Dana Rohrabacher

Mr. ROHRABACHER

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Mr. Speaker, I offer a motion to instruct conferees.

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Mr. Speaker, if the gentleman will yield, no, the intent of this motion is not that.

Mr. ROHRABACHER

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Mr. Speaker, pursuant to clause 1(c) of rule XXVIII, I hereby give notice of my intention to offer a motion to instruct conferees on H.R. 2267. The form of the motion is as follows: Mr. ROHRABACHER moved that the managers on the part of the House at the conference on the disagreeing of votes of the House and the Senate on H.R. 2267, Commerce, Justice, and State, the Judiciary and Related Agencies Appropriations Act for fiscal year 1998, be instructed to insist on the House's disagreement with section 111 of the Senate amendment which provides for a permanent extension of section 245(i) of the Immigration and Nationalities Act.

Mr. ROHRABACHER

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Mr. Speaker, I wish to commend my colleague, the gentleman from California [Mr. Bilbray], for the remarks he just made and for the energy that he has put into this effort to bring our borders under control and to prevent hundreds of millions, even billions of dollars from being spent on people who have come to this country illegally. I think it is incumbent on those of us who have been very active in this effort to prevent illegal immigration into the United States, to express our appreciation for the fact that legal immigration has done great things for the United States of America. I know I am speaking for my colleague, the gentleman from California, [Mr. Brian Bilbray], and I know I am speaking for myself and most of us, I think all of us who have been active on this issue in the House of Representatives. Legal immigration has served our country well. We are all immigrants, except perhaps for the American Indians who met us at our shores. The people who have come here legally, however, are screened so that they are not carrying diseases, they are screened so that they can take care of themselves, so that they are not criminals, so that they are not people who would be involved in acts of terrorism. We have, in fact, the most generous legal immigration system in the world where we screen out people who will not be taking care of themselves or are not healthy or pose a threat to our society, and let other people come to our society who will be producing wealth and become productive members of our society. We can be proud that the United States of America has a legal immigration system that permits more legal immigration into our society than all the other societies in the world combined. That is a wonderful thing, and we have benefitted from that. But what we have not benefitted from is a flood of illegal immigration in the last 10 years that is overwhelming many of the social systems that we put in place for our people. In California we find our education system breaking down. Our young people's test scores are going down, down, down, even as we pump more money into the system. They go in and they say the class size is too large. And then we find out a third of the members of the class are illegal alien children. In California the health care system is breaking down, and those children in our school system are confronted with diseases that we thought we had knocked out years ago but perhaps are being brought in by illegal people from South America someplace. These are things we have got to care about, not because we do not like the people who are illegally coming into our country but because we care about our own citizens. The question the American people should be asking of their elected representatives, the question, the main question should be who do you care about, who are you representing. Are you representing some cockamamie liberal idea that they are going to share the wealth with everybody? I was in a negotiation with someone yesterday who was literally talking about an amnesty program, another amnesty program for the 5 million illegal aliens who are in our system. And also during the discussion we talked about the people who are here illegally perhaps bringing their grandparents over, being able to bring their grandparents over. I just could not understand how anyone could suggest that we bring people over from overseas who are senior citizens, who have never paid a cent into our system, who would then partake in the social benefit packages that our own seniors have paid for all of their lives. They have worked all of their lives to build a little security for themselves, and then we are going to betray them by permitting people to come in great masses from overseas and partake out of the bowl until the bowl is dry, especially when for so long our own citizens have been contributing to that thing, thinking they would be helped by that when they became seniors. Who are we representing? Who are we watching out for? If our people are not watching out for the well-being of the people of the United States, they should not be in the House of Representatives. We see this time and time again where there is a concept of a global concept here, that it is going to guide our decisions, what is best for the world or best for those seniors overseas. I have a heart. I care for these good people who would like to emigrate here illegally. I have a heart for people who are trying to improve their economy overseas. But we cannot have policies that are aimed at helping others at the expense of our own people. It should be a fundamental principle. If we can give and help provide and support people who are building free societies and democracies overseas, their societies will progress, they will have prosperity, they can take care of themselves rather than having their people having to emigrate and flood into the United States. We have a great challenge ahead of us, to be the leader of a free world and to stand for decency. The first and most important responsibility we have in meeting that challenge is to watch out for the interests of the people of the United States of America.

Mr. ROHRABACHER

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from California [Mr. Dreier]. He and I have worked on a number of issues over the years and we have a close relationship, but I might add the issue I will be talking about today is a bipartisan issue that crosses both sides of the aisle. I had been planning to oppose this rule. I had been planning to stand up today and ask my colleagues to join me in opposing this continuing resolution because it included in it a provision which would grant amnesty to 500,000 to 1 million illegal aliens who are currently residing in the United States of America. That issue is a significant issue. It is something that I did not receive an agreement on until just a few moments ago, that there would be an up and down vote other than on this rule. So today, while not opposing the rule, I am announcing to my colleagues and to those people who are listening that there will be an up and down vote. The reason why we will not be opposing this rule is that there will be an up and down vote on 245(I) next Wednesday in the form of a motion to instruct conferees on the Commerce, Justice, State appropriation bill to insist on the House's, that means this body's, disagreement with the Senate's permanent extension of 245(I). Now, we all know in the House a motion to instruct conferees is not a binding motion. It does not actually secure the change in law that we are trying to gain. But if we win that vote, we then have been assured by the leadership that there will be a binding vote in this body on the issue of 245(I). So between now and Wednesday this issue of 245(I) will be discussed. Just a preview of how much I disagree with my good friend, the gentleman from Massachusetts [Mr. Moakley] on this issue, is that we passed an illegal immigration reform bill last year with the intent of restoring respect for America's immigration law. By taking half a million to a million people who are in this country illegally, and permitting them to stay in this country for $1,000, we are breaking down the respect for our immigration law that we attempted to build last year in our immigration reform bill. It is totally contrary to that process. What we are talking about is an amnesty, a new amnesty for 500,000 to 1 million illegal immigrants. I strongly oppose that. It is in the Senate's bill already, in their Commerce, State, and Justice appropriation bill. Again, this provision has been snuck into law. We will have a chance to vote on it. There has only been one vote in the Congress of the United States on the issue of 245(I). That vote was a resounding no. And then 3 years ago it was, instead, snuck into another larger piece of legislation without a vote for even a conference report, that was not voted on by either the House or the Senate. So the only vote that we have ever had on 245(I) has been against it. We owe it to the American people not to have a policy in place that is so controversial and so contrary, actually contrary to the wishes and contrary to the interests of American citizens and legal immigrants into our country, without having a direct vote in the House. We have now been guaranteed that there will be an up and down vote. The first vote on this will be Wednesday on the motion to instruct conferees. And if we win that, there will be a binding vote. So I will be supporting this rule and ask my colleagues to join me and look forward to the debate on this issue next week.

Mr. ROHRABACHER

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

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Madam Chairman, I yield myself the balance of my time. I do not believe in economic isolation. I applaud those enterprisers of the United States who want to go out and take risks. Let them take their own risks. Let them take their own risks. They will reap the profit. If they reap the profit, they can take the risk. Yes, if someone wants to do business in red China, where Christians are being tortured, where the Dalai Lama's followers are being victims of genocide in Tibet, where they are wiping out Muslims in East Turkestan. Let those businessmen who want to do business in that situation take their risk, get their own loans. Let us not deplete the limited amount of money available to create new business from our country and ship it to those people who are trying to do business over there. Let us let the mom and pops continue to have the money available from that pool of resources for us. If the Saudis, and they have been our friends during the cold war, but if they want to buy something, let them finance it. Let the Red Chinese finance it. Let us not take this from the American taxpayers' pockets. And if we were following the logic I have heard in this debate, we would never have ended farm subsidies in this Congress. We would have said, well, other countries have farm subsidies so we have to continue. Other countries have socialism and government controls and government subsidies to other people, thus we have to do it and follow those same countries down the drain of collectivism, which has destroyed the standard of living of so many other countries. We do not need to do that. We can lead the way. And, in fact, the risks that are taken overseas, we do not say that these people are going to be isolated, we just say we are not going to subsidize it with taxpayers' dollars. And again we keep hearing the refrain of selling American products overseas. Let us note that many of these projects that are being financed by mega corporations are the export of manufacturing units, which only in the short term look like exports but in the long term become a huge force for imports to overwhelm our own manufacturing jobs in the United States of America. Let us vote for this amendment. Vote against subsidizing dictatorships.

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Madam Chairman, I demand a recorded vote, and pending that, I make the point of order that a quorum is not present.

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Madam Chairman, I yield myself 3 minutes. Just to reflect on what my colleague, the gentleman from Iowa [Mr. Leach] has just said, this is not unilateral disarmament. This is refraining from arming our adversaries. Yes, we have been engaged for the last half century, since World War II, the United States has been the sucker of the world most of that time. But we had to defend the world against international communism. We do not have to take American taxpayers' dollars anymore and subsidize business deals in foreign lands, taking that money directly out of the pool of money that is available for our own people, the small business men and women of every community throughout our country. They have to take money from that same pool in order to do business in their communities, and instead we are decreasing the amount of money in that pool to give to large corporations to do what? To do business in some communist or some fascist dictatorship overseas. It is not only immoral, it is bad economics. Yes, Red China has been a big market for our airplanes and other things, they are setting up an aerospace industry at our expense, but they have a $40 billion trade deficit with the United States. Let them finance their own business deals. They have got the money. They have got the capital. The fact is that no private companies will finance that because it is risky, because you are dealing with a dictatorship. So what do we do? We take the pressure off them to liberalize and become a freer society by giving them the loans and guaranteeing the loans anyway. Who are the benefactors in the Three Gorge Dam project in China, $30- $40 billion? Yes, there are some American companies over here that would like to sell the equipment to do the $30-$40 billion Three Gorge Dam project in China. We have got some public works projects here in our own country. Why are we taking money from the pool of money that is available to do things in the United States and transferring it overseas? We can buy the tractors and we can buy the equipment to do those projects right here in the United States. We do not need to drain our own pool of capital dry in order so a few big corporations can show a profit at the end of this year, while what we are really doing is subsidizing projects in vicious and ugly dictatorships around the world, especially Red China; Red China, which now has such an unfair trading relationship with the United States that when we try to send our goods and services in, they are taxed, they are tariffed at 30-40 percent. What do we do? We subsidize somebody who wants to set up a company over there. They set up the company and then, because we only charge them 3-4 percent tariffs on their goods coming back, that company begins exporting to the United States. In the medium run, yes, a few jobs are created in the short run, but in the long run we are destroying the economic base of our own country. We are destroying the working people of our own country, subsidizing with taxpayers' dollars. Vote for my amendment.

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Madam Chairman, I object to the vote on the ground that a quorum is not present and make the point of order that a quorum is not present.

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Madam Chairman, I yield myself the balance of my time. Madam Chairman, the gentleman from Illinois [Mr. Manzullo], my good friend, has demonstrated for me exactly why my amendment is so important. I do not want us to be subsidizing sending papermaking machines to another country to then compete with our own people who are involved with the paper manufacturing industry in the United States of America. If people want to sell cardboard boxes or whatever type of machines we are talking about overseas, more power to them. Let them go out and sell those cardboard boxes to Vietnam or China or a dictatorship, democracy, we do not care. Madam Chairman, I do not need anyone to tell me that the American taxpayer wants us to sell manufacturing units overseas to compete with their own jobs, especially when we are talking about the subsidization here, which is what this amendment does, prevents us from subsidizing all of these state-run enterprises. Madam Chairman, what we have got is, fine, my amendment would not affect people who want to go out and export and be involved in enterprises overseas whatsoever if they do so at their own risk and they get private capital. But the private capital will not subsidize these enterprises overseas in risky situations or in dealing with companies overseas like the People's Liberation Army where there is a political risk. Why in the world are we having the American taxpayer subsidize this for these big corporations, whether it is a paper manufacturing company setting up a paper manufacturing company overseas or whether it is a refrigeration unit? Motorola set up a chip manufacturing unit in China. They ended up in China using the chips from that company to develop land mines that will explode on anyone who is trying to defuse the land mine. I am not sure if they have an Export-Import Bank loan on that, but if they did, they should not have. So, Madam Chairman, I would say let us keep the taxpayers' dollars here. Let that stay in the pool of money that is available to our own small business rather than subsidizing these enterprises overseas which in the end compete with the American jobs. Madam Chairman, I call for the support of my amendment.

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Madam Chairman, I yield myself 1 minute. Madam Chairman, I am not suggesting, and this amendment is not suggesting, that American businesses cannot go any place in the world, whether it is dictatorships or nondictatorships, developing world or developed world, and do business. They are welcome to do so. The major question is whether or not the taxpayers of this country should be subsidizing these enterprisers who go overseas, should be subsidizing them and offering them loan guarantees, et cetera, and direct loans, through the Export-Import Bank. Madam Chairman, these people still can go to the private sector and get their loans, they can still participate in whatever project they want, but they cannot expect the American taxpayer to subsidize ongoing socialist projects overseas or ongoing projects in these dictatorships where they own the enterprises, and so it becomes a bolstering of the regime rather than just a business enterprise. Madam Chairman, this amendment would exclude no one from doing business overseas; it would end the taxpayer subsidy of this type of business.

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Madam Chairman, I yield myself 1\1/2\ minutes. Madam Chairman, the only economic disarmament that is going on is the billions of dollars that we are taking out of our country and shipping manufacturing units to other countries, ``developing'' countries, and dictatorships like Vietnam and China. Yes, this is put under the guise of being exports, but, more often than not, we are not talking about somebody selling refrigerators over in China or Vietnam, we are talking about companies getting subsidies from the U.S. Government in order to set up a manufacturing unit in those countries. Like these airline deals that we are talking about, yes, we are selling some airplanes, but part of the deal is, we are setting up an aerospace industry to compete against our own aerospace industry a few years down the line. Madam Chairman, this is so shortsighted, and we are not talking about exports here, we are talking about setting up temporary sales, some short-run sales, manufacturing units that will import into the United States. This is a disaster in the medium run. But, again, we have the special interests trying to get their hands on the taxpayers' dollars for a short-term, cut-and-run philosophy on profit. Madam Chairman, this is not going to be in the long-term interest of the American taxpayers or the American people. After they set up their companies in these countries, they are going to come back and put our own working people out of business. Madam Chairman, I urge my colleagues to vote for this amendment and let us get on to privatization in the Third World, in the developing world, and let us not subsidize these companies like the People's Liberation Army in China.

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Vote in support of the amendment.

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Madam Chairman, I yield myself 1 minute. Madam Chairman, first of all, let us just note that when we subsidize someone who is doing business overseas, that money comes from a pool of money that is not available for our own small businessmen, for everybody else who wants to do that kind of business here in the United States. There is no reason that I see that we should provide huge American corporations with loans that are taken right out of the pockets of these small businesses that would like to maybe expand their little shop by a little bit in their hometown. That is where that money is coming from. It is no magic wand that is coming out of nowhere. It is coming from our pockets, and it is subsidizing, as I say, some of the largest companies in this country to do business where? In the developing world. Many times that is a euphemism for vicious, ugly dictatorships that cannot get loans because they are too risky for private owners to loan this money. And $8 billion in aircraft loans? What accompanies those $8 billion in loans has been mandates that we set up manufacturing units in those other ``developing countries,'' not in the long run but in the medium run. That means we are setting up competition for our own aerospace industry. It is ridiculous. Vote against this.

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Madam Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Madam Chairman, my amendment to H.R. 1370 would prohibit the Export- Import Bank from providing assistance for transactions involving the import or export of goods or services with companies that are at least 50 percent owned by a foreign government or the military of a foreign government. My amendment will also prohibit the bank from insuring, extending credit, or participating in an extension of credit with such a company. Numerous studies show that the largest percentage of Export-Import Bank transactions benefit a small number of mega private corporations at the expense of small business and/or the taxpaying citizenry. It is ridiculous that while other U.S. agencies, such as the Agency for International Development, and multinational-multilateral banks are spending billions of U.S. tax dollars on privatization efforts, that the Export-Import Bank subsidizes transactions with State or military- owned companies. Often these are the vestiges of failed socialist state-planned political and economic systems. Even worse, some of these subsidized firms may be owned by the military arm of dictatorial regimes; for example, the Peoples Liberation Army in China, Communist China. I have heard concern that my amendment would prevent companies from participating in large infrastructure, power generation, communications, and transportation projects in developing countries. Clearly this amendment does not prevent American companies from being involved in such projects. What it specifies is that the U.S. taxpayers should not be put at risk with guaranteeing or loaning hundreds of millions of dollars for ventures with state- or military-owned companies that are shunned by private lenders. This is in fact corporate welfare that subsidizes imports over exports. For example, in China, where U.S. airline companies are receiving export-import funding, those deals, more often than not, involve the transfer of American technology and the development of Chinese assembly lines that in a few short years will be in direct competition with United States workers. This is the worst kind of short-sightedness, not only on the part of the companies involved, but on the part of the U.S. Government. We are subsidizing the creation of our own high-tech competition in dictatorships like China. Will my amendment really deter the creation of new American jobs? According to the Congressional Research Institute, and I quote, Most economists doubt that a nation can improve its welfare over the long run by subsidizing exports. At the national level, export financing merely shifts production among sectors within the economy, rather than adding to the overall level of economic activity, and subsidizes foreign consumption at the expense of the domestic economy. In addition to sustaining the American job base, this amendment will encourage our trading partners to expedite the privatization of state- owned and military-owned companies, and to reduce the power of foreign businesses that are controlled by government apparatchiks, military brass, and other anti-democratic cronies. This is in the long-term interest of our people, it is in the long-term interest of our economy, instead of having some clique, some what they call crony capitalism, some clique of capitalists in our country being given resources that should be going out to the small businessmen and women of our country, and it also protects our own workers from subsidizing their competition. Madam Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. ROHRABACHER. I yield to the gentleman from Delaware.

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Madam Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Madam Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Madam Chairman, my amendment to H.R. 1370 would prohibit the Export- Import Bank from providing assistance for transactions within a country ruled by a government which is not chosen through free and fair elections, as certified by the President of the United States, or which lacks an independent judiciary. This amendment will also prohibit Export-Import Bank transactions for import from or export to a country with a nondemocratic government. While supporters of an unrestricted Export-Import Bank argue that the Bank's role is to provide support for transactions that cannot find private support, let me note that in countries where private international banks are reluctant to fund business transactions, the Export-Import Bank's subsidized lending and guarantees often reward bad economic policies and relieve nondemocratic governments of the need to create a free market environment that genuinely attracts sound foreign capital investment. Madam Chairman, worse than that, these loans reinforce these dictatorial governments, and, basically, these governments that deny their people their basic civil liberties and economic freedoms are being told that they can be subsidized, even though they have these restrictions on their own people and it takes away their pressure then to democratize. Opponents of my amendment also claim that Export-Import Bank transactions primarily assist small businesses in this country. To the contrary. A recent study by the CRS, that is, Congressional Research Service, shows that small businesses account for only 12 to 15 percent of the Export-Import Bank's total authorization. CRS also emphasizes that, quote, subsidized export financing raises financial costs for all borrowers by drawing financial resources that otherwise would be available for other uses, thereby crowding some buyers from the financial markets. This crowding-out effect might nullify any positive impacts subsidizing export financing may have on the economy. In other words, we are crowding out the little guy in this country in order to give some big megacorporations the money they need to set up some company in a dictatorship, and that money is no longer available to be loaned to our small businessmen and women throughout the country. End of quote from the Congressional Research Service. It is our responsibility in Congress to appropriate America's taxpayers' dollars wisely. It makes no sense to subsidize American companies for doing business with largely corrupt and inefficient, basically antidemocratic and socialist governments who are too risky for these people to get loans from other sources in the private sector. Our international business policy should be based on reinforcing free markets and democratic institutions where these people could get private sector loans. This is especially true when the business being subsidized is building manufacturing units abroad, which means U.S. working people, taxpayers, are subsidizing the building of factories in dictatorships to produce goods in competition with their own jobs. Most of the investment that has gone into many of these countries, and much of it into China, we are not selling refrigerators there. We are selling people who are exporting what? Manufacturing units of refrigerators which end up being sold in the United States and putting our own people out of work. This is immoral. It is wrong, especially wrong when we are dealing with a dictatorship that is the recipient of this business activity. My amendment will help protect U.S. taxpayers by preventing the Export-Import Bank from providing corporate welfare to risky ventures by megacorporations who should not be investing in these antidemocratic societies in the first place. But if they do, they can do it at their own risk. And it will keep us moral by preventing the taxpayers from subsidizing and propping up those regimes. This is in fact corporate welfare that subsidizes imports actually to a higher degree than exports. For example, in China, where the United States airline companies, which we have heard today, have sold their products subsidized by the Export-Import Bank, we, as part of those agreements, have set up an aerospace industry or are in the process of setting up an aerospace industry that will put my people out of work in the medium term, not the long term but the medium term. It is ridiculous. If the dictatorships are making those sorts of demands, the last thing we should do is subsidize it with the Export-Import Bank. I would call on my colleagues to support my amendment and let us stop this subsidization of providing manufacturing units for dictatorships. Madam Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time. The CHAIRMAN pro tempore [Mrs. Emerson]. Does the gentleman from Delaware [Mr. Castle] rise in opposition to the amendment?

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

Mr. ROHRABACHER

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Mr. Speaker, Wednesday evening, my colleague from California, Mr. Miller, resumed his nonstop, politically driven attack on the government and people of the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands. The gentleman's remarks and accusations, along with those of Mrs. Mink and Ms. DeLauro are simply untrue and need to be corrected and clarified. I respect and agree with their position that more Federal resources and efforts need to be directed to the Northern Mariana Islands to enforce the laws of which the Federal Government has jurisdiction. However, I believe their unwarranted attacks on the CNMI were misdirected, especially upon examination of the Federal law enforcement presence on the islands. In addition, I do not agree with their solution to increase the Federal law enforcement presence in the CNMI. When one takes into consideration that there are only two assistant U.S. attorneys on the islands--not to mention the fact that there is no U.S. attorney stationed on the islands--using American taxpayer dollars to increase funding for the Federal Victims' Assistance Program, as Mr. Miller and Mrs. Mink proposed, is bad public policy. The Northern Mariana Islands, with very few exceptions, is governed by the laws of the United States of America. Both the U.S. citizens on the islands and the guest worker population reside under the protection of the U.S. flag and its Federal laws. For these reasons, the people of the Northern Mariana Islands willingly entered into a unique covenant with the United States in 1976. The people overwhelmingly voted to accept their self-government status, along with the responsibilities of being part of the American family. I am here to tell you that the CNMI Government and its people are living up to their responsibilities--they have established a self-reliant economy enabling the local government to fund its own operations without the assistance of Federal dollars through free enterprise; enforcement of local labor and immigration laws in the last 5 years has improved significantly and are continuing to be addressed stringently today; and the CNMI is promoting democratic values in Southeast Asia, where the American way of doing things is beginning to become the norm. Unfortunately, the Federal Government is not fully living up to their Federal law enforcement responsibilities in the Northern Mariana Islands. The CNMI does not have authority to enforce U.S. laws. Enforcement of U.S. laws in the Commonwealth is the sole responsibility of the Federal Government. It is disingenuous for my colleagues to assert that the CNMI Government is not enforcing its local labor laws when the vast majority of alleged violations--nearly 90 percent--of labor laws in the CNMI are violations of Federal laws, which the U.S. Government has sole or concurrent jurisdiction. Therefore, Mr. Speaker, you can see why I am concerned with my colleague's, Mr. Miller, proposal to fund anything other than an additional assistant U.S. attorney for the Northern Mariana Islands. I hope the chairman of the Commerce, Justice, State Appropriations Committee, my good friend Mr. Rogers from Kentucky, will work to include language in the statement of the managers to direct some of the increased funds from the fiscal year 1997 bill to the U.S. attorney's office for the purpose of providing an additional Assistant U.S. attorney to be stationed in the Northern Mariana Islands. At the request of Mr. Rogers, I agreed to address the allegations made regarding the CNMI at a later date due to the chairman's wishes to move forward with the bill. Had I had the opportunity to elaborate on the statement I presented in response to the attacks on the CNMI, I would have pointed out the fallacies in my colleagues' remarks. Mr. Miller suggested that the guest workers on the island are routinely subjected to gross violations of their human rights and are provided few of the legal protections afforded to workers on American soil. He cited a Reader's Digest report and an Inside Edition expose done on the islands as documented evidence proving widespread abuses. Let me reiterate that the CNMI Government has combated and continues to combat violations of their local laws. For example, in the case highlighted by the Reader's Digest involving the rape of a Chinese contract worker by former Immigration Officer Isidro Cabrerra, the CNMI Attorney General's Office has successfully prosecuted this unsavory individual. In addition, the CNMI's Department of Labor and Immigration's Administrative Hearing Office has eliminated its entire backlog of cases by conducting more than a thousand hearings over the past year. This has resulted in more than $2 million in payments to workers, the transfer of more than 1,000 workers to new employers, the deportation of 200 workers illegally employed in the CNMI, and the barring of 75 employers from hiring guest workers. Most recently, the CNMI Attorney General's office has facilitated the successful settlement of a civil action suit for the underpayment of garment worker wages totaling $996,000--the largest settlement ever collected by the office. These examples of enforcement and punishment of worker exploitation clearly do not reflect the picture painted by my colleagues who took the floor to chastise the CNMI Wednesday night. In regard to the Inside Edition expose, Mr. Miller stated that this TV tabloid ``captured the horrific conditions in the Marianas on film''. With much interest, I viewed the expose the night it ran, and I am puzzled as to what it was my colleague witnessed that was so horrific. The program I watched did not document the widespread abuses that my colleague alleges. The hidden camera investigation I saw turned up CNMI garment factories that their own reporter described as ``clean and modern'' and ``beautiful''. Unable to find the ``sweatshops'' they were looking for, the Inside Edition investigative team turned its attention to the dormitory accommodations made available to the guest workers by their employers--inexpensive living accommodations where the workers freely chose to live in order to send home more of their earnings to their families. Although the dormitories may be considered by some to be crowded by mainland standards, they are comparable, and in many cases, superior to other housing in the South Pacific region. In fact, the living quarters I examined on my visit to the Northern Mariana Islands were much nicer than the barracks provided to the migrant workers on the mainland. Mr. Speaker, it was also stated on the floor Wednesday evening that my defense of the Northern Mariana Islands in relation to the guest workers has no ``independent validation''. I take personal offense, as probably many of my colleagues do who have witnessed first hand the successes in the CNMI, to this remark and would like to set the record straight on this implication. Members and staff from both sides of the aisle, journalists and think tanks have traveled to the NMI to examine the Commonwealth. The Republicans and Democrats who have participated on these fact-finding delegations have come to admire and respect the CNMI during the past 2 years. In fact, the distinguished chairman of the Resources Committee, Mr. Young, has organized a CODEL to travel to the NMI and the other U.S. territories in January to address the concerns of the Congress and set the record straight. I strongly suggest that the gentleman from California [Mr. Miller]--who is the ranking member of the Resources Committee--join the chairman's delegation. Mr. Speaker, I would like to address one final concern raised by my friend from Hawaii, Mrs. Mink. It is in regards to the 16-year-old girl in Hawaii now awaiting resolution of her complaint against a Filipino night club owner who hired her to dance nude in his club. Sadly, stories like this are reported all too often in the media today. Incidentally, the Washington Post just ran a similar story in late August about a Virginia man who pleaded guilty to the importation of teen prostitutes from Canada to work here on the streets of our Nation's Capital. Stories like this put the situation in the NMI in perspective. I know that my colleagues would agree that these abuses-- crimes--depicted in both of these stories are unacceptable. It is regrettable that in a great country like ours human beings can subject other humans to engage these type of behavior. The issue, however, is not that they occur but what is being done to prosecute the offenders and prevent this type of conduct in the future. In all fairness to the CNMI, it should go on record that the statement made by my colleague is somewhat misleading. Mrs. Mink stated that this individual cannot obtain justice for the alleged crimes committed against her. According to the CNMI Attorney General, this is not true. The Federal officials are currently investigating the possible violations of the Fair Labor Standards Act, and the CNMI Attorney General's office is continuing their ongoing investigation and will file charges once the Federal prosecutors have completed their case.

Mr. ROHRABACHER

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Mr. Chairman, I demand a recorded vote.

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Chairman, I am not confused. And the fact is OPIC does offer private insurance for investment overseas. The Export-Import Bank is involved with these things as well. Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Florida [Mr. Stearns]. (Mr. STEARNS asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Mr. Chairman, how much time do I have remaining?