Louise Slaughter

Ms. SLAUGHTER

Ms. SLAUGHTER. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. I rise in strong opposition to the rule and the underlying bill, H.R. 1122. Mr. Speaker, I urge all my colleagues in the strongest possible terms to defeat the previous question on this rule. The process the majority has used to bring this rule and bill before the House of Representatives makes a mockery of our legislative process. The bill that would be made in order by this rule is not the bill reported by the Judiciary Committee. It is not the bill that the Rules Committee heard testimony on yesterday. Last night in an unprecedented move, the majority members of the Committee on Rules discarded legislation that had been approved by the subcommittee and the full Committee on the Judiciary and replaced it with a bill from the last term. Several improving amendments that had been accepted by the Committee on the Judiciary were tossed away. In an unusual agreement with the Senate, the majority leadership of this body determined that they wanted to send the President a bill identical to the one he vetoed last year. The President has made it clear that he will veto any bill that does not pass the test of the four women who visited him in his office explaining that the procedure we are discussing today was necessary to preserve their health, their lives, and their reproductive ability. The minority of the Committee on Rules had no more input than did the Committee on the Judiciary. We were simply confronted with a fait accompli in the form of the already-vetoed and expired bill from the last term. It is obvious that the Committee on Rules chose to invite another veto rather than meeting the President's criteria for signing this bill, and that calls into question their sincerity on this entire issue. One amendment approved by the Committee on the Judiciary that is not in this bill would have prevented a father who had abandoned or abused the mother of the fetus from suing for damages. I want to make this clear, that anyone who votes for this bill made in order by this rule is voting to allow batterers and abusers to profit from the tragedy that leads to this procedure. Imagine, an abuser, an abandoner, or rapist can sue his victim who is already damaged. Ironically, providers can be sued for damages resulting from both psychological and physical injuries, and yet the majority refuses to allow the bill to be amended to provide an exception to protect the woman's psychological health. In other words, her's does not matter. The father's does. That amendment would have enhanced the chances of this bill becoming law. Another amendment passed by the Committee on the Judiciary but deleted in the new version of the bill passed last night clarified that the life exception in the bill includes situations in which the mother's life is endangered by the pregnancy itself. There is no protection for her. Regardless of where one stands on the issue of abortion, I believe all of us would agree that these two amendments are necessary. All Members know that at the end of a congressional term, all bills previously filed have died and certainly a vetoed bill has died. Bringing back a bill from a previous term has not only rendered useless the work of the committee and those interested enough to produce amendments, but has disenfranchised the new members of the Committee on the Judiciary and their constituents who were not members last term. This means they had no input on the bill whatsoever, they were not privy to any of the discussions on the bill, they never voted for this bill. I do not believe personally that it is the role of Congress to determine medical procedures. The doctor-patient relationship in this country has been accepted as totally private. My dismay and disbelief at the process in which this bill has been brought to the floor overrides my concern, however, about Congress inserting itself into the most private of decisions because we are saying not only are we competent to make medical judgments but we are saying that the Committee on Rules is the only competent body to make the decision, more competent even than the Committee on the Judiciary, which has jurisdiction over the issues, overstepping the bounds in which we have always operated since the days of Thomas Jefferson. Does congressional reform mean that from now on there is only going to be a Committee on Rules? Are we going to completely override the product of other committees, taking away the rights and responsibilities that have always been the prerogatives of Members of Congress? Is this the new civility? Does the majority really care about this issue or does their mistaken belief that they will embarrass President Clinton override their judgment? I urge my colleagues in the strongest possible terms to reject this rule that would permit debate on a bill that is not properly before us and has bypassed every single part of the legislative process, and I urge defeat of the previous question. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from California [Mr. Fazio].

Ms. SLAUGHTER. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentlewoman from Connecticut [Mrs. Johnson]. (Mrs. JOHNSON of Connecticut asked and was given permission to revise and extend her remarks.)

Ms. SLAUGHTER. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my time. Mr. Speaker, if the previous question is defeated, I will offer an amendment making in order the amendments offered by the gentleman from Massachusetts [Mr. Frank] and the gentleman from New York [Mr. Nadler], which were approved by the Committee on the Judiciary, and also make in order the Hoyer-Greenwood substitute. I strongly urge my colleagues to defeat the previous question so that these worthy amendments can be put in order. This vote on whether or not to order the previous question is not merely a procedural vote. It is a vote against the agenda and a vote to allow the opposition at least for the moment to offer an alternative plan. It is a vote about what the House should be debating. I urge, again, all my colleagues who are listening to me to understand that we are not following normal House procedure here, that another bill that had been defeated, that will be vetoed, has been brought up in a new term simply as a matter of embarrassment. I know that it may hurt, but it seems to me, in listening to the debate, that the issue itself on late term abortions has taken second place to the political question. Mr. Speaker, I include for the Record the following: The Vote on the Previous Question: What It Really Means This vote, the vote on whether to order the previous question on a special rule, is not merely a procedural vote. A vote against ordering the previous question is a vote against the Republican majority agenda and a vote to allow the opposition, at least for the moment, to offer an alternative plan. It is a vote about what the House should be debating. Mr. Clarence Cannon's Precedents of the House of Representatives, (VI, 308-311) describes the vote on the previous question on the rule as ``a motion to direct or control the consideration of the subject before the House being made by the Member in charge.'' To defeat the previous question is to give the opposition a chance to decide the subject before the House. Cannon cites the Speaker's ruling if January 13, 1920, to the effect that ``the refusal of the House to sustain the demand for the previous question passes the control of the resolution to the opposition'' in order to offer an amendment. On March 15, 1909, a member of the majority party offered rule resolution. The House defeated the previous question and a member of the opposition rose to a parliamentary inquiry, asking who was entitled to recognition. Speaker Joseph G. Cannon (R-Illinois) said: ``The previous question having been refused, the gentleman from New York, Mr. Fitzgerald, who had asked the gentleman to yield to him for an amendment, is entitled to the first recognition.'' Because the vote today may look bad for the Republican majority they will say ``the vote on the previous question is simply a vote on whether to proceed to an immediate vote on adopting the resolution . . . [and] has no substantive legislative or policy implications whatsoever.'' But that is not what they have always said. Listen to the Republican Leadership Manual on the Legislative Process in the United States House of Representatives, (6th edition, page 135). Here's how the Republicans describe the previous question vote in their own manual: ``Although it is generally not possible to amend the rule because the majority Member controlling the time will not yield for the purpose of offering an amendment, the same result may be achieved by voting down the previous question on the rule . . . When the motion for the previous question is defeated, control of the time passes to the Member who led the opposition to ordering the previous question. That Member, because he then controls the time, may offer an amendment to the rule, or yield for the purpose of amendment.'' Deschler's Procedure in the U.S. House of Representatives, the subchapter titled ``Amending Special Rules'' states: ``a refusal to order the previous question on such a rule [a special rule reported from the Committee on Rules] opens the resolution to amendment and further debate.'' (Chapter 21, section 21.2) Section 21.3 continues: ``Upon rejection of the motion for the previous question on a resolution reported from the Committee on Rules, control shifts to the Member leading the opposition to the previous question, who may offer a proper amendment or motion and who controls the time for debate thereon.'' The vote on the previous question on a rule does have substantive policy implications. It is one of the only available tools for those who oppose the Republican majority's agenda to offer an alternative plan.

Ms. SLAUGHTER. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the distinguished gentleman from Wisconsin [Mr. Obey].

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

Ms. SLAUGHTER. Mr. Speaker I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from Pennsylvania [Mr. Greenwood].

Ms. SLAUGHTER

Ms. SLAUGHTER. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. I thank the gentleman for yielding the time to me. Mr. Speaker, this is an open rule that will allow full debate on this bill, and I ask my colleagues to support the rule so that we may proceed with consideration of the merits of the legislation. As my colleague has noted, H.R. 412 approves an agreement between the Bureau of Reclamation, an agency of the Department of the Interior, and the Oroville-Tonasket Irrigation District of Washington. This agreement would transfer the federally funded irrigation project to the irrigation district at no cost. Proponents of the measure note that the irrigation system does not work as planned and that operation costs are higher than projected. Several of my colleagues expressed concern, however, that this conveyance amounts to a giveaway of Federal assets, a giveaway that has had little to no congressional oversight. It is their strong belief that the district should be allowed to take possession of the project only after paying fair market value based on an independent appraisal. Furthermore, it is my understanding that the Department of Justice did not participate in this settlement agreement and thus opponents argue that Congress should have the opportunity to address the dispute in question and to reach an equitable settlement. Since this is an open rule, however, I urge my colleagues' support for the rule to allow full debate. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Ms. SLAUGHTER

Ms. SLAUGHTER. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to talk about one of the best things that we can do in education for our children. It has been proven over and over again what a wonderful effect it has on them. Would it surprise you to know that a child in a school in the United States that has 4 years of arts programs, the verbal scores on the SAT's go up 67 points and the math scores go up 45? Would it amaze you to know that the most important thing we can do to cut the dropout rate and the absenteeism is to have children participate in art, proven over and over and over again. One of the most important ways that we can give a child self-esteem, and so many of them need it, is to give them the ability to create. And once again, we have learned over and over and over again that children who create do not destroy. All this is done in simple programs in schools all over the United States. And every parent that has ever put on the refrigerator door the drawing brought from home or the little plaster cast of the hand, the things that we keep forever, I think probably everything that my children ever touched is stored away in a box somewhere where I like to take them out and look at them for my memories, every parent who has ever experienced that knows the wonderful feeling that that child has of being able to create and to express. We are losing whole generations of children these days to violence, to absenteeism, to disinterest, the inability to learn. What happens? A country faced with problems like that, that says at the same time we are going to turn our back on the one simple cheap thing that we can do to benefit these children. Does it work? You bet. I wrote legislation to educate homeless children in the United States. It is an astonishing fact that every day in this country between 750,000 and 1 million children are homeless. It is not their fault. Their parents used to work; they just do not anymore. A lot of people do not understand what homelessness means to a child. They can go to a shelter, but they can only stay there a certain number of days and then they have to move. Or they can live in a State park or a local park maybe 2 weeks, and then they have to move. It is in every respect a nomadic existence. So we have these numbers of children in the United States unable to get their education, because many times they do not have their birth certificate. It was always a very important thing for us in the United States. No child went to school without their inoculations, their birth certificate, and a permanent address. This was not an indigenous population in the United States. We had never really took any plans or even discussed any plans on what we would do about kids without a permanent address or who maybe lost their birth certificate in one of those many moves they had to make. So a family that is confronted, let us say, with putting food on a table or duplicating a birth certificate for $10, logically and sensibly is going to opt for food on the table for the children. So we wrote a little piece of legislation here that said we do not care whether they have their birth certificate or not. We know they are born, they are standing in front of us. We want them educated. The United States cannot go into the next century with children who are unhealthy, untrained, and uneducated. One of the most important things, again, that has been important to this population and consequently to us is the arts programs, is that we were able to provide these children with the ability to be able to express themselves, to be able to deal with what had happened to them, for the first time to be able to open up to a stranger as they discussed the work that they had done. So the United States over the years has decided that art may not be too important to us, or that maybe it is only for the rich people who want to go to the museums or the art galleries, and for the rest of us it does not really matter. Well, we could be meeting here in a Quonset hut but we are not. We are here in a work of art that every day makes all of us who work here not only understand how lucky we are to have been elected, but how blessed we are to work in this building with the American eagle overhead and our first President's wonderful portrait by Stuart over there that every schoolchild knows. The first thing that occurred to me when I got here was that was the original. We have Lafayette over here on the other side and all the wonderful carvings of people who have come before us. What is it that really tells us what kind of a nation, one that has disappeared off the earth, was like? When we excavate, how do we determine whether they were enlightened, whether they were civilized? Simple. By the art they left behind. How do we explain to children growing up in the United States what it was like for the pioneers, the people in Conastoga wagons, the people who opened up the West, the patriots? By the art left behind. This Capitol is full of it. This city is full of it. This city is in many ways a work of art. Can this country afford to be the only industrial country on the face of the earth that determines that art is not important? I do not think so. There is not an industrial country anywhere on the planet that does not have a national budget for the arts; sometimes 1 or 2 percent of their total budget. What do we do? President Nixon started the National Endowment for the Arts because he thought the United States ought to make some statement as well. And over the years we have whittled away at the money and whittled away at it until now, this year, we are being asked to pay $136 million for arts programs in every nook and cranny in the United States, $136 million, which is a great deal less than the United States spends every year for military bands. It does not amount to a whole lot in the scheme of things when we think about what it does. Let me give my colleagues some idea of what happens there. Let us talk not about the beauty of it but the economy. The arts support 1.3 million jobs. The nonprofit arts community generates $36.8 billion annually in economic activity. The arts produces $790 million in local government revenue and $1.2 billion in State government revenue. And for the $136 million that we hope we can vote this year to put in, we will get back almost $4 billion in taxes paid into the Federal Treasury. This is not an idle piece of work. I know of no other thing in this Government, and I have served three terms on the Committee on the Budget, I promise my colleagues I know of no other expenditure that we make that brings back that kind of monetary return. It just does not happen. So if we add to that what we can do for the children in school, something that we struggle every day with, and we just heard the previous speaker talking about children not being able to read or to talk and all these kinds of things, we can see that some of these programs can open them up and help them to do that. Why would we not want to? Now, I am not going to ask anyone to take my word for it, because I do not altogether understand it myself. But there is a direct correlation between dance and math. No two ways about it. Today, classical music is supposed to stimulate some part of the brain and that then that individual will have a better idea of spacial concepts. That is wonderful. We do not know how all this works, but we are right now in the decade of the brain. All these wonderful studies have been taking place and we see how certain parts of the brain light up under certain stimulation and we have found out so much. We have found out, for one thing, that we have to begin at birth, with a baby, to stimulate it, to educate it. We have a short window of opportunity, really, to open up that little mind to be everything that it can be. It is critically important that we look at the United States and whether we are going to be a participant in this, in this decade of the brain, or are we again going to turn our backs on it. Mr. Speaker, I want to yield 4 minutes to the gentleman from Georgia [Mr. Lewis]; and then we will next be joined by my colleague from California [Mr. Farr].

Ms. SLAUGHTER. And, Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for his participation. That was wonderful and I appreciate that very much. Now, Mr. Speaker, I would yield to my colleague from California, [Mr. Farr] and we will have a few discussions here on this same subject.

Ms. SLAUGHTER. I thank the gentleman from California [Mr. Farr]. I yield to the gentleman from Texas [Mr. Bentsen].

Ms. SLAUGHTER. I thank the gentleman from Texas [Mr. Bentsen] for coming and joining us this evening. That was a very important message. We are trying to reinforce what art means to children in making better students, cutting out the dropout rate, all the wonderful things we want for the children at risk. I yield to the gentleman from California [Mr. Horn], the co-chair of the Congressional Members Organization for the Arts.

Ms. SLAUGHTER. Mr. Horn, you know one of the things that he told us yesterday that really stuck with me was that he has this wonderful building and all these students who come there, and they have been there for 10 years, and 2 blocks away is the school that he went to as a youngster, and it has bars on the windows and police cars outside and people patrolling the perimeter. But in his facility two blocks away he said that he needs no guards in the daytime, there has never been any graffiti, and despite all of the important and expensive equipment and things he has inside that building nothing has ever been touched.

Ms. SLAUGHTER. And we find that once that right brain is developed it spills over on to the left-hand side, and, as I pointed out earlier, that just 4 years of art, the verbal scores on SAT's will go up 65 points, and math, 45, and I know of no other thing we can do for these students to get that kind of result.

Ms. SLAUGHTER. Once again we just find that arts brings people together and does the kind of thing that we want for human beings, and it really would be dreadful if we made a statement here on this floor that it did not matter to us.

Ms. SLAUGHTER. That is the best thing about the NEA. It wants to make sure that every nook and cranny from sea to shining sea has the same opportunity. I yield now to my colleague, Connie Morella, from Maryland.

Ms. SLAUGHTER. I thank you so much for being here, and I appreciate your message. Mr. Speaker, I want to close with two very brief examples of what we were talking about with the revitalization of towns' economy through art. The Northeast has suffered out migration, as you know, over a number of years, and one little town in New York State called Peekskill was really in very bad condition. The downtown area was basically dead, theatres had closed, restaurants closed. It was not much happening there until a sort of spillover from New York City. A famous artist came into Peekskill, and a well-known sculptor took over the old movie theater. It was perfect for his massive work, and galleries began to open, and then there was a massive change in Peekskill. People began to come in droves. The restaurants opened up again because people needed someplace to live, they needed a place to stay, they needed a place to buy gasoline, they needed a place for snacks, they needed things for souvenirs for their children, and that economy was brought back because of the art that was in Peekskill. Providence, RI has just recently embarked on the same kind of an adventure in their downtown area. They have turned parts of abandoned factories and other buildings into places where performing artists and other artists can work in a group in one square mile of downtown Providence. It has been absolutely an amazing revitalization. It has brought back that city of 160,000 people to life and has stopped the out migration to other parts of the State and to the country. Art speaks for itself, but I do think it is important for me and for my colleagues to say to you that we are not asking here for anything that is frivolous, for anything that does not pay its own way, for anything that does not help our children in incalculable ways. So, Mr. Speaker, when art reauthorization comes to the floor of the House, I urge my colleagues to support it, and I hope that everybody in America will as well.

Ms. SLAUGHTER

Ms. SLAUGHTER. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days within which to revise and extend their remarks on the subject of my special order.

Ms. SLAUGHTER

Ms. SLAUGHTER. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from New York [Mrs. Lowey].

Ms. SLAUGHTER. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. I would like to take just a minute if I could to say that if I had my druthers, this bill would not go forward. This is an unreported bill and a closed rule, and I find that fairly egregious, particularly given the fact that we have just voted to support the President's privileged resolution. However, we will not be calling for a vote. I simply want to voice my objection to the process by which this has happened. We are just beginning this process, and we hope we will not see it again. Mr. Speaker, I have no further requests for time, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Ms. SLAUGHTER. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume to take a moment to respond to the gentleman from New Jersey. Frankly, I think the cruelest form of birth control is the fact that 600,000 women die in the world every year from complications, not understanding how to space their families. And it does not happen to all of us, it happens to the women in the world. It is very important, if we want the emerging world, the developing world, to have a chance to be able to feed, to take care, to provide health care for their population. Part of that equation, without any doubt, is the ability to space and plan one's family. To take that essential right away from the women of the world because we may believe that some organizations do not always believe what we think is the proper thing, we nonetheless know in this House that those organizations are prohibited from using any of these funds for abortion information or abortions. What more can we say? Nobody has accused them of going ahead and using it. The fact of the matter is, what we are trying to do is save lives. It is as important as that. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Maine, [Mr. Baldacci].

Ms. SLAUGHTER. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. I rise in strong opposition to the rule. The legislation that is made in order by this rule is just another transparent attempt to tack abortion restrictions onto legislation which is peripheral at best to the issue of abortion. We are talking today about family planning programs, family planning, not abortion. This is a critical distinction because effective family planning greatly reduces or even eliminates the demand for abortion. Anyone who opposes abortion should be an ardent supporter of family planning. The bill we will consider on this rule proposes to reinstate the Mexico City policy and deny critical family planning funding to international organizations that reserve the right to provide abortions or abortion counseling with their own funds. No one is suggesting that U.S. funding will go toward abortions in other nations. We have had these prohibitions against such use of U.S. funds in place since 1973. The bill proposes to restrict access to family planning in order to reduce abortions. If reduction is the goal, this bill will be an utter failure because studies have proved, time and time again, that access to family planning reduces abortion. In Russia, where for decades abortion was the primary form of birth control, contraception first became widely available in 1991. Between 1989 and 1995, abortions in Russia dropped from 4.43 million a year to 2.7 million a year, a 60 percent decrease. That should be compelling to anyone. Why would anyone who wants to decrease abortions want to restrict access to family planning? How can they justify probably defunding organizations like the one in Russia? These statistics are repeated all over the world, in South Korea, Chile, and Hungary. Family planning has a wide range of other benefits as well. By spacing births, women and families can improve infant survival and ensure that they have the resources to support their children. Spacing births at least 2 years apart could prevent an average of one in four infant deaths. Finally, someone must speak for the millions of women around the world who desperately want access to family planning. Pregnancy and childbirth are still a very risky proposition for women in many parts of the globe that often lack electricity, hot running water, medical equipment, or trained personnel. In Africa, women have a 1-in-16 chance of death from pregnancy and childbirth during their lifetime, and over 585,000 women in this world die every year from complications of pregnancy and birth. For each woman who dies, 100 others suffer from associated illnesses and permanent disabilities, including sterility. If we could meet just the existing demands for family planning services, we could reduce the number of maternal deaths and injuries in the world by up to 20 percent. Many of these are women with families, who leave their children motherless. We cannot, in conscience, abandon them by cutting off what may be their only access to birth control information. This bill would impose personal beliefs on family planning organizations throughout the world. How dare we, blessed as we are with practically information overload, the best health care system in the world, attempt to deny the only source of information services to families in the developing world? Who are we to dictate the terms under which these groups provide essential services across the globe? We would be outraged, and rightly so, if the legislative body of any nation had the audacity to impose its will over organizations operating legally in our country by dictating the terms under which they would continue to receive the financial support they need to operate. It is inhumane to restrict access to family planning in areas where it is desperately needed. We must not expose more women and families to the risks associated with unintended pregnancies. I urge my colleagues to vote against the rule and against the Smith bill.

Ms. SLAUGHTER. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from Texas [Ms. Jackson-Lee]. (Ms. JACKSON-LEE of Texas asked and was given permission to revise and extend her remarks.)

Ms. SLAUGHTER. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentlewoman from New York, [Ms. Velazquez].

Ms. SLAUGHTER

Ms. SLAUGHTER. Mr. Speaker, in this past election season spending levels for Federal elections shattered all previous records, at nearly $2 billion. The President and our leadership met yesterday and agreed on five priority items for this Congress, but guess what was missing? Campaign finance reform. Let me make a suggestion. As David Broder noted in today's Washington Post, the reason campaigns are so expensive is because television advertising costs so much. That is why I have reintroduced H.R. 84, the Fairness in Political Advertising Act. It would reduce the cost of elections by requiring television stations to make free time available to both candidates as a condition of the stations renewing their licenses, and I urge my colleagues to join me on this bill. I challenge the leadership to make campaign finance reform a priority and to enact the Fairness in Political Advertising Act. Democracy should not cost $2 billion. Mr. Speaker, I am submitting the article referred to earlier for inclusion in the Record: [From the Washington Post, Feb. 12, 1997] A TV Time Bank for Candidates (By David S. Broder) When you're trying to figure out one of those interlocking wooden puzzles, sometimes it helps to turn it upside down. That is what happened to me one morning recently when I had breakfast with Reed Hundt, the chairman of the Federal Communications Commission. The topic was campaign finance legislation--or so I thought. But when I remarked that the history of campaign finance laws and regulations was fraught with unintended consequences, Hundt immediately corrected me. ``We're not talking about campaign finance legislation.'' he said. ``We're talking about giving candidates and voters more access, and these measures have almost always succeeded. The Voting Rights Act has been a success. The provisions that allowed presidential debates have worked.'' Hundt's point was this: For decades, the campaign finance debate has focused on the source and volume of funds--the supply side of the problem. Government has attempted to regulate who could give (and who could not), the size of their contributions and, to the extent the courts allowed, the amount candidates could spend. Hundt suggested that we turn the problem around by asking where the money goes and whether that cost can be reduced, i.e., examine the demand side of the equation. The answer is obvious. Most of the money goes into buying television ad time. Campaigns are expensive because television costs so much. In 1996, Hundt encouraged former Washington Post reporter Paul Taylor's foundation-financed campaign to persuade television and cable operators to make small blocks of free time available to the presidential candidates. Taylor had some success, but never got the broadcasters to agree on a single time when all viewers would find the candidates talking directly to them. Now Hundt is promoting a radical expansion of Taylor's ``free time'' proposal. He thinks broadcasters should be required to donate almost $2 billion worth of commercial time to a ``political time bank'' that would be available free to candidates for federal and state office. That sounds like a huge burden to impose, but Hundt points out that the estimated $1.8 billion of paid political ads in the 1995-96 election cycle was only 2.5 percent of the television ad revenue in that period. He also noted that, under a law passed last year, the government is about to hand broadcasters a gift of incalculable value in the form of a new spectrum of digital TV channels which can be used for movie theater- quarterly programs or for a wide variety of other high- fidelity communications. Last week, Hundt's longtime friend, Vice President Al Gore, made that point a matter of administration policy--without endorsing Hundt's specific proposal. ``Digital technology,'' Gore said, ``will greatly enhance the opportunities available to broadcasters to utilize multiple channels. The public interest obligations should be commensurate with these opportunities.'' Hundt has found one ally high up in the broadcasting industry. Barry Diller, who has been a key player for years and now heads his own company that controls a number of TV stations and the Home Shopping Network, told an industry convention in New Orleans last month that in return for the gift of the new digital TV spectrum, ``I propose that we take sole responsibility for the cost of airing all political advertising messages for all government candidates and to use this lever as the impetus to abolish all forms of the current system of political contributions.'' Diller conceded that it ``would cost us over a billion dollars in lost revenue'' in the peak year of each election cycle. ``But,'' he added, ``it would also radically change the nature of our rotten political fund-raising system.'' Advocates of some campaign finance bills are considering a way to incorporate the ``free time bank'' into their proposals. Taylor will hold a conference on the subject in Washington next month. But he and Hundt both concede this is not a panacea. Important policy and administrative issues would remain: Could independent groups buy time for ``education'' or ``independent expenditure'' campaigns? Who would divvy up the ``time bank'' among the thousands of Democratic and Republican candidates in each election? If the national parties controlled the time, how would dissident or maverick Democrats and Republicans fare? And how would minor parties be protected in the allocation of time? These are all important questions. But this proposal offers a way to reduce the costs of campaigns drastically by eliminating or greatly slashing the expense of television advertising. It deserves to be part of the coming debate.

Ms. SLAUGHTER

Ms. SLAUGHTER. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to strongly condemn what has been a wave of bombing activity throughout this Nation and to urge Congress to act. This type of violence must come to an end and I am working to do just that. On January 7, I reintroduced H.R. 85, the Bombing Prevention Act of 1997, which would help end this vicious attack on innocent persons. I urge my colleagues to sign on as cosponsors. I know you were as shocked as I was over the weekend when government offices, including the court, in San Diego were targeted with pipe bombs that were sent through the mail. Two hundred employees were evacuated, the package detonated by bomb squads in the FBI parking lot. Atlanta has faced an even more horrific tragedy. I still remember my outrage 2 weeks ago after an attack on a family planning clinic outside of Atlanta. The first bomb shattered concrete and blew away pieces of the wall and the ceiling at the building that housed the clinic. The second bomb was even more ominous. The terrorist designed it to spill blood by packing it with metal fragments and 3-inch concrete nails that were set to explode over a wide area. It was set to go off an hour after the first bomb so that law enforcement officials would bear the brunt of that explosion. The people of Atlanta have fallen victim twice to a devastating crime which was likely perpetrated by domestic terrorists, a crime designed to intimidate women from exercising their constitutional right to seek health care and a crime that further eroded any sense of innocence left in our citizens. The Centennial Park bomb at the Olympics 6 months earlier was not enough for the homegrown killers. We know now that the bomb that exploded at the Olympics consisted of three lengths of pipe packed with smokeless powder, an explosive substance that is completely unregulated by Federal law. This in itself is a scandal, and of course the perpetrators of the act are still at large. We are not even safe in our homes. In upstate New York a 10-year-old girl opened a Christmas package left in her family mailbox. Instead of a gift, she was greeted with an explosion that burned over 27 percent of her body. The bomb turned out to be a ``message'' from a disgruntled employee of her family. I would like to send a return message to domestic terrorists and I need your support. Unfortunately it often takes tragedies such as these to spur this House to action. I was shocked to discover 2 years ago that under current law possession of explosives is not a Federal felony. For years we said that certain people, for example a felon, should not be allowed to carry guns, and yet they can drive around in their car or keep at home 100 pounds of gun powder that is not even a crime and that nobody accounts for. Bombers commit murder by remote control. They do not have to be in the same room as their victims or even in the same city. They never have to see the death and destruction that they cause, and their ruthless method of murder often kills random bystanders. It is no wonder that Americans are uneasy on the streets and their homes, in airplanes. We need to act now against these particularly cold-blooded killers. We must not wait for another attention-grabbing attack. In recent years we have seen mail bomb attacks on a judge and civil rights activists in the South and a string of bombings at abortion clinics. How much more evidence do we need of the pressing need for stronger laws? And do not think it cannot happen in your district. Two days ago, this week, a potentially deadly pipe bomb was discovered a few blocks away from my Rochester office and was just outside the headquarters of Eastman Kodak. Fortunately, no one was hurt. But perhaps next time we will not be so lucky. We have got to keep explosive materials out of the wrong hands. My bill would require Federal permits for all explosive purchases and would mandate a nationwide background check for these permits. It also increases penalties for those who violate Federal explosives laws. Obtaining this permit is not a burdensome process. To receive a permit you only need to provide your name and address to the vendor and indicate the purpose of the purchase. This information would be invaluable to law enforcement officials who are investigating terrorism. Such a process would allow us to screen out people who should not have access to these destructive materials, such as felons, fugitives and others who show a tendency to take out whatever things they might have on their fellow Americans. Moreover, my bill contains special provisions that requires every person who purchases more than 5 pounds of black or smokeless powder, and 5 pounds is enough for gun enthusiasts to have to make their own bullets that would make them hold a Federal permit. Criminal bombings have doubled since 1988. Think about that. This is almost becoming retribution of choice in the United States. They have doubled since 1988. One-third of those incidents involved black powder or smokeless powder. Of course this is the part of the bill that will send our friends in the National Rifle Association through the roof. But under the current law, any purchase of less than 50 pounds of black powder is totally exempt from any kind of oversight. This is crazy. Fifty pounds of explosive powder can unleash substantial destruction. As every law enforcement official knows, bomb makers love that stuff. It is cheap, it is available, it is unregulated, and a little bit goes a long way. In fact it only takes a pound and a half to make a pipe bomb. I would also like to point out these regulations will not harm legitimate sportsmen. As I pointed out a while ago, 5 pounds of black powder will reload 750 shotgun shells. Each year, millions of pounds of explosives are purchased without any permit being required or no regulation, and we in Congress have a duty, I believe, and an obligation to protect the lives and property from bombings. Last session, we passed my legislation to help protect innocent people from bombs made of plastic explosives such as the bomb used on PanAm flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland. It is time we got tougher on terrorists here at home. Passing H.R. 85 will give law enforcement officials another tool in tracking down these homegrown terrorists. It must be done. Nobody knows who is going to be next.