José Serrano

Mr. SERRANO

Mr. SERRANO. Mr. Speaker, I withdraw my reservation of objection.

Mr. SERRANO. Mr. Speaker, my understanding is that the peacekeeping amendment will be allocated 1 hour, the Hostettler guns amendment will be given 30 minutes, and then every other amendment will receive 10 minutes.

Mr. SERRANO. Mr. Speaker, reserving the right to object, let me first tell my chairman that I will not be objecting so that he will not get a heart attack right now. First let me say that I still have very serious problems with this process which allows people who go up front with amendments the first day or so of deliberation on a bill and certain sections of the bill to go up front to get a certain kind of attention and a certain kind of input in time and then the second part or latter parts of the bill and folks who are either junior Members or have work to do within those parts of the bill get less attention. I would hope in the future when we sit down to deal with one of these bills, we come to some agreements early on because I just think it is unfair. However, knowing the need we have to finish this bill and being part of the gentleman's desire to keep this bill moving and improving the bill, I will not object. However, I would like to ask the gentleman if he knows at this point specifically how many amendments we have left.

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

Mr. SERRANO. I want to clarify my point. I am not for time limitations. What I am for is for uniformity. While I do not like time limitations, I personally think that there is a contradiction in this House. We celebrate our democracy but we hate debate. And even if it is debate we do not like, that is part of who we are as a Nation. My opinion is just the opposite, the 5-minute rule and just let it go. If that is what it takes, 3, 4 days, that is what it takes.

Mr. SERRANO

Mr. SERRANO. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the requisite number of words. Mr. Chairman, I would like to join the gentleman from Kentucky (Mr. Rogers) in strong opposition to this amendment. First of all, I agree with those who have gotten up to say that we need more money in the Patent Office. We on this side have been saying that for 2 days now, that the problem with this bill is it does not have enough money to cover a lot of areas. But this amendment opens up a discussion which we thought we had put to bed last year and that is a discussion of the census and the Census Bureau. Taking money out of here will begin to cripple the followup work and the ongoing work that the Census Bureau has to do in order to follow up everything that we funded them to do last year. And so last year and for a couple of years, we had a bitter debate on the funding for the census; and when it was all over, I believe that we had in a bipartisan fashion done the right thing. But now that we have to look at a lot of information that is provided to us on a weekly and monthly and yearly basis, we go after the Census Bureau again with a deep cut. The Census Bureau has told us that if they were to take any further cuts, and especially this kind of cut, employment and unemployment data, information on infant and child well-being, health insurance coverage measurements and many other of these kinds of statistics would be in danger. I would hope that as we look at this amendment today that we commit ourselves perhaps in the future to finding another way to finding dollars for this agency and not to take it out of the Census Bureau. If we do that, we are going to reopen that discussion again; we are going to open the door for those who think that somehow Americans should not be counted every 10 years, and we are just going to cripple this agency once again. Please keep in mind that while we gave so much energy last year to the fact that we were having this once-every-10-year count, most of the work that the Census Bureau does, it does during that period. Now by taking this cut, they would jeopardize and we would jeopardize their ability to continue this work. Mr. Chairman, I join the gentleman from Kentucky in asking for strong opposition to this amendment and its defeat.

Mr. SERRANO. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the requisite number of words. Mr. Chairman, like the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Obey), I will not oppose the amendment, but I do understand that the funds that are very much needed for trade enforcement do come in the Commerce Department's administration. I would like to make two points. First of all, the Commerce Department in general in this bill is starved very seriously. In fact, they claim that, in general, they are $112 million below the money they need to operate properly. Secondly, they are $19 million below what they need in administration, including what Secretary Daley needed for security at the Commerce Department. So while we do not oppose, I would hope that the gentleman from Kentucky (Chairman Rogers) would understand that acceptance of this amendment means that we do have to try to find a few dollars later, in addition to the other dollars for the Commerce Department.

Mr. SERRANO. Mr. Chairman, reclaiming my time, there is a point here that yesterday on the Justice part of the bill everyone got a chance to speak and it seems like we are going to curtail on other parts. We are either blessed or cursed by the fact that our bill covers a lot of areas, and I think all areas deserve time. As far as time, we really have until October before we have to panic. Amendment No. 61 Offered by Mr. English

Mr. SERRANO. I yield to the gentleman from Kentucky.

Mr. SERRANO. I yield to the gentleman from Kentucky.

Mr. SERRANO. Mr. Chairman, I have been certainly trying to work closely with the gentleman on making this bill a better bill and making this process a better process, but I am a little troubled by any limitation of speaking time. So I would ask if the gentleman would consider, as a gentleman to a gentleman, on any point of order the gentleman may have, just withholding that point of order, reserving his right to it, and allowing everyone else to speak on it so we do not engage in something that may look like stifling of opposition on some of the issues. I certainly wanted to speak on the last amendment; I know I can do it by striking the last word, but by the gentleman cutting off the debate as he did, I think he just creates a situation over here that we do not need at this time.

Mr. SERRANO. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the last word. Mr. Chairman, I would like to see if my chairman, the gentleman from Kentucky (Mr. Rogers) would enter into a colloquy.

Mr. SERRANO. Mr. Chairman, reclaiming my time, I understand that, but I am not a big fan of curtailing time, and I am also not a big fan of a process which starts off with letting everybody speak under the 5- minute rule and then stopping people at the end of the bill from speaking more than they are allowed to. I think it is wrong, and I think it makes it worse if people, on a point of order, are cut off immediately so that they have to find unique ways of speaking on an issue that they should have spoken on when the amendment was on the floor.

Mr. SERRANO. I yield to the gentleman from Kentucky.

Mr. SERRANO. I yield to the gentleman from Wisconsin.

Mr. SERRANO

Mr. SERRANO. Mr. Chairman, I would advise the gentlewoman that this is an issue of great concern to all of us on this side, and certainly to a lot of Members in the House; and it is our intent, as we go through the conference procedure, to see to it that special care is taken in paying special attention to these issues so that these programs can be funded at the proper level.

Mr. SERRANO. Mr. Chairman, will the gentlewoman yield?

Mr. SERRANO. Mr. Chairman, I certainly do not want to be a stumbling block here, and I would agree to what we have to. But I would hope that for future bills we set up a system by which from the beginning we know we are going to head into this situation and treat the folks that are at the end of the bill with amendments the same way we treat the folks that are at the beginning. I was lucky, I got my two amendments up front and we are under the 5- minute rule. Now people that will come later will be treated differently. So if we know that we are always going to run into this, why can we not start off a bill knowing that this is the way we are going to have to treat it rather than have to play this game at this end.

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

Mr. SERRANO

Mr. SERRANO. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Davis), one of those few States with two baseball teams. (Mr. DAVIS of Illinois asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

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

Mr. SERRANO. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Chairman, I just want to address some of the comments that the gentleman from Kentucky (Chairman Rogers) said. He made some comments about folks coming to the floor and saying that there were cuts, and he referred to them not as cuts, but, rather, turning down the full request that the administration has made. He is correct on that. There are many parts of this bill where the amount the administration has asked for has been rejected, has not been adhered to. But we need to understand that those requests come about because there is a need, a growing need in some of these programs. There are services that have to be rendered. There are inflationary issues that have to be dealt with. So in fact, it is a cut when one says that one will not abide by the request. Secondly, there are parts of this bill, and the glaring one is the Legal Services Corporation, where, indeed, it is a cut from current year funding. I mean, that is clear. So while I respect the use of words by the gentleman from Kentucky, I think that some Members on this side think their use of the word cut and cuts are not improper because that is, in fact, what they are.

Mr. SERRANO. Certainly, I yield to the gentleman from Kentucky.

Mr. SERRANO. I yield to the gentleman from Wisconsin.

Mr. SERRANO. Mr. Chairman, reclaiming my time, the gentleman from Kentucky (Mr. Rogers) fully understands not only what the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Obey) says is correct, but also the fact that we did respond or did not respond to the administration's requests as we knew them to be, not as any other interpretation. Both our staffers had correct numbers and we had a choice to accept it or not accept it. Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.