what the gentleman said, my amendment did not restrict what the committee was doing, it expanded what the committee was doing. We added coverage for what was estimated to be 2,400 additional American service people who died but were not in Iraq or Afghanistan. We did that, for instance, on the theory that if you are a member of the Reserve, you are called up to go to Iraq, but you are killed in a training accident before you can get there, that you are just as dead, your family is just as much in need as would be the case with someone who went to Iraq and then died in an accident. Now, the gentleman is the chairman of the Committee on Veterans' Affairs. I respect his responsibilities. I hope he respects ours. I would simply say that what the committee has tried to do is to take a vehicle which is going to spend $80 billion of the taxpayers' money, and use that as an opportunity to expand benefits to deserving servicemen and women. I make no apology whatsoever for doing that. Dick Bolling, who was my mentor when I came here and chaired the Committee on Rules, used to talk disdainfully of people who looked at this House through the prism of what he called ``dung hill politics''; in other words, focusing on jurisdiction of different committees, forgetting that we have a larger responsibility to the body as a whole and to the country as a whole. Now, I make no apology for the fact that the Committee on Appropriations might have stepped on a few toes in expanding benefits for deserving servicemen and women. I am glad they did. I hope the toes did not hurt too much. But the fact is if the gentleman has objections to what the administration has suggested then I would suggest the majority party needs to get its act together rather than risking these expanded benefits by doing what they almost did in the Committee on Rules today, which is to make these two sections of the bill subject to a point of order which could have lost those benefits for deserving servicemen and women.

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

Mr. OBEY. With all due respect, the gentleman just misquoted. Reclaiming my time, with all the due respect, the gentleman misquoted and mischaracterized my amendment in committee. The gentleman described it as an amendment limiting benefits when in fact it expanded them, and I do not appreciate that.

Mr. OBEY. That is what we tried to do.

Mr. OBEY. Reclaiming my time, let me simply say I appreciate that. My only point is if the gentleman is going to come to the floor and characterize what I did please do so accurately. What the gentleman said, he may not have meant to but what he said was my amendment limited--I believe the word used was ``restricted.'' We did not. We expanded it.

Mr. OBEY. Reclaiming my time, with all due respect, the effect of my amendment as scored by CBO was to add $95 million in costs.

Mr. OBEY. What we did was to provide $95 million in additional benefits to persons who had died who were not living in Iraq and Afghanistan. That was the effect of my amendment. The gentleman may be talking about restrictions that the committee action took.

Mr. OBEY. My amendment expanded. It did not restrict, and the gentleman needs to reread it if he does not understand that.

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

Mr. OBEY. Let me simply say that I find it ironic, Mr. Chairman, and I thank the gentleman for yielding, because the entire history of the development of this expanded benefit demonstrates that both the gentleman from California (Mr. Lewis) and this gentleman from Wisconsin were aiming to expand benefits, not to contract them. When I first drafted my first proposal we were told that the Committee on Veterans' Affairs itself was concerned that we might have gone too far in providing benefits to people because, for instance, the example used to me was we do not want to pay someone who was killed in a drunken driving accident because he had five martinis at a bar. We want to make sure that this occurred in the line of duty. So that is the way we drafted the amendment. But the overall effect of the amendment was to add benefits for 2,400 people who had died, who had not been killed in Iraq and Afghanistan, and that was estimated to cost $95 million. How an expansion of benefits can be described as a restriction is beyond me. It certainly does not fit my definition.

Mr. OBEY

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the last word. Mr. Chairman, I am simply filibustering here for the moment until we get the next person here to offer an amendment, and I hope that he arrives quickly. But let me simply say what we are trying to do is to proceed as far as we can in finishing this bill tonight, and we hope that we have the cooperation of every Member so we can do that. There may be at least one amendment that has to go over until tomorrow along with final passage, but we would hope to minimize that so that we take up as little time as possible tomorrow with this bill. For anyone who is interested, that is what we are trying to do tonight. Mr. Chairman, I yield to the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Murtha) who wants to brag a bit on his section of the bill.

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, reclaiming my time, while the gentleman is getting ready to proceed, let me make one other point with respect to the Lantos amendment. We have done our best to expand benefits to servicemen and women who have been killed in the line of duty. I think there is still one gaping hole. For someone who is seriously injured in Iraq or Afghanistan whose ability to obtain gainful employment may be permanently impaired because of what happened to them in combat. I think that we really need to think through how little this country does for people in those situations. It just seems to me that especially given the fact that we do not have a draft today and given the fact that so many people go into the service in order to be able to save some money so they can go to college, I think the sacrifice that people are called upon to make falls very unevenly in this society, and we have to do much more to see to it that those persons who do pay a major price because they could not afford to go to college without first going into service, for instance, I think that we need to do much more to provide enhanced benefits for them and for their families and for their children.

Mr. OBEY

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, reserving the right to object, I would just ask the gentleman if he could explain what the schedule is for consideration of the bill both in the Rules Committee and on the floor, and I yield to the gentleman from California for that purpose.

Mr. OBEY. I thank the gentleman. Mr. Speaker, I withdraw my reservation of objection.