Dana Rohrabacher

Mr. ROHRABACHER

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, Jackson-Vanik, this waiver we are talking about, yes, it deals with immigration. For the record, I have a statement issued by the United States embassy in Bangkok on July 14 of this year stating that the orderly departure program has some severe problems. So much for all the progress we have made for Jackson-Vanik just in terms of the immigration issue. We are also told that there has been so much progress in other areas, especially in the area of democratization, which is not directly to Jackson-Vanik. But the fact is today all of us understand that we are sending a message to Vietnam, and that by moving forward in the area of Jackson-Vanik, we are giving them the idea that they can get away with the type of repression that they have been getting away with and still have better trading relations and make more money off their relations with the United States. I have something here, a report just yesterday, August 2, talking about in Hanoi where the government in Hanoi has declared they will not tolerate any other political parties except the Communist Party of Vietnam. I will submit both of those for the record. Let us get right down to brass tacks. Over this last year since we came here and went along with the Jackson-Vanik waiver that this administration has decided to give to the communist government of Vietnam, there has been no human rights progress. There has been no political parties that have been able to be formed. There has been no more free speech. There has been no examples whatsoever of more freedom of the press. There have been many examples also of repression of religious individuals. So we have no progress on that front whatsoever. I would hope that my colleagues, maybe they can enlighten me to the parties that are springing up in opposition to the Communist Party or these other examples of freedom of speech or freedom of press or freedom of religion that are nonexistent. Please, tell us about that. No, that does not exist in Vietnam. That is why we will not hear about that and have not heard about it in this debate. A constituent of mine, Mr. Ku Noc Dong, went back to Vietnam. He is an American of Vietnamese descent. He went back, and within 1 day he was thrown in jail. For what? For passing out leaflets talking about liberty and justice. He is imprisoned as we speak. Do not tell me there has been human rights progress in Vietnam. There has been none, and by moving on this legislation, we are giving the stamp of approval of this Congress on that type of behavior by this regime. Let me just suggest something else. We have heard about the progress in MIA/POWs. I totally reject that contention. I am afraid that some of our other Members, including our former distinguished Member, Mr. Peterson, are sadly misinformed about what is going on in this effort. I have two pictures that were taken that I would submit for the record of MIA/POWs who were incarcerated in Vietnam. Their remains were never returned. Plus, none of the records of the prisons that held our POWs has ever been made available to us after requests for those records of 5 years. Mr. Speaker, I would suggest that this body vote against the Jackson- Vanik waiver, and send the Vietnamese communists a message that we stand for freedom. Vietnam Communists Say To Keep Single-Party System Hanoi, Aug. 2, 1999 (Reuters).--A top ideologue from Vietnam's ruling Community Party said on Monday that Hanoi would not tolerate a multi-party system. ``The Communist Party of Vietnam is the leader of Vietnam's entire society, we will not accept any other parties or a multi-party system,'' said Dao Duy Quat, deputy head of the party's powerful Ideology and Culture Commission. He was speaking at a rare news conference held for foreign media and diplomats that discussed party-building and a two-year criticism and self-criticism campaign. But one veteran diplomat in Hanoi was unconvinced, questioning how legitimacy could be gauged when Vietnam's vast internal security machine went to such lengths to isolate or silence contradictory voices. ``They want power, on that there is no compromise,'' he said. ``They stamped out all opposition in the past--even those groups that supported the same aims--and see absolutely no reason to liberalise.'' Some foreign governments and international human rights groups say Vietnam imprisons people for the peaceful expression of political or religious beliefs--a charge that Hanoi denies. Quat said the party would not repress minority views unless people violated the law. Anti-socialist activities in Vietnam are treated as a crime.

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that I be allowed to yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Crane), and that he be allowed to control that time.

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from California (Mr. Royce).

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Mr. Speaker, I certainly appreciate the gentleman yielding me this time, as I am the author of the bill; and I wanted to have this opportunity to speak at this time. It has been 1 year since President Clinton issued the first Jackson- Vanik waiver for Vietnam. Unfortunately, there has been no progress concerning democracy and human rights in Vietnam. And more specifically, in violation of Jackson-Vanik, the U.S. Government reports systematic corruption in Vietnam's refugee program. My joint resolution disapproving Jackson-Vanik waivers for the Vietnamese dictatorship does not intend to isolate Vietnam nor stop U.S. companies from doing business there. It simply prevents Communist Vietnam from enjoying a trade status that enables American businessmen to invest there with loan guarantees and subsidies provided by the U.S. taxpayer. If private banks or insurance companies will not back up or insure private business ventures in Vietnam, American taxpayers should not be asked to do so. Rampant corruption and mismanagement are as valid a reason to oppose this waiver as repression in Vietnam. And during the last year, rather than open up its state-managed economy, the Vietnamese Communist regime has further tightened its grip. There has been no move whatsoever towards free elections. And yesterday's Reuters News Agency reported that the Vietnamese government announced that opposition parties will not be tolerated. This morning's Washington Times reports a new campaign in Vietnam to crush Christians. The lack of real progress to honestly resolve the MIA-POW cases and the continued persecution of America's former Vietnamese allies is why House Joint Resolution 58 is strongly supported by the American Legion, our country's largest veterans' organization, as well as other veterans' organizations and the National League of MIA-POW Families, and the National Alliance of POW-MIA Families.

Mr. ROHRABACHER

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong support of H.R. 1907, as amended. This bill is the culmination of a long process of negotiations that followed floor battles in the last Congress between the leadership of the Committee on the Judiciary and a group of Members led by myself. It was far more than sausage making because we have people with honest beliefs on both sides, and I certainly can see where people can have honest differences on something as complicated as patent law. I began this fight in 1994 when I fought against provisions that were inserted into the GATT trade agreement implementation bill to eliminate our Nation's traditional guarantee of a 17-year patent term in an attempt to harmonize our patent law with those of other nations with a 20-year-from-filing limit that was imposed through that legislation, thus taking away a guaranteed patent term that had been the right of every American inventor. This change, by the way, would have resulted in decreasing the patent term of every application held in the Patent Office for more than 3 years, which is a common occurrence with breakthrough technologies. I was further energized in this fight when additional changes in our patent system were proposed, including the publishing of all patent applications 18 months after filing, even when no patent had been issued, and establishing prior user rights for all inventions, opening up new opportunities to challenge already-granted patents through reexamination and the turning of the Patent Office into a government corporation. These things caused me great pain and concern. The battles we had ultimately resulted in a standoff in the Senate in which no patent legislation was adopted, and I am pleased to note that the negotiations I referred to earlier have resulted in a bill that is very much different than the patent bills that went through the Committee on the Judiciary last year and the fights we have had in the last 4 years. Instead of making minor, tenuous extensions in the patent term, H.R. 1907 goes most of the way in reversing the 1994 patent term reduction by extending patent term completely to compensate for delays in the processing of the Patent and Trademark Office or any other delay resulting from actions taken by anyone else other than the patent applicant. Instead of publishing all patent applications after 18 months, 1907 publishes only, only the pending applications that have been published abroad, and thus they are already published and already known to the people and only to the extent that they are published abroad. Instead of a prior user defense that applies to all inventions which we just heard a question about a moment ago, H.R. 1907 contains a very limited prior user defense that applies only to those business methods which have only been considered patentable in the last few years, and this, of course, flows from an adverse case before the court that changed patent law. We want to have our say in what is going on here, and we are correcting it in this legislation; and instead of corporatizing the Patent Office and removing civil service protection from patent examiners, H.R. 1907 leaves the PTO as an agency within the Department of Commerce while including valuable provisions keeping patent revenue within the Patent Office and providing for enhanced training and professional development for patent examiners and retaining their civil service status. Mr. Speaker, although as in all compromises both sides have to give up something, maybe a little, I would say that my Committee on the Judiciary colleagues will not mind that I am stating for the Record that I believe that H.R. 1907 represents a major victory for the independent inventor whose interests I have vigorously defended these past 5 years. I ask my colleagues to give H.R. 1907 their overwhelming support and to join me in urging the other body to take up this compromise as is and send it to the President for his signature without change. Mr. Speaker, I have some more detailed comments, and I will be inserting them at this point in the Record, but I would not want to let this moment go by without thanking the gentleman from North Carolina (Mr. Coble) who has, as my colleagues know, stepped forward in a spirit of compromise, and we have worked really hard on this; the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Hyde) who also played an important role in this. Their spirit of goodwill and the negotiations we have had have resulted in a superior bill that is going to do great things for America and to keep us technologically ahead. I also thank the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Manzullo). In his late- breaking contributions to this fight he has greatly improved this legislation, and he can be justly proud he has done a good job for America in doing so. Finally, I would like to thank the gentleman from California (Mr. Campbell) and the gentlewoman from Ohio (Ms. Kaptur), and Ms. Kaptur has been deeply involved in these negotiations from the beginning. Ms. Kaptur has been very deeply involved in this whole fight from the very beginning, and over the last 4 years she stood firm with us, and in fact in the last month we have had meetings in her office trying to negotiate these details out. We have been working with her staff, and I do not know, it sounds like we have not satisfied all of her concerns, but she has certainly played an important role in this process, and the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Kucinich) and the gentleman from California (Mr. Hunter). All of these people played such a significant role along with, of course, the gentleman from North Carolina (Mr. Coble) and the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Hyde) in giving us this incredible piece of legislation that I believe is going to do great things for America. Also, my staff members Rick Dykema and Wayne Paugh and other science fellows who worked with me, Paul Crilly, John Morgan, Biff Kramer, Dick Backe and Richard Cowan, for all the hard work they have put in on this piece of legislation. I urge my colleagues to support it. Mr. Speaker, for the last several years, this is a day I had hoped would come. I have fought long and hard to protect the products of our nation's independent inventors. I have fought diligently to strengthen our patent system and to prevent changes in the name of harmonization. Now, after the continued competition and polarization of the past, this was finally a time for cooperation. Chairman Coble and I have both spent many hours of individual effort pursuing our respective goals for patent reform the past several years, and indeed the time was ripe to work together toward a unified effort. It was time to have an open- ended process in which everyone had an opportunity to come to the table. With that, I am proud to say that after a long and successful negotiation period with my friend from North Carolina, Chairman Coble, and with the invaluable help of my fellow colleague from California, Mr. Campbell and with late-breaking help from my friend from Illinois, Mr. Manzullo, we were finally able to reach agreement on the issues. As was always the case, the devil has been in the details. Therefore, this has been a carefully crafted effort, but has resulted in a resounding victory for the United States patent system and the American inventor. title ii--first to invent defense act With regard to Title II, the First Inventor Defense, I have always held that we simply cannot champion trade secret protection over patent protection for clearly patentable subject matter. We cannot betray our Founding Fathers by abandoning the foundation upon which our patent system is based. We cannot openly advocate secrecy when our patent system calls for us to vigorously promote the progress of science through the sharing of critical technology. In the patent bill that passed the House last year, all patents were subjected to prior user rights. This Congress, we were initially able to limit this title to processes and methods only. More recently, however, we were able to even further limit this section to business methods only. This is an important limitation in scope to take note of because now Title II will not affect the vast majority of independent inventors and small businesses. A first inventor defense that is strictly limited to business methods will severely reduce its applicability. Furthermore, the defense applies only to business methods that have been reduced to practice at least one year prior to the effective filing date of the patent in question. Even further, to successfully use this defense a litigant must satisfy a clear and convincing evidentiary standard and risk being subjected to paying reasonable attorney fees to the prevailing party. Bottom line, the best defense to a charge of patent infringement will remain the successful assertion of invalidity, and not a first inventor defense. title iii--patent term guarantee act My goal all along has been to assure a minimum patent term of 17 years from the date a patent is granted. Failing that, I have insisted on a guarantee that the PTO will extend the patent term as necessary to assure a term of 17 years from filing for non-dilatory applicants. The language of this bill clearly codifies this approach. As everyone is aware, the current law governing patent term is 20 years from the date of file. Since June 8, 1995, when the 17-years- from-grant was changed, patents have been losing precious time under the current law. Inventors can no longer rely on a guaranteed term of protection. In some cases, several years of effective post-grant protection is lost due to Patent and Trademark Office (PTO) administrative delay. This title represents an opportunity to recapture some of the reliance of pre-GATT standards. By codifying what constitutes PTO delay, this title can compensate the patent applicant for lost time on a day-for-day basis without time limitation. Furthermore, if the PTO does not issue a patent within 3 years from the date of original file, the patent term will be compensated day-for-day until the patent issues, minus any time the applicant has delayed prosecution by engaging in dilatory behavior. This approach effectively eliminates the claimed submarine patent dilemma while providing a specific framework from which the Patent and Trademark Office must monitor and compensate the loss of any patent term due to delay for which the applicant has no responsibility. This approach essentially gives back to the non-dilatory patent holder what I have fought so hard for--a guaranteed 17 year patent term. The patentee once again will have the right to exclude the public from using his invention for a limited time--a time that is guaranteed and clearly defined. This Title essentially regains what GATT gave away. It has been my core initiative and now I am proud to say that it is my most significant success in this bill. title iv--publication of foreign applications act As I supported last year, this bill includes a provision similar in spirit to the amendment successfully offered last year to H.R. 400 by my friend from Ohio, Marcy Kaptur. Essentially, this year's effort only permits early publication of U.S. patent applications that are filed abroad in a country that also publishes early. Additionally, the U.S. application will not be published before the foreign application, and in no greater content. Curiously, this title has generated an abundance of controversy, although its provisions are of a positive nature. There are over 170 patent systems that currently exist globally. Our nation cannot control foreign policies on early publication. A majority of foreign nations choose to publish patent applications prior to granting a patent. The published patent application is also normally printed in the home language of each respective foreign patent system. Generally, this title will affect large corporations, because they are more likely to file abroad than the independent inventor community. Since American patent applications filed abroad are indeed published early and are in a foreign language, foreign nations have a chance to view them at their leisure. This is the reality and the argument from the other side in the last Congress that was the hardest to counter. Thus we have agreed to permit the PTO to publish after 18 months only those applications that are filed internationally. If an applicant files an application only domestically, he will have the unqualified right to maintain confidentiality of his patent application. If an applicant files abroad and domestically, he will have the right to limit the content of early domestic publication to that content which the foreign entity has published. In no event will America publish prior to the actual publication date in a foreign patent system. It's that simple. Also included, for those applications published early, is a provisional right which allows the patent holder to recover royalties for infringement activity during the pre-issuance period. There will also be no pre-issuance 3rd party opposition to the patent application permitted. Finally, the costs derived from early publication will be applied only to those applicants who are actually subjected to publication. Essentially, this title is reactive to circumstances beyond our control already present in many foreign patent systems, while going to lengths to protect the American inventor community. title v--patent litigation reduction act Considering both the patent holder and third party, reexamination is a seldom used process in proportion to the number of patent applications filed each year. Yet, when Congress originally enacted the reexamination statute it had an important public purpose in mind: to restore confidence in the validity of patents issued by the PTO. Specifically, three principal benefits were noted: 1. Resolve patent validity disputes more quickly and less expensively than litigation; 2. Permit courts to defer issues of patent validity to the expertise of the PTO; and 3. Reinforce investor confidence in the certainty of patents. Reexamination was enacted as an important step to permitting the PTO to better serve the public interest. As the Supreme Court stated in Graham v. Deere, ``it must be remembered that the primary responsibility for sifting out unpatentable material lies in the Patent Office. To await litigation is--for all practical purposes--to debilitate the patent system.'' The current statute permits any patent holder or third party to submit prior art in the form of prior patents and printed publications throughout the term of the patent for the PTO to determine whether a substantial new question of patentability exists. Reexam procedures currently limit a third party's participation to arguing why there is a substantial new question of patentability. This title was an attempt to provide an alternative to existing law and to further encourage potential litigants to use the PTO as a avenue to resolve patentability issues without expanding the process into one resembling courtroom proceedings. Fundamentally, in addition to the reexam process in law today, this title creates an additional reexam option that permits a 3rd party requestor to file additional written briefs. The price paid by those who would challenge a patent, however, is that the 3rd party requestor is barred from any appeals outside of the PTO and from subsequently litigating the same issues in a district court or making a second reexam request. This estoppel is the insulation that effectively protects patent holders. Ultimately, the expanded reexam option does not subject the patent to any greater challenge in scope than currently exists today. It merely allows a reexam requestor the option to further explain why a particular patent should not have been granted. Mr. Speaker, this bill does not create new opportunities to pursue litigation and does not create additional ways to invalidate patents. In fact, the bill seeks to provide even further ways to reduce the incentive for litigation in the courts and to protect against the needless wasting of dollars independent inventors don't have. conclusion Certainly, last year's bill was an exercise in harmonization brought about by the interests of large corporations. In contrast, this year's bill, H.R. 1907, is designed to protect the products of our nation's inventors and to help sustain our unprecedented technological leadership. I saw to that through many intense negotiations with my colleagues. Unfortunately, there are still those who cannot recognize victory even when it stares them in the face. I assure you, Mr. Speaker, that if H.R. 1907 was similar to either H.R. 400 or S. 507 last Congress, my views would not have changed this Congress. But that is not the case. H.R. 1907 is a brand new effort reached through an open-ended and fair debate, and it is a bill I am unequivocally supporting today. It is also a bill that I will stand firmly behind as it moves through the Senate. I know it is up to Congress to carry on the tradition of Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, and the will of our Founding Fathers. It was they who provided our newly formed nation with a foundation for freedom and the power to protect the achievements of our inventors. I have been intimately involved in these issues because I want to ensure that our patent system continues to respect the fundamentals of our Founding Fathers while at the same time enhancing its operability in modern society. We have a chance this Congress to enhance a system that better provides a stronger protection for our nation's inventors. Our patent system always has--and always will--stimulate the creation of jobs, advance our technological leadership, and help sustain our standard of living. It has helped to fortify our economic success, strengthen our national defense, and reinforce our global leadership. I look forward to passing this bill with the resounding support of my colleagues on the House side and I look forward to the unshakeable support for its text when it is reported in the Senate. I want to make sure that we will firmly stand behind the text of this bill in the event of contrary action by the Senate. But I am confident that the other noble body of this Congress will accept the House's efforts in patent reform and will move our version of the bill forward without delay. Mr. Speaker, I applaud my colleagues who have endured a labor- intensive process to reach the final accord we have today. I know it was not an easy thing to do and that it was a long time coming, but it is the American people who will ultimately benefit. This body can rest assured knowing we faithfully served American technology. Mr. Speaker, although I know there is much work left to do by way of vigilance and continued involvement, I am pleased looking back and realizing all the good work that has been accomplished so far.

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Point of order, Mr. Speaker. With all fairness here, claiming opposition is not what the question is. If the gentlewoman from Ohio is indeed opposed to the bill, she deserves to have this time as compared to someone who is unwilling to say that they are opposed to the bill.

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Continuing my point of order, Mr. Speaker, does the Member not just claiming opposition, does she oppose the bill?

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Mr. Speaker, I have a point of order.

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Mr. Speaker, I think we should pay tribute also to the gentlewoman from Ohio (Ms. Kaptur) who has put a lot work in on this. When she reads all of this, she is going to be so happy with this bill. The gentleman from North Carolina (Chairman Coble) has done a great job, and the gentlewoman from Ohio (Ms. Kaptur) is going to be happy with it.

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Mr. Speaker, let me just note that the section of the bill that the gentlewoman from Ohio (Ms. Kaptur) read and said, my gosh, we need to look at this more, and why just foist it on us, the gentlewoman from Ohio (Ms. Kaptur), that portion of the bill has not been changed and has been available for 3 or 4 months now. This is not something that somebody is moving through, trying to slide through the system. The gentlewoman is complaining about the section of the bill dealing with the 18-month publication. That has not changed. The gentlewoman has had that in her possession ever since it went through committee a couple months ago. Let me make one or two more points. We have in the last few days, most of what has been talked about, the gentlewoman did not get this 100-something page bill and never had a chance to read it. Most of that bill is exactly the same, and the changes that have taken place are small changes that were done in order, as the gentleman from North Carolina (Chairman Coble) said, to accommodate the very people that we have been trying to protect. Those changes are not so dramatic that it takes very long to digest them. It is not a 118 page bill that is shoved in your lap that is totally new. Almost all of that has been in your possession all of this time.

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

Mr. ROHRABACHER. I withdraw my point of order.

Mr. ROHRABACHER. If not, if she cannot state this, I would state as a point of order, the gentlewoman from Ohio (Ms. Kaptur), who does say she is opposed to the bill, this is not in my interest to do this, this is in the interest of fairness, we should make sure the time is allotted to someone who opposes the bill.

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

Mr. ROHRABACHER

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Mr. Chairman, I rise in support of the intent of the gentleman from Indiana (Mr. Burton) to send a message to India. I really actually admire India. India is a very large country that was created in a period of turmoil after the decline and the dissolution of the British Empire, and India has managed over the years, with great hardship, to have some fundamentally democratic institutions; and we should all recognize that they have elections there and have struggled to have independent courts and free elections and some kind of freedom of speech. There have been ups and downs. In fact, I believe that the American business community has made a tragic error in focussing on Communist China as being that country which would be the recipient of aid and the recipient of investment over the years, when India was there and ready and willing to be a country that could increase the standard of living of its people by industrializing and making itself more prosperous. However, let us recognize that with that that India has made some major errors and some of them are based totally on ego. And when it comes to the Kashmir and the Punjab and Jammu, the Indian Government might as well not be a democracy. For people in those areas, India might as well be Nazi Germany. It might as well not have free elections at all, because those people are being denied their right and have been all along, especially in Kashmir, to determine their own destiny through a plebiscite that was required of them by the United Nations. The Indian Government today has, as the gentleman from Indiana (Mr. Burton) pointed out, hundreds of thousands of troops occupying Kashmir; and many of these troops have engaged in, as troops do when they are in hostile territory, engaged in major human rights abuses that have been documented time and again by Amnesty International. There is really no doubt. Our own government's Human Rights department here and the State Department have documented these human rights abuses. And take a look at what is being said. The type of grotesque human rights abuses against the people of Kashmir is the very same things we saw Saddam Hussein committing and also Milosevic down there in Kosovo and against the Bosnians. These things require us to act and to treat India in a certain way to try to get them to change their behavior. First of all, and again let me go back to, India is a democratic government. I would hope people would invest in India, and I hope that the United States has closer ties to India in the future. Nothing would make that more likely than for them to seek peace in Kashmir by permitting the people there to have a vote of plebiscite which India, because of ego, continues to say no, no, no. And as long as that happens, India will be spending tens of millions if not hundreds of millions of dollars on weapons. Mr. Chairman, think of this. Today we are only talking about decreasing the foreign aid to India by $11 million, when the Indians themselves are spending hundreds of millions on conventional weapons and at least tens of millions, probably hundreds of millions, on nuclear weapons as well. That makes no sense at all for us to be subsidizing the weapons program of India. Instead, we should be sending this message to convince them to solve this long-festering problem in Kashmir and permit some of the democratic reforms to take place in Punjab and Jammu. This would be a very positive message for us to send for only an $11 million reduction. I would hope that my colleagues join me. I am sorry if there has been some kind of a drafting problem with this amendment, and I would hope that the gentleman from Indiana is permitted to solve that drafting problem here on the floor with some minor alteration of the text. Mr. Chairman, I ask support for the intent of the gentleman from Indiana (Mr. Burton).

Mr. ROHRABACHER

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Mr. Chairman, I rise to amend section 573 of H.R. 2606 that would assure that all U.S. funds appropriated by this act for Cambodia, including humanitarian and education programs, are distributed through nongovernmental agencies. The government of Cambodia, led by former Khmer Rouge field commander Hen Sen, a brigade commander under Pol Pot, who was up to his elbows in blood during the Pol Pot massacres, is notorious for corruption and mismanagement. In fact, the most highly acclaimed internationally funded aid program for land mine clearing, run by the Cambodian government, has just been exposed for rampant graft and corruption. Even after the corruption was exposed, no effort has been made to replace the government officials running that program. Respected international human rights organizations, including Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and others have issued a recent report citing continued rampant abuses by the Cambodian government. Unfortunately, the inclusion of Prince Ranariddh and his Funcinpec party in a coalition led by Hun Sen has not reduced this corruption. It is not the job of the United States Government to pay for government- run education systems in Cambodia when they are led by a government that is controlled by a member of Pol Pot's murderous band. However, we can support NGOs who do not take orders from the likes of Hun Sen and the likes of these gangsters. In the authorization bill for this, we went out of our way to make sure that the money authorized for Cambodia, all of it, would not be put under the control of Hun Sen, this gangster. But for whatever reason it ended up, the language was changed here in the appropriations bill, so we are just asking to strike the language there so that no money is going to be going to that corrupt and vicious tyrant. My amendment will not reduce the amount of U.S. funding for Cambodia. However, it will assure that U.S. tax dollars intended to assist the needy of Cambodia and to assist in education projects go to fund education projects by NGOs which will assure that the money is spent to assist the Cambodian people and not end up in some Swiss bank account. This amendment sends a strong message to Hun Sen and Prince Ranariddh and a message that honest, efficient government is required in order to receive American aid. This amendment also sends a strong message to the people of Cambodia that the United States has not abandoned them or their courageous struggle for democracy and clean and honest government. Mr. Chairman, I have been to Cambodia numerous times. I know the players there. I have met Mr. Hun Sen on many occasions as I have Prince Ranariddh and the other leaders in Cambodia. I am appalled that after the hard work that we did in the authorization committee, to ensure the language so that this field commander for Pol Pot who has murdered his way into power in Cambodia, that we assure that the money that we are going to give to Cambodia would not end up in his hands and now that language has been changed for whatever reason in a way that the money could end up, instead of in the hands of worthy organizations, nongovernmental organizations, charitable organizations committed to the people of Cambodia, instead of going to them, it may end up in the hands of this government that has proven itself corrupt over and over again, not to mention brutal and the rest. The crimes of Hun Sen are unbelievable and the fact that, yes, he went through a recent election. As the gentleman from Nebraska (Mr. Bereuter) and others in the Committee on International Relations can testify, it is beyond belief that we have permitted Hun Sen to manipulate the system such that he is still in power after all of these years. But the last thing we want to do, especially as the corruption level in Cambodia is so high, is to provide the money that should be going to the Cambodian people to this corrupt regime. I ask for support for my amendment.

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Mr. Chairman, the gentleman does not know the extent of my travels in Cambodia, I will just say that, and this gentleman has no problem with money going to those private organizations to accomplish the goals the gentleman was talking about. All we are talking about is language that is changed in this bill that will send that money to the Cambodian government to accomplish those ends, and we have no faith in the Cambodian government.

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

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

Mr. ROHRABACHER

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Stearns), a great champion of American values. (Mr. STEARNS asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from California (Mr. Cox), the distinguished chairman of the Cox Commission, a bipartisan select committee that was set up to investigate certain national security challenges that we face with Communist China.

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from California (Mr. Stark) to be used for yielding on his side.

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Mr. Speaker, parliamentary inquiry?

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time. Parliamentary Inquiry

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Doyle), a friend of the steelworkers, a man who has sometimes disagreed with me, but always in a very pleasant way, but one who shares our basic values and concern for the working people of our country and his district.