Dave Obey

Mr. OBEY

Mr. OBEY. Madam Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Arkansas (Mr. Ross).

Mr. OBEY. Madam Speaker, how much time do I have remaining?

Mr. OBEY. Madam Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my time. Madam Speaker, this motion is an effort to prevent this Congress from giving to the drug companies two early Christmas presents. Let me put it this way: this Congress is about to tell the drug companies that they will have carte blanche to do whatever they want on drug costs. And this Congress will accomplish that in two ways. The first step is by obliterating the efforts that we have tried to make to allow the Federal Government to negotiate with drug companies for a lower price for drugs by providing a drug benefit that goes to everyone under Medicare. The Medicare legislation, which this House will be asked to vote on this week, that Medicare legislation, at the instruction of the Republican leadership, has eliminated all possibility for the Federal Government to negotiate lower drug prices. That is gift number one to the drug companies. That means the only remaining way that seniors can get some help on drug prices is by reimporting them from Canada. And the Medicare legislation which will shortly be before us will state that or will pretend that there is a Canadian drug reimport benefit but, in fact, has a benefit which the FDA itself says will not work. That means the only way left for Members to try to provide some degree of price protection for prescription drugs for seniors is to vote for this motion and to insist that this conference committee come back with the provision that was adopted in the original House legislation. That is why this motion is before us today. I would urge a ``yes'' vote on the motion. Madam Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. OBEY

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 10 minutes. Mr. Speaker, I think this would be a good time to try to analyze exactly why we are in the situation of having to again ask the House to pass yet another resolution keeping the government open until we finish our appropriations work. I note in the CongressDaily A.M. edition of this morning that there is a headline on page 12 which says: ``Senate Nearing Halfway Point on fiscal 04 Appropriation Bills.'' I thought that when a race was run that it would be over when it was over. But the fiscal year ended on October 1 and what this headline indicates is that the other body had not yet even run half the race. So I concur with the gentleman that a lot of these bills are dragging because the Senate has not yet been able to take them up. But I think we need a little bit more detailed description of what has happened. As I see it, there is one bill which is hung up, the Labor, Health and Human Services bill, which is hung up because there are deep divisions between the two parties in this Congress about how adequately education is funded in that bill, how adequately research is funded under NIH; and there is also, I think, a deep division between us on how workers ought to be treated with respect to their overtime rights. And because our party believes that the bill is woefully inadequate on all three of those counts, we have not supplied votes for it on this side of the Capitol and are still hoping that the majority will come to its senses in terms of recognizing the need to at least provide the money which was provided in the Republican Party budget resolution for education and for special education. But once we get beyond the Labor, Health and Human Services bill, I find the story even more interesting. The other bill that was passed with deep divisions between the two parties in this House was the District of Columbia appropriation bill. That bill passed almost exclusively with Republican votes because the Republican majority saw fit to include the controversial issue of vouchers. So they went beyond where they could go and still maintain a bipartisan consensus for that bill and in the process lost the votes of most of the people on this side of the aisle. In the other body, the other body has not yet even taken up that bill because not only Democrats, but I think moderate Republicans in that body, recognize that that bill was passed by the House in a shape too partisan or at least too ideological in order to be able to pass muster. So that is being held up for that reason. Then we have the Energy and Water appropriations bill which passed both Houses with over 90 percent of the vote. In fact, the Senate vote was unanimous; and yet because of majority party scheduling decisions in the Senate, that bill was not considered until September 16 even though it passed the House on July 18. And I want to say that I am happy that finally today we have come to an agreement in conference. I think the gentleman from Ohio (Chairman Hobson) did a good job on that. But, nonetheless, it was the majority party scheduling problems in the Senate which delayed consideration of this conference until this week. Then we take a look at the Military Construction bill, the bill that was just disposed of. That bill passed unanimously in this House, and it passed by a vote of 91 to 0 in the Senate. It passed the Senate on July 11, and yet the bill was held up until today because of differences within the majority party about how the funds ought to be allocated. Then if we take a look at the Transportation bill, that bill passed the House very late in the cycle, September 9. It took that long to pass it because the subcommittee produced a product which not even the majority party Members in this House could support without substantial repair. Finally, after it was somewhat repaired, the bill passed the House with 85 percent of the votes of both parties; and yet it did not pass the other body until October 23, some 3 weeks after the deadline for the fiscal year. So, again, majority problem scheduling problems determined the delay for that bill. Then if you take a look the budget for the Department of Veterans Affairs and Housing, that bill passed with over 75 percent support in both parties when it passed the House. The other body has not yet taken up the bill. So, again, we have scheduling decisions by the majority party which have determined that this bill will be late to the gate. I think there is an understandable reason for that, because the substance of the bill is unacceptable in large part to the veterans community in this country because it shortchanges needed veterans funding by more than $1.3 billion. So I do not blame the majority party for being discombobulated because it is having a debate with itself about how it can correct that problem. Then we have the Foreign Operations bill, which passed the House on July 24. It did not pass the Senate until October 30, 1 month after the expiration of the fiscal year. Again, even though that passed the House with huge bipartisan agreement, it was hung up because of scheduling decisions and scheduling problems in the other body by the majority party because their party was split around the edges on issues such as Mexico City and concern about the fact that HIV funding was not adequately handled in that legislation. Then we have the Agriculture bill, which passed the House on July 14 with support of more than 75 percent of Members of both parties. It passed this House on July 14, well before the end of the fiscal year. But, again, because of majority party scheduling decisions in the Senate, the Senate has yet to take up that bill. That is being hung up, as I understand it, over questions that relate to changing the authorization for the farm bill. Then, lastly, we have Commerce-Justice-State, which passed this House with over 90 percent of both parties voting for it, and yet the Senate has yet to take up this bill. So, again, a majority party scheduling problem has led to a long delay in consideration of this bill. I would simply say, Mr. Speaker, I do not know how long it is going to take before the majority party is able to overcome their differences with themselves, but I do hope that they recognize that we are ready and anxious to help if they will produce bills which meet at least minimal standards for meeting the needs of the country in areas such as veterans' health care, education, special education and aid to our local law enforcement officials, who will see a large squeeze on traditional law enforcement programs such as the Byrne Grants, unless some substantive decisions are made that produce a different bill than we are facing today. Mr. Speaker, that is my analysis of why we are sitting here with so much of the appropriations work still not done. Mr. Speaker, I yield 10 minutes to the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Hoyer), the distinguished minority whip.

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, how much time do I have remaining?

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 5 minutes. Mr. Speaker, I think that what the distinguished minority whip has just told the House is right on the button; and I want to emphasize, I do not believe these decisions, I do not believe that these practices, are being imposed upon the House and the Congress because of the desires of the people who run this committee. This committee has had an honorable tradition of dealing fairly with the majority and minority Members alike ever since I have been here. In my early years, I think junior Democrats were as unhappy with some of the decisions that were made by senior Democrats as some of the Republicans were. The unhappiness was bipartisan. And I think in that sense things have changed because today, many of the decisions that affect the way this committee works are being made, as the gentleman from Maryland said, at a higher pay grade. But I think the result is, unfortunately, that we have many closed-door decisions being reached in a closed-minded atmosphere, and that does the House no good in the long term. What has happened, I think, is that we have seen almost an unparalleled institutional arrogance on the part of the leadership of the majority party in the way they conduct this House's business. First of all, they have assured that when each of the appropriation bills has come to the floor, they have come to the floor under conditions which guarantee that no meaningful, comprehensive alternatives can be offered which differ in any significant way with the priorities mandated by the majority party leadership. They bring bills to the floor which have been exempted from the normal rules, processes, and procedures of the House so that the committee product produced by the Republican majority can have the luxury of not having to compete with any other significant approaches. But then, they say that proposals that the minority party seeks to offer will not be granted those same exceptions from the rules and procedures of the House. That creates a very uneven playing field, and it is intended to do that. And then, when that happens, and when bills pass because we have no way of reaching them and changing them in a significant way, then we run into a situation where, as the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Hoyer) says, in many instances conferences are simply conferences between a few well-connected people on the majority side of the aisle, with no real consultation with the minority. That can occur anytime that the leadership wants to exercise their ability to find 218 votes for their product. But it is not democracy. It is not the kind of collegial vetting of differences that we have had in this House through the years. It is simply an arrogant assertion of will. It is a power play on the part of the majority party. And the purpose is not just to hold the minority party in check; the purpose is to, by their actions, hold Members of the majority party under control, so that no one does too much thinking for himself, so that no one will dare to say, ``Well, I think there ought to be a different path that is pursued.'' So, Mr. Speaker, having said that, I want to emphasize again, I recognize the effort of the gentleman from Florida to be fair; but I also recognize that sometimes he has to be a loyal soldier, and I think if he were to run these conferences in a way that suited his desires, some of them would be run quite differently. Having said that, Mr. Speaker, the matter before us, as the gentleman from Florida has indicated, is simply whether or not we should keep the government open for another short period while these differences are resolved. We have no choice but to do so. So I urge a ``yes'' vote on the resolution. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.

Mr. OBEY

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield 5 minutes to the distinguished gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Murtha), the ranking Democrat on the Subcommittee on Defense.

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Pelosi), the distinguished minority leader.

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, how much time remains on both sides?

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield 5 minutes to the distinguished gentlewoman from New York (Mrs. Lowey), the ranking Democrat on the Subcommittee on Foreign Operations, Export Financing, and Related Programs.

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Missouri (Mr. Skelton).

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the distinguished gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Scott).

Mr. OBEY

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, as everyone knows, we are supposed to have our appropriation bills done by the beginning of the fiscal year on October 1. Right now, even if we pass the Interior bill today, the bill to which the distinguished gentleman from Florida has just referred, we will still have 9 of 13 appropriation bills that are pending, and only God knows when we are going to finish them. This continuing resolution keeps the government open until November 7. It is a very short CR, highly unrealistic in my view, if people have any expectation that this is going to be the last CR that we need. That means that the good news is we are going to get to do this all over again next week and the following week and probably the following week. I distinctly hope that we can be finished here by Thanksgiving. I desperately hope that we can, but my experience and my instincts are beginning to tell me that that is not at all likely. I notice that the reports this morning in the National Journal's Congress Daily, I notice the report there, and in one of the newspapers this morning, I have forgotten if it was Roll Call or The Hill, which indicated that the Speaker himself is contemplating the possibility of our adjourning until January 15 because of the inability of the House and the Senate to get together on a variety of bills, not just appropriation bills, but also bills like the energy bill and the Medicare bill. If we wind up doing that, it will be in essence a repeat of last year. And it means that we will be still dealing with last year's business midwinter of next year, and that will put the entire system again months behind where it ought to be, and God help us, there is an election year coming up, Presidential election year which is going to chew up a good piece of July and August. So I see here confusion and chaos. And I would point out that when this happened in the last Congress, the majority party had a convenient target. They tried to blame it all on good old Tom, Tom Daschle, the then-majority leader in the Senate. Well, to paraphrase what President Nixon said once, the majority party does not have the Democratic majority to kick around anymore because the party, the Republican Party is in control of both Houses. And the White House. And so any delays that we have in passing appropriation bills or other bills for that matter, any delays we are experiencing come because the Republican majority is having an argument with itself, between its House Members and its Senate Members. I think one of the reasons that this is dragging everything behind again is because, as we all know, there has been a conscious decision, certainly on the part of the leadership of this House, there has been a conscious decision on the part of the Republican leadership to run this House on the narrowest of partisan majorities, rather than putting together bipartisan compromises on each of the 13 appropriation bills. The most spectacular example of that is the Labor Health appropriation bill. The choice has been made to try to govern with only Republican votes. Now, if you have 300 people who are in support of a bill, it makes it a whole lot easier to get your work done because you have a much wider margin of error. But if you are only trying to run the House with a narrow margin of 220 or 230 votes, then every time you lose five or six votes, it is a big problem because that slows the train down. So I think there is a lesson in here somewhere if the Republican Party leadership wants to hear it, and the lesson is, that if you reach out and try to reach bipartisan conclusions, the House runs more smoothly and you have a much better chance of not having every little disagreement within your own party lead to delay, delay and more delay. That is just a pragmatic observation, and I would urge that the House leadership take it to heart. I have no expectation that they will, Mr. Speaker, but I wish they would. I think the problem that we have is that even within the Republican Party, there are a substantial number of Members, if not in this House then in the other body, who have substantial concerns about some of the appropriation bills. Example: Veterans health care has been a huge issue since the President presented his budget, and veterans groups all over the country are objecting to the inadequate level provided for veterans health care, but the VA HUD bill that left the House did not contain sufficient funding for veterans health care even to satisfy Republican Senators. So we had the Senate adopt, because they could not get the VA HUD bill to the floor, we had the Senate Republicans offer a motion which added $1.3 billion for veterans health care to, of all bills, the Iraqi supplemental. Last night, the conference jettisoned that $1.3 billion and promised that they would put it on the VA HUD bill, but we have no idea whatsoever of how that will be done, whether it will be done by busting the caps, whether it will be done by providing emergency funding, whether it will be done by an across-the-board cut in other items in that bill. We just do not know. And in that same bill, we have the problem of inadequate funding for local law enforcement because the White House budget tries to pretend that it is funding homeland security items by reducing funding for the normal aid to local governments, local police departments, in the form of the Byrne Grants and other regular law enforcement programs. We also have the problem of the Labor Health and Education bill where the education funding falls billions of dollars behind the No Child Left Behind Act which the President trumpeted so loudly just 2 years ago. We have a dispute between Republicans in both Houses over adequate funding levels for NIH, and I think there is considerable discomfort within the Republican Party, and certainly within ours, about the inadequate level of funding for special education for handicapped children. My point is simply that we are here, late in the year certainly it is not unprecedented. It has happened before under both parties, but I do not recall in quite some time it being this chaotic. And I also believe that it would have been very easy to avoid had we had at least modest efforts at reaching a bipartisan approach to the budget resolution, for instance, which has caused the squeeze on appropriation bills. So, Mr. Speaker, I think we have no choice but to pass this continuing resolution, but I think it is simply another small bridge to next week when we will have to pass yet another one, and I think the best way to break through this problem is not by exhorting people to reach agreement where there is no agreement. I think the best way to break through this problem is by changing the parameters so that we consider a broader-based compromise on some of these bills than has been considered to date. That is the only way that I see that we can get out of here before Thanksgiving turkey time with any degree of satisfaction and self- respect. Certainly the gentleman from Florida was able to put his bills through the House in a timely fashion, but when such limitations have been imposed, as is the case in this session, it becomes almost impossible for the House and the Senate to reach agreement on time, even when one party is in control of all the levers of government as the majority party now is. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I think we have two additional speakers at this time. I yield 5 minutes to the gentleman from Arkansas (Mr. Berry) a distinguished member of the committee.

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield 5 minutes to the distinguished gentleman from Oregon (Mr. DeFazio).

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the distinguished gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Murtha), the ranking Democrat on the Subcommittee on Defense of the Committee on Appropriations.

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 1 minute. Let me simply say, Mr. Speaker, in response to the gentleman from California, that the last year the Democrats were in control, I was chairman. We finished every appropriation bill before the end of the fiscal year, not because there was anything special about me, but because my party leadership allowed me to walk across the aisle to work out a bipartisan allocation between the 13 subcommittees. Even then, we had two-thirds of the Republicans voting against the final product much of the time. But at least I was allowed to put together a bipartisan allocation of dollars, and that is why we were able to finish it on time. That is in contrast to the instruction that the gentleman from Florida has unfortunately been given by his leadership, which has led to the fact that the Republicans at this point in the House and the Republicans in the Senate are losing an argument with themselves. That is the problem. Mr. Speaker, how much time do we have remaining?

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield 5 minutes to the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Cardin).

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my time. Mr. Speaker, since I first came to this body in 1969, we have had divided control of government for all but 6 years. The only time we have had Democratic control of all of the power levels of government was the 4 year period under President Carter and the first 2 years under President Clinton. For the rest of that time, we have had divided government until the Republicans took the whole shebang in the last election. It is clear that regardless of what we want to talk about in yesterday's chapters, the chapter being written today makes clear that the majority party is in control of all of the power levers of government, and they are in a very big debate with themselves. As a consequence, we again, as was the case last year, do not have the work done. That is not the fault of the gentleman from Florida. I do believe it is the fault of those who have decided that every issue will be decided within the Republican caucus rather than trying to work out more broad-based bipartisan bills. Nonetheless, that having been said, we have no choice but to pass this resolution. I would hope that we would have a sense of realism about how to get the job done between now and Thanksgiving. I doubt that we are going to, so I am afraid the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Young) and I will be back on the floor next week and the following week pursuing these week-to-week extensions. Sooner or later, we simply have to change the mind-set which has allowed this drift to continue. Mr. Speaker, I ask for an ``aye'' vote on the resolution.

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

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, what the previous Member said was not in any way directed at the Committee on Appropriations. The Member was pointing out in a number of the authorizing committee conferences, that Members of the minority were excluded; and I might point out in the process, probably the public interest was excluded as well.

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. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I think this bill is a mixed bag. There is much in it to commend it, and I especially want to express my appreciation to the gentleman from North Carolina (Mr. Taylor) for the way that he has fairly involved the majority and minority in the fashioning of this bill, and also for the fact that he has treated Members with great fairness in my judgment. There are two problems that I see with the bill that I find troublesome. First, there are a number of what I consider to be antienvironmental riders involving Alaska and other areas. I would say, frankly, that these are not the worst antienvironmental riders I have seen in an Interior bill, but I guess that is damning, by faint praise, from my perspective. I think the basic problem is that the bill falls $447 million short of measuring up to the agreement that this committee signed on to 3 years ago. At that time, a majority of the House had signed on to what was known as the CARA bill which would have created land acquisition programs and land conservation programs as an entitlement. Those of us on the Committee on Appropriations thought institutionally that was the wrong thing to do, and so we tried to work out an alternative. And we did. That alternative said that funds for those programs would be first in line in this bill for the next 6 years, and we spelled out a specific funding schedule that was supposed to be met over that time period. Unfortunately, the committee has now, in essence, walked away from that agreement. At the time that we entered into that agreement, because I was one of the parties to it, I pledged that if the committee at any time walked away from that agreement that I would vote against any legislation that was at variance with that agreement. And so I feel constrained to have to vote against the bill today. I am sorry about that, but I believe that we are making a long-term mistake, institutionally, by not living up to that agreement. I recognize the committee is short of resources. I think that the House should have corrected that by making more resources available so we would have not been in this jackpot. Nonetheless we are, and so that is why I, despite many of the good things in the bill, feel constrained to vote against it when the rollcall is called.

Mr. OBEY

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, this is the largest supplemental appropriation bill ever voted on by the Congress of the United States. And I think that it is a shame that it is being debated under these circumstances at this time of night. The only reason for the martial law rule is so that Members will not be given the courtesy of having this bill lay over one day so that they can examine what the details of the bill are. We are going to be held accountable for this vote for a long time. Our constituents are going to ask us every time we are home how we voted, what it contained. They are going to be asking us about the loans. They will be asking us whether or not there is adequate protection for taxpayers' money. And I venture to say that 90 percent of the Members of this Congress have not had an opportunity to dig deeply enough into this in order to be able to answer these questions. There were a few of us on the conference committee, and so we have been able to form our judgments. But I have to tell you that conference committee in which we participated the last 2 days is one of the most chaotic, and at some moments the most laughable, conference that I have ever participated in. And I think that in terms of the details of this bill, that will be demonstrated over time, because over time, regardless of whether or not the average Member in this House knows what is in this bill tonight, over time there will be a lot of good reporters who dig deeply enough into it to discover what is in this bill. They will be able to form a judgment about whether or not, for instance, the Inspector General provision is something with teeth or something that is nothing short of a sham. I happen to think that there are loopholes in the Inspector General provision of this bill big enough to drive a 65-foot truck through. I also would point out that that provision was adopted as a way to sandbag the GAO accounting procedures that Senator Byrd wanted attached in the conference. So I think there are a lot of detailed questions that Members ought to know the answers to. They will not by the time they vote, and that is the purpose of this rule. Our constituents will learn over time what is in this bill even if a lot of Members have not learned tonight, and that is why if I were a Member who feels any responsibility at all to my constituents, I would not vote for this martial law rule regardless of how you vote on the final bill. The Members owe it to the country to have taken the time to review this. This proposal will provide per capita aid to the citizens of Iraq that is more than 10 times as large as the per capita aid that was provided during the Marshall Plan to all of Western Europe. Under those circumstances, we ought to take a bit more time than this rule will allow us to take tonight.