Hal Rogers

Mr. ROGERS

Mr. ROGERS. Mr. Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. ROGERS. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. This is a noncontroversial amendment that all parties are in agreement with. It provides four main items which I will summarize and then hopefully yield back the balance of our time so that we can proceed. This is a manager's amendment that, first, provides flexibility to California so that they can use their State prison grant funds to fully fund the cost of incarcerating illegal aliens in the State, a particular problem in California. Second, it allows the Economic Development Administration funding to be used for trade adjustment assistance centers, as has been the case in past years. Third, it increases funding for the national marine sanctuaries program by $1.68 million to last year's level, offset by decreasing funding for satellites by the same amount. Fourth and finally, it provides $2 million for the Commission on the Advancement of Federal Law Enforcement recently authorized under the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996. Those are the four main provisions in the amendment, Mr. Chairman. They are noncontroversial. I am prepared shortly to yield back the balance of my time, unless there are other Members who desire to be heard.

Mr. ROGERS. Mr. Chairman, the authorization chairman is correct. My amendment adds language to the bill which specifies that the funds provided in the bill are only for the purpose of closing out all commitments under the ATP program.

Mr. ROGERS. Mr. Chairman, I yield the balance of my time to the gentlewoman from California [Mrs. Seastrand].

Mr. ROGERS. Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the very able gentleman from Illinois [Mr. Weller].

Mr. ROGERS. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from Kansas [Mrs. Meyers], the very able chairwoman of the Committee on Small Business of this House, a Member who is departing this House after this term, regrettably. (Mrs. MEYERS of Kansas asked and was given permission to revise and extend her remarks.)

Mr. ROGERS. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from Maryland [Mrs. Morella]. (Mrs. MORELLA asked and was given permission to revise and extend her remarks.)

Mr. ROGERS. Mr. Chairman, I offer an amendment.

Mr. ROGERS. Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from New Hampshire [Mr. Zeliff].

Mr. ROGERS. Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Pennsylvania [Mr. Gekas], the chairman of the Subcommittee on Commercial and Administrative Law of the Committee on the Judiciary.

Mr. ROGERS. Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from New York [Mr. Forbes], a very able and hard-working member of our subcommittee.

Mr. ROGERS. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Texas [Mr. Smith], the chairman of the Subcommittee on Immigration and Claims of the Committee on the Judiciary.

Mr. ROGERS. Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Illinois [Mr. Hastert], the very distinguished chief deputy majority whip. (Mr. HASTERT asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. ROGERS. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from New York [Mr. Gilman], the very able chairman of the Committee on International Relations of this House. (Mr. GILMAN asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. ROGERS. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Arizona [Mr. Kolbe], a very hardworking member of this subcommittee who has given us a lot of help in constructing this bill. (Mr. KOLBE asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. ROGERS. Mr. Chairman, I offer an amendment.

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

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

Mr. ROGERS. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the last word.

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

Mr. ROGERS. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Chairman, this $29.5 billion appropriations bill for the Departments of Commerce, Justice, State, the Judiciary, and related agencies for fiscal 1997, opens a new chapter in our effort to bring crime and drugs and our borders under control. It is a bill that puts the Congress on record as being willing to put the resources that are required to restore safety to our neighborhoods and make our citizens safe in their homes and on their streets. It is a bill that proposes funding to attack real life problems that exist today. Let me spell out what the problems that are confronting our Nation are in this arena, Mr. Chairman. One is drugs. The administration is sending a giant smokescreen to cover up its abject failure in the fight against drug use. All we hear is that cigarette smoking is so terrible and we have to wipe out this scourge on America's teenagers. They do not talk about the real problem with teenagers, and that is drugs, hard drugs. They are not just bad; they kill, and they cause people to kill others. Drugs: After a decade of decline since 1992, overall drug use is on the rise again, and if my colleagues would notice on the chart the farthest away, prior to 1992 the number of Americans using illicit drugs plunged from 24.7 million in 1979 to 11.5 million in 1992, and the casual use of cocaine fell by 79 percent between 1985 and 1992. Overwhelming evidence shows a sharp and growing increase in drug use among young people since 1992, as that chart dramatically shows. Teenage drug use has increased by 50 percent from 1992 to 1994, from 2.4 million teen drug users to 3.8 million. Do my colleagues know what happened when that valley occurred in those charts over there? That is when the Clinton administration came in and cleaned out the drug policy office of the White House, and all of a sudden teenage drug use skyrocketed and is still doing so. Now I turn my colleagues' attention to this chart nearest to me. Since 1992, marijuana use by eighth graders has increased by 146 percent; among tenth graders, by 123 percent; and today one out of three high school seniors smoke marijuana. The new approach to drug policy announced in September 1993, which promised to, ``reinvent drug control programs'' had the following effects: purity of drugs is up; supply of drugs is up; the cost of drugs is down. And we can see by the chart the results in high school marijuana use in our country. This bill provides over $1 billion to the Drug Enforcement Administration, $173 million more than the current year, a 20-percent increase, including a major $75 million initiative on source country interdiction, restoring the policy that existed before this administration abandoned efforts to block drugs at the source, and $56 million to stop drug trafficking on the Southwest border where 70 percent of the drugs in the United States come into this country. We are reigniting the war on drugs to reverse the increase in drug use since 1992. That is problem 1: Drugs. Problem 2: Our borders are still out of control. The administration's illegal alien strategy is leaking like a sieve. Illegal aliens are being caught and then, because we do not have the space to detain them, they are being released. INS first said they would deport 110,000 with the extra money we gave them the last 2 years. Now they are saying only 62,000 will be deported. That is half of what they first said and that is not acceptable. Seventy percent of our drugs come in across the Southwest border, yet alien drug dealers are being caught and released back across the Southwest border because they do not have the jail space to hold them for trial. Here is what we are going to do in this bill. INS is funded at $2.2 billion, $443 million more than the current year, $30 million more than the President wants, a 26-percent increase over the current year. We provide for 1,100 new border patrol agents compared with 700 that the President has requested of us. A $114 million increase for removal of illegal aliens, $78 million more than the President wanted, including 2,700 more detention beds so that illegal aliens can be held until they are deported. We provide $405 million for Federal prisoner detention, $152 million more than the current year. That is for jail space to jail illegal alien drug smugglers until we can try them and then deport them. With this 26-percent increase we are plugging the holes in the administration's sieve that they call a border policy. That is problem 2. Problem 3: Violence against women and children. The administration is all talk and no action. We gave them $175 million this year. Do my colleagues know how much they have spent for violence against women? Guess. My colleagues you say 50 percent? No. Would my colleagues say a tenth? No. They have spent less than a half a million dollars out of $175 million, and they have had the program for 2 years. It is all talk, my colleagues, no action. We provide $197.5 million for violence against women, half a million dollars more than they want, $22.5 million more than the current year, and hope that they will spend it because we cannot spent it for them. They will have to spend it in grants. They talk about stopping violence against women. We gave them the money 2 years ago, and they sit on it. Enough is enough. We do not want talk, we want action. That is problem 3. Problem 4: Juvenile crime. While railing against teenagers smoking cigarettes, this administration is letting teens get by with murder and hard drugs. Talk about a real smokescreen, they really got one going here. Let me show my colleagues by this chart to my left. One of every five violent crimes is now committed in this country by a juvenile. The FBI's report on crime showed in 1994, 17 percent of all murders were committed by juveniles. Fifth-five percent of all arsons, 36 percent of all burglaries, 16 percent of aggravated assaults in 1995 were committed by juveniles. In addition to the $150 million in juvenile justice, we provide a $30.5 million incentive under the COPS Program to States that treat 14- year-olds as adults if they commit serious violent crimes. It is time to fight fire with fire on kids who choose violence. We provide $1.4 billion for the administration's COPS Programs and $571 million for the local law enforcement block grant, $68 million over the current year. We provide $560 million for the Byrne grants for locals to use. That is a $25 million increase. All Federal law enforcement agencies--the FBI and the DEA--all the Federal law enforcement agencies are above what the President requested of us. Overall for the Justice Department, we provide $16.3 billion for Department of Justice law enforcement programs, a $1.6 billion increase over the current year, an 11-percent increase. For the Judiciary, we provide an increase of $177 million up 5.8 percent, and we have provided for all of these increases by scraping the bottom of the barrel in other agencies. We had no choice. In Commerce, we provide $3.5 billion for Commerce, down $120 million. We provide $110.5 million for the advanced technology program, half the 1996 level, to provide continuation grants for small businesses, not to subsidize Fortune 500 companies, which they are doing now. We increase the Census for the year 2000 census by $55 million, and we preserve trade promotion and basic science R&D in the Commerce Department. In the State, USIA, and Arms Control Disarmament Agency Chapter, we are under $5 billion, down $128 million from 1996. We include $50 million for payment of U.N. peacekeeping arrearages conditioned on U.N. reform. Mr. Chairman, with regard to the ongoing U.N.-sponsored negotiations on global climate change, I understand that the United States has agreed to negotiate a protocol or other legal instrument in 1997 which may set quantified limitation and reduction objectives for greenhouse gas emissions effective after the year 2000. These negotiations take place under the auspices of the 1992 Framework Convention on Climate Change, which requires that any proposed protocol or amendment to the convention be communicated to parties to the convention at least 6 months prior to proposed adoption. Because of the impact such proposals could have on U.S. companies and workers, the State Department and other U.S. Government agencies should fully analyze the economic impact of any proposal to set binding limits and timetables before adopting a U.S. negotiating position. We fund the Legal Services Corporation at $141 million. The Committee on Appropriations has been required to act without the benefit of needed authorization legislation that should be passed that we set the policy of how this House and this Congress want to assure access to legal services by poor people. We are providing a level of funding in this bill that will permit the current system to remain in place at reduced levels, to spur policy decisions on that issue that are not within the jurisdiction of our committee. Funding is terminated for several smaller organizations, as we try to tighten our belt wherever we can. In summary, Mr. Chairman, I want to thank my ranking member, the gentleman from West Virginia, Mr. Mollohan, who has been very, very helpful in this process, a true partner in drawing this bill, making the tough decisions; the gentleman from Louisiana, Bob Livingston, the chairman of the full committee and a stalwart when it came to providing funding necessary in this bill; the ranking member, the gentleman from Wisconsin, Mr. Obey, who has been helpful; and, of course, all of the hard-working members of this subcommittee. We have some of the best in this body. I thank them for all of their work. Overall, the Commerce, Justice, State appropriations bill opens a new chapter in our effort to bring crime, drugs, and borders under control. We set priorities, we make tough decisions, and we reduce spending on low-priority programs. We assert leadership to reignite the war on drugs, to make up for the Administration that has been woefully lacking on this issue. It plugs the holes in our borders by assuring we not only apprehend illegal immigrants and drug traffickers, we incarcerate and deport them. We put our priorities where they belong: in fighting the war on crime and protecting our citizens in their homes across this great country. I urge our colleagues to support this bill. It is one that I think they can proudly support. I certainly urge them to do so. Mr. Chairman, I include for the Record the following information: [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] TH23JY96.000 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] TH23JY96.001 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] TH23JY96.002 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] TH23JY96.003 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] TH23JY96.004 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] TH23JY96.005 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] TH23JY96.006 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] TH23JY96.007 Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. ROGERS

Mr. ROGERS. Mr. Chairman, we can cut this short. I want to commend the gentleman. I have no objection to the gentleman's amendment.

Mr. ROGERS. Mr. Chairman, I want to accept the gentleman's amendment.

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

Mr. ROGERS

Mr. ROGERS. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days in which to revise and extend their remarks on the bill (H.R. 3814) making appropriations for the Departments of Commerce, Justice, and State, the Judiciary, and related agencies for the fiscal year ending September 30, 1997, and for other purposes, and that I be permitted to include tables, charts, and other extraneous material.