John Olver

Mr. OLVER

Mr. OLVER. Mr. Chairman, I offer an amendment.

Mr. OLVER. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 4 minutes. Mr. Chairman, my amendment is a simple funding limitation which says that no funds from this bill can be used to implement a Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration's rule published in the Federal Register on the 19th of March 2002 in so far as it relates to a phase-in period to bring vehicles into compliance with the requirements of the regulation. The background here is essentially this: current law requires all motor carriers with minor exceptions entering the United States to comply with U.S. safety standards. Under the North American Free Trade Agreement, Mexican trucks were to operate throughout the four border States by 1996 and in all States by the year 2000. Deep concerns were raised about truck safety if that schedule were to be met and audits which were ordered by the Congress and done by the Transportation Inspector General, Kenneth Meade, in the late 1990s, showed that only a tiny fraction, only 1 percent really, of all trucks were being inspected for safety compliance, and even of those, 50 percent were failing. Driven by those audit results, corroborating the intense safety concerns, Mexican carriers have been limited to shipping to border zone transfer points and trans-shippings by carriers which comply with the U.S. safety requirements. To move towards full implementation of NAFTA, the administration issued a proposed rule 30 months ago in March of 2002 to establish a process for implementation. Under that rule, all new foreign carriers licensed after the effective date of the rule and all carriers wishing to expand beyond the service area, beyond the border zones after the effective date of the rule, must have certification of testing meeting U.S. safety regulations. But those carriers operating only in the border zones would have 24 months to obtain certification, so that 24 months after promulgation of that March 2002 rule, all motor carriers operating in the U.S. would comply with U.S. safety regulations. Now, the March 2002 regulation was held up in court actions that went all the way to the Federal Appeals Court for the ninth district and in June of this year, earlier this year, the Supreme Court reversed the appeals ruling unanimously, thereby clearing the last major hurdle to promulgation of the March 2002 rule. Small obstacles remain, but we are close to full implementation of the NAFTA provisions. Mr. Chairman, every one of the foreign carriers operating in the U.S., both in the border zone and beyond, have known for 20 months, Canadian carriers, Mexican carriers, all of them, that this rule was pending and moving towards promulgation. They could and certainly should have gotten all their vehicles certified long before now. It would now be grossly unfair to add another 24 months on top of the already 30 months which has passed in terms of the competition with fully compliant U.S., Mexican, and Canadian carriers operating in the U.S. Furthermore, that extra 24 months would prolong the still lingering safety concerns again and create a chaotic inspection and enforcement situation. My amendment essentially says, promulgate the rule, comply with NAFTA, let all motor carriers which comply with U.S. safety laws, let all of them operate throughout the U.S., but do not give 24 months more on top of the 30 months which has already passed since the proposed rule was published and everyone knew about it to meet the safety regulations which are United States law. Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. OLVER. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from Michigan (Ms. Kilpatrick), a member of the subcommittee.

Mr. OLVER. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Minnesota (Mr. Oberstar).

Mr. OLVER

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

Mr. OLVER. Mr. Chairman, early in this debate, the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Lincoln Diaz-Balart) who controls the time in opposition to this amendment asserted that the President of the United States gave this issue a tremendous amount of thought. Surely that assertion contains an oxymoron.

Mr. OLVER. Mr. Chairman, I ask unanimous consent to strike the requisite number of words.

Mr. OLVER. Mr. Speaker, I move to strike the last word.

Mr. OLVER. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the last word. Mr. Chairman, the President's request for the Treasury Department in this year's budget included a $400 million increase focused on initiatives in the Tax Law Enforcement Bureau. The budget we have before us today cuts nearly three quarters of the President's requested initiative. That, of course, is a prerogative of this Congress, but I think we should examine carefully the inevitable result of making such a deep cut from the President's budget request. Commissioner Everson of the IRS, in sworn testimony, pointed out that the tax gap, which is defined as the difference between total taxes owed to the Treasury under the provisions of law and what is actually paid into the national Treasury by all filers, both individual and corporate, the tax gap has grown to a minimum of $250 billion each and every year. Now, $250 billion unpaid each year in taxes represents a major part of the yearly deficit which we are accruing and passing off to be paid by our children. The Commissioner went even further, pointing out that the $250 billion estimate came from studies which from several years ago is almost certainly low and is probably $300 billion per year now. As large as that $250 billion or $350 billion yearly tax gap is, and we have to understand that $1 out of roughly $7 owed in taxes under the law is not paid by those who do not file, who underreport or otherwise evade the legal payment of the taxes owed, the most startling part of Commissioner Everson's testimony under oath, again I say, was his statement that the percentage of Americans who think it is okay to cheat on their taxes has increased from 11 percent to 17 percent in just a few years. Commissioner Everson stated that two thirds of the new enforcement dollars requested would be devoted to ``attacking abuses by high-income taxpayers and corporations and increasing criminal investigations.'' Under further questioning, he stated that each dollar expended on added enforcement personnel would yield on average a direct $6 increase in payment of tax owed, but the added enforcement activity would begin to reverse the trend toward a higher percentage of people not paying the taxes owed under the law and in that way be able to reduce the tax gap dramatically. Mr. Chairman, ours is a tax system that rightly depends largely on voluntary compliance. When a tax gap rose to the point where $1 out of every $7 owed under the law is evaded by nonfiling or systematic underreporting of income or use of illegal tax schemes and shelters, then the vast majority of honest taxpayers pay in taxes what they owe under the law. The vast majority of honest taxpayers are paying 15 percent higher in taxes than they owe while another group pays none or less than they owe under the law. Such obvious unfairness in the system breeds cynicism and contempt broadly among the citizenry, and we should not in this House be complicit in that unfairness. Mr. Chairman, at this time I had intended to offer an amendment to add $286 million to the tax law enforcement account under the Treasury Department, thereby restoring full funding to the President's request for tax law enforcement in the Treasury Department. But given that this House has already stripped $41 billion from this legislation, including Federal highway grants to States, airport improvement grants to local communities, essential air service grants for rural airports, transit formula grants for States and funding in major capital investment projects, and highway traffic safety grants to the States, this is not the day to offer such a commonsense amendment. Amendment Offered by Mr. Stenholm

Mr. OLVER. I yield to the gentleman from Oklahoma.

Mr. OLVER. Mr. Chairman, I completely agree with the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Tierney) on the particulars of this legislation. I thank the subcommittee chairman for showing that he actually agrees with this as well by the fact that we have included section 410 at each stage in the appropriations process. However, section 410 was one of many important provisions which should have been and under normal circumstances would have been protected under the rule by which we are debating this legislation, but it was struck on a point of order. The gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Tierney) has made urgency for action in this matter very clear. I give the gentleman my full support. Mr. Chairman, I ask that the gentleman from Oklahoma work with me to include this provision in the final version of the bill.

Mr. OLVER. I yield to the gentleman from Massachusetts.

Mr. OLVER. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the last word. Mr. Chairman, I rise for the purpose of engaging in a colloquy with the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Tierney) regarding disposal of Federal property in the town of Nahant in Massachusetts.

Mr. OLVER. Mr. Chairman, I applaud the gentleman from Vermont (Mr. Sanders) and the gentleman from Minnesota (Mr. Gutknecht) for their leadership and work on this issue. The gentleman from Vermont's (Mr. Sanders) amendment is very clear. It would prohibit the Federal Government from assisting in overturning or, for that matter, in taking any role thereby in overturning the court decision in this case. Now, the chairman has characterized this amendment as saying that this court decision cannot be overturned. That is not true at all. IBM and the workers for IBM can contest that, and it can be overturned. The amendment merely says that the U.S. Government cannot take part in the overturning. The gentleman from Texas has said that this amendment would undermine pension reform. Whatever the chairman's views on the appropriateness of this amendment for this bill, last year this amendment passed this House on this very same bill by a vote of 258 to 160. The chairman was the chairman then. Two years ago, a similar amendment passed the predecessor subcommittee, the Subcommittee on Treasury, Postal Service and General Government, which the chairman was the chairman of also, by a 308 to 121 vote. So it has been applied to this bill at previous times; and here again, the only issue is that taxpayer money should not be used to support IBM's age discriminatory cash balance plan, as the court decided. It would be an insult to workers if their own Federal dollars were used to cut their own pension plans, and we should overwhelmingly adopt this amendment today as we have done on two previous occasions to the exact same bill in previous years.

Mr. OLVER. I yield to the gentlewoman from Texas.

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

Mr. OLVER. Mr. Chairman, the latest get-tough initiative to rid Cuba of Fidel Castro punishes ordinary Cubans on both sides of the Florida straits and will surely have no more effect on the longevity of the Castro regime than all other such measures over the last 45 years, over the lifetime of ten different Presidents, have had. Specifically, the interim rule which went into effect on June 30, 2004, limits family visits to Cuba to one trip every 3 years for a maximum of 14 days under a specific license to visit only immediate family. No longer will emergency visits, even deathbed visits, be allowed, nor visits to aunts, uncles and cousins who are outside the definition of immediate family. The old policy allowed one trip per year under a general license for an unstated number of days, included a broader definition of family and allowed emergency visits under a specific license. Further, the new rule has ordered cutting the amount that Cuban-Americans visiting Cuba can spend on a daily basis from $167 to $50, and $50 does not buy very much these days. And these sweeping changes were done without so much as one hearing in Congress. The Davis amendment would prohibit funds in the bill from being used to implement, administer or enforce the rule containing these changes made in family travel. Regardless of Members' opinions on the travel ban, this policy is politics at its worse being played with families. We should adopt the amendment overwhelmingly and put a stop to this policy folly.

Mr. OLVER

Mr. OLVER. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the last word. Mr. Chairman, I yield to the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Moran).

Mr. OLVER. Mr. Chairman, reclaiming my time, I, again, agree with the urgency of the issue that has come up in terrorism, and I think it does appropriately ask for collaboration. I think is the word that the gentlewoman has used, collaboration with the other committee, and I hope that the gentleman from Oklahoma (Mr. Istook), within that context, that the gentleman and I might be able to work together as this subcommittee goes to conference since, probably, the Subcommittee on Homeland Security will be part of the same overall omnibus conference in that process and to make certain that rail somehow is not left out and that the security on rail is to our liking as well.

Mr. OLVER. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for yielding me this time. Mr. Chairman, I must admit that I find the idea of putting private, sensitive information in the hands of debt collectors very troubling, and tax collection is a fundamental responsibility of government. However, in this instance, this program is limited to the effort, the proposal at least. And there is, as the chairman has pointed out, there is no legislation yet allowing this to be done. The proposal that has been put forward is only to use private collectors to go after what monies have already been adjudicated but not collected, that have just not been paid in after the judgments have been reached and the determinations by the normal staff of the IRS as to what was owed has been determined. So there is out there for years people who have just avoided doing that. And it is not our business, necessarily, to go after them and waste a lot of time on the part of our staff in the IRS to go after that, nor is it necessary that there be any particular information, sensitive information, that has to be involved in that kind of process. The collection agency, as proposed, would merely go out and take what record is there of the determination of the tax case and try to negotiate a payment so that that record could be cleared. There are billions of dollars of that sort. Now, that has nothing to do with the $300 billion of unpaid tax monies each year that are essentially evaded year by year, people who just are not paying what is owed under the tax laws in the normal process on a year-by-year basis. That kind of money is not involved in this whatsoever. It is also true that the process has been tried a couple of times in a pilot form and has not been particularly successful. So it needs to be looked at rather carefully. I do not, as the chairman has said, think that we really have a problem, but I do not think we should eliminate the possibility of having that arrangement as a way that we can collect the delinquent, long-time unpaid judgments that the IRS has obtained over time. It is my understanding, at least in the proposal that had been put forward, that there would be no effect upon the number of employees that were the regular employees of the Internal Revenue Service. So it is quite apart, but it has not been authorized and really does not require this. The amendment is not really needed.

Mr. OLVER. Mr. Chairman, reclaiming my time, in response to those comments, I would address the chairman, that I agree that it is appropriate for the conferees on the Subcommittee on Transportation, Treasury, and Independent Agencies to be concerned about security, security for rail operations, which operate actually under the jurisdiction of our subcommittee, but as to the security on them, the primary jurisdiction does fall within the Subcommittee on Homeland Security of the Committee on Appropriations.

Mr. OLVER. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for yielding me time. I, too, oppose this amendment. This is a bill which I had already indicated last night is very underfunded. Every one of the transportation programs in the bill, even before last night's activities of striking out parts of the bill, had been underfunded, and that includes, at least in terms of an inflationary increase, even the Highway Administration; but the Federal Aviation Administration and the Federal Rail Administration and the Federal Transit Administration are all below last year's 2004 enacted numbers in their totality, as well as the Treasury being in a similar situation. They are in a situation where even before the things that had been removed last night had been done, the Rail Administration was $365 million below the enacted 2004 number. Under the Federal Transit Administration, the New Starts was $130 million below last year's enacted amount. The FAA's facilities and equipment program was $362 million below the enacted amount. The Secretary of the Treasury and the Department were $120 million below last year's enacted amounts, and the Internal Revenue Service was $107 million below last year's enacted amount. All of these throughout the bill, there are those kinds of things which are already considerably more than 1 percent kinds of cuts from the previous year, and so I think that we are far from where we ought to be with this bill at the moment, and I am hoping the gentleman's amendment is not adopted.

Mr. OLVER. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the last word. Mr. Chairman, I yield to the gentlewoman from Texas (Ms. Jackson-Lee) for purposes of a colloquy with the chairman and myself.

Mr. OLVER. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the last word. Mr. Chairman, I would like to take this opportunity to say that the chairman has already indicated that we have a list of about 20 people who supposedly have amendments. And some of these have been planned for specific times, but some of them are open and have been planned for today. And if they have their amendments and they have been planned for today, then they should be here at this time. But, in the meantime, I think it is worth spending just a few minutes in reviewing the situation that we found ourselves in last night. The legislation that we have before us is the yearly appropriations bill for the Subcommittee on Transportation, Treasury, and Independent Agencies appropriations. Year after year, this committee operates within the authorization by the Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure, and now, in this particular year, we do not have an authorization for at least 11-plus months of the year. And the authorization for most of the major transportation issues, which include the Federal Highway Administration, the Federal Transit Administration and the Federal Rail Administration, are all included in that bill which has not yet been passed. The authorization for even the extensions of authorization are only until September 24, just a matter of a week or so away, a little bit more than a week away, and do not extend into the fiscal year for which we are passing legislation. So the Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure, which obviously has been trying to get an authorization bill through, and there has been tension between the House and the other body and with the President, with the administration, over what that bill should look like, have clearly not been able to make a bill that can be passed by the House and the other body and passed into law so that we could operate within our normal authorization process. So, I think, while I am not sure of this, but in order to get to that point where they can get a bill passed, they felt it necessary to essentially eliminate all of the sections, all of the money sections, a total of $50 billion in expenditures which have to do with transportation procedures, and to eliminate essentially all of that last night, through points of order which, under our rules, were sustained, and therefore, $50 billion of expenditure for all of our important transportation programs got held up, taken out of the bill. Construction dollars are worth 40 to 45,000 jobs per billion dollars of construction moneys. Not all of that was construction dollars, but a great portion of it was construction dollars; and so that has a very major effect upon the whole economy of the country. So in the process, we have now a situation where we will not be able to do an authorization bill within the time frame of the fiscal year apparently; and, therefore, we will be stuck in a process where this appropriations bill itself cannot be completed, maybe it was not going to be completed, until some time in November; but it may not now be possible to complete it until some time into next year. Probably will not be possible to complete it until there is an authorization bill, whenever that happens to be. So it has been a really horrendous kind of a process, a real failure of the legislative process. It has been impossible to get an authorization bill prior to the appropriation legislation. Amendment Offered by Mr. Butterfield

Mr. OLVER. Mr. Chairman, I do not seek time in opposition. I rise merely to accept the amendment.