Hal Rogers

Mr. ROGERS

Mr. ROGERS. Well, Mr. Chairman, if the gentleman will continue to yield, I can tell that he is an expert on this subject, and I wonder if there is a way that we could somehow taste the fruit of his labors and test whether or not there ought to be a suit brought.

Mr. ROGERS. Mr. Chairman, I do not want to punch a hole in the gentleman's argument.

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

Mr. ROGERS. Mr. Chairman, may I inquire of the time remaining in general debate.

Mr. ROGERS. Mr. Chairman, if I recollect correctly, the President's budget request was brought to the floor and voted on. Is it not correct that the House rejected the President's request by some 430 to 2. I ask the gentleman, what was the correct figure?

Mr. ROGERS. Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield briefly on that point?

Mr. ROGERS. Mr. Chairman, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Tennessee (Mr. Wamp), the only gentleman in the body that last year struck a home run in that infamous ballgame. (Mr. WAMP asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. ROGERS. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 1 minute. Mr. Chairman, I hope the Members will realize that when Members come here and speak at talking about cuts that they recognize that the speaker, for the most part, is talking about cutting from the amount requested of the Congress and not from the current levels of spending. For the most part in this bill, as I have said, we maintain agencies at least their current levels. The Legal Services Corporation is an exception to that. But most of the other agencies are either increased or kept at their current levels. Very few, if any, besides Legal Services, are actually cut in this bill from current levels. Mr. Chairman, I yield 4 minutes to the gentleman from Iowa (Mr. Latham), one of the hardest working Members of our subcommittee, who all the while is concerned with the interests of his district at home especially. (Mr. LATHAM asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. ROGERS. Mr. Chairman, I yield 4 minutes to the gentleman from Alabama (Mr. Callahan), a very hard- working member of the committee and the chairman of the Subcommittee on Foreign Operations, Export Financing and Related Agencies of the Committee on Appropriations.

Mr. ROGERS. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Regula), a very valued member of our subcommittee. (Mr. REGULA asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. ROGERS. If the gentleman will further yield, I want to compliment the gentleman for bringing this very serious matter to the attention of the Congress and the country; and I know that the Justice Department, when they learn of the monopoly that the Krispy Kreme glazed donuts have on this country, they will want to take appropriate action even as they have on other cases, and I commend the gentleman.

Mr. ROGERS. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Young), the very distinguished and very effective chairman of the full committee.

Mr. ROGERS. Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. ROGERS. I yield to the gentleman from Wisconsin.

Mr. ROGERS. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 11 minutes. Mr. Chairman, we present to you H.R. 4690, making appropriations for the Departments of Commerce, Justice, and State, and the Federal Judiciary and related agencies for fiscal year 2001. This bill provides funding, Mr. Chairman, for the largest variety of Federal agencies of any bill. The impact ranges from safety on our streets, to the conduct of diplomacy around the world, even to predicting the weather from satellites in outer space. So we will have a chance to talk about a big chunk of the Federal Government when we talk about this bill. The bill requires a very delicate balancing of needs and requirements. We continue in the bill to recognize the very tight funding restraints under which we are required to live because of the 1997 Balanced Budget Act. At the same time, we must keep in mind the most fundamental needs of our Nation, and we have to provide sufficient funds to ensure that those needs are met. This bill recommends, Mr. Chairman, a total of $34.9 billion in discretionary spending, and that is within our allocation from the Congress and the full committee. Within that limited allocation, we focused funding on priority areas to maintain our investments and to address key priorities, including maintaining our efforts in the war on crime and drugs by fully funding current operations for Federal law enforcement and the courts, as well as the growing detention needs in our prisons and our INS detention centers. We maintain our crime fighting partnership with States and our localities to ensure that they have the tools they need to fight the war on crime and drugs, as well as the emerging threats of domestic terrorism; and we all know that it is in our local communities and in our States where the biggest war on crime and drugs and terrorism has to take place. We maintain other important programs at current operating levels, including the weather service, weather satellites, trade promotion, law enforcement, State Department operations and small business assistance programs, as well as to provide full funding to complete the Decennial Census. We continue and we strengthen our efforts to provide the most secure environment possible for our diplomatic personnel as they carry out their vital work overseas. We strengthen our efforts to address the growing crisis in detention, the continued problem of illegal immigration, and new and emerging crime threats as we move into the 21st century. Within our limited resources, we have tried to stay the course, preserve proven programs, and address the highest priority problems. We have deferred funding for proposals for new programs that are undefined, untested, and unauthorized by the Congress, and may be impossible to sustain in future years. For the Department of Justice, the biggest part of this bill, we recommend $20.3 billion for discretionary spending. That is $1.75 billion over the current year; and the vast majority of that increase is just to maintain current operating levels of Justice and to address the growing detention crisis. Of the increase, 45 percent, $789 million, is for increased detention costs to house Federal prisoners, criminal and illegal alien populations that are being detained in this country. The bill also includes a $415 million increase for Federal law enforcement operations, FBI, DEA, U.S. Attorneys and U.S. Marshals, just to maintain their current operations and provide targeted increases for firearms prosecutions, drugs, cyber-crime, and national security threats. In addition, $329 million is provided to ensure that Federal, State and local law enforcements are able to continue to operate in the new technology arena that the world has entered. For INS, the Immigration Service, in addition to detention funding, we also provide increases for another round of new Border Patrol agents and technology that supports them, and for interior enforcement within the U.S., and to try to reduce the enormous naturalization backlog that now is years long. The bill also includes a total of $4 billion for our State and local law enforcement partners as they fight the crime on the local level, including the COPS program. These programs are all maintained at pre- rescission fiscal year 2000 levels. For the Department of Commerce, $4.4 billion is recommended, and that is a net decrease of $287 million below the comparable 2000 year level, excluding the one-time cost for the decennial Census, which we had to fund last year. The bill maintains funding for most Commerce agencies at the current year level and provides some increases for key programs, including the weather service, weather satellites, NIST core research programs, and the U.S. and Foreign Commercial Service in our embassies overseas. These increases have been offset by eliminating low-priority NOAA programs and the Advanced Technology Program, as well as savings from nonrecurring, one-time construction costs at the National Institute of Standards and Technology. What this bill does not do, Mr. Chairman, is fund a number of new or expanded Commerce programs requested in the budget, unauthorized and, in some cases, even undefined, and we have not funded significant program expansions whose future funding levels may not be able to be sustained in future years. For the Judiciary, from the Supreme Court down to the district courts, we recommend $3.49 billion, that is an increase of $245 million above the current year. That is just to allow the courts to maintain their current operations and to provide for a limited number of programmatic increases, and to allow the new judges that are being appointed and new courthouses being opened in order to staff those offices. These increases are in line with those provided to maintain our commitment to law enforcement. We cannot increase the investigators without increasing the courts to handle them and the prosecutors to prosecute them and the prisons, finally, to house those convicted. For the State Department and the Broadcasting Board of Governors, we recommend $6.4 billion. That is an increase of $253 million over current levels, but $405 million below what was requested of us. The recommendation includes $3.1 billion for the domestic and overseas operations of State, and that is an amount sufficient only to maintain the current levels of staffing and our overseas presence. The recommendation provides just over $1 billion, $1.06 billion, the full request, to address critical embassy security requirements and to continue designing and constructing secure replacement facilities for the most vulnerable of our overseas posts where our personnel are most at risk. This is a priority of this subcommittee, and I am delighted that we were able to meet the requests for spending in total. We recommend $438 million for all U.S. government-sponsored international broadcasting, now functioning as an independent agency under the Broadcasting Board of Governors. Related Agencies. Last but not least, we include $1.9 billion, $507 million below the request, and $128 million below current levels, but this level preserves current agencies and functions, and we reduce or eliminate lower priority programs. We include $856 million for the Small Business Administration, including $276 million for the disaster loans program and $264 million for business loan programs. We have tried, Mr. Chairman, to bring to the committee a clean bill. It is free of the major policy controversies that have bogged us down in the past, and it meets the highest priority needs within the allocation we were given. We give no ground in the war against crime and drugs, we maintain our commitment to core programs at Commerce, including the National Weather Service and high priority items within NOAA; we maintain our commitment to providing secure facilities for our overseas personnel, and by hitting the subcommittee allocation we were given, we maintain the principle of fiscal restraint. It represents our best take on matching needs with resources, and I hope the House will stand behind it. I want to thank the gentleman from New York (Mr. Serrano), the ranking member, who has been a very effective and valued partner of mine and colleague as we drafted and worked on this bill. I deeply appreciate his thoughtfulness and his tireless participation throughout the process and his frank discussions with me about our work. I would be remiss if I failed to thank all of the members of the subcommittee: The gentleman from Arizona (Mr. Kolbe); the gentleman from North Carolina (Mr. Taylor); the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Regula); the gentleman from Louisiana (Mr. Latham); the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Miller); the gentleman from Tennessee (Mr. Wamp); the gentleman from California (Mr. Dixon); the gentleman from West Virginia (Mr. Mollohan); and the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Roybal-Allard), for all of their work and assistance, and to express our thanks for all the long hard hours of our staff; it takes dedication and stamina, and they have been there. We want to thank our full committee chairman, the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Young) and the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Obey), the full committee ranking member, for their help. Mr. Chairman, I urge all Members to support this bill. One final consideration on this bill, one note of privilege here, and that is that my staff is maintaining a list of amendments, those that are filed and those only in the drafting stages, and I would appreciate the Members letting us add their name to the list if they think they might have an amendment. Simply knowing of that will help us manage the bill and perhaps speed its consideration.

Mr. ROGERS

Mr. ROGERS. Mr. Chairman, will the gentlewoman yield?

Mr. ROGERS. I do, Mr. Chairman.

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

Mr. ROGERS. Of course this is the wrong bill for Native American assistance. That is the Interior bill. What we deal with in this bill is crime. I think we have been very generous in the bill in providing I think probably a record amount for the Local Law Enforcement Assistance Grants that the Justice Department doles out. I would hope that the Justice Department would be fair in listening to the grant applications of Native Americans because the money is there. If the gentleman is talking about general programs for Native Americans, that is the Interior bill, not this one.

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

Mr. ROGERS. Mr. Chairman, I ask unanimous consent that the Chair be authorized to reduce the next vote to a 5-minute vote.

Mr. ROGERS. I yield to the gentlewoman from New Mexico.

Mr. ROGERS. The gentleman may have improperly drafted the amendment, because he may intend to cut from something else, but the fact is that he cut the Local Law Enforcement Block Grant.

Mr. ROGERS. I yield to the gentleman from Virginia.

Mr. ROGERS. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the requisite number of words. Mr. Chairman, this amendment would cut the Local Law Enforcement Block Grant by $60.8 million, and that program is critical to our State and local law enforcement fight against crime. It is a very popular program with local communities. The amendment would add funding to the Boys and Girls Clubs to help at-risk youth and increase funding for the drug courts, both of which this subcommittee has dramatically increased funding for over the last couple of years. In fact, more funding has been provided in our bill for these activities than was requested of us by the administration. At-risk youth funding includes $50 million for the Boys and Girls Clubs. That is up from I think it was $40 million a couple of years ago. There are $250 million for Juvenile Accountability Block Grants that the Administration proposed to eliminate altogether, and there are $287 million for Juvenile Justice programs. Those amounts do not include the nearly $200 million that is in the COPS program for school violence programs. So we have funded and funded and funded programs for at-risk youth. We have also funded big increases for drug courts. That has been one of the shining examples of bipartisan cooperation here in this body in our subcommittee, because drug courts have come from nowhere in the last 3 years in funding. Our bill includes $40 million in direct appropriation for the drug courts program. It also includes $523 million for the Local Law Enforcement Block Grants, again, which the administration proposed to eliminate. Historically, communities spend between $10 million and $15 million of their local law enforcement block grants on drug courts each year. Our bill also includes $250 million for the Juvenile Accountability Block Grant program, which could be used to fund the juvenile drug courts. This program is also proposed to be eliminated by the Administration. As for reducing the State Prison Grant program, which this amendment would also do, a Bureau of Justice Assistance report from last year concluded that the requirements of a State Prison Grant program have resulted in increases in the time violent offenders actually served behind bars. This program keeps our streets safe by keeping violent offenders behind bars. There may be several reasons for the recent drop in violent crime. The fact remains, whether we like it or not, prison works. We now have the lowest level of violent crime in America's recorded history. A good part of that is because we have beefed up these accounts in this bill against amendments just like this. Historic figures show that after incarceration rates have increased, crime rates have moderated. The need for additional prison capacity remains. While some States may have excess prison capacities, others are a long way from reducing their overcrowding problems. So to conclude, Mr. Chairman, in total, our bill provides increases over the Administration's request for at-risk youth and drug courts, and we have to fulfill our commitment to the States to continue the State Prison Grant funding program, which we promised them in our law a few years back. I urge a rejection of this amendment.