Hal Rogers

Mr. ROGERS

Mr. ROGERS. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Arizona (Mr. Kolbe), the distinguished chairman of the Subcommittee on Treasury, Postal Service, and General Government of the Committee on Appropriations, and also a very hard working member of our subcommittee. (Mr. KOLBE asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. ROGERS. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Miller), who is the chairman of the House Subcommittee on Census of the Committee on Government Reform.

Mr. ROGERS. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Regula), one of the more valued members in our subcommittee. He is also, incidentally, the chairman of the Subcommittee on Interior of the full Committee on Appropriations.

Mr. ROGERS. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the distinguished gentleman from Iowa (Mr. Latham), a very hardworking member of the Subcommittee on Commerce, Justice, State, and Judiciary.

Mr. ROGERS. Mr. Speaker, we have worked with the gentleman to significantly increase funding for the SBA's operations in this conference report, and that is due solely to the pleas and arguments and very persuasive arguments for SBA, of the gentleman from New York (Mr. Serrano). So we are $45 million over what we passed in the House thanks to the gentleman, plus the SBA has the ability, as he suggested, to transfer additional funds if they are needed. So we reserve that possibility as we go along during the year. I am very happy to continue to work with the gentleman on any further concerns he may have during the course of the year.

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

Mr. ROGERS. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 4 minutes. Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to bring this conference report on the fiscal year 2000 Commerce Justice, State and Judiciary appropriations bill to the floor. We have brought to a successful conclusion the very long, arduous work of reconciling the differences between the very different House-passed and Senate-passed versions of this bill. This conference report is a sound compromise. It makes a number of significant improvements, I think, over the House-passed version of the bill. We moved forward within the guidelines set for the bill by our leadership, consistent with their plan for meeting the budget targets and protecting Social Security. For law enforcement, the Senate came in a billion dollars below the House. We were able to restore those funds, and those funds, of course, will keep intact at their current operating levels, the FBI, the Drug Enforcement Administration, the United States Attorneys, and the Immigration and Naturalization Service. We provide 1,000 new border patrol agents for the INS. We maintain funding for local law enforcement agencies, local sheriffs, and local police departments--monies direct to them, not going through their State agencies but going directly from here to that local agency--the local law enforcement grants, the juvenile accountability grants, the truth-in-sentencing State prison grant program directly to the States, and the SCAAP program to reimburse States for the costs of incarcerating illegal aliens. For the COPS program, we provided the Senate level. We went up from the House level of $268 million, which is the authorized level. We went up to $325 million, the Senate level that was a result of the amendment offered by Senator Biden on the other side of the Capitol. On top of that, though, we added the unused, unobligated balances that exist in the COPS program of $250 million. We freed that money up, a quarter of a billion dollars for COPS. On top of that, we gave nearly every penny the administration requested under the COPS program for technology programs. That is added in, for a grand total of $725 million for the COPS program. That is for COPS II, which is not authorized. COPS I runs out this year. We gave in this bill the $268 million in the House version that would have funded the authorized level. We went beyond that to a total of $725 million, even though it is not authorized, in an attempt to meet the administration's request for more funds. In Commerce, we fully fund the census. We do not require that there be a ban on sampling. We will let the courts decide that one. For the rest of Commerce, the Senate was $850 million above the House level, much of it in NOAA. We have come up significantly above the House level, $275 million in NOAA alone above the House, and $60 million for the Pacific Salmon Recovery program to be of great assistance to the West Coast States of Washington, Oregon, California, and Alaska. For the Judiciary, we provide $60 million more than the House. We solve the judges' cost-of-living adjustment that is required, and we solve the life insurance problem that had been of such great concern to the Judiciary. For the Department of State, we fully fund the request for embassy security overseas, every penny. In fact, we made the administration request more money. We have fulfilled that request. We fully fund and pay for every penny of our current contributions to the U.N. We are paying our dues annually. We provide the money for the arrears, subject to authorization. Overall, Mr. Speaker, it is a good bill. I would hope our colleagues would support it. [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] TH20OC99.001 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] TH20OC99.002 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] TH20OC99.003 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] TH20OC99.004 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] TH20OC99.005 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] TH20OC99.006 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] TH20OC99.007 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] TH20OC99.008 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] TH20OC99.009 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] TH20OC99.010 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] TH20OC99.011

Mr. ROGERS. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days within which to revise and extend their remarks on the conference report to accompany H.R. 2670, and that I may include tabular and extraneous material.

Mr. ROGERS. Mr. Speaker, pursuant to House Resolution 335, I call up the conference report to accompany the bill (H.R. 2670) making appropriations for the Departments of Commerce, Justice, and State, the Judiciary, and related agencies for the fiscal year ending September 30, 2000, and for other purposes, and ask for its immediate consideration.

Mr. ROGERS. Mr. Speaker, reclaiming my time, does the gentleman realize that the President's request was for zero dollars for the Local Law Enforcement Block Grant which funds your local law enforcement agencies, sheriff's offices, and police departments? The President's request was zero. Now, yes, we did include money there, $523 million. But I think we could count that toward the COPS total, which would get us up to the total of $1.3 billion, which was the President's request. I think the bill is absolutely fair, more than fair, even in getting monies to their local law enforcement agencies. I would argue with anybody who says we were not generous, overly generous, more than the Administration's request, in fact, for their local law enforcement agencies.

Mr. ROGERS. Mr. Speaker, reclaiming my time, do I understand the gentleman to say that we are not spending enough money out of the Social Security Trust Fund?

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

Mr. ROGERS. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding. What we did on COPS, if the gentleman would like to hear this, we agreed to the amount that Senator Biden on the Senate side, a Democrat, asked for. Plus we added on top of that $250 million in carry-over funds which were not being spent. On top of that, we also agreed to $150 million more for the COPS program for the technology portion the Administration requested under the COPS program. For a total of $725 million. That is twice what Senator Biden on the Senate side asked for, and it is almost $500 million more than the authorization by law that exists in the Congress. Now, on top of that, we also provided $523 million for the local law enforcement block grant, which I am sure the gentleman would want his local police to be able to get at. They do not have to go through a bureaucracy at the State level or the regional level to get those dollars, and they do not have to pay a local match. It is 100 percent money that we will give to their local police. They can use it for bulletproof vests. They can use it for police radios. They can use it for salaries if they want, firearms, bullets, whatever they want. It is not restricted like the COPS program is. So what I am saying to the gentleman is, there is $725 million in the COPS program. There is $523 million in the local law enforcement block grant program. That brings us to $1.3 billion, which is what the administration requested. Mr. Speaker, what is their problem? We have provided tons and tons of money for the COPS and associated programs, not to mention the Byrne Grant program for local law enforcement funded at $552 million and the State Truth-in-Sentencing Grant funded at $686 million. There is the Juvenile Justice programs funded at $28.7 million. There is the School Violence Program funded at $225 million. There is Violence Against Women Act monies funded at $28.4 million. There is $40 million for drug courts. There is $40 million for the Weed and Seed program. And I could go on.

Mr. ROGERS. Mr. Speaker, I hope the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Stupak) realizes that the bill contains $725 million for programs which the President has requested in COPS. The authorized level is only $268 million. We are funding it at $500 million more than the authorization level. In fact, the $325 million that we agreed to with the Senate was the amount that Senator Biden had asked for on the Senate side, and the Senate approved that, and we agreed to that.

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

Mr. ROGERS. Mr. Speaker, if the gentlewoman will continue to yield, I cannot argue with the characterization of the gentlewoman.

Mr. ROGERS. Mr. Speaker, the gentlewoman from Texas (Ms. Jackson-Lee) would be happy to hear that we funded every single penny the administration requested for the services in the INS. Every penny they wanted, they got.

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

Mr. ROGERS. Mr. Speaker, reclaiming my time, I shall stay in touch with the Census Bureau Director, and we will respond to his legitimate need.

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

Mr. ROGERS. Mr. Speaker, if the gentleman from Ohio would stay at the microphone, I will try to respond. The frameworks that the gentleman is talking about, where we have placed specific amounts of monies in each framework, one of those frameworks is $3.5 billion. The Congress, as the gentleman well knows, exercises oversight through the Committee on Appropriations of every agency that we fund, including the Census Bureau. And I think that is the duty to the taxpayers that we owe to oversee these agencies, particularly one with the leeway to spend $3.5 billion with no accounting to the Congress. The reason it is in bill language is because in the past, with report language, they simply ignored the Congress. We simply cannot let that happen again. Now, I will say this to the gentleman. If the Director of the Census Bureau, during the course of the year, needs to reprogram monies from one account to the other through the reprogramming process, it only requires the signature of the chairman of the House subcommittee, myself, and my counterpart in the Senate. I assured the director and I assure the gentleman that if that reprogramming request is in order and is legitimate and needed, he will have the approval within 72 hours, maximum, of the time he requests it. There will be no huge delays. There will be no harassment. There will be no intimidation or anything of that sort. But there will be some oversight. I think the gentleman, as a Member of this body, would want the Congress to exercise oversight over every agency that we fund of the executive branch, because that is our duty under the Constitution. I would hope the gentleman would recognize that that is necessary in this respect.

Mr. ROGERS. Reclaiming my time, Mr. Speaker. As I said, I talked to the director a few days ago. I think we resolved that problem. Perhaps the gentlewoman needs to talk to him now.

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

Mr. ROGERS. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding me this time. If the gentlewoman would hear me. The gentlewoman is concerned about the earmarked monies by category in the census appropriations. The gentlewoman would understand that is what we do in every agency. That is a routine practice of the Congress, when the gentlewoman was in the majority and as well here. We are an oversight committee. That is done in every single agency that we have. I talked to the Director of the Census a few days ago about, he was concerned, and I assured him that that is an oversight matter that the Congress does in every agency that we fund, and that if he needed to reprogram monies from one account to the other, we can do it in a matter of hours, really, days at most. It just requires the signature of myself and my counterpart in the Senate. We want to see a good count. We have not insisted on a banning sampling. All the money is there. We will reprogram the monies as necessary during the year. We do it routinely in other agencies, dozens of requests come to our desk to reprogram funds. That is not a problem, and I think the director understands that. I would hope the gentlewoman would not vote against the conference report on that account because that is a routine practice of the Congress.

Mr. ROGERS. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Georgia for yielding this time. I want to take a couple of minutes only at this point in the debate. I will reserve my main argument until we get to the bill itself. But I wanted to correct a couple of statements that the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Obey) has just made. In the COPS program, one of the sticking points, admittedly, with the administration, the House- passed bill contained $268 million. We agreed to the Senate version, which is $325 million. But on top of that, we freed up another $250 million in carryover funds that were not being spent last year into the COPS program. On top of that, we then added an additional $150 million which the administration requested in the COPS technology program. We funded that under the COPS program. So lo and behold, all of a sudden, in the COPS program, there is not the $325 million the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Obey) just said there was. There is $725 million. We have gone a long way toward meeting the administration's problem with this bill. We have gone more than halfway. I would hope that the administration and the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Obey) would compliment us for that and, in fact, would quit this rampage against this and all other spending bills, and realize there is an effort here to try to meet them halfway and be reasonable. We are trying to be fair with them. When we offer them fairness, they come back with this tirade. I do not understand that kind of business. The gentleman from New York (Mr. Serrano) on the subcommittee, my ranking Democrat, has been perfectly capable in working with us. He has worked in a bipartisan, nonpartisan way, as have we. With reward for that, what we get from the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Obey) is a tirade. I do not work that way. We have tried to go more than halfway on the COPS program, and we have. Now, all the appropriators can do, speaking of U.N. arrears, all we can do is provide money. The gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Obey) knows that above anybody. He is ranking on the full committee. We have laid the money on the table, every single penny that it would take to pay off our arrears at the U.N. We all want to do that. We laid the money on the table. We are not the authorizing committee. What is the Committee on International Relations of the House? It is the authorizing committee. We said, here is the money. Pass an authorization bill, and it will be paid. All we can do is offer the money. We have done that. Every single penny to pay the U.N. arrears is laying on the table. All they have to do is reach down, pick it up and pay that bill, and it is all over with. In addition, we have provided every single penny for our current dues to the U.N. It is laying there ready to be paid when the President signs the bill. All he has to do is sign this bill. We will pay the U.N. current assessment, and we will pay the arrears. The President, and the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Obey) should recommend it to him; he can sign the bill. The money is laying there. All he has to do is reach down and pick it up. No worries about the votes in the U.N., no worries about current assessments. All is at peace with the world. Just pick it up and take it and pay the bills. So I find it strange, I find it partisanly strange, that the gentleman from Wisconsin takes the floor in a tirade against a bill that we have gone so far in being fair in addressing the concerns of the White House. And if the bill is vetoed, I assure the gentleman this bill will come back in a much different form.