Chris Smith

Mr. SMITH of New Jersey

Mr. SMITH of New Jersey. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the distinguished gentleman from Florida [Mr. Weldon].

Mr. SMITH of New Jersey. Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman from Pennsylvania yield?

Mr. SMITH of New Jersey

Mr. SMITH of New Jersey. Mr. Chairman, I move that the Committee do now rise.

Mr. SMITH of New Jersey

Mr. SMITH of New Jersey. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the requisite number of words. Mr. Chairman, I will just take a minute or two to express my support for this resolution before the House. I am a very strong supporter of Armenia, and I share the concern of the author of the amendment that Armenia and its neighbor, Azerbaijan, live in peace and harmony with each other. I would like to ask one question, if I could, of the sponsor of the amendment, my good friend from New Jersey, Mr. Pallone. Just so it is very clear, and I think one of the previous speakers said this, so there is no ambiguity about it, is it the gentleman's intent to change the current U.S. position in support of the territorial integrity of Azerbaijan through this amendment?

Mr. SMITH of New Jersey. Mr. Chairman, I move that the Committee do now rise.

Mr. SMITH of New Jersey. Mr. Chairman, I think this amendment should be noncontroversial. It would require the President to report to Congress about any border closures or the use of an economic or commercial blockade by or against any of the new independent states against any other country. The report would be due within 60 days of enactment of the bill. The amendment stipulates that the report shall describe the extent to which such border closures or economic or commercial blockades impede or restrict directly or indirectly the delivery of U.S. humanitarian aid and whether the closure would be considered to be in violation of Humanitarian Aid Corridors Act. As we know, Mr. Chairman, the corridors law calls for the cutoff of U.S. assistance to countries that impede the delivery of U.S. humanitarian assistance to third countries. The report would allow Congress and the State Department to have a clear mutual understanding of where violations or potential violations occur. As a result of ethnic separatist conflicts in the territory of the former Soviet Union, especially in the Caucasus, various states have at times imposed border closures or blockades on neighboring states. These blockades or border closures hamper or make impossible the delivery of humanitarian assistance. Among these blockades or embargoes are: Azerbaijan's blockade on Armenia and Nagorno-Karabagh, and Armenia's blockade of Nakhichevan, an Azerbaijani enclave separated from the rest of Azerbaijan by Armenian territory, and Russia's occasional blockading of Azerbaijan, claiming that Azerbaijan was helping Chechnya. I would ask Members to support this. Again, I know there is good strong support for this on the other side. This would give us a clear picture again of what is truly going on and whether or not the Humanitarian Aid Corridors Act is being violated.

Mr. SMITH of New Jersey. Mr. Chairman, I offer an amendment.

Mr. SMITH of New Jersey. Mr. Chairman, if I could reclaim my time, the bottom line is, it is a very modest commitment. When we juxtapose foreign aid to the rest of the budget, it is about 1 percent, it is not very much. We are talking about, and I believe we ought to be our brother's and sister's keeper. There are times when we need to become involved. And when there is a humanitarian crisis, it behooves us to be out there first and foremost with all of the possible medicines, foods and the like.

Mr. SMITH of New Jersey. I yield to the gentleman from Florida.

Mr. SMITH of New Jersey. Mr. Chairman, I have asked her and relayed a message that there is a growing concern in Congress, among the American people that, if they move in or evolve into some kind of abortion promotion, which some of their people would like to see, it is over. We will find other ways of using our money to advance the child survival revolution. We need to continue, I think, to give those messages in a very real way, and I will offer the amendment on the floor, if anything, to curtail that funding and make sure that it is given to other child survival programs throughout the world.

Mr. SMITH of New Jersey. Mr. Chairman, I appreciate the gentleman making those points. On UNICEF, I myself on a number of occasions have talked to leadership people, including Carol Bellamy, who is director of UNICEF.

Mr. SMITH of New Jersey. I yield to the gentleman from Texas.

Mr. SMITH of New Jersey. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the last word. Mr. Chairman, I rise in opposition to the amendment, and again with all deference and respect for my good friend, the gentleman from Texas [Mr. Paul] I do rise against his amendment. I think it would deny us an opportunity to promote world peace and do some of the things that we have been doing so well and not so well at times through the United Nations. Let me just say that if his amendment were passed, we would no longer be participating in the UN Children's Fund, and there is $100 million in this bill targeted to UNICEF. UNICEF has been part of the global effort to eradicate preventable diseases that affect children, like pertussis, polio, tetanus, diptheria and other menacing diseases, measles, and it seems to me that if we were to take that money away, we would see more children die from these preventable diseases. The UN is not perfect, the UN Children's Fund is not perfect, but at least it gives us an opportunity to protect children and to tangibly stop mortality and morbidity among these victims of these diseases. Refugees. The UN High Commission of Refugees tells us that they have some 26 million people of interest to the UNHCR. We would no longer and much of our money again that is in this bill, we have $704 million for refugee assistance goes to the UNHCR that provides the camps and the safe havens, if my colleagues will, for those who are escaping tyranny or other devastating situations in their countries. The UNHCR again is not perfect, it has many flaws. I am one of its chief critics. But it does provide a very valuable humanitarian assistance that will be lost. The ILO is another UN sponsored agency, the International Labor Organization. We have $20 million that is earmarked or put a designation for that money. When we marked up, it was part of my original draft bill to eradicate the exploitation of children around the world. We had 2 hearings in the subcommittee last year on this issue of the exploitation of kids, child labor. We even heard from some of those who were in the news regarding it. We heard from a girl from Honduras who had been through the mill and exploited by her employer. The ILO has action plans in countries that work, that help to eradicate and sensitize government officials. To get us out of the ILO, I think, would be a mistake. Peacekeeping; again, if we look at UNPROFOR, if we look at some of the peacekeeping missions that have gone awry, including Somalia, it gives a black mark to what the Blue Helmets do, but they have had many successful interventions. Had it not been for the U.N. peacekeepers, many, many people, civilians, would have been dead, and those long-term missions continue. We have combatants and people who would be at each other had it not been for the fact that these people interposed themselves to separate these warring factions. The U.N. Security Council continues to provide us a way of mobilizing world support as we did in operation Desert Shield and Desert Storm to mobilize the world against the tyranny of Saddam Hussein. That became an international action because we had the capability to use the U.N. to make it a unified effort. There are consensus-breakers. And my subcommittee oversees, I say to my friend, the U.N., and nobody criticizes them more than I do. They have had recent conferences like the recent conference in Cairo and Beijing where some very egregious policies were being promoted and foisted on the developing world. These are consensus-breakers. The gay agenda, the abortion rights agenda, the developing world does not want it. And there will be amendments later on today that I will offer that will say specific agencies, like U.N. Population Fund, get out of China where we have co-managed and been part of the coercion of women to have forced abortions and forced sterilizations, that is where the U.N. goes awry. We ought to target our opposition to those that commit these very serious crimes.

Mr. SMITH of New Jersey. Let me conclude, and again, there are consensus-breakers, and I think the diplomats and the leaders of the U.N. need to be on notice that, if they continue the social engineering, one, they will not get their arrearages; and, secondly, the efforts that the gentleman from Texas is undertaking will gain support among the American people, and I think at some point there will be an effort to take us out of it and to severely restrict our funding to it. But right now I think we ought to try to reform it.

Mr. SMITH of New Jersey. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the last word. Mr. Chairman, I do sympathize with the point raised by my good friend, the gentleman from Florida [Mr. Goss]. But we looked very carefully at those points, the points that he has raised in debate today, in the committee; and the gentleman from Indiana compromised, I think rather extensively, to meet many of the objections that were being raised. I would submit, and I think we all will agree with this, that nobody wants to hobble law enforcement. But all the bill does, and I hope Members will take the time to read the section, all the bill does is to ensure basic due process in IG investigations. Specifically, this provision as it now reads in the current bill erects a firewall between routine IG administrative investigations and criminal investigations. I really do believe, and I believe it very strongly, that a person is entitled to know whether or not he or she is the target of a criminal investigation. This provision does not guarantee that they will know, but as the language in the bill says it, to make all best efforts to provide employees with notice of the full range of his or her rights and then it goes on from there. I reluctantly rise in opposition to the amendment, and I do ask that Members vote to retain this language that was a carefully crafted compromise during markup in the committee.

Mr. SMITH of New Jersey. I yield to the gentleman from Texas.

Mr. SMITH of New Jersey. Mr. Chairman, I demand a recorded vote, and pending that, I make a point of order that a quorum is not present.

Mr. SMITH of New Jersey. I yield to the gentleman from Alabama.

Mr. SMITH of New Jersey. Mr. Chairman, I reluctantly rise in opposition to the amendment, and let me say that I have a deep respect for the gentleman from Alabama [Mr. Bachus] and I think he does a service in bringing this issue to the floor. I chair the subcommittee that oversees the State Department and we have held a hearing in which I have asked a number of questions that go right to the heart of this issue of these excess properties. I do believe that the Department of State should be more aggressive in the disposition of those properties that are either excessive or no longer needed. This provision is not necessary, however, because of the actions taken in the conference report for Commerce, Justice, and State Department appropriations for fiscal year 1997, in which the Department was directed to professionalize their asset management. The Department has set up a real estate advisory committee, bringing additional expertise on asset management, and the Department is committed to funding capital projects with assets from those sales. I would also point out, and I believe this very strongly, that changing the current law to have proceeds revert to the Treasury might act, however unwittingly, as a disincentive to the Department to dispose of those assets. So we would have an unintentional consequence as a result. Furthermore, the proceeds are used for facility maintenance, improvement, buildings and purchasing. This reduces the need for additional appropriations for this purpose. I appreciate again what the gentleman is attempting to do, and I would like to assure them that our subcommittee will be vigorous in its oversight. And just raising this issue again on this floor, and his amendment may indeed win, but even if he does not, he has done a service in bringing this issue and bringing some scrutiny and light to the issue.

Mr. SMITH of New Jersey. Mr. Chairman, this amendment--which I believe should have and will get the support of a very large, bipartisan number of Members of this House--would boost the amount of money for Radio Free Asia by $40 million to provide for 24-hour broadcasting. That is the hope here. We will soon be voting on the very contentious issue of most-favored- nation status for China. There are many, many good Members who care deeply about human rights in China who will take a different position than I take, and others like me who believe that we ought to link MFN to human rights. This amendment is something on which we can come together and have a consensus. This is an area, with regard to human rights and freedom broadcasting, where I believe we can all come together and say: Let us be absolutely serious about getting the message of freedom into China and into some of the other countries where freedom does not flourish. As I think Members know, Radio Free Asia was authorized in 1994. It was finally up and running as of last year. We have provided $10 million per year in the bill for new broadcasting to China, Vietnam, Korea, Tibet, and Burma. And soon, I am happy to say, we will be in Laos and Cambodia as well. These efforts are very, very popular among those who care about democracy. This new money would allow, as I indicated earlier, 24-hour-a-day broadcasting. Currently we are only broadcasting 8 hours a day. And again this is surrogate broadcasting. This is giving people information about what is going on in their own country. We all know that under the Communist dictatorship in China, and in some of these other countries, the flow of information is largely circumscribed by the government. This amendment gives us an opportunity to get the information into the country. Surrogate broadcasting has been very successful where it has been used. Now, let us be deadly serious about Radio Free Asia. This amendment has the strong support of many, including the Speaker. After his recent trip to China, he came back very much energized about this Congress doing more. We ought to do more. This amendment will do that. In terms of where the money comes from, our bill is about $200 million below the administration request. That is where the money comes from. So we are meeting our targets there. Matter of fact, I, along with some of the Members on the other side of the aisle, would like to see some of the other accounts beefed up--and I am looking at the gentleman from California, [Mr. Berman] because we have worked together on some of these issues in the past, and we will do so again as we move to conference. So this amendment would be fully funded. Having said that, I do hope we will have broad bipartisan support for this.

Mr. SMITH of New Jersey. Mr. Chairman, I offer an amendment.

Mr. SMITH of New Jersey. Mr. Chairman, I continue to yield to my friend the gentleman from California.

Mr. SMITH of New Jersey. Reclaiming my time, Mr. Chairman, just let me remind Members that we still have not had a full test, or any test really, of the UHF situation. We have asked Dr. Duffy and many people within the administration: ``Why the delay? They have been talking about it for years. Now we are told that, sometime in October, the UHF program should be up and running. Hopefully we will then have a better gauge as to whether or not we are reaching a significant number of people.

Mr. SMITH of New Jersey. Mr. Chairman, I yield to my friend the gentleman from Connecticut.

Mr. SMITH of New Jersey. I yield to the gentleman from California.