Jack Quinn

Mr. QUINN

Mr. QUINN. Madam Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Georgia, the Speaker of the House [Mr. Gingrich].

Mr. QUINN. Madam Speaker, as we continue to deliberate this weekend, I ask my colleagues' indulgence to take a few moments of our time this afternoon to bid farewell to a Member of the body, a fellow New Yorker, and a dear friend to all of us here in the House. It seems this past week we welcomed the new Member from New York 13, and next week, after all of our work is finished and everything else has winded itself down, we will say goodbye, and the gentleman from New York [Mr. Floyd Flake] will leave the Chamber to become a full-time pastor of the Allen A.M.E. Church in Queens, N.Y. I thought it was fitting, and all of you I am sure will agree, that this afternoon we take a break to thank someone on behalf of all of us here and his constituents for almost 10.5 or 11 years of service here in the U.S. Congress, who has worked on numerous different projects that have benefited everybody, not only in his district but all of our districts and people all across this Nation and beyond. For the 9,000 members of the Allen A.M.E. Church in Queens, NY, while Floyd Flake is our loss, he is their gain. I hope you will join me in bidding farewell to Congressman Floyd Flake this afternoon. Madam Speaker, it gives me a great deal of pleasure to yield to the dean of the New York delegation, the gentleman from New York, Mr. Gilman. (Mr. GILMAN asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. QUINN. Madam Speaker, I yield to the other leader from New York, Mr. Charlie Rangel.

Mr. QUINN. Madam Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from New York, Mr. Solomon.

Mr. QUINN. Madam Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from New York Mr. Schumer.

Mr. QUINN. Floyd, we have had requests from almost everybody here to speak, and we will never get to fast track if we let everybody here speak this afternoon. Madam Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from California [Mr. Lewis], the delegation leader from the State of California.

Mr. QUINN. Madam Speaker, I yield to the gentlewoman from California [Ms. Waters].

Mr. QUINN. Madam Speaker, I yield to the minority leader, the gentleman from Missouri [Mr. Gephardt].

Mr. QUINN. Madam Speaker, just before we yield to one last speaker and hear from Floyd Flake, I would like to get rid of a technicality. I ask unanimous consent that all Members be granted 5 legislative days within which to extend their remarks on the subject of this 1-minute.

Mr. QUINN. Madam Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from New York, District 6, the Honorable Floyd Flake.

Mr. QUINN

Mr. QUINN. Madam Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding me this time. Madam Speaker, this afternoon I join the gentleman from Arizona [Mr. Stump] and the gentleman from Illinois [Mr. Evans] to pass H.R. 2367, a bill that would provide a cost of living increase to 2.3 million veterans who are in receipt of service-connected disability compensation and nearly 330,000 survivors receiving dependency indemnity compensation, DIC. The bill would increase these benefits by 2.1 percent, the same percentage as given to Social Security recipients. I would also note that all the DIC recipients will get a full COLA. Finally, the bill codifies the 1998 rates in title 38. Madam Speaker, this bill demonstrates the Congress's continuing commitment to keeping veterans benefits in line with the cost of living. This means that disabled veterans and their survivors will be able to maintain their standard of living. The extra money for dependents and clothing allowances will also make a positive contribution. Madam Speaker, our disabled veterans represent the finest this Nation has to offer. They made a commitment to the Nation and we are keeping our commitment to them. Finally, Madam Speaker, I want to thank and compliment the gentleman from California [Mr. Filner], our ranking member on the subcommittee, as well as the gentleman from Texas [Mr. Rodriguez] for their help throughout the hearings.

Mr. QUINN

Mr. QUINN. Madam Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding me this time. The bill before the House this afternoon reflects an amendment to S. 923 as reported by the House Committee on Veterans' Affairs. As amended, S. 923 would prohibit burial or memorialization in a national cemetery, Arlington National Cemetery or, prospectively, any State cemetery for which a State receives funding from the VA to anyone convicted of a Federal capital crime or any State capital crime involving the loss of one or more lives. It also gives the appropriate Federal and State officials the authority to deny burial to those who are shown by clear and convincing evidence are guilty of such a crime but are unavailable because they have avoided prosecution or died prior to trial. The bill does not affect other burial benefits such as a flag, Presidential certificates, or burial payments. Madam Speaker, in crafting this bill and this legislation before us, we have adopted the Senate's desire to include all Federal capital crimes but, in recognition of a veteran's honorable service, we have retained the very limited denial of benefits contained in H.R. 2040 introduced by the gentleman from Arizona [Mr. Stump]. As amended, S. 923 will not distinguish between a crime against a Federal official or a private citizen, Federal or State law. We believe that the bill amendment strikes a reasonable position, as the gentleman from Illinois [Mr. Evans], the ranking member, just mentioned, that protects the status of honorable military service while recognizing at the same time the heinous nature of capital crimes. Madam Speaker, I want to emphasize to all of our colleagues that this bill does not violate constitutional provisions against ex post facto laws, nor does it qualify as a bill of attainder. This bill is an exercise of the Congress' constitutional authority to prescribe eligibility for any veterans benefit and, because we are proscribing a class of persons, this is not a bill of attainder. Madam Speaker, in closing, I genuinely want to thank our ranking member of the subcommittee, the gentleman from California [Mr. Filner], the gentleman from Alabama [Mr. Bachus], the gentleman from Arkansas [Mr. Snyder], and the gentleman from Texas [Mr. Rodriguez] for their work on this bill. We scheduled extra meetings in my office and had meetings with the chairman and the ranking member, and, in my estimation, when we had to deal with some very emotional issues, we took a measured, timed approach to end up with a truly bipartisan effort here this afternoon. I thank my friends and colleagues on both sides of the aisle for their interest and the time they spent. I think we end up with at least a bill we can take to the full Congress.

Mr. QUINN

Mr. QUINN. Mr. Chairman, I offer an amendment as a substitute for the amendment.

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

Mr. QUINN. Mr. Chairman, I just want to point out for the Record in the few minutes we have remaining, when we talk about collective bargaining, there is nobody in this House, I do not believe, who has fought for collective bargaining longer and harder than me. What is ironic to me is that this same bill, the identical bill of 2 years ago, which talked about collective bargaining and had the support of labor for collective bargaining, is back here again, identical as the first time. I cannot understand for the life of me, Mr. Chairman, why we had the support and belief that it did not break contracts back then, but somehow it breaks contracts today, the exact same language. We will talk more about it in the amendment.

Mr. QUINN. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Chairman, I am glad I was here on the floor this past Wednesday to witness the open debate that we held on H.R. 2247, which of course was the ``Amtrak Reform and Privatization Act of 1997,'' because if I had been in my office, Mr. Chairman, and watched the debate on our TV sets I would have thought that I was watching a videotape of our discussion 2 years ago in the full committee markup of this Amtrak bill. Mr. Chairman, I heard people on the floor just a day or two ago arguing how this bill would break contracts. I heard people argue how thousands of jobs would be lost and how Amtrak would contract out all of its work and how the job loss would wreak havoc with the Railroad Retirement System. Ironically, Mr. Chairman, those are exactly the same arguments that I used to gain support for amendments that we offered that day. Those were arguments that Members in the House used, both Democrats and Republicans, to get the compromise that we had then and the same compromise that we have this morning. Has the House forgotten that we amended the bill that day? Have we forgotten that we won a major victory for the working men and women of the railroad that day? Mr. Chairman, we came up with a fair compromise that would help Amtrak gain the necessary reforms it needed to survive. I thought about that word ``Congress,'' and thought about the word ``compromise'' a little bit at the same time. I went back to the office and I got the Webster's Dictionary and looked up ``compromise.'' It said, ``A settlement of differences by arbitration or by consent reached by mutual concessions.'' Consent reached by mutual concession. Is that not what we had on this legislation the last time, consent reached by mutual concession? Mr. Chairman, the original committee bill that I objected to would have dropped Amtrak labor protections from 6 years to 6 months, no questions asked. It would have happened. The original committee bill would have allowed Amtrak to contract out almost all of its work, no questions asked. We put together a compromise which we offered on behalf of everybody so that we would have mutual concessions from both sides. That is the definition of a compromise, Mr. Chairman. Unfortunately, I have to rise today with this substitute to the amendment of the gentleman from Ohio [Mr. LaTourette], my good friend and colleague. I would have hoped that we would have been able to keep the amendment separate; however, with the rule before us, that is not going to be possible. While I respect and admire my good friend from Ohio, his amendment would strike from the bill the compromise language that we all worked on, with the support of labor, to protect the rights of working men and women at Amtrak. I am a little disappointed, Mr. Chairman, with the level of some of that discussion here on the floor. We have been fighting for the survival of Amtrak for over 2 years now, and it makes everything sound that this amendment, this Quinn amendment, is all of the sudden antilabor. I respectfully disagree that I am offering an antilabor amendment today. It is a prolabor amendment that simply does this: It walls off the Amtrak employees so that we are not having any effect today on freight labor or transit labor workers in this act. Plain and simple. Otherwise, it is exactly the same. Today's amendment would, in addition to walling off those provisions, say to our workers across the country and in our individual districts that we are going to keep Amtrak alive and well and working so that all the jobs can be retained. I am very concerned, Mr. Chairman, if we are not successful here this afternoon, where this funding for Amtrak will end up. Mr. Chairman, we have a golden opportunity to do the right thing and to save our country's national rail passenger system today while preserving the dignity of its workers. The LaTourette amendment, by stripping out the Quinn compromise, will jeopardize that funding. The release of that money is contingent upon real Amtrak reform. What better reform is there than the compromise reform that we agreed upon in this House 406 to 4? Which Republicans, Democrats and organized labor all agreed to? I suggest that we keep the necessary compromise reforms in this bill, strip out the unintentional effect that it could have had on freight and transit labor workers, and I ask my colleagues to support the Quinn substitute. Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. QUINN. Mr. Chairman, I yield such time as he may consume to the gentleman from Pennsylvania [Mr. Shuster], the chairman of the full committee.

Mr. QUINN. Mr. Chairman, I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from Florida [Mr. Mica], a member of the full committee and a member of the Subcommittee on Railroads.

Mr. QUINN. Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from New Jersey [Mr. LoBiondo].

Mr. QUINN. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself the balance of my time. Just to close the last 30 seconds that we have, I think the point that the gentleman from New Jersey [Mr. LoBiondo] and other speakers have made is critically important to all Members before they come over here to vote this afternoon. We can talk about blue ribbon panels. We can talk about charges back and forth and who is for labor and who is against labor. But at the end of the day, in the next half hour, the important concept is whether or not Amtrak is able to survive. I will submit that a vote against Quinn is a vote to contribute to the collapse of Amtrak. Support the Quinn substitute.

Mr. QUINN

Mr. QUINN. Mr. Chairman, I rise this afternoon in support of the Sabo amendment. As we consider this amendment this afternoon I want to point out to my colleagues three quick points. First of all, this is not the way that we should be altering a very significant Federal law. If we are interested in looking into the effects of Davis-Bacon on construction costs, we should conduct hearings, we should have a fair and open debate and then we should do it the right way and not legislate on appropriations. Second, Davis-Bacon simply ensures that wages and working conditions at a given locality are observed on federally funded construction programs. It does not require a payment of a minimum wage. Thirdly, if the prevailing wage laws are repealed, it would in essence allow contractors to use the vast procurement power of the Federal Government to depress wages of construction workers and then cut those wages to win the Federal projects that they desire. In closing, I would ask our colleagues to protect construction workers this afternoon. Do not circumvent the legislative process by legislating through appropriations, and vote ``yes'' on the Sabo amendment.

Mr. QUINN

Mr. QUINN. Mr. Speaker, I would like to express my support for House Joint Resolution 94, making continuing appropriations for the fiscal year ending September 30, 1997. This resolution provides temporary funding, beginning October 1, 1997, and lasting until either October 23 or when the relevant bill is singed into law, whichever comes first. The continuing resolution funds ongoing projects at current rates, except for those for which both the President and Congress have proposed reduced funding. The joint resolution also allows payment for the administrative costs of the user fee program of the Veterans Administrative Medicare Care Program. This short-term measure would allow the Congress to continue its important work of passing appropriations bills while not dangerously bringing the Government to a halt. I strongly opposed the Government shutdowns of 1995 and 1996, as it had a direct effect on many of my constituents in western New York. Last year, many Federal workers in my district were forced to stay home from work and did not receive a paycheck for months. This resolution will see to it that this type of situation is averted. Many of my constituents also were unable to obtain passports, iron out problems with their deserved benefits, or enjoy visiting our national parks while on vacation.

Mr. QUINN

Mr. QUINN. Mr. Speaker, I rise today in support of this resolution expressing the condolences of the House of Representatives on the tragic death of Diana, Princess of Wales. The Princess was someone with whom we all were not only familiar, but held in deep admiration. Her position of royalty brought her into our lives, but her work on behalf of the less fortunate brought her into our hearts. Princess Diana has been an inspiration to me in one area in particular: her crusade on behalf of the innocent victims of antipersonnel landmines. Her efforts to eliminate landmines brought the issue global prominence. This year the United States has the opportunity to join over 100 nations around the globe in signing an international treaty to ban landmines. That treaty is being negotiated in Oslo, Norway as we speak. Next week, Congressman Evans and I will introduce legislation that commits the United States to a ban on landmines. Our bipartisan legislation already has the backing of the Catholic Church's Conference of Bishops, the Vietnam Veterans Foundation, and numerous retired generals, including Gen. Norman Schwarzkopf. Mr. Speaker, there is no stronger proponent of the U.S. military and its personnel in the U.S. House of Representatives than myself. The United States has the most sophisticated military in the world. Princess Diana was right, we do not need these weapons. I urge my colleagues in the House of Representatives and in the Senate to pick up where Princess Diana left off and join the effort to ban landmines now by supporting the Evans/Quinn bill when it is introduced next week. Let's give a fitting remembrance to Diana by completing the work in which she believed so passionately. Ms. DeLauro. Mr. Speaker and my colleagues, it is with heavy heart that I rise this evening to pay tribute to a woman who touched the lives of people throughout the world--Diana, Princess of Wales. Her tragic death last weekend left all of us in shock at the sudden and incomprehensible loss of a woman in the prime of her life. Although she lived the life of a fairy tale princess, she somehow seemed as real as our next-door neighbor. Rich and poor, black and white, young and old, sick and healthy, Diana opened her heart to one and all and in doing so, made herself a part of all of our lives. She persevered through difficulties endured by so many women-- including divorce and single motherhood--and did it all under the ever- critical eye of the press. It would have been so easy for her to live a quite life behind the palace walls and out of the public's eye. But Diana was determined to make life better for those not so lucky. She wanted to make a difference in people's lives--and she did. The tremendous outpouring of grief, both in Britain and here in the United States, shows how successful she was in her work. Diana dedicated herself to helping those who might otherwise have been forgotten. On one of her visits to Washington, she visited Grandma's House, a home for children stricken with AIDS--long before most public figures ever had. She scooped one 3-year-old into her arms for a hug, and happily filled the child's wish by giving her a ride around the block in her Rolls-Royce. Most recently, Diana had given herself wholeheartedly to a cause that many of us here also feel deeply about--the campaign to rid the world of anti-personnel landmines. Because of Diana, millions of people learned that anti-personnel landmines claim over 25,000 innocent victims ever year. Now I hope we will carry on her work by committing to rid the world of these deadly weapons that threaten the lives of men, women and children all over the world. There will never be another public figure like Diana. But Diana's greatest triumph was being a mom. And her spirit will live on in her sons, the Princes William and Harry. Diana brought her sons along with her, outside of the palace walls, to experience life in the real world. She brought them to meet homeless people and AIDS patients. I am sure that the Princes will grow up to exemplify the values by which Diana led her life, and in the end that may be Diana's most enduring legacy.

Mr. QUINN

Mr. QUINN. I yield to the Speaker, the gentleman from Georgia.

Mr. QUINN. I yield to the gentleman from New York.