John Spratt

Mr. SPRATT

Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding me the time. Mr. Speaker, the ink is barely dry on the projections of the surplus, and already we have a bill on the floor committing it all to tax cuts. I think a big share of the surplus should go to tax cuts. But if this bill becomes law, it will shut out everything else. It will leave nothing to make Social Security and Medicare solvent, use none of the surplus to pay down our mountainous debt, reserve nothing for plus-ups in education or boost in medical research. Even defense gets shorted. Most of those backing this tax bill say that they are for an increase in defense spending, but they should read the resolution. The budget resolution underlying this bill makes room for our tax cuts of $778 billion. It freezes defense from 2004 through 2009. So before we rush to judgment, bet the farm on these projections, we ought to ask just how solid are these surpluses. In less than a year, OMB and CBO have upped their 15-year estimates of the surplus by $2 trillion. Just yesterday, CBO issued a report warning, and these are their words, ``decision-makers to view these projections with considerable caution.'' What they have done is what they have always done. They have assumed that current law will be carried out, that we will stick to the caps for the next 3 years, tight caps that were set several years ago in the PBA of 1997, even though my colleagues know and I know that we really circumvented them last year and we are not going to stay under them this year. If we make the simple assumption that we will simply track inflation with discretionary spending for the next 5 years, we take $590 billion out of this $996 billion surplus. If we then assume that emergency spending has to be factored into the estimates, and CBO and OMB do not do that because it is unpredictable, we knock another $90 billion off the surplus. And if we then adjust that for debt service, debt service they will have to pay because their debt deal is not paid down, the surplus is somewhere between $150 billion and $300 billion, not $996 billion. We have another choice, a substitute that would cut taxes by $250 billion. It is the right choice, a fiscally responsible choice. I urge its adoption in lieu of this bill.

Mr. SPRATT

Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for yielding me this time, and let me say first of all that I do not have a dog in this fight. I represent Shaw Air Force Base and I represent flyers who fought in the Gulf and flyers who fought from Aviano, General Dan Leaf, and they believe in stealth and they have convinced me it is the way to go. They also believe in the mission of air superiority, and I am here to speak for them. I am also here to speak as an old cost analyst. That is where I cut my teeth in the Pentagon. And what we were taught as cost analysts is, the first rule of analysis is forget sunk cost. If we get to the sunk cost of this program, and I am told it is about $20 billion, I do not know as much as I should to be talking, the numbers change dramatically. Because the relevant comparison is not the program unit cost, in procurement parlance, the relevant cost comparison for F-15X purposes is procurement costs. Program unit cost includes everything, divided by the number of units we are going to buy. Procurement unit cost includes just those costs we are going to procure, spare parts and airspace ground equipment, prospectively. The difference in this case is $183 billion to $187 billion for program unit cost, but $117 billion then-year dollars for procurement unit cost. At $117 billion, this airplane becomes very, very competitive, just in cost dollars, with anything the F-15X would look like. Secondly, we were taught to look at life cycle cost. That is critically important. What are we worried about right now? O&M. That is where life cycle cost gets captured. The life cycle cost of this system, if it comes in as planned, is supposed to be significantly less. About 37 percent less. The gentleman from California (Mr. Cunningham) is smiling. I do not know whether it will be retained, but at least that is the program objective, 37 percent less. We are supposed to be able to get 8\1/2\ sorties per airplane before major maintenance with this airplane, as opposed to about five with the F-15. Over time that makes a big difference, if indeed that objective is realized. Finally, Mr. Chairman, we need to look at commonality. One of the things that is being developed in this program in conjunction with other programs is the engine. The gentleman from California (Mr. Cunningham) was just pointing out to us that the engine in this airplane is the same engine as in the JSF. If we buy fewer units of this engine, because we are not buying 400 or 500 of these airplanes, the JSF is going up significantly, let me tell my colleagues. So this is a way of spreading cost, buying the new engine for the same airplane, and we should really commend the Air Force and all the services for trying to get together in one common airframe and using one common engine as well. Finally, there are related costs, associated costs. Don Wright, as the Secretary of the Air Force, when he was trying to sell the B-2, had a favorite chart. He had all the things that did not have to fly when the B-2 flew a mission, all the escorts and the chasers and the associated aircraft that did not have to fly when the B-2 flew, because it made the single-unit cost of the B-2 look like a much better deal. Just keep that in mind. Air superiority matters when it keeps the AWACS flying, the JSTARS flying, because it makes all the rest of this conventional stuff work.

Mr. SPRATT

Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Speaker, last year, when this same bill came to the floor, we attempted to offer an amendment which is the same amendment we attempt to offer now. It is not a poison pill; it is not an unfair provision. It would give African countries the same sort of trade treatment that we extend to Caribbean countries, Central American countries, and indeed to Mexico and to NAFTA. Basically it says if they buy our yarn and our cloth in their apparel when it is made from American-made source products, can come back into this country duty free and trade and tariff free. It is fair; it is also a good way to police the imports coming into this country to make sure that they were indeed made in Africa, for our greatest fear about this bill is not some overwhelming surge of imports coming from Africa itself, but the fact that these sub-Saharan countries will become a massive platform for transshipment. As Asian countries hit their quotas, as they try to evade tariffs, there would be an enormous temptation to ship through Africa where the goods, apparel and textile goods, can come into this country duty free and tariff free. Last year we were shut out also. This year we have been shut out again. This should be, this well of the House, should be a free market of ideas. We should be able to come here and put forth our ideas if they are not relevant, if they are not off the wall, if they are good, sound, solid ideas and vie for votes on the House floor. But let the competition be set, that the best bill can win right here in the House. Well, this bill today will not give us that kind of opportunity of that kind of vote. Last year, this amendment was offered by the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Bishop) on a motion to recommit. As everybody knows, that is a procedural motion, and for the most part Republicans do not vote for a Democratic motion to recommit. Even so, we got 193 votes for this amendment. I think 193 votes in last year's debate should buy us a ticket to this year's debate, should allow us to offer this amendment on the House floor and explain it, give us more than 5 minutes to explain it. If we win, fine; if we do not, fine as well. But give us the opportunity at least. Let this well be a free market of ideas.

Mr. SPRATT

Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Chairman, Africa has long suffered from neglect and needs our help. But when it comes to trade in textiles and apparel, I am not at all convinced that this bill will help Africa, and neither are the sponsors. They insist that its impact on the textile and apparel industry in this country will be small, minimal. But it may hurt textiles and apparel workers in these industries in America without helping textile and apparel workers in Africa. Mr. Chairman, that is because by giving sub-Saharan countries duty- free, quota-free access to our markets, this bill will invite textile and apparel manufacturers in Asia to make their goods in Asia but transship them through Africa and gain access to our markets duty-free, quota-free, no restrictions whatsoever. Is this improbable? Not when we consider the volume of transshipment today. Customs estimates it is in the range of $6 billion to $12 billion in textiles and apparel alone, and not when we consider the advantages. So if my colleagues want to help Africa but also help American workers, vote for the Bishop motion to recommit which will give Africa liberal treatment for access, but also protect our workers. The bill before us today may be well-intentioned, but it is deeply flawed. I urge you to consider some important facts before you vote. U.S. workers in the textile and apparel industry have lost their jobs faster than workers in any other industry over the past three years, and AGOA can only worsen the problem. These jobs have been lost faster, and in greater numbers, than jobs in the steel industry, which has been the beneficiary of strong bipartisan support in this session. Almost 700,000 jobs have been lost in the textile and apparel industry since 1981; 118,000 have been lost in the past 12 months. The steel industry has lost 16,700 jobs over the same period. If H.R. 434 becomes law, the U.S. textile and apparel industry-- staggering under a trade deficit that topped $65 billion last year-- will be hit even harder by imports coming in duty-free and quota-free from Africa. Neither Mexico under NAFTA, nor the Caribbean countries under CBI enjoy such access to our apparel markets. Even worse, these imports will not be made in Africa. They will be made in Asia and shipped through Africa and re-labeled to evade quotas and tariffs. Who will bear the brunt of these imports? 70% of U.S. apparel workers are women, and more than half are minorities, mostly African-American. Why have the jobs disappeared? A primary driver has been low-wage imports--in both fabrics and apparel--manufactured and assembled in nations where worker compensation and working conditions are deplorable. This fact, not blind protectionism, is the reason we continue to impose quotas and levy tariffs on imported textiles and apparel. This fact also drives our decision to keep tariffs in place even after quotas are phased out in 2005. H.R. 434, in contrast to this reasoned policy, would create half a continent's worth of cheap imports. It would also open up Africa as a massive platform for transshipment, because textile/apparel goods supposedly originating there could come to the U.S. duty-free and quota-free. In short, AGOA will speed the already alarming textile and apparel job losses here in the U.S. H.R. 434 will establish Sub-Saharan Africa as a massive platform for transshipment, accelerating these job losses. Eight countries in Africa have already been identified by the U.S. Customs Service as transit points for illegal shipments of Chinese textile and apparel goods. This abuse, known as transshipment, is taken to evade China's quotas. China exports $10 billion legally to the U.S., and Customs believes that China exports as much as $6 billion more to the U.S. illegally. H.R. 434 raised the reward for quota evasion by eliminating tariffs. Profits from transshipment will increase by the amount of tariffs evaded, which average 18% and run as high as 30%. The result: an explosion of transshipment through Africa, which will be all but impossible for Customs to police. Another result: rampant transshipment will take away the incentive for investment in African apparel production. Supporters of the Bishop-Myrick amendment are not asking that a wish list of legislative language be added to H.R. 434, as some today have suggested. We are asking, instead, that we take steps simply to keep the pace of these job losses to a level reasonably commensurate with the rate of new job creation. The language we have sought to add, would address this problem, and its absence makes this bill poison to hundreds of thousands of hard working Americans. I urge members to oppose H.R. 434.

Mr. SPRATT

Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Chairman, if the gentleman from Connecticut will yield, I thank the gentleman from Arizona (Mr. Kolbe) very much for his cooperation.

Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Chairman, I would like to commend the gentleman from Connecticut for taking this initiative and also to say that this is an important problem for some people that have no other alternative but to use kerosene. There was no intention to impose a 24 cents tax on them. We gave them an out, namely, to use red-dyed kerosene. But even the oil refineries do not want to market that kind of kerosene yet, because they are not sure of the consequences of using it. I have had people call me and report to me problems where they have used red-dyed kerosenes, odors that come from the heaters. There is smoke. There is a ceramic residue. The wicks clog up. We are just waiting on a disaster to happen here. Before Congress imposes this requirement on people, we ought to know what we are talking about, and that is all that we are asking for, a study by the IRS.

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

Mr. SPRATT

Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Speaker, every day Alzheimer's disease claims more victims. Over four million Americans suffer from this dread disease, and scientists predict that unless cures are found, the number of victims will grow to fourteen million within the next twenty-five years. More people are also experiencing the tragedy second-hand as family members or friends of someone afflicted with Alzheimer's. They too feel helpless in the face of this awful illness. Options for treatment are limited, and care for the victim can be difficult and demanding. Family and friends become frustrated, not knowing what they can do. The members of the Rotary Club in Sumter, South Carolina have found that there is something we can do. They have devised a technique to raise money for research, a technique so successful that I would like to share it with Congress and call attention to it, because what Rotarians have started in Sumter deserves to be copied across America. There is hope on the horizon for Alzheimer's disease. Research teams are making progress in our understanding the disease. In 1995, scientists identified the gene believed to cause the most aggressive form of the disease. But no cause or cure has been found yet, and future research will require millions of dollars. To help support the search for a cure, the Sumter Rotary Club developed what it calls the ``CART'' fund--Coins for Alzheimer's Research Trust. At each club meeting, Rotarians are asked to empty their pockets of loose change--a small gesture that has generated large results. In a nine-month period, the 155 members of the Sumter Rotary Club raised over $4,200 in this manner. Their success led them to share their idea with District 7770, which consists of 71 Rotary clubs with some 5,000 members. District 7770 adopted the project in 1996, and made Roger Ackerman Chairman and Dr. Jack Bevan and General Howard Davis (Retired) Co-Chairmen. District 7770 is driving forward with two major goals--awarding a $100,000 grant to a medical institution on the cutting edge of Alzheimer's research and encouraging other Rotary districts to start a CART campaign. The other Rotary district in South Carolina, District 7750, plans to launch the project next month, and by next summer, the team hopes to add ten more districts. their ultimate goal: to have Rotary International to adopt the project. I am proud to represent these enterprising Rotarians. I commend them for spearheading this worthy project and encourage others across America to follow their example.

Mr. SPRATT

Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Chairman, I join my colleague, the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Kasich) and rise in strong support of this amendment. This amendment strikes Title IX out of the bill. Title IX takes all airport and airway trust fund receipts and all spending off-budget. We use that word ``off-budget'' around here loosely. What does it mean? In this case, off-budget means that airport and aviation spending will no longer be subject to the discretionary spending caps, one of the most effective devices for controlling the budget we have ever devised around here. It will no longer be subject, it will be so privileged and protected that it will no longer be subject to sequestration if we overshoot those caps. It also means that when aviation spending is removed from these spending caps, these caps, which already are extremely tight, will have to be ratcheted down, screwed down, and made even tighter. The discretionary spending caps will have to be lowered by at least $8 billion to $10 billion to account for what the aviation trust fund has been taking in every year. On top of that, about $3 billion, which I will explain in a minute, is effectively carved out of the general fund. We have had a hard enough time this year. We have only begun bringing the budget to closure under the existing caps. It is going to get even tighter in future years. It will be even harder if we lower these limits even more. Let me explain an additional problem. When this bill was first written, its authors knew if they just took the aviation trust fund off-budget, sure, they could gain all of the trust fund spending, but they would risk losing general fund spending. It would run as much as $3.5 billion over the last several years. To protect against that loss, they tried to put firewalls around their share of the general fund pie, equal to a little over $3 billion a year. But it was soon perceived what they were doing. They were trying to have their pie and eat it, too. So the supporters of this bill rewrote the bill. They now say it leaves the Appropriations free to decide just how much should go to the FAA every year out of general revenues. That argument will not stand up. This bill restricts the amount of the aviation trust fund that can be spent on operations of the FAA, and requires the general fund to make up the difference. Sure, the Committee on Appropriations can decide not to make up the difference. They can refuse to appropriate the needed funds. If they fail to put up the money, though, the FAA will fall short of what it needs to keep air traffic safe. The firewalls are, in effect, still in place. What is wrong with taking the aviation trust funds off-budget, or any trust fund off-budget? It sets a troubling precedent. The gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Wolf) just pointed to the problem. There are 144 trust funds in the Federal budget. Supporters of these other funds are already lining up for off-budget treatment, too. Coming on the heels of this bill will be a nuclear waste bill, with the electric utilities pushing to go off-budget. Then the Land and Water Conservation Fund, with the environmentalists pushing to go off- budget. Why do they want to go off-budget? Because the budget is finally binding; because they want to escape these strictures. The budget which they have finally brought us delivered us from a world of deficits to a world of surpluses. They want to escape the budget, no secret. If we take this step down this slippery slope, that is exactly what it will be. We risk the balkanization of the Federal budget. On the other hand, if we have the discipline and the forbearance, if we do not dissipate the budget surpluses we see rising on the horizon, within the next 4 to 5 years there should be sufficient surpluses without social security and without any of the 140 trust fund surpluses to allow user fees and dedicated and earmarked taxes to flow through most of the trust funds and still adequately fund other needs out of the general fund. Every year we hear we are where we are with the budget because of the steps we have taken to stiffen the budget process, the pay-go rules, the discretionary spending limits, the sequestration rules. All of these things have worked. They are complex, they are arcane, but they have worked. Vote to keep them working. Vote for budget discipline. Vote for this bipartisan, genuinely bipartisan amendment which is offered by the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Kasich) and me of the Committee on the Budget and the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Obey) and the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Young) of the Committee on Appropriations. This is the right way to go.

Mr. SPRATT

Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Chairman, 3 months ago I went with the Secretary of Defense to Aviano where, as the first order of business, we were to be briefed by Brigadier General Dan Leaf, the commander of our air forces there. General Leaf was there to meet us on the runway early that morning even though the night before he had flown a mission himself. He briefed us with confidence, professional pride. And without bluster, he told us that his success to date was due more to the discipline and perfection with which his men had executed their mission, and, yes, their morale, because they believed in what they were doing; and not in the ineffectiveness of our adversary because our adversary was formidable. He did not promise us any quick results, but he did not shrink from the mission, and he left us believing the mission would be accomplished. Well, Mr. Chairman, General Leaf and his troops did not disappoint us. They did what we asked them to do. They demonstrated the prowess of the United States Air Force, once again on a level with the Persian Gulf, and let me say I am proud to represent those troops because some of them came from my district, from Shaw Air Force Base. They did their job, they served us well, they made us proud, and I am here in the well of the House to commend them. They must wonder, as many of us do, why this bill cut short what they have accomplished. The bill itself, the text of the bill, precludes further funding for peacekeeping or combat operations next year, and not satisfied with that, the majority has made in order three more amendments which pound the same issue: no money for military operations of any kind. I suppose that means no signal intelligence to see what Milosevic is up to, no overhead satellites, no CIA, no search and rescue. What in the world are we doing considering amendments like this? I know peacekeeping is onerous and expensive, I know our forces are stretched out around the globe, but I cannot believe that we are considering amendments like this at this time. We should be savoring our victory. We should voice vote up the Skelton amendment, remove the ban on funding, tell the President, sure, send us a supplemental next year to pay for the peacekeeping. But we should savor our victory, defeat these other amendments and see that our victory is consummated by a successful peacekeeping operation.

Mr. SPRATT

Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Chairman, I rise in support of the amendment and I salute the gentleman from California (Mr. Cox) and the gentleman from Washington (Mr. Dicks) for taking the lead in working this amendment out. This amendment started as a bipartisan effort to address the counterintelligence problem at DOE. It included the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Thornberry), the gentlewoman from New Mexico (Mrs. Wilson), the gentleman from Washington (Mr. Dicks), and myself. When our amendment was not made in order under the first rule, a number of other amendments which really duplicate component parts of this were made in order. They are still made in order under this rule, which creates a problem. We were principally working as an alternative to a moratorium proposed by the gentleman from Kansas (Mr. Ryun) in an amendment which will later be brought up which would effectively, in my opinion, ban the foreign visitors program at the national laboratories. We tried to come up with constructive alternative to that, something that would put in this counterintelligence where needed, strengthen security, but not abolish the program. After the rule was not made in order, the gentleman from California (Mr. Cox) joined our effort to come up with a bipartisan compromise, and he added provisions to the amendment that relate to export controls. We have spent a couple of days trying to iron those out. While there are still wrinkles, we have a bill that we think is an acceptable piece of work and one we can support. I still find problems with it and want to serve notice that we have got work to do in conference. For example, just to take as one example, section 1407. We direct the President to negotiate an agreement with China that will include end use verification of any high performance computers that are exported to China. I agree with that goal, but I am also realistic. I doubt any sovereign nation which has not been defeated in war would agree to end use verification without notice. I question the wisdom of legislating unattainable objectives. Nonetheless, this is better than the original draft. It is a good compromise. We still have some work to do in conference. I am particularly pleased with section 3109. This addresses the controversial issue of foreign visitors to our labs. We have crafted a bipartisan provision in the Cox/Dicks amendment that will make the necessary security improvements to our labs without crippling international programs that are critical to national security, Nunn-Lugar, our lab-to-lab programs with the FSU, the former Soviet Union, to make sure bomb grade plutonium and uranium will not fall into the hands of countries which we do not want to have it, or terrorist organizations; training the IAEA inspectors, things like that that are constructive, useful, and can only take place at the labs because that is where the expertise lies. Our provision allows the program to stand but puts new restrictions on it. The Ryun amendment in my opinion would require a 2-year moratorium that effectively bans the program. We think we have a good bipartisan solution here. We recommend the entire amendment. We would also say to Members as other amendments come up that this amendment really takes care of the Ryun amendment. It is a better solution. This amendment makes unnecessary, I would suggest, the amendment offered by the gentleman from California (Mr. Hunter) on polygraph because we codify the polygraphs requirements the administration is now putting in place. This also makes unnecessary a number of other amendments because we have subsumed them and included them in this particular amendment. It is a good amendment. I recommend its adoption.

Mr. SPRATT

Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Chairman, I want to repeat the commendation of the last speaker to the gentleman from Kansas (Mr. Ryun), because he served a purpose in raising this issue to the forefront. He caused us to take what he was proposing, to consider it in depth; and that was the genesis of the amendment we adopted unanimously today, the Cox-Dicks amendment. While it included other things, that was our initial purpose, to take the foreign visitors program and add strictures to it, but not stifle it so much that we would literally suffocate and kill it, because this particular proposal would simply wipe out the foreign visitors program except for perhaps a few singular individuals who might be certified into it. Now, what does that mean? What is the foreign visitors program? The foreign visitors program exists on reservations like Los Alamos, which is about the size of the District of Columbia. It is not just some small laboratory. It is a huge complex of facilities, an enormous site. It includes secure areas to which they do not have access and lots of other areas and labs and work spaces. It would include an Israeli scientist there working on solar energy, a Swedish chemist who has come to work on plutonium issues, because there is a lot we still do not know about plutonium. The Swedish chemist, an actual case, is one of the world's experts. We need his insights and advice into the nature of plutonium, how it ages and what its effects are. It includes lots of foreign citizens who will soon be American citizens who post-doc'd from American universities and are working there, working at Los Alamos, or Livermore. They are the scientific talent of the present or the future. It includes a lot of Russians and lab-to-lab exchanges. Why are they there? Their knowledge is just about on parity with us anyway, but it is reciprocal. We do not talk a lot about this. That is part of the Cox report that was not published. We have gained a great deal through these exchanges. That reciprocity has enhanced our knowledge of what they are doing and enabled us to get a better grip on the spread or misuse of nuclear materials and nuclear devices. It could include IAEA trainees, because this is the perfect place to come where the knowledge resides. It could include nonnuclear exchanges. As the gentlewoman from New Mexico (Mrs. Wilson) stated, lots of other things have nothing to do with nuclear weapons, lithography for inscribing ships, for example, micromachinery, and stuff like that. We will wipe out this program. Why is it important? Why does it have to occur at the labs? We set it up years ago when we created the stockpiles stewardship program so that we could have at these labs, which are national treasure houses, scientific talent that is second to none, so that we could attract excellent scientists there and maintain our excellence in nuclear weapons. This is an important program. The strictures we need for the security and counterintelligence have already been passed and put into effect by the Cox-Dicks amendment. This is not necessary. In fact, it is a dangerous precedent.

Mr. SPRATT

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

Mr. SPRATT. I am told that our staff met with your staff last week and gave you a copy. We would have been happy to have you as a cosponsor.

Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding me this time. Mr. Speaker, you need to have served here in the 1980s when the Democrats had a majority, and by a wide margin, to understand how unfair, outrageous and insulting this rule is. We had restricted rules then. We had closed rules then. But when the defense authorization bill came to the floor in those days, we were spending big money and it was felt that this was a free marketplace of ideas. I have seen years in the past when we had hundreds of amendments, 200 or more amendments, filed in the Committee on Rules, and half of them were made in order. We came to the floor on some occasions and it took us 2 to 3 weeks to get off the floor, but we had a free marketplace of ideas and a full and robust debate. We will not have that full and robust debate today on a matter of utmost importance. The gentleman from Washington (Mr. Dicks) has told us that together with me and other Members, bipartisan, we sat down and took the recommendations of the Select Committee on U.S. National Security and Military/Commercial Concerns with the People's Republic of China and implemented them with respect to the Department of Energy and the national laboratories. We made a series of serious substantive recommendations supported by Members who know best because they come from those areas where these facilities are located: the gentlewoman from New Mexico (Mrs. Heather Wilson), who has Los Alamos; the gentleman from South Carolina (Mr. Graham), who has Savannah River; the gentlewoman from California (Mrs. Tauscher), who has Lawrence Livermore. They participated in the formulation of this amendment. A truly bipartisan effort. Is it made in order? No. Now, in years past it was unthought of for senior members of the committee, for ranking members of serious committees of the House, when they offered a substantive, serious amendment, not a curve ball, not an undercut, and this is not that at all anyway, this is substantive legislation, to be stiff-armed like this by the Committee on Rules and the other side of the aisle. This rule says we have time to consider how lease proceeds from the dairy farmer in Annapolis will be allocated, but we cannot talk about security in the national labs. We have time to talk about how whether or not we will buy American when we buy weight training equipment, but we cannot talk about espionage in the national labs, not at least with respect to our well-thought-out bill. We have time to talk about how the Air Force will buy modular firefighting equipment, but not this important bipartisan amendment. This is a travesty. This is not the way to run the House of Representatives. We should defeat this rule and let everyone know that in the future, when efforts like this are made, they deserve at least a hearing in the well of the House.

Mr. SPRATT. But, if the gentlewoman will yield, there is no discussion about the amendment which we offered which we have worked on for 2 weeks and in which there has been broad bipartisan participation. This is an outrage. We should at least be able to make it in order on the House floor.

Mr. SPRATT. It is my understanding that the gentleman from Washington (Mr. Dicks) talked to the gentleman from California (Mr. Cox) about it and that my staff talked to your staff about it.

Mr. SPRATT

Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 3 minutes. Mr. Speaker, Social Security is a bedrock on which more than 40 million Americans rely. We have an opportunity in this Congress to make it more secure than ever. It is an opportunity that we have not had in the past because in the past we have had annual deficits, and over the last 10 years we have been able to eradicate those deficits. We have positioned ourselves now to where we can deal finally with the security of Social Security. We had a proposal in our budget resolution which would have created a lockbox for Social Security, would have required the treasurer to do what he does today; every time he gets excess payroll taxes, to remit those funds to the Social Security administrator in the form of bonds issued by the Treasury, and then to take the proceeds and not spend them, not use them to offset tax cuts, but buy up outstanding public debt so that we buy down the public debt, and therefore make the Treasury more solvent and able in the future to meet the obligations of the Social Security System. It was rejected by the majority when we brought our budget resolution to the floor. What the other side has brought here is weaker than existing law. It huffs and it puffs. It talks about Social Security, but in the end, the product it presents is weaker than existing law. What does it provide for enforcement? A point of order. If we send up here something that breaches the provisions of this bill, there is a point of order. We all know in the House, although they may not know in the rest of the country, that points of order are mowed down by the Committee on Rules in this House every week; waived all the time. Because they are so routinely waived by Rules, when we passed the unfunded mandates bill several years ago we said at least to have a mandate pass that will be incumbent upon local government and will increase their obligations, at least we should have a vote on the House floor, an overt vote. A Member has to go out and declare themselves ready to override the mandate. This rule does not even do that. It allows the rule to include a waiver of the point of order. Nobody will know it. It will be completely swept out of the way. So this is a sham when it comes to a rule, but it even goes further. As if the overriding of a point of order was too much, it provides in section 5 a waiver. And that waiver says if we get the magic words right, if we say this bill is about the reform of Social Security, this bill is about the reform of Medicare, abracadabra, all of the restrictions in this bill disappear. This lockbox falls apart. It does not even apply any more. This is absurd. A lot of us will vote for this because we do not want to explain why we did not vote for something like this, but we can do something better. We offer something better in the form of our motion to recommit. If Members are really serious about a lockbox, vote for the motion to recommit.

Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Kentucky (Mr. Lucas).

Mr. SPRATT

Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Speaker, I believe in ballistic missile defense if it is feasible, but we have yet to prove that it is feasible. I was the principal cosponsor of H.R. 4 because I thought we needed a focus to our ballistic missile defense program. I thought we needed to make a decision that we would go forward with the objective of fielding a system, a system that worked and would afford us at least limited protection against an accidental strike in this country. But I was honest to acknowledge on the House floor that we are not there yet. We have not proven the capability of this system. However, having spent $50 billion over the last 15 years, I thought it was time to bring those efforts to fruition, to build a workable system if we can as opposed to putting more viewgraphs on the shelf. H.R. 4 was an effort to reach some kind of bipartisan consensus on a very basic proposition, that the focus of our efforts in ballistic missile defense would be to deploy a system. We passed that bill here with a hefty margin. We sent it to the other body, they struck everything in it, adopted a completely different bill and now they send it back to us in a process that is a breach of procedure, bypassing the procedures that are long established and that are intended to achieve a consensus between both Houses. Normally when we pass a bill and send it to the Senate and they pass a different bill, there is a conference to hammer out the differences, a conference to establish a record as to why the compromises in language were made to the extent that these are made. There is no record here. We have had no conference. We are bypassing the traditional procedure. For what reason I do not know. This is no way to legislate. It is also no way to build bipartisan consensus on something that has been sort of a political totem. As I have said before, we do not debate ballistic missile defense the way we debated the MX or the B-2 or other major systems. This system is so charged with political significance that it is a totally different kind of debate. One of the things we will not have as a result of this procedure is a record, a record to explain the legislative history of what some truly ambiguous and unclear language in this particular bill actually means. This bill calls for billions of dollars to be spent to deploy a national missile defense system, quote, as soon as it is technologically feasible, or possible. What does this mean? I am concerned that it could mean that as soon as we have got the technology or think we have it in hand, we are supposed to rush to deployment, even though we might end up with a suboptimal or a substandard system. I am concerned that it may mean before we have adequately tested, we will move to deployment. That is not an idle concern. Yesterday in the defense authorization bill markup, an amendment was added which allowed the director of this program and the Secretary of Defense to begin deployment before this system was fully tested, a dispensation that is granted to very few defense programs. It could mean that we will deploy even though it is extravagantly expensive, far more expensive than the protection it would allow us. It could mean any number of different things. We do not know. There is no legislative history. We have not been able in the House to have the opportunity to give meaning to that particular phrase. The bill specifies that this national missile system must be capable of affording us a limited defense, or defense against a limited ballistic missile attack. What does ``limited'' mean? Is it an unauthorized attack, an accidental attack, or an attack by, say, one submarine which could mean easily more than 100 warheads? Very, very critical to have that definition pinned down. In our bill, we had legislative history. We said it was an accidental attack. We limited the scope of the effectiveness of the system. Here they talk about a limited attack. That could range from 5 warheads to 200 warheads. It is not clear at all. We have no opportunity to make it clear. Furthermore, the timing of this bill, the timing of the previous bill, disturbed me. I know it disturbed the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Weldon), too. Because this bill is misperceived by the Russians. I said that on the floor, I said it in committee. The Russians see this bill as somehow a potential or anticipatory breach of the ABM treaty. I think that is unfounded. I think what we are trying to move towards is a system where we can rely upon our defenses so that we do not have to rely so much upon the threat of a retaliatory strike. I think that would be an improvement in deterrence and an improvement in the stability in the world. The Russians do not see it that way yet. They see us moving away from the ABM treaty. This language in this bill is not bound to give them comfort and encouragement, because this bill says that in addition to deploying defenses in this country, we should also seek to negotiate reductions in Russian nuclear weapons. I agree that we should be negotiating with the Russians. We should have done START II. We should have pressed them to ratify it long before now. But they perceive START II as being tilted against them. Now we are saying in this bill, ``We're going to build defenses and we want you to build down your missile systems,'' which suggests that we want complete superiority here. It is not the formulation for a successful bargain. It is not the kind of message we need to send the Russians, particularly at a time when we are leaning on them and Chernomyrdin is today in Belgrade trying to cut a deal with us. It is just ill-timed. I will probably vote for this bill because I believe in ballistic missile defense and I do not want to muddle that message on my part but I am very, very disappointed in the process and procedure it is taking.

Mr. SPRATT

Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Speaker, one hundred years ago today, Major James Lide Coker, a Civil War veteran, formed the Southern Novelty Company. The South was still agrarian and still starved for capital, but men like D.A. Tompkins in Charlotte and Henry Grady in Atlanta envisioned a New South. Entrepreneurs like James Lide Coker brought the New South into being. Coker perfected a way of producing paper from pulp of Southern yellow pine and created a manufacturing process for making paper cones in high quantities at low cost. The Customer: textile companies then emerging all over the South. Cotton yarn was wound and packaged on the paper cones. By 1923, the Southern Novelty Company was international, part of a joint venture in Great Britain, and the company changed its name to Sonoco. From its humble beginning in Hartsville, South Carolina, Sonoco has grown into a global packaging leader. Today, Sonoco makes a wide spectrum of consumer and industrial products, supplying customers in 85 countries. It has a network of 275 manufacturing plants on five continents, but it has never forgotten its origin. It is still headquartered in the same small city where it started, Hartsville, South Carolina, which a year ago was named an ``All-American City,'' due in no small part of its chief corporate citizen. Sonoco packaging touches us every day. It may be a paperboard can of frozen orange juice, a container for potato chips, pet food, motor oil, or window caulking. It may be a paperboard carton holding medicine, cosmetics, or film, or a protective liner sealing foods and beverages. And when you use plastic grocery bags or shopping bags, the chances are good they were made by Sonoco because Sonoco is a major supplier. Sonoco remains a world leader in packaging for industry, still producing tubes and cores for textile products like yarn, but also for film, paper, and metals. And I should add that Sonoco is a world leader and innovator in using recycled materials. While Sonoco products are not household names, the company grows by helping its customers manufacture and distribute their products to consumers around the world. Sonoco ranks number one or number two in all of its major product lines. How does Sonoco do it? Through one hundred years of commitment to innovation and quality; through leadership in paper recycling since 1920; through constantly seeking out customer feedback; through a company mission to be the best, the lowest-cost provider of preferred products worldwide; and through excellent managers and a first-rate workforce. The bottom-line bears testimony to all of the above. Since Sonoco's founding in 1899, the company has averaged an annual increase in earnings of 12.4 percent. Mr. Speaker, I am proud to represent corporate citizens like Sonoco. I sent Sonoco employees around the globe, from Hartsville to Hong Kong, our best wishes for a happy 100th birthday, and for many more returns!

Mr. SPRATT

Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Speaker, our problem is not with the idea of authorization. The President legally should seek our authorization before committing ground troops, and politically he would be well advised to get it. Our problem is with the text of this resolution, because it creates a potential legal quagmire for troops that we have deployed. It uses the word ``ground elements,'' not exactly a word of art, but instead of using ``ground troops'' or ``ground forces,'' it says ``ground elements,'' so as to include not just personnel but materiel, not just troops but equipment and weapons, as well. So the first casualty of this sweeping ban, this language in this resolution, is going to be foredeployed and prepositioned equipment. Why do we want to preposition? Because if we need M-1 tanks, if we need Bradleys in this theater, we will have to begin today prepositioning those tanks and Bradleys and the other heavy equipment, because we will not have time when the need arises. That does not mean we may need them for a ground force that will be conducting a ground war. We may need them for a multinational implementation force. If we have learned anything from Beirut to Mogadishu, it is that when we send in one of these peacekeeping forces, they had better be tough. They had better be imposing. They had better have the equipment, so that nobody dares take them on. If we read this resolution, it says, don't you dare spend a dime on anything like that for deployment of prepositioning that might be introduced into this theater. Keep on reading and we can come up with all sorts of scenarios that this would potentially prohibit or bar. Let us assume, for example, that our intelligence told us that Serb troops were massing just outside Macedonia or just outside Albania. This would prohibit us from taking a preemptive first strike. Let us assume that we did know in advance if they crossed the border of one of these countries and we counterattacked, drove them out of the country, and wanted to pursue them. We would have to stop at the border. Let us assume, and I hope we have, some on-the-ground military intelligence in Montenegro, in Kosovo. This would bar that, it would prohibit that. Let us assume we have some special forces operations covertly operating at night in one of those countries. This would bar that. It would deny us the kind of information we need to be intelligent. Mr. Speaker, the authors of the resolution have tried to solve this problem by rewording Subsection B and making an exception for air crews that are shot down. But that limited exception shows us just how strict the language is. When we go through this we understand, and it is complex for us to understand, and we can certainly conceive of many circumstances this would prohibit. This is going to create a legal quagmire for our troops in this theater. We should not do that to them. We have the President's assurance he will come and seek our authority before he goes on a ground war, if he does. We should not impose these additional complications.

Mr. SPRATT

Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Speaker, in five conflicts since the Constitution was ratified we have declared war, first including the War of 1812, last including World War II. In the period since then we have had bombardments and blockades and occupations and conflicts of all kinds, civil wars, and war has become sort of a subjective concept. There are so many variations on it, that if you read the UN charter you will not find the word ``war'' anywhere included. The charter refers to hostilities, to armed attacks, to breaches or threats to the peace, to acts of aggression. The War Powers Resolution was written with that reality in mind, written in the aftermath of Vietnam and Korea, two wars that were never declared wars, and its authors recognized that there were some lesser included alternatives under the rubric of war. The War Powers Act gives us, the Congress, an explicit alternative to declaring war, total outright war. Within 60 days of a deployment, when we are notified by the President, we can enact a specific authorization of such use of the Armed Forces. That was laid out for us when we passed the War Powers Resolution. The Campbell resolutions I disagree with and believe frame the choice falsely. They imply that we can only declare total war or withdraw totally. S. Con. Res. 21 takes a different course, and I think a legitimate one. It concurs in the air and missile campaign that is now being waged, and, by not going any further, reserving judgment on the introduction of ground forces if the air forces do not accomplish their objectives. Fowler-Goodling, on the other hand, is deficient in several major effects. It does not approve a sanction or concur in an ongoing campaign. It dodges the issue. Then in the most emphatic, flattest possible way, it lays down a prohibition against ground war, barring any expenditure whatever on ground elements in Yugoslavia. Now, ground elements include personnel and materiel, it includes weapons and equipment. Secretary Cohen has just written us a letter saying this could be interpreted as retrenchment. This could actually undercut the intended effect of the ground war. But worse still, in trying to keep us out of the quagmire of a ground war, and I understand their concerns, Goodling-Fowler runs the risk of putting us into a legal quagmire. If we pass it, we better call up the reserve JAG officers, because the lawyers are going to be busy making tactical interpretations of its effects. It would prohibit any expenditure on ground elements. That would prevent prepositioning of equipment in the theater, weapons in the theater as a contingency, either to be used by a ground force in a ground war, or by an implementation force if there is a settlement. It would bar special forces operations in Yugoslavia. It would bar on-the- ground military intelligence operations anywhere in Yugoslavia. It would bar forward observers. This is not the way to go. We have a good alternative in S. Con. Res. 21. It is limited in its effect, and it is the proper application in these circumstances.

Mr. SPRATT

Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Speaker, I oppose this rule for four reasons. First of all, it limits the debate to 30 minutes on each side on something as momentous as this. Contrast that with the Persian Gulf debate. We debated all day, late into the night, all of the next day before we finally came to a vote. Secondly, it makes in order four measures. One, offered by the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Goodling) is a flawed product. It needs to be amended and changed considerably. It has already been amended since it was reported. It will be unamendable when it comes to the floor. What is missing among these four is something truly bipartisan. When we had the Persian Gulf debate we had a bipartisan resolution, Michels- Solarz-McCurdy. I joined and voted for it. But we do not have an option like this, or even the opportunity for crafting one here. Finally, it crowns these four choices, four bad choices, three bad choices, with an exceptional, unprecedented declaration overriding statutory law and saying if there are any more measures like this to come up this year, they will not be entitled to the expedited procedure that the War Powers Act, a black letter law, provides them. This is no way to deal with something as important as war. This rule should be voted down.

Mr. SPRATT

Mr. SPRATT. I yield to the gentleman from Connecticut.