Louise Slaughter

Ms. SLAUGHTER

Ms. SLAUGHTER. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Washington (Mr. Hastings), my colleague, for yielding me the customary \1/2\ hour, and I yield myself such time as I may consume. (Ms. SLAUGHTER asked and was given permission to revise and extend her remarks.)

Ms. SLAUGHTER. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Frost).

Ms. SLAUGHTER. Mr. Speaker, I have no further requests for time, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Ms. SLAUGHTER. Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of the open rule, but have several concerns regarding the underlying bill. Despite the best efforts of the Subcommittee on Energy and Water Development chairman and members to put together a bipartisan bill, the fiscal year 2001 Energy and Water Development appropriations bill is yet another spending bill that misses the boat. On the one hand, the bill funds numerous projects of critical importance to many of our districts. At the same time, however, it leaves serious spending gaps that fail to address real-world concerns that will have to be dealt with before the bill is signed into law. For instance, gas prices have topped $2 per gallon in many places. While the Federal Government has launched an investigation through the Federal Trade Commission in hopes of uncovering the answer to what is behind the soaring prices, the bill fails to adequately address the roots of the gasoline price problem. When oil prices plunged to $8 to $10 a barrel in March of 1999, the current leadership took little action to protect domestic oil producers, and when gas prices across the Nation stood at $1 per gallon, the majority party leadership pushed to eliminate the Energy Department entirely. They ignored efforts by Members to replenish the Strategic Petroleum Reserve with oil from struggling domestic producers. Had they acted, the Strategic Petroleum Reserve could have 115 million barrels more of oil, and we might have a healthier domestic oil industry. Fortunately, the rule will protect efforts in committee by the gentlewoman from Michigan (Ms. Kilpatrick) to amend the bill to reauthorize the Strategic Petroleum Reserve. Were it not for the gentlewoman from Michigan (Ms. Kilpatrick) offering this amendment adopted in the committee, the floor amendment proposed today would not be germane to the bill. The full House will also have an opportunity in the amendment process to establish a new regional home heating oil reserve in the Northeast, a program of critical importance to my district in Rochester and one I have long supported. Nevertheless, the underlying bill is $100 million short of the President's request for solar and renewable energy research, stifling hope for developing marketable solutions to what promises to be a perennial problem. This makes little sense. The majority continues to criticize the administration for failing to have an energy policy, yet has systematically shut down administration initiatives to fund energy research efforts that could help in finding a solution to this problem. During consideration of this bill at full committee, the gentlewoman from Ohio (Ms. Kaptur) offered an amendment to restore the line for Solar and Renewable Energy Research to the level requested in the President's budget. The amendment was rejected by the committee on a party line vote. This has been a continuing pattern throughout the appropriations process. The House has just passed the VA-HUD appropriations bill, which slashes the President's budget request for the National Science Foundation by half a billion dollars. Floor action on the Interior bill made a bad situation worse by leaving the bill $100 million below last year's level on energy efficiency. The Congress does not have the ability or the desire to set fuel prices, but we should have the good sense to support research into ways to avoid the kinds of shocks high fuel prices can deliver to our economy and encourage the development of alternative energy sources and domestic energy production. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Ms. SLAUGHTER. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Connecticut (Mr. Larson). (Mr. LARSON asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Ms. SLAUGHTER. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from Maine (Mr. Baldacci). (Mr. BALDACCI asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Ms. SLAUGHTER

Ms. SLAUGHTER. Mr. Speaker, I was unable to be present for rollcall votes 315, 316, 317, and 318, amendments to H.R. 4690, a bill making appropriations for the Departments of Commerce, Justice, and State, the Judiciary, and related agencies for Fiscal Year 2001. Had I been present, I would have voted yes or aye on each of these votes. Campbell amendment; Reduce Federal Prison System spending: No. 315, ``aye''. Hinchey amendment; Fund Economic Development Administration: No. 316, ``aye''. Scott amendment; Increase funds for Boys and Girls Clubs in public housing: No. 317, ``aye''. DeGette amendment; Abortion for women in prison: No. 318, ``aye''.

Ms. SLAUGHTER

Ms. SLAUGHTER. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the last word. I appreciate the hard work that my colleague, the gentleman from New York (Mr. Walsh), has done with the low funding allocations that he was given, however this spending bill makes cuts in Housing and Urban Development's efforts to address affordable housing, community development and economic development issues. I am pleased to take this opportunity to speak in support of the Mollohan amendment to increase the funding for the HUD housing programs by $1.8 billion. This amendment addresses the drastic underfunding in this bill of several important HUD programs in the country and in my district. Under the President's budget, the Rochester, New York area would have received an increase of $4 million over last year. But, instead, under this bill being considered this evening, my district will have its programs cut by $400,000. These cuts mean fewer people will be able to purchase a home, fewer people with HIV/AIDS will receive housing assistance, less money is available to enforce fair housing laws, less money to fight against the widespread predatory lending practices, less money that can be used to deliver services to the homeless, and less money for elderly housing. An elderly woman in Rochester contacted me frustrated about the critical shortage of affordable housing. The waiting list for this housing and the low maximum income limits on new and existing homes were a very great barrier to her, and she correctly pointed out that it will only get worse as seniors live longer. She and her husband are ``too rich'' for low-income housing by $500 and too poor for assisted care senior housing. They also cannot find handicapped accessible housing, which is necessary for her husband, who has had a stroke. They are being forced to sell the home they live in and they do not know where they are going to move. She remarks, ``Our golden years have been very tarnished.'' Unfortunately, she is not an isolated case. With a record of $5.4 million unassisted low-income households in this country having worst- case housing needs, and spending over 50 percent of their income on rent, the bill's low funding is inadequate. I urge my colleagues to do better in conference.

Ms. SLAUGHTER

Ms. SLAUGHTER. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the requisite number of words. Mr. Chairman, I rise to urge my colleagues to vote against this amendment. I think the purpose of it is quite clear. They are trying to kill a fly with dynamite. I think they believe if they take away all of the money, there will not be any for the National Endowment for the Arts, the National Endowment for the Humanities, and the museums. Frankly, the clean coal portion of this legislation is very important. I just want to urge that everybody look or search their minds here and really understand what is happening with this amendment. I commend the gentleman from Ohio (Chairman Regula) for saying this should not be voted for, and I join him in that. I hope that everyone will vote no.

Ms. SLAUGHTER. Mr. Chairman, reclaiming my time, I just want to echo what the gentleman from California (Mr. Horn) has said. It is unbecoming for this Congress every year to debate this subject the way we do. Last night half of this group in this House went over to the Kennedy Center for a free performance of To Kill a Mockingbird, and this afternoon they have come back for a performance on the floor to try to kill the NEA. I think the time has come to stop that nonsense and fund these agencies a little bit more so they can do three times more work.

Ms. SLAUGHTER. Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?

Ms. SLAUGHTER. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the requisite number of words. Mr. Chairman, the amendments that were offered today were offered on behalf of the Arts Caucus of the House of Representatives, a bipartisan group. One of the things that helped us win this afternoon were the 25 votes of the Republican Members for which I am extraordinarily grateful. I thank my cochair, the gentleman from California (Mr. Horn), for the hard work that he has done and the gentlewoman from Connecticut (Mrs. Johnson) for her tenacious fight to try to do something here. I am certainly grateful to all the people over here on my side who saw to it that we got that victory this afternoon and I thank them. I cannot tell my colleagues how sad this makes me. I am used to not doing very well on this subject. I appreciate that there are lots of things I could come up with every year that might please the crowd. I have always tried, the 14 years I have been here, to deal with you as honestly and frankly as I can. I have been persuaded over the years of the great benefit that these three programs do to the people of the United States. We are asking not for us. We get to go see To Kill a Mockingbird. We get invited to all the good things. I am talking about all the other people out there, the people we represent, who will line up to get to a performance when a play comes to town, and who will struggle to make sure that their children are associated with the arts in school. I appreciate again what everybody does. This is the first year, frankly, that we have been able not to just try to keep it alive. People were elected here, I understand that, to kill the NEA for some reason. It was like the Holy Grail. This little agency, when I came here I think it had $178 million worth of budget. It is down to $98 million. It will probably never rise again. Who knows? But it seems to loom so large in people's minds and in a way that I think is totally wrong. The agency has transformed itself in every way the Congress has asked. Its leadership has been extraordinary. Members of the House sit on the advisory committee. There is not a single soul in this House that could not go back to their district and point with great pride what little bits of seed money that came to them from the National Endowment for the Arts made them be able to build things in their own communities of which they could be proud. This amount of money that we have here would have done a lot for them. I do not know how many little regional theaters may go dark now because we cannot fund the arts in this country. We should understand that we fund it cheaper than any other country on the face of the Earth. I do not know how many children may not ever be able to see an artist perform. I remember an artist who told me one day that her father and mother had scrounged up enough money to take her to see the Music Man, and that she had never seen anything like it in her life. She said to herself, ``That's exactly what I want to do.'' She did it. She grew up, and she remembered what that meant to her as a very young person. And now Mary Steenburgen tells us that every time before she goes on stage, she reaches down to take that imaginary little girl by the hand and says, ``Let's go out and do our best tonight, Mary. There may be children here.'' In my own district, a young man who won the Arts Caucus program here so that he could hang some art down in the tunnel, he was 17 or so, and was severely troubled. We could not find him to tell him that he had won. He had left home. He had dropped out of school. But my staff in Rochester persisted. They finally found him. They said, ``Look. You've got to go to Washington. You've got to go for this celebration and see how they hang this picture and how it says something in the State of New York that you have been chosen.'' He did. We gave him an enormous good time. The next time I saw that young man was at a meeting again trying to keep the foundation of the arts alive. He said to me, ``I am now a student at Pratt. There was something about that validation of hanging in the Capitol of the United States of America that made me think, by George, I may be worth something.'' It completely turned him around. I saw little children in Harlem learning to dance at the age of 3. They were so cute you could hardly believe it. You wanted to hug and squeeze them, but they were not there for that. They were there to learn discipline and to learn dance. We know what this does to the human spirit. The National Endowment for the Humanities explains to us all the time and to everybody else who we are, who we were, where we are going, where we have been, and that is important, because we do not want to be the only society, do we, that only leaves behind their Styrofoam? I know that we are not going to win this battle here tonight. So, Mr. Nethercutt and Mr. Regula, take your $22 million, because, as I said, it has been said here before and much better than I, I do not believe this amendment was intended to help the Indians. I believe this amendment was intended to use them. So take it. I hope that it will be of some help to them. And these little agencies will limp along, and we will try again next year.

Ms. SLAUGHTER. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman from Washington for yielding to me. Mr. Chairman, I would like to add my thanks to the chairman who has done a wonderful job today. Mr. Chairman, I ask unanimous consent that I be allowed to offer amendments that occur on page 85, line 7 and 21 and on page 86 line 19, notwithstanding the fact that that portion of the bill has not yet been read for amendment.

Ms. SLAUGHTER. Mr. Chairman, I am happy to respond to the gentleman's inquiry. I have contacted the Department of Energy and been assured that deferring the additional $22 million would not cause any significant problems and is not expected to result in the cancellation of any contracts. In fact, the Department of Energy originally proposed deferring $221 million and rescinding an additional $105 million in clean coal funds. Consequently, a deferral of $22 million should not cause any major hardship, and I urge my colleagues to take this opportunity to allocate the funding to the arts and humanities.

Ms. SLAUGHTER. I yield to the gentleman from California.

Ms. SLAUGHTER. Mr. Chairman, we are calling up this amendment to give a much-needed raise to three agencies of the Federal Government that have been starved by this Congress for a number of years simply because of misperceptions and absolute downright lies about the kind of work that they have done. I do not think any reasonable person in the United States can dispute the good work that these agencies do. As a matter of fact, in the years which we struggled just to keep it alive, we have gotten a lot of help from the associations, the counties, the conference of mayors, major corporations in the United States who believe that creative thinking is the key to success. This year we can afford to give to the National Endowment of Arts $15 million more, and $5 million more to the National Endowment for Humanities, and only 2 million more, I wish it were more, for the Museum Service, which does so much, the Museum and Library Service. The debate over the years about these three agencies, over this government have taken such a terrible beating. Things have been said on the floor that have been, as I said earlier, misperceptions and down right wrong. But we struggle just simply to keep them alive. But we have ample proof from the response of the people throughout the United States that they not only want these agencies alive, they want these agencies to survive. I want to make it clear this afternoon that I am offering this amendment on behalf of the Arts Caucus of the House of Representatives, which is co-chaired by the gentleman from California (Mr. Horn). This amendment is cosponsored also by the gentlewoman from Connecticut (Mrs. Johnson) and the gentleman from Washington (Mr. Dicks). What we are asking is, as my colleagues know, the bill calls for a deferral of $67 million. We would like to increase that by $22 million for a total of $89 million, as we said before, to give the NEA a $15 million raise, the NEH $5 million more, and the Library and Museum Service $2 million more. People cry out for it. Even our opponents on the other side have talked about how much people appreciate going to arts programs. The National Endowment for the Arts and National Endowment for Humanities have made certain over the years that they have reached out to every nook and crannie from sea to shining sea in the United States, trying to make the little bit of money that we give them stretch to meet the needs of the growing population of the United States. We know more than we used to about the development of the mind. We know more about what it is like for a child to be exposed to art at a very early age. We know a child who has studied art for 4 years in high school will do 80 points better on their SAT scores. And we know that this House should vote to support these agencies.

Ms. SLAUGHTER. Mr. Chairman, I offer my first amendment.

Ms. SLAUGHTER. Mr. Chairman, I have four amendments at the desk, and I ask unanimous consent that they be considered en bloc.

Ms. SLAUGHTER

Ms. SLAUGHTER. Madam Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from New York (Mr. LaFalce).

Ms. SLAUGHTER. Madam Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from Connecticut (Ms. DeLauro).

Ms. SLAUGHTER. Madam Speaker, I yield 30 seconds to the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Obey).

Ms. SLAUGHTER

Ms. SLAUGHTER. Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?

Ms. SLAUGHTER. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding. Mr. Speaker, since the Arts Caucus could not present its amendment this evening, we will give Members one chance this evening to vote for or against art and humanities. This is the very same proposal that passed today. It is a vote on art. It passed today by 207 to 204 with bipartisan support. If Members supported it today, they should support it this morning. Mr. Speaker, these funds do not support a $9 billion industry, as stated earlier this evening, but exist to bring beauty, truth, history, and hope to those who might have no other exposure to them. This includes the NEA programs that are presently on Indian reservations. It is also money in the bank. The $98 million spent last year will bring back to the Federal Treasury $4 billion to $5 billion this year. An investment with a return like that deserves to be increased. I urge a yes vote on the motion to recommit.

Ms. SLAUGHTER

Ms. SLAUGHTER. Mr. Speaker, I yield 4 minutes to the gentleman from Colorado (Mr. Udall).

Ms. SLAUGHTER. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.