John Olver

Mr. OLVER

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

Mr. OLVER. Mr. Speaker, I am very happy to join the distinguished group of Members from New Jersey and New York and Michigan who have been here speaking about these issues, and to bring a Massachusetts point of view to some of what is being said. Here we are, we are almost finished with the 1999 congressional session. We have five major budgets yet to go. We are only 5 weeks late. Some of the States have been later than that but we are very likely going to be done in a couple of weeks and maybe even some are saying within one week. Yet this has been really a strange session. Legislative bodies usually try to do the things that meet the popular will, but the Republican leadership of this Congress, in 1999, does not even try to deal with issues that the largest number of Americans say again and again that they want done. For the first time in 30 years, we have the prospect for modest and growing surpluses. We have the money to do those most important things that people really want done, and yet the Republican leadership has refused to bring forward a bill that would extend the Social Security system so that the next generation would have the same opportunity to have the Social Security system for them that my generation has and will have secure for them. The same leadership, the same Republican leadership, has refused to extend the life of the overall Medicare program that has been such a boon for our senior citizens in making certain that they could have quality health care that they can afford. It is clear, as has already been said from the way they have set up the conference committee on the Patients' Bill of Rights, that they really do not intend to pass a patients' bill of rights that would take the medical treatment decisions for every American family away from insurance executives and accountants and give those treatment decisions back to doctors where they belong. The same Republican leadership has refused to add even a modest prescription drug benefit to the Medicare program. We have millions of senior citizens who are paying $200 or $300 for prescription drugs. Well, maybe not millions but we have a lot of senior citizens who are paying $200 and $300 a month for their prescription drugs and they really cannot afford it. By the way, we have seen the spectacle of this House passing a campaign finance reform bill in a matter of just a few weeks, with the votes of dozens of Republican members who courageously refused to follow their leadership in weakening that legislation; only to see the bill killed in the other body, in the Senate. There simply is not going to be any campaign finance reform this year or in this 106th Congress and very likely in this century along the way. Why? Well, just as an example, it should not surprise anybody out here in the watching audience that drug companies steadfastly oppose the creation of a prescription drug benefit to the Medicare system because they are making great profits off drug prescriptions for senior citizens, and those end up substantially being paid by the government. They are making great profits and, oh, by the way, it should not surprise people that of the 10 largest corporate contributors to Republican leadership political action committees, that a majority of those are themselves the drug companies. So then we have among those other things that have not been done this year, there is a proposal to increase the minimum wage by $1 over 2 years. We have had an unprecedented good economy, growth in our economy over an 8-year period. We have the lowest unemployment rate in decades. We have people working at minimum wage who deserve to see some benefit for their work, and only get to see that benefit if there is an increase in the minimum wage. By the way, 80 percent of Americans favored an increase in the minimum wage. Just as similar numbers favor a Patients' Bill of Rights and favor the prescription drug benefit for senior citizens to be added to our Medicare program and favor the extension of our overall Medicare program so that the life of that program will go beyond the year 2015, which is now the time when it will go bankrupt. Well, the extension of the Social Security system for the next generation, all of those things are favored by 75 percent or 80 percent of Americans, and even 67 percent of Republicans favor the minimum wage bill, a bill that we could pass in a clean way in a day. The Republican leadership is going to allow to come to this floor only a bill, only a bill, that carries with it about $70 billion of tax breaks for the 1 percent of Americans who make over $300,000 a year. Now, they are going to hold a simple minimum wage increase, a $1 wage increase, for the lowest income workers in this country. They are going to hold that bill hostage to a huge tax reduction for the wealthiest 1 percent of Americans, who are the people who contribute mostly to political campaigns, to their own political PAC campaigns and such. So all of these things are interconnected. Many people do understand how interconnected, why we get the legislation that we get; why we do not get the bills that the gentleman has shown so graphically, the rest in pieces. The campaign finance is a pretty critical question in these. The influence of money in the passage of legislation, in what legislation comes up before us, and what is allowed to be debated, and what ends up being passed by this Congress in this 106th Congress is a critically important matter until we can get campaign finance reform to pass through here and not be juggled between the two branches and killed by the one branch, and maybe next year it will end up being killed by this branch, and it is passed by the Senate or something. It is critical that we do something about campaign finance reform, or we are going to continue to see this musical chairs process by which those bills that the Americans by the largest numbers say they want us to do because those are important to them in their daily lives, those bills are not going to be handled this year or next year and the second year of this session. So I am very happy to join with the gentlemen that have been here tonight. The gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Pallone) has shown such leadership in bringing to the attention of the American people these kinds of ironies in how we are functioning, what we are not doing, what we should be doing, what the American people want us to do that is not getting done. I am very happy to add a Massachusetts view to what has already been said.

Mr. OLVER

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

Mr. OLVER. I thank the gentleman for yielding. I fully agree that it is not under the jurisdiction of the Committee on Appropriations to do, but this is passing the buck from one committee to another. This is a year when, in very good economic times, we could have extended the life of social security by a very simple measure, and with reference to passing the buck, all I said was that the Republican majority has steadfastly and deliberately refused to extend the lifetime of social security by so much as a day.

Mr. OLVER. I do not expect the Committee on Appropriations to do anything. I was merely pointing out that it is a responsibility of the majority to solve America's problems.

Mr. OLVER. The problem in this instance is that we need to extend social security. They really cannot pass the buck from one committee to another when it is a matter of all the committees.

Mr. OLVER. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding me time. Mr. Speaker, here we are, 29 days past the day that started the fiscal year 2000. Only 8 of 13 bills have been passed, so here we are debating another continuing resolution to get us one week deeper into the process, and a week from now we will end up here debating still another continuing resolution. For weeks now the Republicans have accused Democrats of spending the Social Security surplus on this year's budget. Now, give us a break. The Republicans are in the majority here. Democrats cannot pass a budget at all. We cannot spend a single penny of the budget. The Republican majority has passed appropriations bills, one right after the other, with accounting gimmicks that call for routine items becoming emergencies and putting future expenditures past the end of the fiscal year so it appears in next year's accounts. The Office of Management and Budget says you have been spending Social Security money, your own Congressional Budget Office says that you have been spending Social Security money, $17 billion by the latest count, but the Republican leaders, one after another, proclaim they are not spending a single dollar of the Social Security surplus. Well, every propaganda campaign depends on convincing people you are doing exactly the opposite of what you are actually doing, and this is a propaganda campaign. The big lie, repeated again, and again, and again. It really does not matter, because a year from now, by election time, one year from now, every American will know exactly how much money has been spent from the Social Security surplus, and it will be impossible to hide it or lie about it any longer. But, more importantly, is the fact that in all of this year the Republican majority has deliberately refused to extend the life of the Social Security system by so much as a single day. They have deliberately refused to extend the solvency of the Medicare program by so much as a single day. There is not a whimper of dispute on either of those facts. They have refused to put the interest saved by paying down America's debt into the Social Security trust fund, which alone would extend Social Security by 15 years, so that people over the age of 30 would be able to know that they have Social Security good for them into at least the year 2050. And they have refused to extend the solvency of the Medicare program beyond the 15 years the present law assures. At the same time, they have refused to expand the Medicare program to provide for a prescription drug benefit for our senior citizens. In fact, they passed earlier this year a disastrous tax bill which would have made it impossible to extend the life of either Social Security or Medicare. Both would have died a slow death by strangulation. Fortunately, the President vetoed that bill.

Mr. OLVER

Mr. OLVER. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding me time. Mr. Speaker, here we are, 29 days into the new fiscal year, dealing with the largest discretionary budget, other than defense, under most unusual circumstances. This is the bill that deals with every family in America on education and health and working issues and training and job safety and such, and we are operating under and asked to vote for a rule which completely bypasses regular order. This is my ninth budget. In not one of those previous 8 years have we dealt with the labor, health and education budget in less than at least one whole day of debate, where it was possible to amend this legislation along the way, either by the minority or the majority, to offer amendments and have them debated and considered along the way. Not a single amendment can be offered here, not a single one debated. It is totally unamendable under these circumstances. But we are here under that set of rulings, and we should reject the rule for that reason.

Mr. OLVER. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding me this time. I have only time to focus on one of the reasons for voting against this bill. My distinguished chairman of the subcommittee, the honorable chairman and good friend, has a couple of times, several times, pointed out that the NIH budget, the National Institutes of Health budget, is up from $15.6 billion by 14 percent, up to $17.9 billion. What he does not point out, and that he has never mentioned, is that $7.5 billion of that, more than 40 percent, is shifted so that it may not be obligated until the 29th or 30th day of September next year. For him to speak about that would probably cause him to throw up. The number of dollars that are available because of that feature, the number of dollars for medical research in the fiscal year is, in reality, cut by about 15 percent in the year 2000. And that means that medical research on cancer research, on Alzheimer's, on AIDS, as well as genetic causes of disease and biotechnology, all of that has to be slowed down or stopped or put on the back burner.

Mr. OLVER

Mr. OLVER. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to honor those civilians who have lost their lives because of war. When conflict erupts, too often civilians pay a bitter price. I rise in remembrance, so that the many women, men and children who have been forced to yield their lives are not forgotten. But I am not the only one who has chosen to remember civilians killed in acts of war. I am joined today by a dedicated network of Peace Abbey volunteers, who have just concluded an historic journey from Sherborn, Massachusetts to Arlington National Cemetery in Washington, DC. This journey is called ``Stonewalk,'' and judging from its name, it's clear that the volunteers did not arrive in Washington empty-handed. In fact, they managed to pull a 2000 pound memorial stone the entire way. The success of this feat is a tribute to past and present victims of war. Stonewalk involved volunteers from nearly all of the Atlantic states. The journey lasted 33 days and covered roughly 480 miles. The one-tone stone is appropriately named the Memorial Stone for Unknown Civilians Killed in War. It will be presented as a gift to Arlington National Cemetery today, the fifty-fourth anniversary of the bombing of Hiroshima on August 6, 1945. Prior to Stonewalk, an identical memorial stone was unveiled by famed boxer Muhammad Ali and visited by over 5,000 people. While the story behind this stone is courageous, the truth behind it is sad and bewildering. At this very moment, bloody conflicts around the world are costing hundreds, perhaps thousands, of civilian lives per day. The toll on victimized families in Kosova, Colombia, or Sierra Leone is no less painful than that placed on the many families here in the United States who have lost relatives to war. As a world and a nation, we have much work to do to resolve our conflicts peacefully, and to avoid the senseless death of civilians. Mr. Speaker, I commend Peace Abbey for memorializing the civilians-- the women, men and children--who have died throughout the history of war.

Mr. OLVER

Mr. OLVER. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding me this time. I rise to oppose this rule and the bill that underlies the rule. Mr. Speaker, like the instinctive march of lemmings over a cliff, it is instinctive for the Republican leadership to give huge tax breaks to the richest individuals and special interests. In their bill, the 1 million wealthiest families whose income is greater than $300,000 per year will get about $1,000 a week of tax breaks. But for the 120 million American families whose income is under $125,000 a year, and that, by the way, includes everybody virtually whose income is under that of Members of the Congress, for those 120 million families, they are going to get enough to buy a cup or two of coffee a week, so that they can stay awake while they are working their double jobs. That is not the tax relief that the middle class needs and deserves. But they simply cannot help themselves. It is in their genes. It is their genetic defect. They deliberately, deliberately crafted a bill that makes the richest 1 percent of Americans a very great deal richer, a bill that gives away the projected surplus, not one dime of which has yet been produced. But they give away that projected surplus in order to produce that kind of tax break, distribution of tax breaks. They deliberately have not extended the life of Social Security by so much as a single day so that in the year 2030 when they open the lockbox, which all of us have voted for, they are going to find that the lockbox is empty. They have deliberately left not a single dollar to extend the life of Medicare, which provides healthcare for all of our senior citizens and our disabled citizens, so in the year 2014, Medicare is going to be bankrupt too. This plan is not just risky, it is reckless. This bill should be rejected.

Mr. OLVER

Mr. OLVER. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the last word. Mr. Chairman, I yield to the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Obey) the distinguished ranking member of the Committee on Appropriations.

Mr. OLVER. Mr. Chairman, I yield to the gentleman from California (Mr. George Miller).

Mr. OLVER

Mr. OLVER. Mr. Speaker, for this week the high profile, main business of the Republican leadership in Congress is to reach a final version of the $800 billion tax cut that has been proposed. Now, the Republican leadership says that their tax cut is for the middle class, but that is clearly not true. The House-passed version of the bill passed here, passed this branch 2 weeks ago, and in that version the 6 million highest income taxpayers, which represent about 5 percent of all taxpayers in this country, with incomes of over $125,000 a year, would get 61 percent, more than three-fifths of the total tax reduction, while the other 120 million taxpayers in this country, 95 percent of all the taxpayers, they would get only 39 percent of the total tax reduction that is involved. Now, I do not think that many people would consider that a middle class tax cut. In fact, it is designed to make the already rich a very great deal richer, while the broad middle class of people in this country, the families that are living on an income of between $20,000 to, say, $80,000 a year, are only going to see a tax cut that is worth one or two cups of coffee a day for those families. But that is only a small part of the story. The rest of the story is what cannot be done if the Republican leadership's tax cut bill were to become law. For that, I would like to just indicate a couple of areas of what cannot be done. Look at and consider the question of the national debt. On this chart, this chart shows what the publicly-held national debt of $3.7 trillion is made up of. These pie chart sections, 38 presidents from 1789 until 1977 produced this blue piece. This is President Carter's portion of the debt. This is President Reagan's. This is President Bush's. This is President Clinton's. The interest on that $3.7 trillion of debt now is about as large, it is about $230 billion a year, is about as large as the whole debt that was created during the Carter administration, that was built up during the Carter administration. What happens? The tax cut makes certain that we will not be able to pay off that debt, and we will have to continue paying $200 billion or more per year for years into the future. That means higher interest rates for every American family that wants to buy a home, higher interest rates for every business person who wants to create a business that is going to provide more jobs. So, the debt problem. Let me take a different issue. If you take a look at the Social Security situation, the tax cut, if it were to become law in its present form, would make it very much more difficult to extend the Social Security system beyond the year 2030. We know the demographics. We know how many people are going to be retiring between now and then. We know how many are going to enter the workforce between now and then, and we know that the reserve funds in the Social Security system will run out in 2030. And we will only be able to operate on the basis of whatever is paid into the Social Security trust fund year by year, which means the benefits for the ever-growing number of senior citizens will have to be reduced or the retirement age for people will have to go up. At the same time, at the same time, we know that for those people who are businesspeople who are wealthy Americans, the retirement age is going down. People are retiring, if they are wealthy enough, at 50, 55, some even younger than that. Some of them never have worked so they never have to retire. So the Social Security system is in serious jeopardy of not having any additional revenue to put into the protection and preservation of the Social Security system. Now, my mother, who is 92 years old, is living now on Social Security that is under $500 per month. She also has a couple hundred dollars of income from other sources but she certainly could not live on a reduced benefit as would happen if this tax cut were to become law. So those are two reasons. There are many others but those are two of what the problems are with the tax cut that is being proposed.

Mr. OLVER

Mr. OLVER. Mr. Speaker, I am sure that I am making friends with all of the members of the staff by taking 5 minutes at this hour, including the Speaker, but since I have stayed here this long, I will take the 5 minutes. Mr. Speaker, we are told that this is the week that the main business is going to be, for this Congress, is the final passage of an $800 billion tax cut. The Republican leadership says that their tax cut, at least that one which passed the House of Representatives, is for the middle class. But I would like to raise that question. The bill which passed the House of Representatives about 2 weeks ago had the following features: the 1.25 million taxpayers representing the 1 percent wealthiest, richest portion of the population each, on average, got $54,000 of tax reduction. Those are the 1 percent whose incomes is more than $300,000 per year. At the other end of the scale, starting from the bottom, from the lowest income person in this society issuing a tax return, if we took all 95 percent, starting from the lowest income and coming up to an income of $125,000 a year, all 95 percent of that population, all 120 million would have received 39 percent of the total tax cut; whereas, the 1.25 million, the wealthiest 1.25 million, or 1 percent, would have received 45 percent of that total tax reduction. The 1 percent richest of Americans got more than all 95 percent of our population whose income is beneath 125,000. If I may put that in a slightly different way, if those who may still be watching would consider 100 people, 100 people, one of whom has income over $300,000 and consider that we might have $100 of tax reduction to be able to distribute among those 100 people, that that one person whose income is greater than $300,000 would get $45 of the total of $100 that is available for all tax reduction for all Americans. Whereas 95 people, starting at the lowest income, up to the persons who might have $125,000 of income, that group of 95 people would find that they were able to receive only a total of $39 divided among the 95 of them. Now, I do not know how many people would believe that that was a fair distribution that would suggest that this tax cut was for the middle class. That is hardly a middle class tax cut. In fact, it is designed to make the already rich a great deal richer. And that the middle class, those people between incomes of $20,000 and perhaps $80,000 per year, would receive $1 or $2 a day, hardly a middle class tax cut. But that is only a small part of the story. The rest of the story is what the Republican leadership makes impossible if this rich-get-very-much- richer bill were to become law. I forgot to bring the chart that I have here, but I will get it because I would like to show the American people what happens on just one issue, and that is the issue of the Nation's debt. If this tax bill is passed, as it was passed in the House of Representatives, then it would be nearly impossible to reduce the Nation's debt. Let me show this chart. This chart shows where the present $3.7 trillion of debt that is publicly held was created. The first 38 presidents, from George Washington, our first president, through Mr. Ford, our 38th president, produced $549 billion of debt. President Carter, in his 4 years, created an additional $236 billion of debt. President Reagan created, in his 8 years, $1.4 trillion. President Bush, $1.1 trillion, and President Clinton, in his almost 7 years, an additional $472 billion.

Mr. OLVER

Mr. OLVER. Mr. Speaker, I move that the House do now adjourn.

Mr. OLVER

Mr. OLVER. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for yielding this time to me, and I also would like to associate myself with the comments that have been made by the distinguished chairman of the subcommittee. There is no question that there is no shortage of hatred in Kosovo these days, and I would just point out that the first sizable delegation of Members of the Congress was led by the gentleman from Ohio, the chairman of the Subcommittee on Military Construction, of which I serve as the ranking member; and we saw the attempt on the part of American forces there, having detained some 10 or so Serbian Kosovars and some, almost 30, Albanian Kosovars for a variety of actions, but there are no courts in Kosovo to send those actions to, actions of looting and arson and, in fact, murder. In this particular instance, the 14 Serbian farmers, and one can surely not condone that kind of activity, already three people have been arrested for that. On the other hand, there have been no arrests and may well never be. In fact, the perpetrators out of the Yugoslavian armed forces are probably quite free and among the elite of the military in Belgrade at this time for the atrocities; and I could go into a list of them, one after another, the atrocities of 30 and 40 and 50 people who had been killed and burned, hacked apart by machete attack, small children, children as young as 2 years shot in the head, along with aged people thrown into a well along with cows and rocks and so forth as part of the atrocities that were perpetrated there. So there is no shortage of atrocities, but we cannot condone those activities, and I thank the gentleman for withdrawing his amendment.

Mr. OLVER. Mr. Chairman, I also reserve a point of order.

Mr. OLVER

Mr. OLVER. Mr. Speaker, it is sort of irony that I should be following the gentleman who just spoke because I am going to be speaking about the same thing. That was not specifically planned, but I am glad that it comes out that way. Mr. Speaker, we are told this week that the main business of the Congress is proposals which have now passed both the House and the Senate to provide for an $800 billion tax cut. Any time the Congress is thinking about tax cuts, it behooves everyone in America to hang on to their wallet, to sit up and take notice, to pay very close attention to who is being given tax breaks and why. But also how that differs from who the proponents are saying is going to get the tax breaks. This week is no exception at all. The Republican leadership says that their tax cut is for the middle-class. For the middle-class in America, working Americans. For the middle-class. Well, that is clearly not true if we look at what has passed the House and the Senate. The House passed its bill 2 weeks ago. And starting at the wealthiest end of Americans, at Bill Gates, at the wealthiest end and come down to an annual income of $300,000 a year, that 1 percent, just over a million Americans who have incomes between $300,000 a year and Bill Gates, that richest 1 percent is on average going to get $54,000 of tax breaks. It turns out to be 45 percent of the total of all the tax reduction being proposed goes to the 1 percent of the wealthiest Americans. If we take 6 million Americans, 5 percent starting at the top of the scale down to an income of $125,000 a year, I think it might be instructive to remember that every single Member of the Congress, every Member of the House and every Member of the Senate has income greater than $125,000 a year, that 5 percent will average $15,000 a year in tax cuts and gets 61 percent of the total reduction. Mr. Speaker, if we start at the other end and come all the way up, all the way up from the lowest income American to people making under $125,000 a year, all 95 percent of them, all 120 million taxpayers, they will receive less than the 1 percent whose income is over $300,000 per year. It turns out that those people, who include the broad middle- class, income from $25,000 a year to $65,000 a year under the House- passed bill, would get less than half as much in total tax reduction as the 1 percent richest portion of the population. Let me put that in slightly different terms. If we were to take 100 people that we know, one person whose income is over $300,000 a year and the rest whose income comes down from that point, and we have $100 to give out in tax reduction, 100 people and $100 in tax reduction, that one wealthiest person, that single one is going to get $45. Forty- five of the dollars that it is possible to give out under the circumstances. Ninty-five people, the 95 starting from the lowest income up to incomes that covers the broad middle-class, they are going to get a total of $39 divided among them. If we look at it in terms of families, a family making $30,000 a year would get less than $1 a day in tax reduction. A family making $50,000 a year, two people working, second jobs whatever it happens to be but under $50,000 a year, at $50,000 a year they would get less than $2 a day in income. Yet the person who is making $1 million a year, that person would get $70,000 in that year. $200 a day in tax breaks. The Senate-passed plan is a little bit different. The wealthiest 5 percent in the Senate plan gets almost the same amount as the 95 percent, the 120 million people whose income is less than $125,000 a year. And, again, I would urge my colleagues to remember that the portion of the population that is getting most of the tax break includes every Member of the House and the Senate of the United States. I have to ask, does anyone think that that is a fair way to distribute tax reduction in this country?

Mr. OLVER

Mr. OLVER. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. As I think all of the Members understand, the military construction appropriations bill serving as a guardian of the quality of life of men and women who serve in America's military. Both the Chairman and I would have preferred to do more. We have a serious backlog with respect to the quality of life facilities barracks, housing, and other things that come under our jurisdiction. Yet, we find ourselves ultimately in this bill, $76 million, as the Chairman has already said, below last year's funding level. That funding level has allowed us to address only the most pressing workplace and housing needs that we can see. Yet, that has been done, I think, in a very effective manner, given the constraints. Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Hobson), the chairman of the subcommittee, for his fair-minded and outstanding leadership in putting this bill together at all stages along the way. All of the members of the subcommittee, along with the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Young), the chairman of the full committee, and the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Obey), the ranking member of the full committee, as well as all of the members of the subcommittee, have taken an active role from day 1 in the construction of this legislation as it made its way to where we are today. Of course, we all realize that the staff puts in enormously long hours and hard work, and I especially want to thank the clerk of the subcommittee, Liz Dawson and her staff, Brian Potts and Cindi Britten for their work, as well as thanking Tom Forhan, the staff member for the minority. This is a solid bipartisan agreement that deserves the support of all Members of the House. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. OLVER. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. OLVER

Mr. OLVER. Mr. Chairman, I rise in opposition to the amendment. I rise in opposition to the Largent amendment which prohibits D.C. from using funds for joint adoption by people unrelated by blood or marriage. I cannot construct or conjure up a legitimate reason for this amendment. Under the amendment, two sisters, obviously related by blood, would have a right to jointly adopt, but two women unrelated by blood would be precluded from jointly adopting that child regardless of the relative capacity of those two families to provide a stable loving home for the child. Under the amendment, a married couple has the legal right to jointly adopt. But a common-law couple who have been together for 20 years, have children of their own and, by every proven measure, have love to give another child or even siblings orphaned by tragedy or accident, are prohibited from joint adoption. It is capricious to argue that two parents provide stability, legal responsibility and continuity to an adopted child, and then deliberately deny the same child the benefit of stability, legal responsibility and continuity by denying joint adoption into the common-law couple's family. Three thousand children are presently in foster care, waiting and hoping to be adopted and have parents. One thousand of them are deemed ``ready for adoption.'' The underlying bill provides $8.5 million to promote adoption. We should not at the same time constrain the options for these children to find loving homes by attaching this mean-spirited amendment to the bill. In my view, this amendment is without legitimate purpose and should be rejected.

Mr. OLVER

Mr. OLVER. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the requisite number of words. Mr. Chairman, I will not use anywhere close to the 5 minutes, because clearly everybody is ready to move on. But I want to rise in support of the Brown-Morella amendment, and commend the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Brown) and the gentlewoman from Maryland (Mrs. Morella) for bringing this amendment forward. We should strengthen efforts to fight worldwide diseases wherever it is possible, and TB is one which we thought had been eradicated. Practically, it had been eradicated within this country until suddenly it came on the rise, in particular in relation to the HIV-AIDS crisis. Of course, in other parts of the world TB had not been anywhere close to eradicated. Now it is raging, as HIV-AIDS becomes more prominent in other places. Around the world, TB does kill some 3 million people per year, but it is particularly a major factor in AIDS deaths, in its association with AIDS, where the degraded immune systems that are caused by the HIV-AIDS virus end up leaving the individual particularly vulnerable to TB. It is a particular danger to children everywhere. In the committee report it says, ``The committee notes the threat to the United States from this disease due to international travel and immigration.'' So I concur in moving $10 million to the TB control as representing a right policy for this country and for this Congress. It will help the U.S. to stop TB from killing people around the world.

Mr. OLVER

Mr. OLVER. Mr. Chairman, I rise today in support of the Udall-Salmon amendment to restore $30 million to solar and renewable energy programs. Across the nation this summer, and especially here in the nation's capital, all of us have felt the oppression of numerous ``Code Reds''-- days when extremely high temperatures combine with high pollution levels--prompting warnings to the elderly and those with asthma and other respiratory illnesses to stay inside if possible, and to limit outdoor activity. How can we, in good conscience, slash funding for the very programs that will combat pollution and reduce the number of days where thousands of people are forced to either stay inside or jeopardize their health and well-being to go about their daily responsibilities? Renewable energy has an enormous potential to reduce acid rain, global warming, ozone red alert days and health risks associated with pollution from conventional energy sources. Solar and renewable energy programs further represent an opportunity to strengthen America's position in the expanding world markets for clean energy and aid in reducing our dependence on foreign oil imports. We must drive the research that will lead to the technology to produce clean energy in the developing world. Try to imagine what our environment would be like if the 5 billion people of underdeveloped and developing nations of Asia, Africa, and Latin America were using as much energy per person as we in the United States use per person. And that they energy were being produced from fossil fuel rather than from the renewable energy sources. Mr. Chairman, we have a responsibility to the future. This responsibility can only be fulfilled by embracing effective energy efficient and pollution-free technologies. Today's children and their children's children--the generation who will be members of this body 100 years from now--deserve to breathe cleaner air, cleaner water, and enjoy a world free from global warming and environmental decay. We cannot turn our backs on our children and on the future--vote yes for the environment and the future--vote yes on the amendment.

Mr. OLVER

Mr. OLVER. Mr. Chairman, I appreciate the indulgence of the body for that additional time. This resolution seems not to have any significant opposition and I assume it is going to be adopted unanimously, but I thought I would make just a couple of comments and also describe a little bit of the experience of the congressional delegation that went to Kosovo that was built out of the leadership of the chairman of the Subcommittee on Military Construction of the Committee on Appropriations of which I am the ranking member just a matter of a week or so ago. The men and boys that are involved in this resolution are those largely that were randomly pulled from columns of refugees and taken without trial, held without trial, without contact as an act really of terrorism on the part of the paramilitary Serbian forces at that time. Now, they should be released. They should be, and we should adopt that resolution unanimously. If there are problems, if there are people who were actively law-breakers, then what should happen is that the detention process that is happening in every one of the occupation zones in Kosovo should take over. We visited a detention camp where there were several Serbs and about twice as many Albanian ethnics, Kosovars, who were being detained because they had committed some crime, which could have been murder or arson or robbery or whatever after the agreement had been reached. And ultimately if there are people who have committed a crime, they should be dealt with in the same way because we need to build a system, a legal system in which people can trust. I would hope that this amendment would be adopted unanimously without dissent.