Major Owens

Mr. OWENS

Mr. OWENS. Mr. Speaker, I yield such time as he may consume to the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Andrews). (Mr. ANDREWS asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. OWENS. Mr. Speaker, I yield such time as he may consume to the gentleman from California (Mr. Thompson). (Mr. THOMPSON of California asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. OWENS. Madam Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Madam Speaker, I will enter into the Record a letter by Mr. Charles Loveless, director of legislation for the Association of Federal, State, County and Municipal Employees, the AFL-CIO.

Mr. OWENS

Mr. OWENS. Mr. Speaker, we are about to approach the end game negotiations, probably behind the scenes, the end game negotiations on the budget, and the appropriations process has started already. We have gone through a process of preparing a budget which sets forth the general contours, the outlines of where we want to go with respect to our expenditures for each particular function of government. We did that some time ago, and then we have gone through the passage of 13 appropriations bills in the House of Representatives. Mr. Speaker, I understand they have not passed all of those bills in the other body, but we have passed them in the House of Representatives. In a situation where there is disagreement between the majority party in the House, they have the votes to pass whatever they want to pass, if there is disagreement between the majority party in the House and the White House or the majority party in the House plus the other body, they agree but then the White House disagrees, then the only way we resolve those disagreements is through a negotiation process, which takes place at the very end of the progress of the other steps that we have taken. Mr. Speaker, we are about to approach that point in the year when we have a special situation. For the first time in many decades, this Nation has a surplus, and it is not a small surplus at all. The Federal surplus keeps changing every day, but positively changing. It was $200 billion a few weeks ago, and now I understand we are talking about $230 billion as the most conservative estimate of what the budget will be available for some kind of processing by the House and the executive branch. There is another surplus for Social Security, which is a lockbox; that means we are not talking about money that would be taken away from Social Security, because they have generated their own surplus, whereas we can give some part of the $230 billion to Social Security, they have their own surplus already. We do not have to rush to the rescue of Social Security with the surplus. We have some alternatives for what we do with the surplus. Mr. Speaker, I want to just go back to the point where the budget process started. I want to speak for the Congressional Black Caucus, which set forth its alternative budget during the beginning of the budget process. Now that we are at the end of the process, the negotiations that are going to take place will take place between the Democrat-controlled White House and the Republican-controlled Congress, both Houses of Congress. And we need to get on the agenda and we have to talk to the public in order to get on that agenda. We need to have you, members of the public, understand that public opinion will decide whether certain items go on to the agenda of the discussions that take place. We would like very much to get on the agenda from the White House side of the table to have the President understand what our final concerns are in this budget. We are concerned, like everybody else is, about certain priorities, but now that we are down to the last moment and the clock is ticking, we want to emphasize certain very special concerns that we have. Let me just go back and read from the introduction of a Congressional Black Caucus Alternative Budget to set a frame of reference for my final proposals today. We started with an introduction which reads as follows, carrying forward the great Democratic party traditions, Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal, Harry Truman's Marshal Plan, Lyndon Johnson's Great Society that produced Medicaid and Medicare, as advocates for the Democratic party mainstream philosophy, the Congressional Black Caucus sets forth this budget for maximum investment in opportunity. We call our budget a budget for maximum investment and opportunity. As we prepare the year 2001 budget, we are blessed by the long, warm rays of the sun of a coming decade of surpluses. Compassion and vision are no longer blocked by the spectrum of budget deficits. The conservative estimate is that there will be a $1.9 trillion nonSocial Security surplus over the next 10 years. I made that statement several months ago. We know it is greater than $1.9 trillion, the estimate. Using very simple logic, we should be able to project about $200 billion for the year 2001 budget as this window of opportunity opens. Investment for the future must be our first priority. Maximizing opportunities for individual citizens is synonymous with maximizing the growth and expansion of the U.S. superpower economy. It is the age of information, stupid. It is the time of a computer and digitalization. It is the era of thousands of high-level vacancies, because there are not enough information technology workers with enlightened budget decisions. We can, at this moment, begin the shaping of the contours of a new cybercivilization. If we fail to seize this moment to make investments that will allow our great Nation to surge forward in the creation of this new cybercivilization, then our children and our grandchildren will frown on us and lament the fact that we failed not because we lacked fiscal resources, but our failures, our very devastating blunder, was due to a poverty of vision. We have custodians of unprecedented wealth in a giant economy, but midget minds and tiny spirits have seized control and the only big sweeping idea being generated during this budget discussion is a negative Republican proposal for a monster tax cut for the wealthy. At a time when positive generosity is possible, such a proposal maximizes great selfishness. Now, this was at the time of the consideration of the budget and since that time, the Republican majority has retreated somewhat on the size of its proposed tax cut. We welcome that retreat, but we think of the lack of voices for investment, we want to invest a portion of the surplus in human resources, and we want to follow up that budget statement which was made, a very general statement made at that time, we want to follow up with more specific recommendations now. The boldest and the most vital proposal contained in our CBC budget alternative was at the heart of this function; that is, funding for school construction, responding to the fact that the American people in numerous polls have indicated that their number one priority for Federal budget action is education. Each of the budgets being present that were presented at that time offered education increases, but only the CBC budget has chosen to focus on the kingpin issue of school physical infrastructure. While we applaud the President's inclusion of $1.3 billion for emergency repairs, we deem it to be grossly inadequate. We support school financing via the Tax Code, however, most of the local education agencies cannot borrow money without a lengthy taxpayer referendum procedure. The CBC proposes a $10 billion increase over the President's budget for school construction. This amount would be taken from the $200 billion surplus. In addition to this 5 percent for infrastructure repair, security, and new construction, the CBC budget proposes another 5 percent, another $10 billion to address other education improvements. In other words, only 10 percent of the overall surplus would be utilized for the all-important mission of investment in human resources, only 10 percent. We proposed that at that time. We would like to underscore that proposal and say that we were talking about education, of course education improvements for everybody, education improvements for the entire Nation. In fact, in my piece of specific legislation, our school construction, H.R. 3071, I proposed construction funding to be allocated to all schools throughout the Nation based on the number of school-age children in each State. There would be no other qualifying features except school-age children, which meant that every school district in the country would be able to receive some of the proposed Federal school infrastructure and modernization and construction funding. We are now, as I said before, at the point where the negotiations specifically on amounts of money to go into this so-called omnibus budget that we hear about, omnibus appropriation act, the actual allocation of funds is going to take place somewhere between now and October 15. We have various projections on when Congress will adjourn. But I suspect that the outer limit in an election year like this that we will dare go will probably be in the middle of October. So, therefore, I think it is reasonable to project that somewhere between now and October 15, this omnibus budget, this end-game negotiation product will be produced; and we will have to vote on it. Right now I want to appeal to everybody listening who cares about education to become a part of the process. They become a part of the process by understanding the power of public opinion in this process. Public opinion is always being monitored by both parties. Leadership is always watching the polls, watching the results of focus groups. There are various ways in which public opinion makes itself felt here in Washington. So I want my colleagues to understand that there is a danger right here that, despite the fact that we have enormous wealth, we have a huge budget surplus, the danger that we are going to make some ridiculous blunders. There is a danger that we are going to make some decisions about how to spend the first $200 billion or $230 billion of the surplus over this 10-year period which will set a pattern; and we will get set in that pattern, and we will find ourselves spending, utilizing funding in the same way for the next 10 years. It is possible for the political leadership to make horrendous blunders. We know that wars and all kinds of catastrophes have been caused in the past by political leadership. Very intelligent, very well trained, very experienced, but still they make outrageous blunders. We know that is possible. I would like to use the Roman Empire as an example that Rome was a great civilization, and it was in terms of technology, in terms of military power, in terms of law. The Roman law is the basis on probably most of the civilized nations' legal systems today. The Romans started it all, a huge system of law with a level of courts and appeals. In addition to their military might and their technology prowess, the great civilization of Rome seemed to have it all. But at the same time the Romans were inventing concrete and building magnificent structures and conquering the rest of the world at that time, the Romans were feeding the Christians to the lions in the Coliseum. The leadership of the Roman Empire, the politicians of the Roman Empire, the elected officials such as they were of the Roman Empire, were feeding the Christians to the lions at the height of the Roman civilization. Politicians can make great blunders sometimes, and we must be aware of that. Public opinion has to be the check and balance on some of these blunders. We could look at the education situation in America now in terms of where it was a century ago and continue to make decisions as if we had little red schoolhouses and as if we still had teachers who were so dedicated that they would give their lives to the profession without being appropriately compensated. We could act as if we are fighting wars with rifles. It was a long time when the rifle was supreme in the war, in any wars fought. We have evolved modern military technology. The cost of a rifle now is not the way we judge whether or not we have a decent defense budget. Rifles are the least expensive item. If we were to look at the cost of rifles and say, well, we ought to have a defense budget which is reflective of the cost of rifles, it must be greatly reduced. We do not do that with the Department of Defense. We have nuclear aircraft carriers that cost $4 billion and $5 billion. One nuclear aircraft carrier costs more than $4 billion. We recognize in modern warfare one has to have that kind of system. One F- 22, talking about 20 some million dollars a piece, each time we make a mistake and fire one of these test rockets in our new proposed antimissile defense system, the mistake costs us $100 million. So in terms of defense and technology for the 21st century, we are ready to spend the money. But when we start talking about education and schools, we want to go back to the Dark Ages, we want to go back to the horse and buggy era; and we think that 10 percent, 10 percent of the surplus is too much to dedicate to an increase in the education budget. That is what the Congressional Black Caucus introduction, as I have just read, said we needed. It is a conservative request to say that if one has $200 billion, dedicate 10 percent of the $200 billion to an improvement in the school and education system. Invest in human resources. Let us not think of schools as not needing that kind of money because, after all, it is only chalks and blackboards and low-paid teachers. Let us think of schools in the 21st century and all the kinds of needs that they face and be willing to invest at least 10 percent of the surplus in education. Updating our Congressional Black Caucus alternative budget is a statement that we are preparing now to address to the leadership of the Democratic Party. We would like to at this point become more specific. Time has gone by. No one is addressing the request for 10 percent, half of which was to go to school construction. No one is addressing that. We are running out of time. So we would like to go back and approach our leadership with a new request. The members of the Congressional Black Caucus are convinced that we are at a pivotal point in this 106th session of Congress and we are at a critical point in the history of our Nation. For the first time in many decades, we have a Federal budget surplus, and we anticipate a significant surplus every year for the next 10 years. We have a window of opportunity to make positive budget decisions this year which will set a pattern for the next 10 years. We, members of the Congressional Black Caucus, have already stated our general budget and appropriations priorities through the Congressional Black Caucus alternative budget which emphasized the need to use our surplus to invest in human resources. Since the countdown for the end-game negotiations has now begun, we wish to state our priorities in more specific and concrete requests. First, we wish to state that we agree with the prevailing wisdom that a large percentage of the $230 billion surplus should be used for debt reduction. Remember, I said we had now gone beyond $200 billion, and the conservative estimate now is that the surplus after we get through with the Social Security surplus, and it has its own lockbox, leaving that aside, we still have $230 billion surplus as a conservative estimate. We agree that the greater portion of that ought to be used for debt reduction. Pay down the national debt. Why is it important to pay down the national debt? Because when we pay down the national debt, we eliminate the interest payment on that debt that happens every year. We have a huge amount of money that just goes into the budget every year to pay the interest on the money that we owe. If we pay down the debt, we eliminate the need for the interest payment at such a large size, and the money that would have gone into the interest payment can now be put into the regular budget for meaningful and productive activities. Or we can continue to pay down the debt with the money we save. It makes sense to use a large part of it to pay down the debt. We also concur that some portion of the allocation of funds from the surplus should be used to strengthen Medicare and to provide for prescription medicine benefit. We are in agreement. If we have $230 billion, then most of it should go to pay down on the debt, but not all of it. Because, I mean, who would make this kind of choice? If one receives an income bonus, either one's stocks pay off well or better than one expected, one suddenly receives a bonus at one's house, one's family, and one of one's children is going to college, one can now pay for their college tuition without having to borrow money, would one pay one's mortgage off instead of paying for the tuition of one's child who is about to go to school? Or would one invest in that tuition for that child, let them go to school, and continue one's mortgage for a little while longer? I mean, we do not rush to pay off debts because there is a great virtue in paying off all debts. In the system that we have concocted, sometimes it makes sense to have long-term debts while we invest in immediate priorities. I always say now do not use all of the money to pay down the debt. Invest some of the money in human resources. Is it so difficult to understand that? We want to emphasize the need to use our surplus to invest in human resources. Since the countdown for the end-game negotiation has now begun, we wish to state our priorities in more specific and concrete requests. We were talking about a round figure of 10 percent for education for school construction, and another 10 percent for other education improvements. We were talking about focusing on the priority of school construction but also having money recognizing the other kinds of needs that we have. First, we wish to agree with the prevailing wisdom, as I said before, that a large percentage should go to pay down the debt. Secondly, however, we contend that, after these priority steps are taken, there should be a significant investment in human resources. At least 10 percent of the surplus should be invested in education, 5 percent for school construction, and 5 percent for other school improvements. We propose that another 10 percent be invested in housing, health care, and social services in our Congressional Black Caucus alternative budget. For the benefit of the Nation, the Congressional Black Caucus still stands firm on the adoption of all of these proposals. If we had 10 percent for education and 10 percent for housing, social services and health care, that is 20 percent. We still have 80 percent. Out of that 80 percent, we can deal with shoring up Medicare, providing a Medicare prescription medicine benefit, giving a tax cut, a tax cut starting with the people at the lower rung instead of at the top, and paying down the debt. We still have quite a bit of money left. So give us our 10 percent for education. Since the hour is late and the negotiations have begun, we now find it necessary to move from general concerns to specific emergencies. Within the African American community, education remains as our greatest emergency. This is a solution that makes it possible to resolve most of the other problems we face. Education remains as our greatest emergency, the solution that makes it possible to resolve most of the other problems we face. I might add that the problems faced by the African American communities are not unique. Low-income communities, working families communities face similar problems all over America. So when I propose a solution for problems that we face, particularly in the areas represented by the members of the Congressional Black Caucus, I am proposing solutions that apply to much of America where working families live who are not necessarily African American. Our crisis education situations require a systemic and well-targeted Federal emergency education initiative. Right now, we are weary of the ability to deal with the problem in the terms we state it. There probably will not be an overall 10 percent for education. The mechanism is not there. The leadership in charge appears to be ignoring the polls and public opinion for a change. Very rarely are the polls and public opinion ignored. But in a case of the demand for more government support for education, it is very interesting how the leadership of both parties choose to sort of talk about the problem without committing resources equal to the public demand. So the public demand has to be louder. We need to hear more from the public. And I will talk about that in terms of school construction in a few minutes. But I think that we have to now think in terms of a Federal emergency education initiative to deal with the fact that, in general terms, the problem of the worst schools in America escalates. The problem in the worst communities, which need the greatest amount of help, continues to escalate. So we want a Federal emergency education initiative which directly addresses the most critical problems of the worst schools of the Nation. While the larger national education problems are being considered, we must have an immediate intensified initiative to address the Nation's schools which serves populations where more than 50 percent of the students qualify for free school lunches or where schools are failing and their local systems or the State authorities are ordering that they be closed down because they are just not functioning. They do not meet standards that have been set. Those are crisis schools. They are in crisis situations. They are in crisis school districts. So we need an emergency initiative to meet the crises. I am defining the crisis situation quite clearly. The school lunch program, children who qualify for the school lunch program, are the poorest children in America. We have used that as a benchmark for measuring how funds are allocated by the Federal Government. The E- rate, for example, the most recent and most creative allocation of national funds, is done on the basis of the number of children who qualify for free school lunches. A school where 90 percent of the children qualify for free school lunches can get a 90 percent E-rate discount; where less qualified, the E-rate goes down. So the discount for the E-rate is less in the schools that are a little better off, and the wealthier schools of course can get a 15 percent standard discount, but no greater than that in the areas where the schools are serving students who do not qualify at all for the school lunch program. So for crisis situation schools we need a Federal education initiative, and that initiative should contain the following components: One major component has to be accelerated school construction and modernization. We must move faster to relieve our school systems of the burden of some of their cost for school construction, school repairs, school modernization. We must do that. I regret to report the fact that there seems to be this determination, a dogged determination, to ignore school construction needs, not only here in Washington, but a dogged determination in State governments and in city governments. Certainly New York is an example of a situation where 2 years ago the mayor of the City of New York had a $2 billion surplus. $2 billion is not like $200 billion, but for a city to have a surplus of $2 billion is significant, especially since this city has seen hard times and we have had deficits and had a brush with bankruptcy at one point in the last 20 years. So to have a $2 billion surplus was a great window of opportunity for the city. Not a single penny of that surplus was spent on school repairs and school construction. Now, this is in a city which at that time had more than 175 schools that were still burning coal in the school furnaces. We have something like 1,200 schools in New York, and 175 are so old or neglected that they still have furnaces that burn coal. This is in a city where the air already is polluted enough; in a city where asthma is a major problem. We still burn coal in some of the school furnaces and not a single penny of the $2 billion surplus was allocated by the mayor of the City of New York to assist with school repairs. Not a single member of the city council, certainly no member representing part of my district, spoke up. Some of them, who are quite friendly with the mayor of the City of New York, did not speak out against the coal-burning furnaces in our district. They did not say, look, we ought to use some of this money to get rid of the coal burning furnaces. We have a situation where children are placed at risk. Certainly if they have asthma, it is aggravated by the fact they go into a situation where there is coal dust in the air. Coal dust is in the air no matter how good the filter situation is. I know this is true because the first house I ever owned was a house that had a coal burning furnace, and we had all kinds of filters and did all kinds of cleanup, but the coal dust still got through and the coal dust was there. I was very happy to replace that coal-burning furnace with a gas-burning furnace because just the battle with the dust was enough to merit a movement as fast as possible away from a situation with a coal-burning furnace. When we have hundreds of children who go to school every day throughout the winter into a situation where they are placed at risk by coal-burning furnaces it ought to be declared an emergency. We ought to have both the city and the State, as well as the Federal Government, moving as rapidly as possible to remove those remaining 175 coal- burning furnaces. I am told by the school construction authority that, as a result of our agitation for the last 3 years, they now have a schedule whereby by the end of the year 2001 all of the coal-burning furnaces will be eliminated. Now, they will be eliminated after having existed for all these many decades since the invention of better, more efficient oil- burning and gas-burning furnaces. But this is an emergency which is ignored by public officials. Yet this is only one of many emergencies related to the problem of school construction. We need funds at every level to go into play and to deal with basic problems that schools face. I do not ever represent school construction as being the only problem or the only priority that our schools face. The training of proper teachers, certified teachers, science teachers, math teachers, that is a problem equally as important; and I do not want to downplay that. Having decent laboratories in schools and decent libraries, there are many priorities. But I do point out the fact that the school building, the edifice, sends a message like no other component of the education system sends. It says to the children and it says to the teachers and the community that the people who are in charge, the elected officials who make decisions, whether they are Congresspeople or city council people or State legislators, the people who make the decisions care. It is a highly visible statement. If a school no longer has a coal-burning furnace, it meant that we cared about the situation enough, we cared about education, we cared about the students. If a school is not overcrowded to the point where classrooms have to be held in the hallways or in closets converted into classrooms, or there is a situation where the children have to start eating lunch at 10 a.m. in the morning because the students have to be cycled through the lunchroom because the lunch building that was built for 500 children now has 1,500. There are schools that must have three or four lunch periods and the first lunch period begins at 10 a.m., when the child just had breakfast. Now, some of my colleagues might say, well, that is an unusual situation; why should I talk about an extreme situation. Well, if a survey were to be conducted in any big city in America, we would find similar things are happening; and it happens in New York City on a large scale. There are a large number of schools where children have to eat lunch at 10 a.m. in the morning. And yet we are in a situation now where we have surpluses at the State level, surpluses at the city level, and surpluses here in Washington. I would like to say to every parent listening, or every decent citizen listening and who knows a situation where children are being forced to eat lunch at 10 a.m. in the morning, just after they have had breakfast, I would like to see our sense of decency and fair play be brought to bear on this outrageous practice. It is child abuse to force a student to eat lunch before 11 a.m. in the morning or after 1 p.m. Those who eat after 1 p.m. are hungry; those who eat at 10 a.m. do not want to eat breakfast. They are not hungry. They are being force-fed. That is child abuse. We have accepted this as a routine, ordinary part of getting through the school emergency situation in New York. The school space emergency situation is like routine now. Every year they announce, well, we are 26,000 or 20,000 seats short. That happens at the beginning of the school year and we wonder, what happened; how did they deal with the problem? Well, somehow they crammed them into hallways, they crammed them into closets, they put them into situations where they have to eat lunch at 10 a.m. in the morning. They come to grips with the problem. They solve the problems by dehumanizing the children. So every parent, every decent human being in New York City should do all of us a favor by rising up and saying, look, we will not tolerate this kind of child abuse any more. Join us in a court suit. Let us go to the health department. The health department regulates day care centers and Head Start. They have tight regulations on what happens in facilities that serve children, but they put a waiver on the board of education. They have nothing to do basically with the operations of the board of education and the schools. So many kinds of horrendous things happen in respect to school space, ventilation and, in this case, the actual serving of lunch, which would not be allowed to happen in a day care center or Head Start center. We should not tolerate it any longer. For those people down here in Washington who are now pushing aside all discussions of school construction, school repairs, and are genteelly talking about everything else in education, but who refuse to recognize that there is a need in the area of school construction, I say that they are part of the problem of forcing this child abuse situation where we are forcing children to eat lunch just after they have had breakfast. These people must bear part of the blame. They may not be as bad as the Romans, who were feeding the Christians to the lions at a time when they had great prosperity and a high civilization, but they are guilty of something on a smaller scale that I think their grandchildren would not be very proud of. We have the money, we have the wealth, we have a surplus, we can deal with the problem of school construction. If the Federal Government were to give a portion of the money, it would stimulate and force the State governments and city governments to do more. We could eliminate these major problems of school overcrowding. We could eliminate that in the next 10 years. We have the resources to do it. So let us stop the child abuse. Do not force students to eat lunch, and parents should be indignant, and everybody else indignant, about that kind of child abuse. A second problem is that the outdoor and inside pollution caused by coal-burning furnaces constitutes a direct threat to the health of all children, and teachers too. Children with asthma are particularly placed at risk in these situations, in a city with an asthma epidemic. The mayor of the city, a little more than a year ago, had a special asthma initiative. And they are so cruel, so much like the Roman politicians, because they deliberately never mentioned coal-burning furnaces as part of the problem. That was not an accident. There are coal-burning furnaces in schools. If they draw the map of where the largest concentration of asthma cases are, where the asthma epidemic is, we can see the overlap with the places where we have the schools with the coal-burning furnaces. Any intelligent person can see the correlation, but the correlation was not recognized deliberately. Many articles in the newspapers were written, but nobody wanted to offend his majesty in city hall so they never said coal-burning furnaces are part of the problem, Mr. Mayor. Why not appropriate some money to get rid of coal-burning furnaces? We are part of the problem if we do not take the initiative now and use some of the funds we have here. Whose money is it, the $200 billion surplus? Does it belong to the Federal Government? My friends on the other side are telling us all the time it is the people's money. All taxes are local. All funding of government comes from the local level. We want to give it back. It is not a great act of generosity by the Federal Government to make money available for school construction or any other local purpose. It is one way we can help education without becoming involved, without being accused of trying to take over the decision-making process at the local level. It is a capital expenditure, school construction. Go in, give the money, and oversee the process of getting the building going and get out. You do not have to stay around to interfere with operational decisions of the school board. Just help with the immediate physical infrastructure problem. Item three: the departments of government should fully enforce all health and building codes in school buildings and no waivers should be granted. Along with coal-burning furnaces, which should not be allowed by the health department in schools, you have many other violations. There was a survey done with the help of the United Federation of Teachers. The teachers union pushed for a survey. And every school building in New York has been inspected and there is a record of violations, a computerized record of violations. And many of them have numerous violations which, if they were not schools, they would be forced to immediately make the repairs or close down. So we elected officials, members of government, decision-makers are part of the problem if we allow these violations to continue to exist jeopardizing the safety and health of children in our schools. We also have a problem with school libraries and laboratories and facilities which allow children to really get the kind of education they need. The Board of Regents of New York State, like many other State bodies, have established certain standards and no child will be able to graduate and receive a diploma of any kind. They used to give a general diploma. If you did not pass the mathematics, the science and the English and the couple other regents tests, you got a general diploma. Well, they have decreed that no child will get any diploma if they do not pass certain Regents tests. Among those tests is a Regents science examination. We ought to postpone, eliminate the mandated Regents science examination required before a student can qualify for a diploma unless and until we have all high schools equipped with laboratories where they can have real science teaching take place. Science teachers will tell us now that theoretical science teaching, teaching only through theory, is not complete science instruction; you have to have laboratories. And yet, if you do not have the physical facilities, you use these old buildings which if you probably installed a decent laboratory, something will malfunction. They will catch fire or blow up. They do not have the wiring or the ventilation. They need in many cases totally new buildings, or they need massive renovation in order to have a decent science laboratory. We are enforcing standards and we are dumping on the students' backs the responsibility of learning while we do not want to use valuable resources. The dollars are here. The money is here at the Federal level and at other levels, and we want to ignore it. I am not sure why. Some people say because the majority of the Members of Congress, their children are either in private schools or they are in suburban schools, which are very well taken care of. They do not have construction repair problems. I hate to believe that my colleagues do not accept the responsibility for all the schools and all the children in the Nation. At a time when we have the resources, I hate to believe that they turn their back on a portion of the population which very much needs to have an investment in their education. We have shortages of all kinds. Everybody is complaining about information technology shortages; we do not have young people who can actually fill the jobs. In the information technology industry, we do not have the people to do the computer programming, and we are importing people from outside. On the floor of the Congress, we are going to have a discussion of H- 1B which lifts the quota for the number of professionals who can come into the Nation because we need those professionals from outside the Nation to fill the jobs. And on and on it goes, the discussion which ignores the simple fact that, in the long run, we have to train our own population, we cannot rely on school systems of foreign countries to provide us with the manpower, with the professionals or any other degree of manpower in this digitalized economy that we need. So let us invest and let us have the broad view, the compassion necessary to see that, in our inner city schools, in our schools which serve the poorest youngsters. And there is a correlation between the construction problems and the schools which have overcrowding and the schools which do not have laboratories the schools which have the least number of certified teachers, the correlation is always in income. The low-income schools, where the parents have the least education and the least ability to deal with the system, they are always the ones who have these problems. Another item: the use of trailers in school playgrounds. The use of trailers in school playgrounds to relieve overcrowding should be limited to situations that are temporary substitutes for buildings under repair or in the process of construction. We should become indignant. Everybody out there should look at those trailers, and sometimes they have been around 10 years or more, and say that this was supposed to have been a temporary solution. Children should not have to go to school in trailers. They should not have to be in situations where in the winter time, in order for them to go to the bathroom, they have got to come out of the trailer and go into the main building. They should not be in situations where the ventilation and the situation is not up to par in terms of the square footage necessary to accommodate a full class of children. We should become indignant about the continuation of an emergency use of trailers when we have a $200 billion surplus. The mere dedication of 10 percent of that will allow us in 10 years to wipe out these kinds of problems. Teachers for the classrooms is another program that we have emphasized greatly. We want to reduce the ratio of children to teachers. We want teachers to have smaller classes. All of us are in favor of that. I never heard of a Republican or Democrat against teachers having smaller classes. But there is a racketeering process set in the inner-city communities, certainly in New York City. We have taken the money to reduce the ratio of children to teachers, but since we do not have the classrooms, it is not happening. Sometimes they put in an additional teacher, an additional teacher goes into a crowded classroom. That is not what we meant. And you do not have the kind of teaching taking place when you have children crowded into a classroom, even though you have a second adult. That is not what is meant. We are spending large sums of money for teacher development or a number of other kinds of options that are in the law which they can take, while they stall on the basic problem of getting more teachers into the classroom. You cannot get classrooms that have smaller class sizes unless you build more classrooms or renovate classrooms. Teachers for the classroom funding ought to be used to lower the ratio of students to teachers within separate classrooms, not for the assignment of a second teacher to a crowded classroom or for some other auxiliary purpose. More classrooms must be made available. Otherwise, the number one item in our program, in our platform of teachers to the classroom, which we all are proud of, that item is sabotaged and we are really not honest about what we are doing. Finally, accreditation should be denied to any school which lacks an adequate physical infrastructure. I talked about laboratories. But the playroom space, the gym, all these things are part of the experience necessary to educate young people. Substandard and nonaccredited school buildings ought to be closed. We ought to create a crisis. Instead of continuing to accept these half measures which are dangerous to the psyche of kids as well as to their physical bodies, let us wage war on our own decision-makers. Let us understand that it is possible that we can make real blunders here and have blinders on. They are blinders which say school construction, that is too radical, anything related to school construction will give the impression that we are big spenders; and we do not want to be accused of being big spenders. It is all right to have $4 billion for an aircraft carrier. It is all right to spend $218 billion for highways and roads over a 6-year period. But do not talk about school construction $10 billion a year. Do not even talk about $2 billion a year. I want to applaud the President for at least putting $1.3 billion in the budget that he proposed. But since he proposed that, there is very little discussion. As we get closer to the end-game negotiations, I do not hear any discussion about the $1.3 billion direct appropriation in the budget that the President proposed. All I hear about is the $25 billion that is being proposed in the Committee on Ways and Means to loan. We have a proposal that $25 billion would be available. The Government is willing to pay interest on up to $25 billion. So a local school district or the State can borrow money, and we will pay the interest. Rah, rah, rah. We have a $200 billion surplus, and all we are willing to do is to pay between $3 billion and $4 billion in interest or money borrowed by the local governments. Will it help New York City and New York State? Not likely. Because you have to have a school bond issue on the ballot. People have to approve the borrowing of money to build schools before you can borrow the money. And there are other places in the Nation with similar problems. I am all for what is now called the Rangel-Johnson school modernization bill. I am one of the cosponsors. And we should go forward with it. But it is only a small part of the problem. It can help districts which are able to use borrowed money and use it rapidly, but do not have to go through a process of taking it to the voters. We have turned down in the last 10 years two bond issues that might have helped schools. So we need direct appropriation. The Congressional Black Caucus would like to specifically request that we have more direct appropriation to be allocated to the schools in crisis situations. That is the schools that are serving large numbers of low-income youngsters who qualify for the free lunch program and the schools that are being closed down because they are not functioning properly. There is a crisis. There is a crisis out there, and we need to rally to meet that crisis. We should not allow future generations to look upon the situation we face now when we have a golden window of opportunity, a $230 billion surplus and we are so blind, so hard- hearted, so mean-spirited, so whatever that we cannot see the need to invest in students and young people. What other reason is there to not set aside a substantial portion of a $230 billion surplus for education? Substantial is conservative. We talked about we are asking for 10 percent. Ten percent of $200 billion is $20 billion. Ten percent of $200 billion is $20 billion. Over a 10-year period, 10 percent is $200 billion for school construction and other education improvements. Why are we going to pass up this opportunity and be guilty of history saying that we were no better than the great Romans? We had the technology. We had the economy. We had the military might. Rome was really a village compared to the United States of America at this point in history. There is nothing that has ever existed like the United States of America colossus. We are a colossus. Given all of this, how can we not make an investment in every human being out there? The human investment is the key now. Brain power drives everything. Brain power is obviously the kind of power that sustains us now and will carry us into the future. Let us at least have the vision to make the investment in the brain power. There are alternative education proposals being proposed by the Republican candidate for President and the Democratic candidate for President, the leadership of the House. All of the general outlines and the general plans that are being set forth we cannot quarrel with; we applaud. Most of the approaches on both sides are approaches that address serious problems related to education in America. The problem is priorities. The problems is seeing an emergency. The worst schools in America should not be deserted. The worst schools in America should not be abandoned as we prepare plans and we allocate resources for education. The worst schools have to be dealt with first. If we solve the problems of the worst schools and we deal with the challenges that are faced by the worst school systems, then we are in a position to deal with all the others. They become much easier. If we solve the problems faced by the worst schools, we also recoup the lost resources that we face as those youngsters fail to enter into the stream that carries them through high school graduation into higher education institutions. We need improvements of all kinds. The Congressional Black Caucus will be proposing to the leadership in the next few days as we move into the finality of the end-game negotiations that we examine not only the school construction, which is the first priority, but Pell Grants need to have more money. We need a technical research center for Historically Black Colleges and Universities. Teacher recruitment needs more funds. Training and the certification of teachers is still a major problem. The 21st century learning centers, the after-school centers, we need more of them. In our crisis, school districts, every district should have some of those learning centers. They should not be allocated on the basis of competitive grants but allocated on the basis of need. We should have more money, produce more centers and allocate them on the basis of need. We are firmly convinced that a demand of this kind is in the interest of all of America. If you address the problems that are the worst problems, you will certainly be in a position to solve all the rest of the problems. Construction should not be pushed off to the side and abandoned as an undesirable activity because it might cost money. It will cost so much more to build prisons in the future, to build correction facilities in the future. It will cost so much more to have to compensate for the waste of human resources that will result from our failure to educate those who are in greatest need. I would like to end by saying we are at the end of a process we started when we covered the Congressional Black Caucus alternative budget. Our priorities are the same. We would like to zero in and talk about specific dollar figures for school construction in the communities where they have the greatest need. If you are not going to do it for everybody, at least we should do school construction in the communities with the greatest need. At least we should have an aggressive program for teacher training, teacher recruitment and certification of teachers in the communities with the greatest need. If we are not going to address the education problem generally as we should address it, at least we insist that you focus the dollars that are available through the surplus on the schools which have the greatest need. We can do no less.

Mr. OWENS

Mr. OWENS. Mr. Speaker, I am proud to join with my colleague, the Chairman of the Subcommittee on Workforce Protections of the Committee on Education and the Workforce, the Honorable Cass Ballenger, to introduce the Needlestick Safety and Prevention Act. This legislation modifies the Bloodborne Pathogens Standard (29 C.F.R. 1910.1030) issued in 1991 by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration of the U.S. Department of Labor to improve the protection afforded to health care workers from the spread of bloodborne pathogens such as the HIV virus, hepatitis B, and hepatitis C, as a result of accidental needlesticks and other percutaneous injuries. Though controversial at the time it was issued, today all agree that the Bloodborne Pathogen Standard has helped to significantly reduce the spread of bloodborne pathogens among health care workers. There is, however, more that can be done. In March, the Center for Disease Control and Prevention estimated that more than 380,000 needlestick injuries occur in hospitals every year. At an average hospital, there will be an estimated 30 reported needlestick injuries for every 100 beds. It is estimated that there are between 600,000 and 800,000 needlestick injuries every year in all health care settings. Nurses, doctors, laboratory staff, emergency medical technicians, and housekeepers have all been victimized by needlesticks. Needlestick injuries may account for as much as 80% of occupational exposures to blood. Needlestick injuries, unfortunately, are not uncommon among health care workers. However, they are by no means trivial. Needlestick injuries impose unnecessary and unacceptable costs on our health care system. Costs to employers associated with followup medical examinations to determine whether needlestick victims have been infected by a bloodbone pathogen are by no means insignificant and can run into the thousands of dollars. Where workers are found to have been infected as a result of a needlestick injury, costs of treatment and compensation can easily run into the hundreds of thousands of dollars. For those who are infected as a result of a needlestick injury, the costs cannot be measured in dollars, they are life-threatening. At a hearing held on this subject in June, the Subcommittee on Workforce Protections heard from Karen Daley who testified on behalf of the American Nurses Association. In July 1998, Ms. Daley reached into a needle box with a gloved hand to dispose of a needle with which she had drawn blood and was stuck by a needle. Five months later, she was diagnosed with both HIV and hepatitis C. Ms. Daley has had to give up direct nursing care, work that she loves and had performed for twenty years. Ms. Daley has suffered weight loss, nausea, loss of appetite, hair loss, headaches, skin rashes, severe fatigue, and bone marrow depression as a consequence of treatments for her injury. Her life now revolves around treatment for her diseases. Even more seriously, current research indicates that co-infection of HIV and hepatitis C can accelerate progression to liver failure and may lead to cirrhosis, cancer, or failure in five to ten years. What is most tragic about Ms. Daley's story and that of many like her is that her injury was not simply accidental, it was unnecessary and therefore inexcusable. In Ms. Daley's own words: [T]his injury did not occur because I wasn't observing universal precautions. I did everything within my power-- taking all the necessary precautions including wearing gloves and following proper procedures--to reduce my own risk of exposure to bloodborne pathogens. This injury did not occur because I was careless or distracted or not paying attention to what I was doing. This injury and the life-altering consequences I am now suffering should not have happened. And, worst of all, this injury did not have to happen and would not have happened if a safer needle and disposal system had been in place in my own work setting. It is estimated that 80% of all needlestick injuries could be prevented if greater use is made of available sharps with engineered sharps injury protections, such as retractable needles, and needleless systems. Since the publication of the bloodborne pathogen standard, there has been a substantial increase in the number and assortment of effective engineering controls that are commercially available. There is a large body of research concerning the effectiveness of engineering controls, including safer medical devices. Further, there is general consensus among health care employers as well as health care workers that the overall cost of using sharps with engineered sharps injury protections and needleless systems is substantially cheaper than the costs of contending with unnecessary needlestick injuries associated with the use of less safe devices. The under-utilization of safer medical devices is a national issue. As of August 31st, sixteen States had already enacted legislation requiring the use of safer medical devices and a seventeenth was in the process of doing so. The State laws, however, only partially address the concern. They may not be applicable to private health care sector workers and impose differing requirements that may create burdens for both employers and medical equipment manufacturers. Legislation introduced earlier in this Congress by the Hon. Fortney Pete Stark and the Hon. Marge Roukema to address this same issue, the Health Care Worker Needlestick Prevention Act, H.R. 1899, currently has 187 cosponsors. To its credit, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) has already acted to ensure that there is greater use of sharps with engineered safety protections and needless systems. In November 1999, OSHA issued a revised Compliance Directive on Enforcement Procedures for Occupational Exposure to Bloodborne Pathogens and has sought to highly publicize the new compliance directive. One of the principal purposes for issuing the new directive was to emphasize the requirement that employers identify, evaluate, and make use of effective safer medical devices in order to minimize the risk of occupational exposure to bloodborne pathogens. The legislation that Mr. Ballenger and I are introducing today builds on OSHA's efforts. By making modest changes in the bloodborne pathogen standard, this legislation, if adopted, will help to achieve substantial improvement in the safety and health of American health care workers. This legislation will help to ensure that health care workers use the safest available medical devices, that they are trained to ensure proper usage, and that employers and workers review and learn from experience to ensure continued improvement. Specifically, the legislation amends the standard to provide for definitions of ``engineering controls,'' ``sharps with engineered sharps injury protections,'' and ``needleless systems'' in order to provide greater clarity of the requirements of the standard. The legislation ensures that employers regularly monitor and assess the development of ``appropriate commercially available and effective safer medical devises'' and implement use of the such devises appropriately. It further ensures that those who must use the equipment will have a voice in its selection and will be properly trained in its use. Finally, the legislation promotes greater awareness and more active vigilance by ensuring that needlestick injuries are monitored and tracked. In developing this legislation, Mr. Ballenger and I have sought the greatest possible consensus. For example, I have reluctantly agreed to leave aside for now the issue of extending the protections of the bloodborne pathogen standard to health care workers employed by state and local governments. We have sought to address the concerns of both health care employers and health care workers. While reinforcing the requirement that safer medical devices be used where they are commercially available, this legislation does not mandate the use of engineered controls where such controls are not commercially available. Neither this legislation, nor the underlying standard it amends, requires anyone to use any engineering control, including a safer medical device, where such use may jeopardize a patient's safety, an employee's safety, or where it may be medically contraindicated. This legislation leaves intact all of the affirmative defenses available to employers related to the use of engineered controls under the Bloodborne Pathogens Standard. Finally, we have worked closely with OSHA to ensure that this legislation appropriately builds upon and compliments the existing standard. In conclusion, I want to thank the many people who have worked with Mr. Ballenger and I to develop this legislation. For my part, I want to especially thank Madeleine Golde and Lorraine Theibaud of the Service Employees International Union; Barbara Coufel of the American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees; Bill Cunningham of the American Federation of Teachers; and Stephanie Reed and Karen Daley of the American Nurses Association. Finally, I would like to pay special tribute to Peggy Ferro. At a 1992 hearing by another committee entitled ``Healthcare Worker Safety and Needlestick Injuries,'' Ms. Ferro testified about how she contracted HIV from a conventional needle. Ms. Ferro died in 1998. I sincerely commend Chairman Ballenger for his efforts to ensure that we are more responsive to Ms. Daley than we were to Ms. Ferro.

Mr. OWENS

Mr. OWENS. Mr. Speaker, this morning, I was unavoidably absent on a matter of critical importance and missed the following votes: On the Journal (Rollcall No. 465), I would have voted ``yea.'' On H.R. 4810, (Rollcall No. 466), the veto override of the Marriage Penalty Act, introduced by the gentleman from Texas, Mr. Archer, I would have voted ``nay.'' On H.R. 4986 (Rollcall No. 467), Foreign Sales Corporation Repeal and Extraterritorial Income Exclusion Act of 2000, introduced by the gentleman from Texas, Mr. Archer, I would have voted ``nay.'' On H. Con. Res. 327 (Rollcall No. 469), honoring the service and sacrifice during periods of war by members of the U.S. Merchant Marine, introduced by the gentleman from California, Mr. Kuykendall, I would have voted ``yea.'' On H.R. 4205 (Rollcall No. 470), instructions to conferees on the Department of Defense authorization bill, offered by the gentleman from South Carolina, Mr. Graham, I would have voted ``nay.''

Mr. OWENS

Mr. OWENS. Mr. Speaker, on Tuesday, September 12, 2000, I was unavoidably absent on a matter of critical importance and missed the following votes: On H.R. 2090 (rollcall No. 460), Exploration of the Seas Act, introduced by the gentleman from Pennsylvania, Mr. Greenwood, I would have voted ``yea.'' On H.R. 4957 (rollcall No. 461), to amend the Omnibus Parks and Public Lands Management Act to extend the legislative authority for the Black Patriots Foundation, introduced by the gentleman from New York, Mr. Rangel, I would have voted ``yea.'' On H.R. 3632, (rollcall No. 462), the Golden Gate National Recreation Area Boundary Adjustment Act, introduced by the gentleman from California, Mr. Lantos, I would have voted ``yea.'' On H.R. 4583, (rollcall No. 463), authorization extension for the Air Force Memorial Foundation, introduced by the gentleman from Utah, Mr. Hansen, I would have voted ``yea''. On S. 1374 (rollcall No. 464), the Jackson Multi-Agency Campus Act, introduced by the gentleman from the other body, Mr. Craig of Idaho, I would have voted ``yea.''

Mr. OWENS

Mr. OWENS. Mr. Speaker, on the afternoon of September 7, 2000, I was unavoidably absent on a matter of critical importance and missed the following vote: On H.R. 4844 (rollcall No. 459), to modernize the financing of the Railroad Retirement System and to provide enhanced benefits to employees and beneficiaries, introduced by the gentleman from Pennsylvania, R. Shuster, I would have voted ``yea.''

Mr. OWENS

Mr. OWENS. Mr. Speaker, yesterday I was unavoidably absent on a matter of critical importance and missed the following votes: On H.R. 4884 (rollcall No. 451), to redesignate the facility of the United States Postal Service located at 200 West 2nd Street in Royal Oak, Michigan as the ``William S. Broomfield Post Office Building,'' introduced by the gentleman from Michigan, Mr. Knollenberg, I would have voted ``yea.'' On H.R. 4484 (roll No. 452), to designate the facility of the United States Postal Service located at 500 North Washington Street in Rockville, Maryland, as the ``Everett Alvarez, Jr. Post Office Building,'' introduced by the gentlelady from Maryland, Mrs. Morella, I would have voted ``yea.'' On H.R. 4448 (roll No. 453), to designate the facility of the United States Postal Service located at 3500 Dolfield Avenue in Baltimore, Maryland, as the ``Judge Robert Bernard Watts, Sr. Post Office Building,'' introduced by the gentleman from Maryland, Mr. Cummings, I would have voted ``yea.''

Mr. OWENS

Mr. OWENS. Mr. Speaker, today, I was unavoidably absent on a matter of critical importance and missed the following vote: H.R. 4115 (rollcall No. 454), to authorize appropriations for the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum and for other purposes, introduced by the gentleman from Utah, Mr. Cannon, I would have voted ``yea.'' On the amendment to H.R. 4678 (rollcall 455), introduced by the gentleman from Virginia, Mr. Scott, I would have voted ``aye.'' On the motion to recommit H.R. 4678 with instructions (rollcall 456), introduced by the gentleman from Virginia, Mr. Scott, I would have voted ``aye.'' On passage of H.R. 4678 (rollcall 457), to provide more child support money to families leaving welfare, to simplify the rules governing assignment and distribution of child support collected by States on behalf of children, to improve the collection of child support, to promote marriage, and for other purposes, introduced by the gentlelady from Connecticut, Mrs. Johnson, I would have voted ``yea.''

Mr. OWENS

Mr. OWENS. Mr. Chairman, the previous speakers have greatly overstated their case. The overkill is amazing. To protect the Government's interest, laws have been on the books for decades requiring that the Government can only give Federal contracts to responsible contractors, that has been there all the time, those with a satisfactory record of financial and technical capability, performance, and business ethics and integrity. The only thing that is happening now is that the administration has moved to clarify this and pinpoint more exactly what it means by responsible contractors. That is what is new. We do not need another study by the GAO. For decades, they have been observing and studying, and there is a whole body of experience that goes into the need to clarify what we mean by responsible contractor. Last month, the administration issued a proposal to clarify the rules for determining who is a responsible contractor. The proposed regulations clarify that a relevant factor in deciding whether a contractor meets a responsibility test is its record of complying with the law. I mean, is that not easy enough to understand, a record of complying with the law, the tax law, labor and employment law, consumer protection laws, environmental law, and other Federal laws? This is a modest common sense proposal that furthers the Government's interest in efficient, economical, and responsible contracting. It stands for and reinforces an important principle. Taxpayer-funded government contracts should go to responsible contractors with respect for the law. All across the Nation, there are certain municipalities and towns and States that have laws which already go much further than this. One cannot get a contract in certain places unless one has complied with the law and one does not have a record of having violated the law. But this does not go that far. It does not blacklist anybody for having violated a law at once. Opponents have attacked the proposal, saying it is a blacklist. These claims are unfounded. Nothing in the proposed clarifying rules will create a blacklist, nothing that prohibits contractors from bidding on future property. It is far too generous.

Mr. OWENS

Mr. OWENS. Mr. Speaker, nearly two hundred of my constituents are the victims of a gross injustice which is continually being compounded by the evasive actions of the present government of Poland. Instead of acting expeditiously to end the cycle of evil set off by the Nazi extermination of Polish Jews, the present Democratic government of Poland has adopted a set of obviously immoral legal maneuvers which deny just compensation to these Polish holocaust victims and their heirs. Following the Nazi defeat, the Communist government continued the criminal denial of property rights. Now a government which has embraced the principles which recognize private property rights is behaving in a manner bordering on racketeering. In response to a lawsuit filed in Federal Court in Brooklyn on June 18, 1999, the Polish government, on December 22, 1999 filed a motion to dismiss the pending case; however, four weeks later this same government began drafting a reprivatization law to submit to its parliament. The key provisions of the draft represent a blatant attempt to swindle the long neglected victims: Only fifty percent of the current value will be offered to the original owners; payment in bonds which have no face value is proposed; inheritance taxes will be demanded; a one year limit on making claims under the statute will be imposed; for each person making the claim there will be a five year residency requirement. Instead of these evasive actions which prolong the cruel and inhuman treatment already suffered by the Polish Jews; justice requires that the Polish government institute the following remedies for the survivors: Immediately commence the deeding of all government owned properties back to their rightful owners; creation of a fund for those with ownership rights in properties that have been sold to bona fide third parties; no eviction of any Polish citizens is demanded and an accounting of profits received by Poland during the last 55 years would be ``negotiated away.'' The obvious violations of human rights is the least issue involved in this class action suit. Government grand larceny is a more appropriate term to describe this stalemate. The current neutral position of the U.S. State Department on this matter is inconsistent with U.S. Human Rights Policy and totally unacceptable. In addition to encouraging condemnation by national and world public opinion it is vitally necessary that our government examine its relationship with the Polish government to determine ways to accelerate a just settlement of this sordid victimization. It must be noted that in both Switzerland and Germany, recent steps have been taken to establish large funds for labor and bank deposit claims. Private property claims are not only more easily validated; tradition also considers property rights as almost sacred. World opinion and all Democratic governments must act vigorously to uphold the rights of Polish Jews.

Mr. OWENS

Mr. OWENS. Mr. Speaker, today's New York Times reports that Democrats are showing greater interest in tax cuts. On the floor of this House at the beginning of this year I said that a tax cut was inevitable in this election year. Those of us who represent the ``Caring Majority'' must make certain that this coming tax cut benefits those most in need of relief. We must start with a cut in the payroll taxes. And beyond tax cuts we must spread the benefits of our blessed surplus to those in greatest need. We need more housing; we need prescription drug benefits. We need to invest heavily in education to guarantee American prosperity for the future. The following ``Chant'' sums up my position on this pivotal national decision. Chant For Surplus Justice People in need Have no fear, Budget surplus facts prove There's 200 Billion this year; People in need Challenge what you hear, The Nation needs your votes And your voices loud and clear; Read our lips, The B word is Billion, In ten years racing All the way to three Trillion; People in need Have no fear Both Compassionate Conservatives And Democratic Idealists Have rhetoric running full gear: Prescription medicare benefits, Phased family health care The fantasy finished New Deal Was never so near; People in need Challenge What you hear, More than rich tax cuts Must be spread on the table; Deficit paralysis Is a rotting fable-- End U.S. Gulag incarceration Demand ten percent of leftovers to revamp education, Build houses for seniors And families with low incomes, Round out the rhetoric, Allocate desperately needed sums; Not a single hungry child should cry, For lack of a pill No elderly mother should die; People in Need Challenge what you hear, The Nation needs your votes-- And your voices loud and clear.

Mr. OWENS

Mr. OWENS. Mr. Speaker, on Tuesday, I was unavoidably absent on a matter of critical importance and missed the following votes. On the bill, H. Con. Res. 253, expressing the sense of the Congress strongly objecting to any effort to expel the Holy See from the United Nations as a state participant by removing its status as a permanent observer, introduced by the gentleman from New Jersey, Mr. Smith, I would have voted ``yea.'' On the bill, H.R. 4442, the National Wildlife Refuge System Centennial Act, introduced by the gentleman from New Jersey, Mr. Saxton, I would have voted ``yea.'' On the bill, H. Res. 415, the sense of the House that there should be a National Ocean Day, introduced by the gentlelady from Hawaii, Mrs. Mink, I would have voted ``yea.'' On the amendment to H.R. 4461, the fiscal year 2001 Agriculture appropriations bill, introduced by the gentleman from Oregon, Mr. DeFazio, I would have voted ``yea.'' On the amendment to H.R. 4461, the fiscal year 2001 Agriculture appropriations bill, introduced by the gentleman from South Carolina, Mr. Sanford, I would have voted ``nay.'' On the amendment to H.R. 4461, the fiscal year 2001 Agriculture appropriations bill, introduced by the gentleman from Indiana, Mr. Burton, I would have voted ``nay.'' On the amendment to H.R. 4461, the fiscal year 2001 Agriculture appropriations bill, introduced by the gentleman from New Mexico, Mr. Skeen, I would have voted ``nay.''

Mr. OWENS

Mr. OWENS. Mr. Speaker, on Monday, I was unavoidably absent on a matter of critical importance and missed the following votes: On the first amendment to H.R. 4461, the fiscal year 2001 agriculture appropriations bill, introduced by the gentleman from Oklahoma, Mr. Coburn, I would have voted ``nay.'' On the first amendment to H.R. 4461, the fiscal year 2001 agriculture appropriations bill, introduced by the gentleman from California, Mr. Royce, I would have voted ``nay.'' On the amendment to H.R. 4461, the fiscal year 2001 agriculture appropriations bill, introduced by the gentleman from New York, Mr. Crowley, I would have voted ``yea.'' On the second amendment to H.R. 4461, the fiscal year 2001 agriculture appropriations bill, introduced by the gentleman from California, Mr. Royce, I would have voted ``nay.'' On the second amendment to H.R. 4461, the fiscal year 2001 agriculture appropriations bill, introduced by the gentleman from Oklahoma, Mr. Coburn, I would have voted ``yea.'' On the amendment to H.R. 4461, the fiscal year 2001 agriculture appropriations bill, introduced by the gentleman from South Carolina, Mr. Sanford, I would have voted ``nay.''

Mr. OWENS

Mr. OWENS. Mr. Speaker, earlier today, I was unavoidably absent on a matter of critical importance and missed the following votes: On approval of the journal, I would have voted ``yea.'' On H.Res. 545, providing for consideration of H.R. 4810, the Marriage Penalty Reconciliation Act, introduced by the gentlelady from Ohio, Ms. Pryce, I would have voted ``yea.'' On the bill, S. 1892, the Federal Land Transaction Facilitation Act, introduced by the gentleman from the other body from New Mexico, Mr. Domenici, I would have voted ``yea.'' On the bill, H.R. 4169, Naming the U.S. Post Office in Reno, Nevada as the Barbara F. Vucanovich Post Office, introduced by the gentleman from Nevada, Mr. Gibbons, I would have voted ``yea.''

Mr. OWENS

Mr. OWENS. Mr. Speaker, Eileen D. Cooke was first and foremost a librarian, a member of the profession that knows where to find the information about any phenomenon known to human kind. She started her career as a bookmobile librarian for the Minneapolis Public Library. She concluded her career as a well-known Washington lobbyist. Mr. Speaker, I rise to mourn the loss of Eileen Cooke and to salute her as a great American Point of Light. As a result of Eileen Cooke's efforts the library profession moved into the mainstream of the political process. She demanded that the federal government recognize and respect libraries as universal institutions in our democratic society which deserve greater and more consistent support. Her years as Director of the ALA Washington Office were marked by increases in federal funds for libraries, new initiatives in legislation, and opportunities for library participation in a wide range of federal assistance programs. As a Congressman who is also a professional librarian I became a partner with Ms. Cooke in the drive to achieve priority status for libraries in the overall effort to accomplish a better educated America. With indefatigable optimism Eileen Cooke worked with Members of Congress, staff assistants, educational and cultural organizations, and all others who supported education and libraries. She brought to ALA and library services greater visibility and understanding. Her exceptional leadership skills enabled her to develop and maintain a small but dedicated, energetic and productive staff. She left a cadre of experienced and skillful followers as a potent and enduring legacy. After joining the ALA Washington Office, she lectured at several of the library schools and spoke at many of the annual conferences of the state library associations. She served on the boards of several Washington-based organizations; was the first woman president of the Joint Council on Educational Telecommunications; served on the Board of Visitors of the School of Library and Information Service Satellite Consortium; and on the Advisory Council of the Home and School Institute, Inc. During her tenure in Washington, Eileen Cooke worked on every major piece of library legislation and helped prepare witnesses to testify before Congress. This includes, among other issues, the Library Services and Construction Act, the Higher Education Act, the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, the Medical Library Assistance Act, Copyright Revision Act, the National Commission on Libraries and Information Science, both bills calling for a White House Conference on Library and Information Services, as well as the various annual appropriations bills to fund these programs. On the occasion of her retirement, former ALA President and Director of the District of Columbia Public Library, Hardy Franklin, described Eileen Cooke as a ``51st State Senator on Capitol Hill.'' She was a fighter capable of hard-nose analysis but always focused and deliberative. She was a coalition builder who won both fear and admiration from her adversaries. Above all she had vision and could see far ahead of the government decision-makers. She understood the nature of the coming ``Information Superhighway'' and could predict the vital role of libraries and librarians as the traffic signals on this expressway into the cyber-civilization of the future. Mr. Speaker, the work of Eileen D. Cooke benefits all Americans. She has won the right to be celebrated and saluted as a Great American Point-of-Light.

Mr. OWENS

Mr. OWENS. Mr. Speaker, Gary Graham (Shaka Sankofa) was exterminated by the State of Texas yesterday, June 22, 2000. He was killed with a lethal injection despite that fact that there are many reasons to doubt the guilty verdict which placed him on death row. Gary Graham clearly deserved more time alive to investigate fully all of the irregularities surrounding his trial. Since death is irreversible and human life is sacred, time should not have been rushed. The American people and their powerful State Governors should fully note recent developments which indicate that a large percentage of the people on death row are probably not guilty. Gross inadequacies in the criminal justice system are generating deadly mistakes. In my opinion there are too many people who approve of the death penalty as a just punishment for certain crimes. At the same time almost no American citizens approve of the execution of innocent victims. Gary Graham was the 222nd person executed in Texas since the state resumed capital punishment in 1982. He was the 135th person executed during the present Governor's tenure. Mr. Speaker, the Rap poem below summarizes this disgracefully sad situation.

Mr. OWENS

Mr. OWENS. Mr. Speaker, this is a very important bill to a large number of people in my district. I am a little surprised that it has come up so abruptly and then we had no time to prepare for it, but I want to register my strong support for the steps that are being taken by the Federal Communications Commission to make broadcasting available, the opportunity to broadcast to small and nonprofit groups. There is a whole array of groups beyond the obvious ones that are mentioned, the religious groups, educational groups that particularly want to push some aspect of education to the numerous ethnic and nationality groups in my district. There are a large number of people who are of Caribbean descent in my district and have had a great deal of problems with trying to get radio broadcasts which focus on their particular interests, Haitian, Jamaican, Canadian, and numerous others. I think it is very appropriate that we take a step in this direction and leave it as broad and open as possible, following the general approach of the Federal Communications Commission without any restrictions. Indeed, the restrictions have been too great all these years. The broadcasting is regulated by the Federal Government. It is a form of free speech; and because it is regulated by the Federal Government, I think efforts should have been made many years ago to make it freer. We have not had free speech using radio waves or free speech using television or any of the regulated broadcast bands that the Government is in control of. The Government is in control, and that means that all of the people are in control; all the people should be served. It should not be a matter of those who have the necessary capital to be able to capitalize a radio or television station. We are talking primarily here about radio now, which is the simplest and the cheapest way to provide some means of broadcasting for people who do not have means. Certainly, if we are going to have freedom of speech, freedom of speech ought to mean that everybody has a chance to speak over the airwaves, especially if that is regulated by government. We have freedom of speech in terms of printed matter, and anybody who can afford it can, of course, print matter. Of course the big newspaper chains and people that have money are able to take advantage of that even more so. But the Government does not regulate anybody out of the print business. If one has the money, if one has the wherewithal, one can get into the print business at one level or another. That may mean passing out pamphlets, it may mean finding a newspaper, or it may mean starting a magazine. But it is not so in the broadcast arena. One cannot, even if one has the wherewithal, enter the broadcast arena, because that is tightly regulated by the Government, more than it should have been all of these years. Mr. Speaker, we need more freedom and more opportunities, not fewer. So I wholeheartedly support the steps that are being taken by the Federal Communications Commission, and I think that any attempts to restrict it in any way are steps that are moving us backwards in the wrong direction. I think it is long overdue that we allow small groups to have their voice, and perhaps we should look at the bill and look at the regulations being proposed by the Federal Communications Commission and make them broader and more liberal. The range of areas that are covered by these nonprofit stations in many cases is too small, and we would like to see them broadened. We would like to see efforts made to make it even less costly to begin a nonprofit station. Full freedom of speech means that the freedom ought to be able to be a freedom that we can utilize over the free and regulated Federal airwaves.

Mr. OWENS

Mr. OWENS. Mr. Speaker, yesterday, I was unavoidably absent on a matter of critical importance and missed the following votes: On the motion that the Committee of Whole House on the State of the Union Rise, introduced by the gentleman from California, Mr. Waxman, I would have voted ``yea.'' On the amendment to the rider on H.R. 4635, regarding the use of Veterans' Administration funds for tobacco litigation, introduced by the gentleman from California, Mr. Waxman. I would have voted ``yea.''

Mr. OWENS

Mr. OWENS. Mr. Speaker, I was unavoidably absent on a matter of critical importance and missed the following votes: On passage of the Journal, I would have voted ``yea''. On the bill, H.R. 4079, to require the Comptroller General of the United States to conduct a comprehensive fraud audit of the Department of Education, introduced by the gentleman from Michigan, Mr. Hoekstra, I would have voted ``yea''.

Mr. OWENS

Mr. OWENS. Mr. Chairman, $1.3 billion is a very tiny amount, but it is one step forward. $1.3 billion is $1.3 billion above zero. The Republican majority has offered nothing. This small step to take care of emergency repairs will open the door, I hope, to an understanding that our schools are a part of our national security system. We had 300 personnel short of an aircraft carrier launched last year because we did not have the right personnel to put on. They could not meet the high-tech requirements. We have a bill coming up next week to bring in people from outside the country to take jobs in our high-tech industries. Those same people came from countries that built their own nuclear industry on the basis of what they learned here as students and as workers here. We need to deal with the problem of $254 billion needed to bring up our school infrastructure as determined by the National Education Association survey, which was completed recently. The General Accounting Office in 1995 said we needed $110 billion at that time. Enrollments have grown. We need to spend on a level which understands that we are going into the 21st century, a cyber civilization.

Mr. OWENS. Mr. Chairman, the gentlewoman from Connecticut is to be congratulated for speaking on behalf of the overwhelming majority of the Members of this House, the 421 Members who voted to follow the wisdom of the head of the Committee on Education and the Workforce and increase the funding for special education. She is only asking in this appropriations bill that we follow the authorizing move that we made a few weeks ago. I accept the reasoning of the chairman of the Committee on Education and the Workforce. If we put money in to special education, we are allowing the local education agencies to move that money that they were spending on special education somewhere else. That is a back-door approach, but I will accept any approach to get additional funding for education. So let us do it. Let us not back away from the commitment of $1.5 billion that we made and only, instead, have a $500 million commitment. Let us go all the way and let us realize that the big issue that has been repeated here over and over again is that there is more money for education if my Republican colleagues will yield on their tax cut. Instead of a tax cut commitment, let us have a smaller tax cut and let us dedicate 10 percent of the surplus to education. That is reasonable. Ten percent of the surplus this year and 10 percent of the surplus for the next 10 years will solve the funding problems for the Federal Government with respect to education. We now only contribute 7 percent. Of the total education bill each year, the Federal Government takes responsibility for only 7 percent. Seven percent is too little. That is a Stone Age, a Neanderthal approach. We need more Federal assistance to education at the local level. The Federal Government is now where the money is. We have a $200 billion surplus this year, and we will have a $200 billion surplus for the next 10 years. Let us dedicate 10 percent of that. We can put part of it into school construction, 5 percent, and another 5 percent can be used for special education and more teachers. Ten percent of the surplus is our answer to all of these problems.

Mr. OWENS

Mr. OWENS. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the requisite number of words. Mr. Chairman, I rise in support of the amendment. I also want to oppose the overall bill. It is an anti-family bill overall. This amendment, if passed, would make it a little better but not good enough. This is an anti-working family's bill which takes away very vital parts that are necessary to keep working families afloat. The job-training section has been gutted. The school construction section, a mere $1.3 billion from school construction has been removed at a time when the public schools, only schools that working families can afford to attend, are being abandoned and in great need of repair. The National Education Association survey has recently shown that one needs $254 billion just to maintain the infrastructure of public schools across the country at the level to serve the present enrollment, let alone to prepare for future enrollments. Yet we have cut out $1.3 billion of a very modest proposal made by the President in this legislation. So if this amendment does pass, it will be slightly better; but we should still vote against the entire bill because it is against working families. This is against working families. It is against women in particular, because the philosophy here in opposing ergonomics is that, if an injury does not show blood, if there is no blood and there is no crushed bones, there is no pain. There is no injury. It is a Neanderthal approach to looking at the kinds of things that happen in the workplace. One does not have to go very far. One does not have to go to a town meeting to find people who are suffering from carpal tunnel syndrome. This place is full of them. We have lots of secretaries, lots of people who do the kind of work that results in carpal tunnel syndrome. Just look around. Do an honest survey. Republicans and Democrats should look around and do an honest survey. I have one person on my staff right now who has a problem with carpal tunnel syndrome. I had a person 12 years ago who worked on my staff and her hands gave out. She could not type. She had done a lot of typing before electric typewriters came on, before computers. She was ashamed to even complain and thought something was wrong with her. I did not know at that time what the problem was. I clearly identify it right now. It is a very real injury; 600,000 workers a year at minimum suffer from musculoskeletal disorders. There is a lot of talk about NAS doing another study. I want to emphasize the fact that it is a second study. They are calling for a second study by the National Academy of Sciences. They have done one already. They want it reversed. They want to hold out for it. The truth of it is the people who have called for this additional study are now showing their true colors in this particular legislation. The opponents had argued before that OSHA should wait for another National Academy of Sciences report before moving forward with the rule. They hope the National Academy of Sciences would change its earlier findings that support the ergonomics rule. Now they are not willing to wait for the NAS study. They are now saying that the rule should be stopped regardless of a conclusion of a new NAS study. There is kind of a blind ideological opposition to ergonomics. They have changed their tune either because they no longer hope NAS would change its findings or because they never really cared about a respected science in the first place. Backers of this rider are willing to ignore commitments and promises and sound science too. In 1997, NIOSH completed the most comprehensive review ever conducted of musculoskeletal disorders in the workplace. NIOSH reviewed over 600 epidemiologic studies and concluded there is strong evidence of an association between musculoskeletal disorders and work related disorders to high levels of repetition, forceful exertions, and awkward exposures. The study was peer reviewed by 27 experts from throughout the country. NAS, as I said before, came to the same conclusion after they conducted their own review. What we have here is a blind ideological refusal to accept the fact that, in this modern society, there are new kinds of disorders that can be very real and very painful and can rob a person of their ability to earn a living. I have seen many examples of women who have lost their ability to use their hands. They can no longer type, they can no longer make a living, the only way they knew how to make a living. It is very real. This anti-family bill is particularly harsh for women for that reason. Construction industries and many of the other standards that have been set by OSHA over the years relate to obvious kinds of injuries. When a person bleeds, when a bone is broken, nobody can quarrel about the fact that that is a real injury. But ergonomics produces very real injuries, also.

Mr. OWENS

Mr. OWENS. Mr Speaker, greed has rolled like a bulldozer over all of the numerous logical reasons supporting the denial of a permanent trade agreement with China. The mega-profits to be realized by the corporate elite are so overwhelming that this juggernaut cannot be halted. This act will have tornado-like devastation on the employment of ordinary men and women in this nation. Workers on both sides of the world will be the victims of this agreement. Chinese laborers paid twenty five cents per hour or less will fill the bank accounts of multi-national corporations. American workers will be forced to struggle harder and work more hours as industrial and manufacturing jobs are moved to China. Only lower paying service jobs or hi-tech positions requiring a college education will be left here on our shores. Trade agreements standing alone on the floor of the House should never be accepted in the future. We should be voting on a comprehensive bill which anticipates the consequences of this arrangement with a nation of 1.2 billion people. The legislation should cover provisions to compensate for the massive economic dislocations that will inevitably escalate over the next few years. A massive worker retraining is needed for adults who face the immediate loss of their livelihoods. We also need a thorough revamping of the nation's public school system, an institution which serves working families, to guarantee that the emerging work force will have the qualifications to fill the thousands of information technology and telecommunications vacancies. Mr. Speaker, if this risky agreement is passed today, we must immediately develop legislation to establish Worker Technology Retraining Centers to be operated by unions and other worker organizations in all parts of the nation where a loss of jobs will take place. We must also take advantage of the enormous 200 billion dollar surplus available this year and the anticipated two trillion dollar surplus over the next ten years to revamp our public school system. To cope with the massive transformations of the future work places in America we must mandate that no less than ten percent of the surplus must be allocated to education for the next ten years. We must vote no on this bill before us. At the same time, we must resolve not to desert our working families. Pledge now to adequately finance the world's greatest public education system.