Hal Rogers

Mr. ROGERS

Mr. ROGERS. Mr. Speaker, I join the gentleman in opposing this motion. Mr. Speaker, I understand the concerns of the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Upton) that filed the motion and the others who are in favor of this motion to instruct. Let me say this: The conference with the Senate is concluded and the bill will be filed in a matter of minutes, certainly maybe an hour or so or less. So the conference is concluded and we will have the conference report on the floor, I hope, tomorrow. Nevertheless, this is an issue that we have all struggled with. It is a tough one. But the motivation behind section 110, of course, as the gentleman from Texas has said, is to try to close the biggest loophole that we have in illegal immigration. Upwards of 40 percent, I am told, of all illegal entries that the country has start out to be legal. They come in on a visa and then simply overstay. Forty percent of the illegal immigrants in the country came to the country in that fashion, and we have no way of checking to see who is here on an overstay. This section 110 was an attempt to be able to check off of the list those who are simply here overstayed on a visa, of course, legally entering with that passport. As the gentleman has said, the implementation of the system is required by the law to ``not significantly disrupt trade, tourism, or legitimate cross-border traffic at land border points of entry.'' That has to be addressed by the INS as they implement the law. We want to work with our colleagues to be sure that we do not disrupt the normal legitimate traffic across the borders. It is very important to us and, of course, very important to our neighbors, and there is technologically, I think, ways that that can be done. INS is now examining those ways. Perhaps it is electronic reading of a vehicle as it comes across the border. Perhaps it is a fast lane, as we have now in Southern California, that allows traffic to bypass the regular stop and be read by a machine as they motor past the checkpoint at a rapid rate of speed. We think there are ways this can be done, all the while achieving the goal that we have set; and that is to try to close this enormous loophole in the illegal immigration into the country by using the visa system and simply overstaying the time on the card. I think it can be done. We want to work with our colleagues to make that happen. But we hope that the motion to instruct conferees will be defeated so that we can proceed to try to close the loophole as we recognize the legitimate crossings that take place every hour and every day by people who commute either for tourism or business into and out of this country. So I would hope that we could defeat the motion. I will be happy to say to the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Upton) and others who are in favor of the motion that we will be happy to work with them on ways to get both of our goals achieved.

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

Mr. ROGERS

Mr. ROGERS. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding this time to me, and, Mr. Speaker, I am in opposition to this motion. As the gentleman from New York (Mr. Serrano) has just said, we had to interrupt a meeting of the conferees that Members of the Senate and the House who are downstairs in Room H-140 of this building in the Capitol; we had to interrupt the deliberations almost as we were concluding in order to rush up here to discuss this motion to instruct the conferees. Mr. Speaker, we are already working to do as the gentleman in his motion hopes. We are working within the overall framework set by the leadership to meet all of the relevant goalposts including saving Social Security. We are working to reduce spending for nonessential programs. And if the gentleman would like to attend the conference, I will invite him as my guest to sit at the table and to observe the nonessential spending that we have already cut from this bill, particularly several hundred million dollars worth of items that were in the Senate bill that no longer exists because the House conferees insisted that that nonessential spending be cut. We are working to preserve funding for critical law enforcement programs. The Senate bill was a billion dollars below the House for the Department of Justice; that is the FBI, that is the DEA, that is the INS; that is most of the law enforcement of the Federal Government in this country is in this bill. We have managed to get that money back in place in this conference. Mr. Speaker, we are working to get a bill that is acceptable to both the House and the Senate, and that is a job in and of itself because the bodies passed radically different bills. And we are trying to mesh them into something that both bodies can now agree on those changes. We are working to give our best shot to produce a bill that has a shot at least of being signed into law by the President. So my colleagues have to take into account in this divided government the desires of the administration; there is no way around that. We are working to do all that I have talked about and to spend as few dollars as possible, but the fundamental point is that we are working within the framework laid down by our leadership that will meet the targets for spending and protecting Social Security, as the gentleman wants. Mr. Speaker, I simply ask of the body: Let us do our job. Let us bring our work to a conclusion, I hope tonight, and then we will lay it on the floor here, hopefully tomorrow, and let our colleagues judge the bill and vote up or down on the product that we produce. So the process is working. We are going to see the product tonight or tomorrow, and then our colleagues can make their judgment. But beforehand to try to prejudge what the conferees are doing in the middle of our work is a little bit like saying to Picasso while he is half finished with a painting, ``Let's throw it out, it's not worth looking at.'' I do not want to be compared to Picasso, but let us finish our work, and then my colleagues can judge it according to their desires at that time. So, Mr. Speaker, I urge a no vote on the motion to instruct conferees so that we can go back to work and finish this bill tonight.

Mr. ROGERS

Mr. ROGERS. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to voice my concerns with an item contained in H.R. 2116, the Veterans Millennium Health Care Act, which passed the House last Tuesday with overwhelming support. Let me first say that I voted in favor of this bill, and believe its passage was long overdue. This bill ensures the continuation of vital healthcare services for our Nation's veterans into the next century by reforming many aspects of delivery and support services. The veterans who have so bravely served each and every one of us deserve our highest respect and they deserve a Federal Government that lives up to its commitment to them. With the aging of our veteran population, there is a greater need for long-term care, and this bill sends a strong message that America is prepared to live up to that commitment by expanding these services. Unfortunately, there is one concept contained in this legislation which I oppose. The Veterans Tobacco Trust fund, contained in section 203 of the bill, requires that a certain percentage of any proceeds recovered from tobacco manufacturers, as a result of a U.S. Government lawsuit, be transferred to a special account within the Treasury to treat smoking-related illnesses for veterans. While I support the Federal Government providing adequate resources to the VA to combat and treat smoking-related or any other illnesses, this language legitimizes Federal lawsuits against tobacco companies. That is wrong. As we saw yesterday, the Justice Department finally unleashed its forces on tobacco by filing a suit in U.S. court, seeking to recover billions in health-related costs to the government. The administration is proceeding with a politically motivated, and legally suspect, attack on a private industry that manufactures and sells legal products. If successful, this action will further damage the farm economies of Kentucky and other States. I believe it is hypocritical for the Department to propose spending millions of taxpayer dollars trying to develop a legal basis for yet another lawsuit. After all, the Federal Government has earned billions of dollars on the sale of tobacco, through Federal excise taxes, and warned the public about the risks of smoking through labels for decades. It also is hypocritical for this body to pass an appropriations bill that denies funding for a tobacco lawsuit, to then turn around and set up a trust fund in anticipation of receiving proceeds from one. Section 203 is unnecessary for achieving the objective of improving veterans' health care. It also can be interpreted to implicitly encourage civil actions by the Federal Government made against private industries, including, but not limited to, tobacco related products. I hope that during the further consideration of H.R. 2116, the House and the other body will agree to omit section 203 from the bill.

Mr. ROGERS

Mr. ROGERS. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, I will be brief. This is a motion that we can agree to. It is not controversial, at least on this side of the Capitol. It may be when we reach the other body. But the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Obey) is correct. After the embassy bombings in Africa, the administration made announcements that they were going to pursue embassy security around the world in a much more vigorous way, something that we agree with here in this subcommittee and I think the full Congress. But then when the administration sent their budget to the Hill, we looked very quickly to the section dealing with embassy security and maintenance of U.S. missions abroad, and found that there was an absolutely inadequate request. When the Secretary came to testify before the subcommittee, the request, I think, was for $36 million. We told the Secretary that the request was absolutely inadequate, that we had to pay attention to the problems that were being presented to us around the world in the way of threats to our personnel, and we asked her to go back to the White House and to come up with an amended request. In due course of time, they did just that. And so the request, then, from the administration was amended. They requested an additional $264 million, for a total of $300 million for a security capital construction program. And that is exactly the dollar figure that the subcommittee, the full committee and now the full House included in this appropriation bill. The Senate bill is at $36 million for this program. That is the original request level. The Crowe Commission, named for Admiral Crowe who headed it up, dealing with embassy security, had called for a major investment in new secure embassy facilities. That followed on the heels of many other requests by various commissions down through the years. And so we stand ready to pursue the full House figure. We hope we can convince our colleagues across the Capitol that this level of funding is necessary. I commend the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Obey) for bringing the matter to the attention of the body, and it is a matter that we can fully agree upon. I urge the adoption of the motion. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. ROGERS. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to take from the Speaker's table 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, with a Senate amendment thereto, disagree to the Senate amendment, and agree to the conference asked by the Senate.

Mr. ROGERS

Mr. ROGERS. Mr. Chairman, on this amendment I reserve a point of order.

Mr. ROGERS. Mr. Speaker, I rise in opposition to the motion to recommit. Mr. Speaker, this bill provides $268 million, that is the authorized level, for fiscal 2000 for the COPS program. Every penny of the authorized level is in this bill. About 3 weeks ago there was a big ceremony down at the White House where they celebrated, they say, the addition and the completion of the COPS program, 100,000 cops on the beat. Now they want a new program. We fully funded the COPS program as we have known it. Now they want a new program. In fact, the administration's request is not only not authorized, but the administration has not even bothered to submit authorizing legislation for this new $1.3 billion program. Instead of the administration's so-called COPS II program, this bill provides big grant programs for our local and State police. It gives our local governments the ability to decide how best to spend the money on fighting crime, not what some bureaucrat in Washington says we should do in spending the money. By the way, on school violence, in this bill is $192.5 million for school violence programs, $130 million for local law enforcement technology grant, $25 million for bulletproof vests for law enforcement, and $285 million for juvenile justice prevention programs. In this bill is the Congressional version of COPS, the local grants that allow our communities to decide how and when to spend the money. It does not require a matching grant, as does the COPS program. We give it all, and we do not limit it to what they can spend it for. In this bill we provide $1.2 billion, more than the administration requested, for State and local law enforcement; $523 million for local law enforcement block grants, they requested zero; $686 million for truth-in-sentencing block grants, they requested $75 million; $250 million for the juvenile accountability block grant, they requested zero; $585 million for the State Criminal Alien Assistance Program, more than they requested; $552 million for the Byrne Grant Program, for which they requested $100 million less. These grants provide the assistance to our State and local law enforcement that they want, not what the bureaucrats in Washington want. These are the programs, my colleagues, that would be required to be cut to fund this new, unauthorized COPS program that the administration feels so strongly about that they have not even bothered to send up legislation to authorize it. These are the programs that have helped bring about the crime rate reductions that are making historic notes today. We can tell our colleagues today that, mainly because of the local block grants that this Congress provided over the last 3 years, the violent crime rate is at its lowest level since it has been recorded. These are the programs that would be cut by this recommittal amendment. Let me finish by saying this: This motion would kill this bill. It would require the whole bill to go back to subcommittee and full committee for re-hearings and a re-determination of how we would fund the cut required by this amendment. We would be here tomorrow, we would be here Saturday, we would be here next week, at least, trying to find the money. I urge a ``no'' vote.

Mr. ROGERS. Mr. Chairman, reclaiming my time, I thank the gentleman.

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

Mr. ROGERS. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the last word. Mr. Chairman, we are at the conclusion of this bill. We have several amendments ready for the Members to cast their votes on very shortly. Before we do that, I wanted to take a moment to thank some people for their help on this bill. This has been a tough bill to draft and to mark up and to process through this great body. We have had the cooperation of so many people. I want to first mention my compadre, my friend, our coworker, the gentleman from New York (Mr. Serrano), the ranking member of this subcommittee, who has been a real gentleman in his first year on the subcommittee, and that year as the ranking member. This is a tough bill to understand and to comprehend, it covers a lot of ground, and the gentleman did so with great grace and humor and expertise. I want to thank him personally, as well as the chairman of the full committee, the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Young) and the ranking member of the full committee, the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Obey), and all the members of the subcommittee who put so many hours into the hearings, a total of 23 hearings on this bill. I want to thank the members of the full Committee, and, of course, the Members of this body who have paid attention to this debate, who participated, who had a lot of amendments and had their full say. So we appreciate that very much. We would not be here without our staff on both sides of the aisle and of the Committee staff, who have done such a wonderful job in trying to keep track of all the amendments and all the major portions of this bill. The staff that is with us on the floor on both sides of the aisle, the staff in our offices, who participated in this as well. We could not be here without their great work in making this happen. I want to say also, and I think my colleagues would join me, in saying what a great job the Chairman of this Committee of the Whole has done in governing the debate of this bill. The gentleman from Washington (Mr. Hastings) has done a wonderful job, and we all appreciate the great fair-mindedness and fair-handedness with which he has handled this debate. We appreciate it.

Mr. ROGERS. Mr. Chairman, I appreciate the gentleman bringing his proposal to our attention. We have not really had a full amount of time to study the proposal, but I would be happy to work with him to enhance our enforcement efforts.

Mr. ROGERS. Mr. Chairman I move to strike the last word. I yield to the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Blagojevich) to engage in a colloquy.

Mr. ROGERS. I commend the gentleman for taking this active interest in the matter. I will continue to work with the gentleman to ensure that the system works as Congress intended.

Mr. ROGERS. Mr. Chairman, I would hope that the gentleman would be withdrawing the amendment.

Mr. ROGERS. Mr. Chairman, reclaiming my time, I thank the gentleman from New York (Mr. Lazio) on his leadership on this issue. I understand that the bill has a very good chance of being signed into law this year. My bill provides $60 million for grants authorized by the Crime Identification Technology Act of 1998 for grants to upgrade information and ID technologies. I believe that the authorizing legislation would include information systems like Jennifer's Law when enacted that would be covered by this grant program. I would be happy to continue to work with the gentleman from New York (Mr. Lazio) on this issue.

Mr. ROGERS. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the last word. Mr. Chairman, I yield to the gentleman from New York (Mr. Lazio).

Mr. ROGERS

Mr. ROGERS. Mr. Chairman, I yield to the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Obey).

Mr. ROGERS. Reclaiming my time, Mr. Chairman, our bill that is on the floor only contains two conditions. The authorization that would be forgiven by this amendment contains 18. The two conditions that are in the appropriation bill occur at page 80, and I quote Line 18: None of the funds appropriated or otherwise made available under this heading may be obligated or expended until such time as the share of the total of all assessed contributions for any designated specialized agency of the U.N. does not exceed 22 percent for any single member of the agency, and the designated specialized agencies have achieved zero nominal growth in their biennial budgets for 2000/2001 from the 1998/1999 levels. Those apply to three international organizations other than the U.N.

Mr. ROGERS. I yield to the gentleman from New Jersey.

Mr. ROGERS. Mr. Chairman, reclaiming my time, the gentleman will have to change the rules of the House. The Committee on Appropriations works subject to the authorization committees. We appropriate, they pass laws. I am still of the belief that the House rules should prevail.

Mr. ROGERS

Mr. ROGERS. Mr. Chairman, I appreciate the interest of the gentleman in this issue, obviously. It is my understanding that the matter is being addressed in the State Department authorization bill, which recently passed the House. I hope that we can continue to allow the authorizers to address this issue and would hope that the gentleman, in that light, could withdraw his amendment at this time.

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

Mr. ROGERS. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 3 minutes. Mr. Chairman, I rise in opposition. The amendment would give a 12 percent increase to EEOC. That would be on top of a whopping 15 percent increase for the current year. An increase of this magnitude would be totally out of place in this bill where the budgets of every single other related agency is frozen at best. Some are cut even beyond. Federal Communications Commission, frozen. Securities and Exchange Commission, frozen. Federal Trade Commission, frozen. The President's budget request for EEOC for 1999 promised that, if we provided $279 million, the backlog of private sector discrimination charges would be reduced to around 28,000 by the end of fiscal 2000. Well, we gave them $279 million, every penny. Guess what? The 2000 budget request said they really need $33 million more and 150 more staff to meet those very same targets they had earlier missed. This indicates that it is time to take a step back and see how the commission is able to absorb and put to good use the big increase we provided for this current year. I wish them well. We have confidence in the new chairwoman. But this is not the time for another huge funding increase. The offsets the gentleman proposes are totally unacceptable to this Member. The amendment would cut $4.6 million from one of the top priorities of this country, and that is providing security for our personnel in the embassies overseas. This would require cutbacks in security measures undertaken in the wake of the East Africa bombings, I will not tolerate that, Mr. Chairman. We pressed the administration to come forward with a request in their budget to address the security in the embassies. They have done so. We have made sacrifices in other parts of the bill to provide that money, the full amount requested to ensure that our personnel overseas are protected to the best we can from terrorist attacks. This is a critical requirement with life and death consequences as we saw so tragically last fall. In addition, the amendment takes an additional $21 million from the base operating costs of the State Department that are already funded at a level that is minimally adequate to allow the Department to continue to function near current levels. This cut would effectively freeze the Department at current levels and raise the possibility of post closings and reduction in personnel at the State Department. The amendment would take an additional $1.5 million from the educational and cultural exchange programs at a cap that is already reduced 14 percent from current levels. For these reasons, I urge a rejection of the gentleman's amendment. I wish we had more funding to provide increases in a number of agencies in the bill. But I believe it would be a serious mistake to cut State Department security funds and operating funds to provide a huge increase for the EEOC.

Mr. ROGERS. I do, Mr. Chairman.