Mark Sanford

Mr. SANFORD

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

Mr. SANFORD. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. I just want to again remind folks that this is simply an amendment that does not touch defense, it does not touch emergency spending, for instance, in North Carolina, but it does get at fiscal restraint that is needed, because the budget we passed last week would be broken to the tune of $4 billion if we do not pass this amendment.

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

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

Mr. SANFORD. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. I offer this amendment along with the gentlewoman from Charlotte, North Carolina. I think it is a very simple amendment. All it does is it trims and focuses what this supplemental is all about. I think that given my experience here in Congress, what typically happens with emergency supplementals is that they grow like weeds. That has certainly been the case with this bill. So what this does is attempts to bring it back to basically closer to the size and scope of what was originally proposed. It trims the supplemental by $1.6 billion, and it does so in two ways. First of all, it takes out nonemergency spending. I have a long list here which I will not bore my colleagues with but, for instance: $20 million to replace an FDA building in Los Angeles, California, is probably not an emergency, and $8.1 million to put SBA funding back into the Small Business Administration is probably not an emergency. I could continue with the list, but there is a simple point here. That is that we have gotten into this dangerous habit of classifying things that are not emergency as emergency. This strips a number of those out. What it does as well is it keeps 2000 spending in 2000 and 2001 spending in 2001. What had happened with this bill was that some 2001 spending basically came into calendar year 2000. We keep those two years separate. What this bill does as well, in addition to trimming and focusing, is that it simply asks that what we spend, we pay for. It strikes all references to emergency designation, making this spending subject to budget caps, and making it recorded as spending. There is a certain lunacy that goes with the notion that emergency spending is not spending as it relates to the budget. It also enacts cuts in other areas of government to pay for what we propose spending here. I think that this is really important because, in essence, this is preventive medicine. If we do not prescribe to ourselves preventive medicine, I think we will be performing emergency surgery come September in adhering to budgets. In fact, if we look at the budget that we passed just last Thursday, if we do not pass this amendment, we will end up $4 billion above what we call for in our own budget. So I think it is a simple step toward fiscal sanity. I think it helps us to hold the line on what Greenspan himself had urged, and that is, extra money going toward debt reduction, as opposed to other things. Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. SANFORD. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2\1/2\ minutes to the gentlewoman from North Carolina (Mrs. Myrick).

Mr. SANFORD

Mr. SANFORD. Mr. Chairman, with that lead-in, I will simply pick up on the Social Security portion and I would say to the gentleman from South Carolina (Mr. Spratt), the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Stenholm) in particular has been magnificent in his leadership on Social Security. The gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Toomey) touched on just a moment ago the issue of Social Security and personal accounts, and that is what personally gravitates me towards the CATs budget, what it does to get us off dead center, a dead center that the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Stenholm), I will not say on the left by any means, but on the Democratic side has been what the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Toomey) and others have been on the Republican side, and that is how do we get off dead center on Social Security? To this budget's credit, it moves us forward because it begins this process of personal accounts. It is a sense of Congress, which is a small start, and it is a point of order for personal accounts but that is, again, a step in the right direction that we very, very much need. Last year Washington borrowed $100 billion from Social Security and they did it without a lot of fanfare. Most of the folks back home I talked to do not even know that it happened and those that did, at most they wrote a letter to their Congressman or their Senator but they did not march on Washington. We had truckers in town last week. We had farmers in town last week, all protesting different things going on in Washington and yet this is sort of the quiet secret that is kept under the rug. It is something that I think would be brought about with simple private property rights. The only thing that will in the long run protect Social Security balances are private property rights. So what this budget does is it sets up for the first time a move toward a system of personal accounts wherein, for instance, Social Security money, surplus Social Security money, would be rebated back to the people paying Social Security taxes to begin their own personal Social Security savings account, and by doing so would protect it because it would be out of Washington. I think that that is a very small step but important step that we have to take in this debate.

Mr. SANFORD

Mr. SANFORD. Madam Speaker, I join my South Carolina colleagues to honor a fellow Charlestonian--Marybelle H. Howe. I think what Mrs. Howe represents is something we should all aim for and that is being an active part of our community. Mrs. Howe was a wife and mother of four children, but that did not stop her from participating in her church and her community. In the 1950's, Mrs Howe was elected President of Church Women United, which brought her in touch with the migrant labor communities in the Seas Islands, just south of Charleston. In the late 1950's, Mrs. Howe and the Rev. Willis T. Goodwin opened Camp Care on Johns Island to minister to the children of migrant workers. This activity later blossomed into Rural Mission, Inc., which provides a wide variety assistance programs to the residents of the Sea Islands. Just before her death in 1987, Mrs. Howe was honored by Rural Missions, Inc. and her name was placed first on their Honor Roll. Mrs. Howe's efforts with the poor raised the profile of the issue across the state. Her work with migrant labors helped to establish the South Carolina Commission for Farm Workers. She was also founding chairman of the Charleston County Commission on Economic Opportunity. Mrs. Howe was also a dedicated board member of the Charleston County Library, serving 25 years, several as chairman of its board of trustees. Today, there is a Marybelle Howe Room at the library in her honor. She also served on the Board of Women Visitors of the University of South Carolina from 1962-73 and again from 1981-86. After her death, the University of South Carolina presented a resolution to her family expressing its gratitude for her years of service to her church, her community and to the University of South Carolina. I hope we can all, in some way, follow Mrs. Howe's example. Passage of this bill will not only honor this fine lady, but will also be a reminder of community spirit for all of us in Charleston. I am proud to cosponsor this legislation and I urge my colleagues to join me in honoring this woman's contributions.

Mr. SANFORD

Mr. SANFORD. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding me this time. I have many peers in this case saying a lot of great things about a lot of great men, and I agree with all that they have said. Howard Baker was indeed a great man, John Glenn is a great man, Paul Simon is a great man. But I struggle with this particular bill for a couple of simple reasons, but one primary one. That is, as Republicans, what we have talked about is Washington not knowing best, and yet at the core of what this does, which is basically a sole-source grant that points to a couple of different institutions across this country and says, they are the most able beneficiaries of government largesse, and that we ought to send the money to them as opposed to a lot of other universities or colleges across this country. I struggle with that theme as a Republican because what we have talked about is the issue of Federalism, the issue of Washington not knowing best, and local communities knowing what makes sense in their neighborhood. That is why we have tried the idea of block grants, and this gets away from the idea of block grants. So I would first of all agree with what they have been saying about any of these gentlemen, because they are indeed great gentlemen; but do we want to in fact point to sole-source grants as a way of recognizing them. Two, we do not have a problem in this country with secondary education. We have a problem with grade school and with high school, but on any international standard, we are doing quite well on the issue of secondary education. So this points money to colleges and universities as opposed to high schools where I think our core problem is. Three, is public policy the best place to spend this money? In other words, these are institutes of public policy, of government. Is that where the highest and best use of educational dollars can go these days, as opposed to the basics of reading and writing and arithmetic wherein we have sustained deficiencies in high schools and grade schools across this country. Lastly, I would say, look at the different ways that we might spend this money. This money, if we are talking about $31 million here, $31 million could go based on the average teacher salaries, go to pay for 777 teachers across this country. It could go to pay for about 4,000 kids attending a year of college next year, or for that matter, it could go to my favorite subject, which is back to the debt, to pay down this debt that we have stacked up. So I agree with what these gentlemen from Tennessee and other places have said about a lot of great men that have served in this institution, but I question whether or not this is the way to recognize their talents.

Mr. SANFORD. Mr. Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.

Mr. SANFORD

Mr. SANFORD. Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of this resolution, because I think it makes common sense and because I think that it points out two glaring inconsistencies that need to be addressed. I think that what this resolution really gets at is, first of all, proclaiming that what is going on over there is not okay. Mr. Speaker, it is interesting to me that the Chechen foreign minister came out in today's press conference, actually in Prague with Radio Free Europe and Radio Liberty, and his words were these: ``Moscow is creating a Chechnya, basically around a zone of total destruction in which everything that moves is doomed to death.'' My colleague from New Jersey made comments that pointed out Mr. Brzezinski's comments, that so far, the Clinton administration has been callously passive to this zone of death that is being talked about over in Prague just a few hours ago. What I think is interesting is that this same administration said that what is going on in Kosovo is absolutely unacceptable based on world standards today; and, therefore, we have to do something about it. They led the effort toward $15 billion of taxpayer money being spent over there to do something about it; they led the effort in aircraft carriers and submarines and jets going over there to do something about it. Yet, in this episode, they are very, very quiet. There is just a huge inconsistency there. I think that this resolution gets at that inconsistency. The other thing that this resolution gets at is the fact that with these civilian atrocities, I think that there is breach of the Helsinki agreement, there is breach of the Geneva Convention, there is breach of a number of different international standards that Russia has signed on to, and the result of the signing of those agreements is that it is then permissible for them to get U.S. taxpayer funding indirectly through the IMF. I think the answer has to be a very strong no. As we may remember, last year Russia received $4.5 billion through the IMF; and indirectly, that means Americans are helping to finance these atrocities. So I think there is a giant inconsistency here. The issue needs to be raised. This resolution does so. I thank the chairman for both granting me the time and for leading the efforts on this.

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

Mr. SANFORD. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding. Mr. Speaker, I applaud the gentleman's efforts. He has been such a great advocate for human rights around the globe. My only point is this: I am not ignoring the nuclear realities that exist in the former Soviet Union. My simple point is this, and I do not mean this as a political cheap shot: there has been a disparity where the administration has been concerned in talking about the human rights of Kosovars and the human rights of the people in Chechnya. All I am suggesting is that maybe if we looked at a squeeze on IMF funding, it might get their attention. That is all I am raising.

Mr. SANFORD. Mr. Speaker, if the gentleman would yield for one more minute, I am in complete agreement on his pronouncements. I guess the divergence here is on what has been actually done, because in Kosovo, very strong action was taken. My suggestion is that a limit, a freeze, on IMF funding is a very limited and curtailed activity. It is something we could do, but it has not been talked about from the administration. What I am looking for from the administration is simply action. That is all.

Mr. SANFORD

Mr. SANFORD. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for yielding time to me. Mr. Chairman, I rise very reluctantly actually against this bill, because I know that a lot of hard work was done on the bill. There are many things that make a lot of sense about it, and yet, my struggle quite simply is this. As I read through the idea of establishing a grant program to foster responsible fatherhood, I struggle with that as a conservative. The reason I do is, is that really the role of the Federal government? To me that would seem to be the role of the local priest or the local rabbi or my preacher back home, or my uncle or my granddad, but somebody in my local community not tied to a grant from Washington, D.C., but somebody who actually lives there, who, because they care about me as a person, want to make an impact in my life in how I might be as a father, rather than being fostered through some grant out of Washington. I would secondly say it is an extra $140 million, not a lot of money in a $1.7 million billion budget, but nonetheless, is this the highest and best use of that money? Finally, again, this is an odd juxtaposition on where I stand on this, but does it grow or shrink government? Again, from my vantage point, it is something that grows government into a realm that we traditionally have not gone. I do not like the idea of the Federal government defining what a good father is. Is that really the role of the Federal government? So I simply raise those concerns very reluctantly, but nonetheless raise them.

Mr. SANFORD

Mr. SANFORD. Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for doing so. I was sitting in my office catching up on paperwork and saw you over here and heard what you are talking about, which is this notion is it or is it not impossible to cut one cent out of every dollar spent in Washington? And the answer is a resounding yes based on what I hear from folks back home in South Carolina, and the answer is a resounding yes, in that if we are ever going to get serious about limiting the size of government, about limiting its growth, you have to establish precedent with this idea of a penny on the dollar. I think it is a great idea, and it is something that has got to happen. One of the things that I think is interesting was I am on the Committee on International Relations, and I remember looking at a GAO report that talked about surplus properties within the inventory of State Department. As you know, we have got embassies around the globe. Well, they had a surplus list of properties, and I remember in looking at this list, for instance, the State Department had a $90 million residence in Japan that was surplus. In Buenos Aires, the ambassador's residence down there is a $20 million home. You look at this, the State Department just got through selling the residence in Bermuda for I think it was $12 million or $14 million. You look at the amount of money that is out there, and, again, this was a GAO report that said you guys have too much in inventory, you might want to consider a little bit simpler accommodation. A $90 million residence in Tokyo is probably a bit much. It is not necessary to have that to do the job that has to be done. So, one, there is a lot of fluff in the system, based on the inventory according to the Government Accounting Office. The second thing that is interesting is this week we had a hearing on our policy with North Korea, and there is a new Government Accounting Office study that shows that over $365 million has been spent by the American taxpayer in food aid to North Korea. Never mind the fact that North Korea is testing missiles over Japan and basically disrupting the neighborhood, but you look at $365 million in food aid, the whole point of the GAO study was they could not quantify where the food was going. So you have somebody that has declared themselves an enemy of the United States taxpayer, who at the same time is getting over $300 million worth of food aid that the Government Accounting Office says we cannot account for. We do not know if it is going to feed the army or if it is going to feed starving people in Northern Korea.

Mr. SANFORD. You mentioned the idea again of a penny on a dollar. Again, one of the committees that I serve on is the Committee on International Relations. It was interesting, we had an amendment last year that dealt with a number of these international study organizations that we fund indirectly through the foreign aid bill. One of them was the Bureau for International Expositions. Another was the International Lead and Zinc Study Group. Another was the International Rubber Organization. Another was the International Vine and Wine. There are a lot of strange organizations out there that we fund. The idea that there is not a penny worth of waste in maybe some of these studies. For that matter, we had another amendment that looked at three foundations. There are a lot of foundations around the country are privately funded. They go out there in the marketplace, they compete for funds. Yet, there are three Cold War era foundations that are still funded through the Federal government, and compete with a foundation in any one of the 435 congressional districts for funding. So we went and said, you cannot have your cake and eat it too, except for in Washington. You cannot be funded through the Federal government and also compete in the private marketplace for research dollars. A lot of the research topics were bizarre. I remember one of the studies was to identify the causes of premarital sex in Southeast Asia. Call me old-fashioned on this, but I think it has a lot to do with simple attraction. But anyway, there were these bizarre studies. I do not know that there would not be a penny worth of savings out there in one of these studies, much less the overall organizations that were being funded that were, again, offering the research for the studies themselves.

Mr. SANFORD. Mr. Speaker, could the gentleman tell me the Africa number again?

Mr. SANFORD. To me, it would not matter whether it was Africa or whether it was Chile or whether it was Australia or Great Britain, but the notion that there is not a penny worth of savings on one of those trips is just absurd to me.

Mr. SANFORD

Mr. SANFORD. Mr. Speaker, I do not know if this would mean somehow that the Kentucky Derby would become a Federal crime as the jockey whips the horse; I do not know if one of the biggest times in the low country of South Carolina would now suddenly become a Federal crime as one literally throws live crabs into hot boiling water to steam crabs. However, what I do know is that the Federal Government cannot keep up with what is already on its plate, and the Justice Department is already very busy trying to prosecute what is before it. The idea of adding another Federal crime to again, as the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Paul) has suggested earlier, this is something that I am not hearing from my constituents back home and it does not make sense to me. There has been a lot of talk about the children, how are we going to protect the children. I can assure my colleagues, my kids will not be checking out from Blockbuster Video crush videos, and the responsibility, if we are serious about this as Republicans on who is going to control which videos my kids or your kids are watching, I think comes back to the home.

Mr. SANFORD

Mr. SANFORD. Mr. Speaker, should tax-exempt bonds, subsidized by our constitutents--be used by local authorities to enter into direct competition with private enterprise, outside the traditional functions of government? I don't believe so, and I would imagine most Americans would agree. But that, Mr. Speaker, is the question addressed by the legislation I am introducing today, the Private Enterprise Protection Act of 1999. This legislation will help protect taxpayers from having the U.S. Treasury subsidize local government efforts to engage in unfair competition with private businesses. As my colleagues are aware, tax-exempt bonds enable State and local governments to borrow at below market interest rates in order to finance public projects. This is generally a good program allowing State and local governments to reduce borrowing costs and enabling them to build public facilities for fewer tax dollars. However, while the program has all good intentions, I would imagine that a vast majority of the American people would agree that tax-exempt bonds should be limited to use for projects which directly benefit the public good, but not to help the government engage in competition with private enterprise. I was pleased to see my colleague from Texas, Mr. Hall, introduce H.R. 2756 this summer. His bill also aims to fix the problem I raise. In fact, the bill I introduce today is very similar to the Hall bill, but it incorporates several changes to reflect comments received on H.R. 2756. It is important to keep in mind that while tax-exempt bonds are generally used for worthwhile purposes, the program does entail a sizable commitment on the part of the American taxpayer. According to the Wall Street Journal in 1997, tax-exempt interest income was reported on about 4.9 million individual returns, and total tax-exempt interest amounted to $48.5 billion. Because there is a sizable commitment here, Congress and the Treasury have developed complex and carefully crafted rules to assure that these bonds are used for bona fide pubic purposes and not for private use of the Federal subsidy in tax-exempt bonds. These rules are intended to protect the taxpayers' interest and preserve a level playing field for concerned businesses. A couple of instances have come to my attention in the last few months which suggest that there may be some misunderstanding of the very complex rules governing tax-exempt bonds and the intent behind these rules which have led local authorities to consider use these bonds to enter into direct competition with the private sector. The instances to which I refer include one in Las Vegas, where a local authority reportedly wishes to build a large addition to its convention center, and another in San Diego, where a local authority is reportedly looking at building a large hotel. In cases like these, the taxpayer-subsidized facility can offer customers prices well below those that could be offered by a private facility financed at higher market rates. This strikes me as blatantly unfair, particularly in those cases where a taxpayer-subsidized facility is not a new enterprise, but instead siphons off business from already existing private business. Closing this loophole is the principal goal of my bill. Obviously, my concern is with situations where the government is acting as a business and attracting customers. This legislation will have no effect on bonds used to build, maintain, or repair schools, hospitals, roads, or other facilities performing functions which private enterprise cannot or will not perform. Mr. Speaker, it is bad enough that the government can impose unnecessary and costly regulatory burdens on the private sector. But, when that same government uses tax-exempt bonds to engage in competition with business, it raises a question of basic fairness. It also blurs the lines of the role of government. Is it a wise use of taxpayer dollars to subsidize local government competition with business? I would again argue that my constituents would not support this notion or many other taxpayers. Mr. Speaker, these are serious, national policy issues which need to be addressed on a bipartisan basis so that we can protect both private enterprises from subsidized government competition and the taxpayer interests. It should be made clear at this point that the idea that federal tax subsidies and tax exemptions should not be used to create such an unfair competitive advantage is already in the current tax code. To prevent unfair competition, for nearly 50 years, there have been laws that have taxed businesses conducted by charities if the activity of that business is the type normally conducted by private taxable enterprises. Keeping in line with this precedence, the legislation I introduce today closely tracks H.R. 2756 by denying tax-exempt financing for certain facilities that compete directly with existing private sector facilities in the same community. Specifically, it accomplishes this by deeming as nonexempt any ``private activities bond'' within the meaning of Section 141 of the Internal Revenue Code, any bond issuance, a significant amount of which is used to finance the construction, expansion, or substantial reconstruction of a facility which would be rented to businesses which could otherwise be served by an existing competing private facility. As a clarification, Mr. Speaker, let me say again that the bill does not affect bonds issued for traditional functions of government: roads, bridges, schools, etc. To make this perfectly clear, it specifically exempts from its provisions educational institutions, hospitals, or similar facilities which provide educational services or medical care to members of the general public. With one minor exception, the bill will not apply to ``qualified bonds'' that Congress has previously exempted from restrictions on ``private activity'' bonds. This includes bonds used for so-called ``exempt facilities'' under Section 142 of the Code, which includes such projects as airports, water treatment plants, dockets and wharves, local power plants, etc. An exception is made for certain lodging facilities located in markets which could be served by private owned facilities, and these would generally be covered by my bill. Furthermore, the bill include language to assure that projects, where physical construction has both already commenced in a material fashion (other than site testing, site preparation or similar activities) and is substantially underway, are not impacted. In fairness to those who may be planning transactions which fit within the parameters of this legislation, and to assure those local authorities, in an attempt to ``beat the clock,'' do not rush through bond offerings before this bill is enacted, the bill include a clear effective date for all provisions with the exception of those addressing lodging facilities, which carry a date of enactment effective date. Mr. Speaker, the legislation will protect businesses from having the Federal Government grant local government facilities an unfair advantage over them in the marketplace. Further, it will protect all taxpayers from having their tax dollars used to subsidize local government efforts to enter into, or expand its presence in, non- traditional business functions already being performed by private enterprise.

Mr. SANFORD

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

Mr. SANFORD. Mr. Chairman, I walked in here about an hour and a half ago hoping to very quickly offer an amendment and walk out. Yet we found ourselves in the middle of a very heated debate because people have very strong feelings on both sides of the OPIC debate. My hope is that this, however, will be something accepted by voice because I see it as completely noncontroversial. I see this simply as an amendment about good government, having nothing to do with the merits on one side or the other of the OPIC debate itself. Specifically, when we think about the Federal Government, we do not like it, it is painful as we go through the process, but with the Federal Government we go through the authorizing and appropriating process every single year. The reason we do that is because we want to be accountable to the American taxpayer on a yearly basis for any of the money we spend here in Washington. So we see this model at the Federal Government level. We see the model of annual statement and annual review in the corporate world. How many of my colleagues have ever seen a 5-year report? We do not see 5- year reports, we see an annual report. We see an annual budget and an annual income statement. In fact, if you think about it in your own homes, what you would see there, at least in our home, when my wife and I sit down to look at our family budget, if you think about setting your family budget, which we do on a yearly basis in our house, my wife and I sit down, we look at the numbers and we say, what could we set for our expenditures based on a given level of income over this year. So in all of life, whether at the Federal Government level, whether at the corporate level or whether in one's home life, we see annual budgeting. Nobody sets spending on remote control except in Washington on a few different things. All this bill does is say, rather than looking at a 4-year authorization for OPIC, let us simply look at authorizing it for 1 year. The merits behind doing that I think are severalfold. First of all, though we might disagree about the merits of OPIC, one side versus the other, one thing that I do not think we would disagree with is the idea that the world changes. In fact, the Congressional Budget Office in a report showed that the United States taxpayer is liable for a full 90 percent of the loans, the contingent liabilities that go with OPIC funding. So if the world is constantly changing, would you not want to review those loans on an annual basis? The second point would be that, and again there has been a lot of disagreement about this, does OPIC cost money, does OPIC not cost money? If we actually look at the numbers, the revenue that came into OPIC last year was $193 million. That was based on interest income based on U.S. treasuries that had been given to OPIC at their origin. Their actual net income was $139 million, for a net loss in terms of normal accounting of $54 million. Admittedly, $54 million is not a lot of money in Washington, but it is an expenditure of taxpayer money, and since it is an expenditure of taxpayer money, all this amendment does is say, ``Well, let's make sure that we authorize that, let's make sure that we look at that on a regular basis,'' because we look at every other area of spending basically on an annual basis here in this Chamber and there on the Senate side. Finally, I would say, and again there was much controversy over this, and, that is, the idea of whether or not investment moves offshore as a result of OPIC. One thing, though, that we could probably agree on is if you change the risk of investment, you probably change where it goes. That is certainly the case with OPIC funding right now, because due to the insurance, due to the change in risk, there is probably an increase of investment overseas. We can debate whether that is a good or a bad thing, but that is a certain thing that skews investment toward overseas. Therefore, I would think, given the fact that trade numbers go up, trade numbers go down, that we too would want to review that on an annual basis. I would urge the adoption of this amendment. I think it is an amendment having more to do with simple good government and accountability than the merits underlying OPIC. I would urge its adoption.

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

Mr. SANFORD. Mr. Chairman, I would just make the point that in OPIC doing all of the things that the gentleman points out that in the last time it was authorized for 2 years, and it did not seem to cripple it then in its ability to produce those results; and, therefore, I just humbly suggest that if it was able to do it in 2 years then, why go to 4 years now? Why not keep it at that shorter span?