Mark Souder

Mr. SOUDER

Mr. SOUDER. Mr. Speaker, I move that the House do now adjourn.

Mr. SOUDER

Mr. SOUDER. If the gentleman would further yield, behind us on the wall is Moses. All the other lawgivers are pointing to the side.

Mr. SOUDER

Mr. SOUDER. Mr. Chairman, I too am very embarrassed for this House. We came here in the Class of 1994 in particular claiming that we were willing to trade about anything to balance the budget and cut taxes. Tonight we are the people busting the budget. We are the people with the proposal billions of dollars higher than the United States Senate. I am embarrassed at what is before us. I see media reports in Indiana of Members of Congress who are getting money that is going to be allocated to their county commissioners. That was not a carefully scrutinized thing. It is up to the county commissioners now to decide whether they have potholes on their roads. Any Member of Congress can have such a thing. It was not a carefully scrutinized process. Everybody here, whether it was direct or indirect, knew that if they supported this bill they would have access to certain funds. We all advocate different projects at different times within the context of the balanced budget. This busts the budget. This is contrary to what we ran on. By the time we get done with this, the House and the Senate and the President, we are going to have spent the supposed surplus and undermined everything we claimed to have come here to do, and I am embarrassed for this body tonight.

Mr. SOUDER

Mr. SOUDER. Mr. Chairman, reclaiming my time, I would hope that there is an understanding in general when it is background music and not primarily, something that is the primary business of the company that is playing the music. But there is an understanding that this helps promote, to some degree, the music involved with the individuals, and they are not going to be helped by restaurants going silent. They are not going to be helped by higher prices in restaurants either. That is really what I have a question about in this Republican controlled Congress. Are we, in effect, going to pass another backdoor tax increase?

Mr. SOUDER. Mr. Chairman, my understanding is that it is a violation of Federal copyright law if one is not paying a licensing fee, whether or not it is for profit.

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

Mr. SOUDER. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the requisite number of words. Mr. Chairman, I am a cosponsor of H.R. 789, the Fairness in Music Licensing Act, which has bipartisan support of over 157 Members of Congress. While I wish that it were what he was offering today on the floor, I believe this compromised amendment by Mr. Sensenbrenner is fair and balanced. The Sensenbrenner amendment is balanced because it does several key things. One, it levels the playing field for businesses that use music. These business owners will now have a way to settle their disputes with music licensing societies without having to go to rate court in New York City. We have heard about different options under this but that is an important change. Two, it will allow businesses of a certain size, 3,500 square feet or less where the speakers are located, and that is important, because it isn't just a question of where the diners are sitting, it is a question of your storage, your kitchens, and receiving areas as well are located to be exempt from copyright royalties when they play TVs and radios, which is important to remember it is TV and radio music. If a business is over 3,500 square feet, it may be exempt if it plays only two TVs and has no more than six speakers. The Sensenbrenner amendment is fair because it does not change the law with respect to other kinds of music that a business may use. For example, a restaurant that has live music or plays CDs will not be covered by this Sensenbrenner exemption. These restaurants will still have to pay copyright royalties. Two, it does not change the law with respect to penalties. If a business is found to be violating copyright law, the penalty is a severe $20,000 per violation. That is, a business caught stealing copyrighted music is still liable under the Sensenbrenner amendment. I wanted to add a couple of comments based on some of the debate here. We are kind of getting lost here, whether Stephen Foster would have died a pauper, which I find quite a stretch into this debate. This is really about individuals who go to eat at restaurants. There is a mythology that businesses pay taxes. Businesses are pass- through agents. What we are really talking about is whether we are going to increase the cost of eating out for diners, or whether diners are going to have less ambience, so to speak, or any music in the background at all. What we are forgetting here in a debate between different financial interests are the actual consumers of America. Are we in Congress going to, in effect, pass a food and beverage tax increase in this Congress? Are we going to have little music police going around to try to see how restaurants are enforcing that? Because that is the net that will happen. Either we will have the sounds of silence, perhaps some restaurants will broadcast sounds of silence brought to you by your local congressmen, if this passes. Are we going to have the sounds of silence here in the restaurants, or are we going to have higher food prices? That is really what we are debating here today. We are not debating starving artists versus starving restaurant owners. We are debating what is going to happen to consumers in the restaurant business. It kind of frustrates me in this debate. It is not a matter of just the rich and famous as we hear these things are put together, but, rather, rich and famous on other sides who are trying to, in effect, hit the consumers at restaurants. We have also heard that, in fact, restaurant owners could try to figure out which licensing company is doing this by going to digital. My friend, the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Scarborough) made that point. I am sitting here as a small business owner myself thinking this is not possible. I mean, in effect, businesses will decide probably not to offer the music or, in fact, they have not only the licensing fee cost, but the cost of the people that try to track that licensing fee. So we really are talking a significant potential increase, not just a marginal increase in the cost of doing business. Restaurant owners are already hammered by our Congress in minimum wage increases, in marginal inspection type increases. As we have more and more two-parent working families, more and more people are eating out. This is really a question of the financial pressures we are going to put on families just because of radio and TV broadcast, which, in fact, already are going through a process of paying for these fees. And it is a secondary market. One other comment I wanted to make as far as Congress itself. We constantly have this cuteness. I think it would be very interesting for somebody in the media to go through Members of Congress' records. When constituents call in, many Senators and House Members put them on hold, and there is music there. I would be very interested to see whether, in fact, the copyright laws are being violated by the Members who have stood up here and said the restaurant owners should pay. Are they paying the starving artists in their offices because they are part of a branch of an institution that has 535 offices in it? Are they paying the fees to the starving artists if they have music going over their system from a radio station? I really question whether that is being done in many cases.

Mr. SOUDER. I yield to the gentleman from California.

Mr. SOUDER

Mr. SOUDER. Mr. Speaker, I am delighted to rise in honor of our country's greatest president whose birthday we celebrate today. We Republicans honor Lincoln as a founder of our great political party and the first Republican president. We are right to this. But this is not the source of Lincoln's greatness. Lincoln used the Republican party and the presidency as vehicles to achieve three magnificent things. He preserved this great union of ours. He ended slavery on this continent. He extended to the American entrepreneurial spirit to millions of people of all walks of life. We have a word for that on a subcommittee I chair. We call it ``empowerment.'' Without a strong union, the United States would not have become the economic power it is today. Because of Lincoln's work, this nation produced the highest standard of living of any in the history of the world. And because the United States remained one nation, it was able to assemble the moral military might that liberated millions this century from three of the worst tyrannies in all of history: nazi Germany, imperial Japan, and the Stalinist ``evil empire.'' Throughout the world, the name ``Lincoln'' connotes compassion--and for good reason. Slavery sickened him. ``If slavery is not wrong, nothing is wrong'' he said. He worked to restrict its expansion before the civil war; used that military emergency to end it; and forced through the thirteenth amendment to the constitution to prevent its re- instatement. As Commander in Chief, he made merciful use of his pardoning powers. He was particularly sympathetic to young offenders. ``Must I shoot a simple-minded soldier boy, who deserts, while I must not touch a hair of a wily agitator who induces him to desert?'' he said, ``* * * to silence the agitator and save the boy is not only constitutional, but withal a great mercy.'' There was one group of lawbreaker, however, to whom he showed no mercy, slave traders. In one celebrated instance, he refused to commute to life in prison the sentence of person who had committed that hideous crime. Before Lincoln's presidency, that law had gone enforced. After it, there was no need to have it at all. It was also during Lincoln's administration that homestead legislation became federal policy and land grants to states for the establishment of colleges became law. These measures, along with the example of Lincoln's life story, came to characterize the American entrepreneurial spirit. As the ``empowerment subcommittee'' continues to explore ways to assist individuals and communities achieve their full potential, we will carry Lincoln's spirit with us. Lincoln was the personification of ``empowerment'' in America. Here is how he described it: ``The prudent penniless beginner in the world labors for wages for a while, saves a surplus with which to buy tools or land for himself, then labors on his own account for another while, and at length hires another new beginner to help him.'' I urge all Americans to pause on this day and all through the year to reflect upon the words and deeds of this extraordinary human being. They do this by visiting the Lincoln Memorial and Ford's Theater, here in Washington, and the Lincoln Museum in Fort Wayne, Indiana. The March issue of Civil War Times contains an article about that museum's fascinating exhibits. It is my pleasure to submit it for publication in the Congressional Record. [From the Civil War Times, March 1998] A New Lincoln Memorial (By Al Sandner) In Fort Wayne, Indiana, one man's admiration gave birth to the largest private collection of Lincoln-related materials in the world. The two-year-old museum that houses the collection combines modern technology with 19th-century artifacts to create a hands-on, in-depth examination of ``Lincoln and the American Experiment.'' For generations the people of Fort Wayne, Indiana, have cherished the legend that Abraham Lincoln stopped here on the fateful trip that catapulted him into the race for the presidency. They've cherished it and hoped it was true, but couldn't be sure. Legend had it that Lincoln changed trains here on his way to deliver a speech at the Cooper Institute in New York, where his son, Robert, was a student. The speech made a deep impression on the audience and caught the attention of Northeastern power brokers, vaulting him into the elite company of men regarded as potential presidential candidates. On his journey eastward, he was a regionally known lawyer, soldier, surveyor, and politician. On the return trip his name was being whispered in the halls of power as a contender for the highest office in the land. The Fort Wayne train switch--if it really happened--was related closely enough to a pivotal moment in American history to make any city proud. Recent research has laid the legend to rest and replaced it with historical fact. ``We have determined that on February 23, 1860, Abraham Lincoln did change trains in Fort Wayne while on his way to the Cooper Institute speech,'' said Gerald Prokopowicz, Lincoln scholar and director of programs for the Lincoln Museum in Fort Wayne. In the years since 1860, working on faith and dedication alone, one local businessman and Lincoln admirer created in this mid-sized northeastern Indiana town (closer to Knute Rockne country than to what is usually thought of as the land of Lincoln) what was to become the largest private collection of Lincoln materials in the world, housed in a $6 million, 30,000-square-foot museum that is both a tribute to Lincoln and an interactive multimedia essay on his impact on America as we know it. Fort Wayne, a 203-year-old city also known as the final resting place of Johnny Appleseed, doesn't really need an excuse for housing the Lincoln Museum. The institution stands on its own merits, combining relics and reconstructions, videos and period documents, the deadly serious (for example, a slave's manacle) and the whimsical (the tail end of a 1970s Lincoln Versailles with its trademark wheel on the trunk lid and a collection of bands from ``Lincoln'' brand cigars). The museum's 11 exhibit galleries ingeniously incorporate hundreds of Lincoln-era artifacts and art works--including the inkwell Lincoln used in signing the Emancipation Proclamation, Lincoln family photos and handwritten documents, the president's legal wallet, and his pocket knife. Its research library, with 18,000 volumes and 5,000 photographs, draws Lincoln scholars from across the country. Traveling exhibits have included one of the few surviving signed copies of the Emancipation Proclamation (the Leland- Boker Edition, which was sold during the Civil War to benefit war relief work) and one of 13 copies of the resolution for the 13th Amendment, which banned slavery. More recently, an exhibit called ``White House Style'' displayed 9 original and 24 replica formal gowns worn by first ladies from Martha Washington and Mary Todd Lincoln to Nancy Reagan and Hillary Rodham Clinton. You enter under a painting of the U.S. Capitol dome whose construction held such symbolic importance in Lincoln's mind that he insisted the work continue unabated throughout the Civil War. Lincoln's words--prophetic at the time, cautionary and virtually mythic today--are written, painted, and engraved on walls and other surfaces. Lincoln's words also ring in your ears as you absorb the man and the times he shaped. Throughout, the voices of narrator Ossie Davis and Sam Waterston as Lincoln guide the visitor through Lincoln's life, and the fit seems totally comfortable, perfectly natural. Davis is an actor, writer, producer, and director. Waterston played Lincoln in a television miniseries and gave Lincoln a voice in Ken Burns's landmark Public Broadcasting Service special on the Civil War. Davis narrates the video that introduces the visitor to the permanent exhibit ``Abraham Lincoln and the American Experiment.'' The five-minute film sets the stage, tracing the times and events that shaped the man who soon shaped the times and events around him. America in Lincoln's day was the world's only large-scale experiment in democracy, and many doubted it could long survive. As the film ends, Lincoln addresses the press corps just after his election to the presidency: ``Your troubles are over. Mine are just beginning.'' So begins your journey to explore the tensions over slavery that threatened the experiment in democracy, the war that was ignited by the tensions, Lincoln's role in guiding the democratic nation through its greatest trial, and the way people have since remembered Lincoln. Leaving the theater, you step into ``Lincoln's America,'' divided like Caesar's Gaul into three parts: ``The Dynamic North,'' where a single state, New York, runs more factories than the entire South; ``The Expanding West''; and ``The Prosperous South.'' Now, as then, the South seems to dominate, to attract more attention than its size and economic power should warrant. The focal point of the room is a full-scale, rough-hewn Mississippi River flatboat. You walk under the vast tiller, manned by a life-size, six-foot-four-inch Lincoln mannequin standing on the deckhouse's flat roof. A pass under the boat's keel places you in the South; cotton bales and barrels stand around the dock. Touch the rough wood, finger the cold steel of a slave manacle. Read a list of slaves for sale. Read Lincoln's words: ``If slavery isn't wrong, nothing is wrong.'' Just as the debate over slavery led the nation to war, so are you led into the next galleries. ``Prairie Politician to President'' and ``Speaking Out.'' In this general area is a reproduction of the sort of room where Lincoln grew up, read, and worked out his sums. His copy of Parson Weems's Life of Franklin is on display here. Somewhere in this area, you learn (if you didn't already know) that Lincoln was fascinated by technology and held the only patent ever granted to a president of the United States--for a system he invented to refloat boats. Artifacts here include an invitation to the dance where he met his future wife, Mary Todd. The ``Speaking Out'' gallery reproduces the Chicago meeting hall where the Republicans nominated Lincoln for president. A life-size statue of Lincoln stands at a podium on the bunting-draped stage, while a dramatic re-creation of the Lincoln-Douglas debates play on a large video screen behind him and his words fill the air. It is here, too, that you can sit at an ingeniously arranged desk between like masks of Lincoln and Douglas, and--thanks to cleverly arranged mirrors--see yourself sitting at eye-level with these two great orators. You may suffer by comparison, but it is a fascinating experience. Nearby is another interesting comparison--the earliest known photographic portraits of Lincoln, take in April and May of 1846, followed by photographs of him during the war years. He grew haggard under the strain of his wartime presidency, but not as drained and devastated as you might expect. Next, the visitor is thrown into the cauldron of war. The events and battles of the most critical years of U.S. history are described in a time line that circles the walls of the ``Civil War'' gallery. A bank of six touch-screen computer monitors allows the visitor to read Lincoln's mail, redecorate the White House as Mary Todd Lincoln did, take a trivia quiz, or refight major Civil War battles. In the game ``You Be the General,'' Union and Confederate positions are mapped out on the computer monitor, and you are allowed to make the moves: sort of a computer-generated chess game based on actual events. One player reported reversing history and winning the First Battle of Bull Run for the North. Another refought Gettysburg, but was never quite sure what he was doing--or whether he won or lost. (Fortunately for the Union, this would-be general was born a century too late.) ``The Fiery Trial'' is the name given to the next mini- theater presentation. In a small, comfortable auditorium, three seven-minute multimedia programs explore different facets of Lincoln and the Civil War. In ``Lincoln's Soldiers,'' the letters of Corporal George Squire of Fort Wayne are used to describe life in the Union army. ``Lincoln: Commander-in-Chief'' explains the problems the president had in finding a general to bring victory to the North. And ``Lincoln and Emancipation'' tells about his role in ending slavery. Again, the voices of Davis and Waterston create an aura of warmth and familiarity--in deadly contrast to the stereo booms and strobe flashes of cannon fire. Outside the door of the theater are a cavalry officer's sword, which you can draw partly our of its scabbard; an infantryman's heavy, black leather backpack, which you can heft onto your shoulders; and--as a symbol of this first modern war--a half- scale model of an early Gatling gun, precursor of the machine gun. The Gatling gun was introduced during the war but was rarely used. Like Billy Pilgrim, visitor from another time and another war in Kurt Vonnegut's anti-World War II novel Slaughterhouse Five, it's easy to get ``unstuck in time'' here. In the free- flowing layout, you could wander into, say, ``Ford's Theater and Beyond'' and then into ``A Lincoln Family Album.'' The former displays a replica of the theater box the president occupied that ill-fated Good Friday night while describing the conspiracy that led to his death and transformed him from controversial politician to American legend. The latter displays Lincoln's own photographs of his children while an upright piano plays recordings of Mary Lincoln's favorite songs, including ``Skip-to-Mi-Lu.'' Children's attractions in this area include games, clothes for dress-up, and an interactive Lincoln family portrait. Stepping back just a bit in time, you can revisit the fringes of the Civil War gallery, sit at a desk much like Lincoln's, and face some of the same problems he did during his regular public sessions (which he called his ``Public Opinion Bath''). You sit in a chair looking into a faithful reproduction of Lincoln's office, are presented with pleas the president heard during these sessions, decide how to handle the request, and then push a button to learn what Lincoln did. Letters of discharge from the army, original notes, and other documents are used to illustrate how he handled callers and their pleas. After making all these decisions, you may have the leisure to sit back and notice how meticulously Lincoln's office has been re-created--right down to the wallpaper and the width of the carpet stripes. Now things lighten up. Blinking lights outline a movie theater marquee that announces today's attraction: ``Lincoln at the Movies.'' On screen, television movie critic Gene Siskel teams up with Pulitzer Prize-winning author and historian David Herbert Donald to critique movies that depict the life of Lincoln--using the format Siskel and fellow Chicago critic Roger Ebert use on their television series, At the Movies. They discuss actors and interpretations over the years--from Henry Fonda's Young Mister Lincoln to Waterston's interpretation in the television miniseries Gore Vidal's Lincoln. Walter Houston, Raymond Massey, and Mary Tyler Moore (as Mary Todd Lincoln in Gore Vidal's Lincoln) are also discussed from historic, theatrical, cinematic, and purely personal points of view. The fun continues. In ``Remembering Lincoln'' a trail of red lights crosses an oversize map of the United States from coast to coast. This, the ``Lincoln Highway,'' was America's first transcontinental thoroughfare. It serves as the backdrop for a collection of things named for Lincoln over the past 160 years--from an automobile to cities and towns, schools, manufacturing companies, fruit growers, and a surprising number of cigars. Sticking out of the wall below the map, as though the brakes had failed while someone was backing up, juts the tail end of a Lincoln Versallies. Across the aisle is ``Dear Mr. Lincoln,'' a station where children are given pencil and paper and encouraged to add to the exhibit by writing a letter or postcard to the 16th president. The good ones can become part of the exhibit. ``I regret to inform you they are still assassinating people,'' one young person reportedly wrote early on. Even parents join in. ``My son was a reluctant reader until he read a story about you in the 2nd grade,'' wrote one mother. ``Thank you. I live in a better place because of you.'' Wall-sized photographs of history as it was made at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C., illustrate the theme of the next-to-last gallery, ``The Experiment Continues.'' It seems to show Lincoln's moral beliefs still have an impact on American society today. Here is Marion Anderson, barred by the Daughters of the American Revolution from other Washington venues, performing outdoors for hundreds of thousands of enthralled Americans in 1939. Here is Martin Luther King, Jr., telling America ``I have a dream'' in 1963. And there are Vietnam veterans opposed to the war struggling unsuccessfully to seize the memorial in 1971. Now the museum visitor is truly drawn into the American Experiment--by voting on four key questions: (1) Is the American Experiment a success? (2) Is it still alive today? (3) Does it work for most Americans? (4) Are you confident of its future success? The tally? In the two years since the museum opened, some 27,000 visitors have said ``yes'' to each question. However, the ``no'' votes have varted notcieably Questions 1, 2, and 4 have received about 19,000 ``no'' votes. Meanwhile, number 3 has drawn about 16,000 ``no'' votes--indicating a large number of absentions. The museum tour ends on a colorful note as the visitor passes through ``A Lincoln Gallery,'' which displays art inspired by Lincoln. The art works are taken from the museum's own extensive collection. In the lobby, opposite the 23-foot-long ``A. Lincoln'' signature and his 12-foot-high portrait is a well-stocked gift shop with books, video tapes, CD-ROMs, games, statues, and replicas of White House china. Under the signature, on the lower level, is the library, with more than 200,000 newspaper and magazine clippings regarding Lincoln; more than 5,000 original photographs (including those from Lincoln's own family album); 200 documents signed by Lincoln; 7,000 19th-century prints, engravings, newspapers, and music sheets; 18,000 books; scores of period artifacts and Lincoln family belongings, and hundreds of paintings and sculptures. Here, too, is the traveling exhibit area--most recently the site of the ``White House Style'' show. So how did this $6 million, 30,000-square-foot tribute to Lincoln and interactive multimedia essay on his impact on American life come to be created in a mid-sized northeastern Indian city? In 1905, Arthur Hall was forming an insurance company in Fort Wayne. A great admirer of Lincoln, he wrote to Robert Todd Lincoln, the son whose attendance at the Cooper Institute had provided Abraham Lincoln with a platform for his watershed 1860 speech, for permission to use his father's name. Along with his approval, Todd sent a photograph of his father--the same one that is the basis for the engraving on the $5 bill today. The company grew into what is today one of the nation's largest financial services organizations. The Lincoln National Corporation opened its first museum on Lincoln's birthday in 1928. The new museum, now owned by the nonprofit Lincoln National Foundation, opened October 1, 1995, in Lincoln National headquarters--less than a mile from the site of the railroad station where Lincoln, we now know, changed trains on February 23, 1860.

Mr. SOUDER

Mr. SOUDER. Mr. Chairman, I know many people are concerned about the standards in their schools. But this is something different. This is Washington pointing an accusing finger at our Nation's children, many trapped in inner city, broken down schools and saying you miserable little failures. Do we really want Washington doing that? Many people, myself included, I think have been very confused by the mixed signals that the President is sending. Now I happen to believe that there is a responsible public policy approach to dealing with a potential surplus. For that reason, I am cosponsoring legislation offered by the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Neumann) which is consistent with a number of important policy objectives. Last year, 300 of us had the courage to say that is not Washington's business, that is the business of parents, local school boards, and the States. The question today and the question before us is who is going to flip-flop their vote today.

Mr. SOUDER. Madam Speaker, national testing is opposed by the far right. It is opposed by the far right but not just the far right. That is quite the definition. Apparently, the conspiracy is America has now gotten to be now 350 Members of Congress. Two-thirds of America and two-thirds of the Representatives in Congress voted against this. I hope that this resolution puts to rest this whole idea of national testing. The President seemed to have gotten confused in his State of the Union address. He said, ``Thanks to the actions of this Congress last year, we will soon have, for the first time, a voluntary national test based on national standards in 4th grade reading and 8th grade math.'' Did I miss something? The truth is we proactively opposed these testing standards; 300 Members of Congress. We allowed very limited development as part of the compromise but, in fact, this has been taken that they are going to go ahead when that is the opposite message that we sent, which is why we are here this morning. The idea that we had a compromise that somehow is going to move national tests means anybody did not read the details of the language. The fact is the specifics in that language are self-contradictory. It is dead as a doornail. We cannot satisfy both the minority concerns and those who want to measure. We have restrictions in there that the tests cannot be biased. Quite frankly, that has been lodged against every test, and if that is the criteria these tests cannot go ahead. We have restrictions in there that it cannot be used for promotion. If it cannot be used for promotion and those type of things, what value is the test to the others? There are self-contradictory things in one section and another in the restrictions we put on to kill it. It was a face-saving compromise. It was not a compromise to move ahead on national testing. Now, why do so many people oppose it? Conservatives oppose it, minorities oppose it, teachers oppose it. And here is why. Conservatives oppose it because parents and local school boards believe they should make these decisions. We want standards in our schools, we want standards on our teachers, but we do not want them in Washington. We do not want a national curriculum developed in Washington. It scares us to think that Congress and the President are going to control the curriculum. Furthermore, this affects home schoolers. It affects private schools. Because if we want to move our kids back into the public schools, all of a sudden we have to be teaching to the tests they are taking in the public schools, which they will do, as the chairman pointed out, teach to test. Minorities are justifiably concerned because it can be skewed against them, one, depending on the content of the test but, secondly, how it is used and how it makes inner city schools stack up against suburban schools or marginal schools. And parents then move around districts and businesses locate by that. That is something state and local people need to work through, not the Federal Government biasing people against local schools. My daughter is in college right now studying to be an elementary Ed teacher. A lot of the reasons teachers oppose this is they know there are a lot of reasons other than what is right in front of them and what they are teaching that lead to the scores of their students. Yet if we publish these scores, particularly if it is a national standard seen as some kind of litmus test for every teacher in America, those teachers are going to be very reluctant to go in the schools where we need them most. This is a death warrant, a death certificate potentially on the schools that we most need our best teachers. Now, lastly, do we really want a test under the control of Congress? It is laughable to think that we are going to improve our educational standards in America by having a national test subject to politicians, whether it is the President of the United States or Members of Congress. The truth is when history standards were developed Congress, House and Senate, overturned those history standards, I believe lousy history standards. We have math standards being floated that are both insulting and simplistic and stupid. Now, if those math standards go ahead, we are going to overturn those math standards. I happen to be a creationist, many people are evolutionists. Do we really want to have that debate on science here in Congress as to these kind of tests? The idea that we will have an independent board at a national level that we are authorizing and we are not going to have control over things that are contradictory is silly. I think it is a devastating analysis in the end to put politicians in Washington in front of what is in the best interest of educating students at the local level.

Mr. SOUDER

Mr. SOUDER. Mr. Speaker, I have introduced H.R. 2970, the National Historic Lighthouse Preservation Act, which would amend the National Historic Preservation Act, to establish a national historic light station preservation program. This legislation was introduced in the other body by the Chairman of the Energy and Natural Resources Committee, Senator Frank Murkowski of Alaska. As you may know, Mr. Speaker, lighthouses have served as life-saving navigational aids since before the turn of the century. However, many of these lighthouses have outlived their use to the Coast Guard as navigational aids. Thus, the Coast Guard is left with surplus lighthouses, and declares them ``excessed.'' The question then becomes, who cares for these lighthouses once they leave the Coast Guard's hands? If the land on which a particular lighthouse in question was first granted by a Presidential Order to the U.S. Lighthouse Establishment, it is considered to be ``public domain,'' and has to be first offered through the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) to the Interior Department. If the Interior Department does not claim the land, then the lighthouse is placed in the General Service Administration's (GSA) excessing process. If the property is not considered public domain, then the lighthouse is placed directly into the GSA excessing process. Through the GSA process, priority is first granted to federal agencies. This means that the lighthouse could be used for such things as an office for the Internal Revenue Service. If no federal agency claims it, the property is then surveyed to see if it suitable to qualify under the McKinney Homeless Assistance Act, thereby allowing it to be transferred to those organizations that assist the homeless. Should neither of these categories claim the lighthouse, it is then offered to the state in which it is located, possibly to be used for recreation purposes. If the state not claim it, then it is offered to the local government where the property is located. Finally, if the lighthouse is still available at the end of the GSA process, it is put up for public sale. The real tragedy here, Mr. Speaker, is that many of these lighthouses have been protected and preserved over the years by non-profit historical lighthouse societies, which have donated a great deal of time, money, and resources to lighthouse preservation efforts. As you can see, in order to have the lighthouses conveyed to them, they must wait through the long process described above, and then must bid on them. This process basically requires these non-profit organizations to compete financially with private groups that have greater access to funds, and that have, in many cases, not made the same commitment to the lighthouse in the past. In addition, these private groups may have plans for the lighthouse that are inconsistent with the best interests of the community. Though these non-profit groups can, in some specific cases, purchase the light house directly from the BLM, they sometimes have to pay as much as half of its market value--a value that those particular groups helped to increase over the years through their hard work. Thus, the message we are sending here is that if you're going to provide a public service by preserving historical sites, you're going to have to pay for them in the end. I should point out that another method for conveyance is for Congress to enact separate pieces of legislation to transfer a lighthouse to a specific group. As you know, this process can be very time consuming and cumbersome considering that there are hundreds of lighthouses that will be excessed in the near future. My legislation would introduce a degree of fairness to the conveyance process for historic lighthouses by amending the National Historic Preservation Act to transfer this process to the National Parks Service, which would be able to work in conjunction with the State Historic Preservation Officer, to establish a national historical light station program. This new program would have priority to those government agencies that have entered into a partnership agreement with a non-profit organization whose primary mission is historical preservation of lighthouses, and would convey them at no cost. If no such applications are offered, or approved of, then the lighthouse would be put up for public sale. Thus, this legislation would help to ensure that in those cases where a non-profit group has been active in a particular lighthouses' preservation, and wishes to continue in it's work, that that group would be given a fair shot at claiming that lighthouse when the Coast Guard declares it excessed. Mr. Speaker, we need to recognize the very important role lighthouses have played in this country's history. By encouraging government agencies to join with non-profit groups to help preserve lighthouses for the future, we will be providing a much fairer process to those who wish to continue their work in preserving these nationally historic structures.

Mr. SOUDER

Mr. SOUDER. Mr. Speaker, a vital part of children's development is learning to distinguish themselves as individuals. Artistic expression gives children this opportunity. Regardless of the discipline, art offers a unique avenue for creativity. Today, Mr. Speaker, it is my honor to recognize a group of students from my district who have excelled in the arts and earned international acclaim for their creativity. the Whitko High School Art Department recently competed in the 28th exhibition of World Student Children's Art in the Republic of China. Whitko, of South Whitley, IN, was one of only 11 schools to represent the United States in the exhibition. Three of the Whitko students gained personal recognition for their achievements. Kathleen Dombek, Rany Kilbourne, and Jason Slone all received medals in a competition representing 51 nations around the world. I am proud to represent a group of such students. They have set an example worthy of our praise. I urge my colleagues to recognize the committee and hard work of these young people and to join me in congratulating them on their accomplishment.

Mr. SOUDER

Mr. SOUDER. Mr. Speaker, today, I am introducing the National Historic Preservation Act, which would establish a national historic light station preservation program. It has been introduced in the other body by the chairman of the Energy and Natural Resources Committee, Senator Frank Murkowski of Alaska. As you may know, Mr. Speaker, lighthouses have served as lifesaving navigational aids since before the turn of the century. However, many of these lighthouses have outlived their use to the Coast Guard as navigational aids. Thus, the Coast Guard is left with surplus lighthouses, and declares them excessed. The question then becomes, who cares for these lighthouses once they leave the Coast Guard's hands? If the land on which a particular lighthouse in question was first granted by a Presidential Order to the U.S. Lighthouse Establishment, it is considered to be public domain, and has to be first offered through the Bureau of Land Management [BLM] to the Interior Department. If the Interior Department does not claim the land, then the lighthouse is placed in the General Service Administration's [GSA] excessing process. If the property is not considered public domain, then the lighthouse is placed directly into the GSA excessing process. Through the GSA process, priority is first granted to Federal agencies. This means that the lighthouse could be used for such things as an office for the Internal Revenue Service. If no Federal agency claims it, the property is then surveyed to see if it is suitable to qualify under the McKinney Homeless Assistance Act, thereby allowing it to be transferred to those organizations that assist the homeless. Should neither of these categories claim the lighthouse, it is then offered to the State in which it is located, possibly to be used for recreation purposes. If the State does not claim it, then it is offered to the local government where the property is located. Finally, if the lighthouse is still available at the end of the GSA process, it is put up for public sale. The real tragedy here, Mr. Speaker, is that many of these lighthouses have been protected and preserved over the years by nonprofit historical lighthouse societies, who have donated a great deal of time, money, and resources to lighthouse preservation. As you can see, in order to have the lighthouses conveyed to them, they must wait through the long process described above, and then must bid on them. This process basically requires these nonprofit organizations to compete financially with private groups that have greater access to funds, and that have, in many cases not made the same commitment to the lighthouse in the past. In addition, these private groups may have plans for the lighthouse that are inconsistent with the best interests of the community. Though these nonprofit groups can, in some specific cases, purchase the lighthouse directly from the BLM, they must pay half of its market value--a value that those particular groups helped to increase over the years through their hard work. Thus, the message we are sending here is that if you're going to provide a public service by preserving historical sites, you're going to have to pay for them in the end. I should point out that another method for conveyance is for Congress to enact separate pieces of legislation to transfer a lighthouse to a specific group. As we know, this process can be very time consuming and cumbersome considering that there are hundreds of lighthouses that will be excessed in the near future. My legislation would introduce fairness into the conveyance process for historic lighthouses by amending the National Historic Preservation Act to transfer this process to the National Parks Service, which would be able to work in conjunction with the State Historic Preservation Officer, to establish a national historical light station program. This new program would give priority to those Government agencies that have entered into a partnership agreement with a nonprofit organization whose primary mission is historical preservation of lighthouses, and would convey them at no cost. If no such applications are offered, or approved of, then the lighthouse would be put up for public sale. Thus, this legislation would help to ensure that in those cases where a nonprofit group has been active in a particular lighthouse's preservation, and wishes to continue in it's work, that that group would be given a fair shot at claiming lighthouses when the Coast Guard excesses them. Mr. Speaker, we need to recognize the very important role lighthouses have played in this country's history. By encouraging Government agencies to join with nonprofit groups to help preserve lighthouses for the future, we will be providing a much fairer process to those who wish to continue their work in preserving these nationally historic structures.

Mr. SOUDER

Mr. SOUDER. Mr. Speaker, I support H.R. 2534, the Agricultural Research, Extension, and Education Reauthorization Act for 1997. I have had the opportunity to meet with farmers, producers, and processors from northeast Indiana, as well as Dean Vic Lechtenberg of Purdue University's School of Agriculture. They have emphasized that the excellent research and extension education system of our land grant universities and the USDA has allowed U.S. agriculture to provide the lowest cost and highest quality food supply in the world. As you know, agriculture is an extremely important industry, not only to my home State of Indiana, but many other parts of the country as well. In the 1996 farm bill, we made great strides in bringing agriculture production into a new era of technological competitiveness. As American agriculture relies more on world markets, it is imperative that its technology and human resources continue to be strong. Without superb technology and an outstanding education system, U.S. producers and processors will be unable to compete effectively with other nations where labor and other costs are less. There is little doubt that our agricultural industry will need the necessary tools to compete in the global market with technology based research. The passage of this legislation will provide State cooperative extension service systems and State university agricultural research programs the necessary tools to help direct this country in the future and allow it to continue to be a world leader in agriculture. As we work toward making sure that our Nation's books are balanced, we must not do so at the expense of a safe, dependable, and abundant food supply. We simply must maintain agricultural research and funding at adequate levels to ensure that American agriculture can remain competitive. For these reasons, I encourage my colleagues to support this very important bill.

Mr. SOUDER

Mr. SOUDER. Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the chairman for yielding me this time. Compromise is probably not my greatest strength, and while there are many good things in this bill, there are many things that I not only dislike, I detest, but that is kind of the rule of how compromise works, and I appreciate working with the gentleman from Illinois [Mr. Porter], the gentleman from Wisconsin [Mr. Obey], with the gentleman from Louisiana [Mr. Livingston] and all of the others on this committee. When asked at the press conference today, ``It's not a disappointment then, in the end?'', Mr. McCurry was asked about the national testing, and he said, ``Well, I mean in a perfect world we would have gotten our plan as it was designated by the Secretary of Education and the President, but it's not a perfect world when you have a Republican Congress, to say the very least.'' And that is an accurate statement about how things work. I appreciate the time we had to debate it and to air our differences. I think we have made progress on some of the issues for the movement conservatives, particularly on testing. We held a number of other issues. I probably will not say this too many times in my career, but I intend to vote for a Labor-HHS appropriations bill, and I appreciate the process we went through. I think it is a reasonable compromise given the differences we have between the House and the Senate and the President, and I thank the leadership for that.

Mr. SOUDER

Mr. SOUDER. Mr. Speaker, I wish to congratulate you on this important bipartisan legislation to protect the Federal Employees Health Benefits Program [FEHBP] from fraud. I strongly support this legislation, which protects taxpayers from the misuse of their tax dollars. One provision that is particularly meritorious is section 5 of the bill, which attempts to limit the growth of a group of health care brokers, known as silent preferred providers organizations, or silent PPO's. Through silent PPO's payors are obtaining preferred-provider discounts without physician, hospital, or other health system providers' knowledge or consent. These silent PPO's undermine legitimate PPO's by causing health care providers to question the utility of entering into legitimate contracts with health benefit carriers if fraudulent discounts are taken elsewhere. This fraudulent discounting is particularly insidious because it's so hard to track. Unfortunately, the Federal Government, through the Office of Personnel Management [OPM], has encouraged the use of these silent PPO's in the FEHBP. Mr. Speaker, I believe the compromise language included in the Chairman's mark, which was proposed by the Office of Personnel Management, represents a substantial change in the administration's attitude toward silent PPO's. As I indicated OPM had previously encouraged the proliferation of these brokers of health care discounts. I commend the administration for recognizing the error of its ways and now moving to eliminate silent PPO's in the program. Mr. Speaker, I again commend you for raising this issue by including section 5 in your legislation, and while the provision has been altered I believe the new language, which garnered the support of the administration, is a direct reflection of your leadership on this issue. It is only through your commitment to eliminating the fraudulent use of discounts that we are here today with a bipartisan bill that will substantially benefit all Federal employees and taxpayers. It has been brought to my attention that the inspector general [IG] at OPM is investigating the activities of these silent PPO's, and I urge that this Committee should work with the IG to keep a close eye on these health care discounting practices. Furthermore, States are beginning to examine the activities of silent PPO's and North Carolina has recently passed legislation designating such discounting activities as unfair trade practices thereby subjecting violators to treble damages and attorney fees. I urge support for H.R. 1836.

Mr. SOUDER

Mr. SOUDER. Mr. Speaker, if the gentleman would yield, I think that they initially found 44, and now they found 140 allegedly under ``Democratic fundraisers.''

Mr. SOUDER. So if the gentleman will yield. What the gentleman is saying is that Vice President Gore, who was a member of this body and knew full well he could not use any Federal buildings for fundraising, had been through that here, and Vice President Gore had been a United States Senator and knew that he could not use Federal buildings for fundraising, was also told by two legal counsel at the White House that he could not do it? So he has ignored four warnings?

Mr. SOUDER. And we are committed to getting to the bottom of this, regardless of the smears that are done on our committee or the chairman, because we must for the preservation of American democracy. Mr. Speaker, I include for the Record the following: Federal Document Clearing House--Testimony June 13, 1956--House of Representatives, Government Reform, National Security, International Affairs and Criminal Justice white house communications agency mismanagement Opening Remarks of Chairman Bill Zeliff. Oversight Hearing on White House Communications Agency. Good morning. Four weeks ago we began oversight hearings of the White House Communications Agency, or WHCA. As most of you know, this subcommittee initiated a thorough investigation of WHCA's operations two years ago. We met three times with the White House to try to get the White House to agree that GAO could do this investigation. For reasons that remain unclear, even now, the White House objected and prevented GAO from investigating. We then sought an IG's investigation and, after overcoming further objections, we got the IG into the White House. The result is the first comprehensive audit of WHCA in 55 years. A clear picture is emerging and it has four distinct components: the utter lack of internal controls at WHCA, the problem of WHCA mission creep, the absence of accountability, and the disturbing pattern of White House obstructionism. Because it is most disturbing, I want to start with the White House obstructionism we have encountered in this investigation. Without reason or legal argument, this White House continuously opposed any congressional oversight of WHCA. Even though WHCA had never been comprehensively audited in over half a century of existence--and was clearly in need of some oversight--the White House did its best for almost two years to prevent an audit. Beginning in March of 1994, the White House stubbornly opposed an audit as a potential breach of national security. When Congress pointed out that most of the information involved was not classified in any way--and that there were routine mechanisms for auditing defense organizations which deal with classified information--the White House still refused to allow an audit by the General Accounting Office. We finally got the DOD IG involved. To my dismay, now that we have an audit report and are conducting hearings, the White House, again, is doing its best to obstruct and hinder these hearings by withholding witnesses, and by altering testimony. Let's get some basic facts straight: WHCA takes its orders from the White House Military Office, or WHMO, whose director is a Mr. Alan Sullivan. Mr. Sullivan directs the mission of WHCA, and he also writes the Officer Evaluation Report for the Commander of WHCA, which means that he determines that Commander's future career prospects. Mr. Sullivan, in tern, reports to Ms. Jodie Torkelson, who is the Assistant to the President for Management and Administration. Together, these two individuals--Mr. Sullivan and Ms. Torkelson--hold the figurative whip over WHCA, and so we requested their testimony today. Obviously, when a government agency has problems in need of correction, it is absolutely essential to hear from the folks in charge. However, both Mr. Sullivan and Ms. Torkelson have repeatedly refused to attend these hearings, and Mr. Quinn, the President's lawyer, has written letters seeking to block their appearance. The White House political appointees have, instead, sent Colonel Joseph Simmons the Commander of WHCA, as their surrogate. The truth is fairly obvious: when it is time to use WHCA and benefit from it on a day-to-day basis, the White House is perfectly ready to do that. But when it is time to take a hard look at problems with the agency's mission and its execution of that mission, the White House sends its regrets. We have deferred the subpoena decision today, but I would direct anyone interested in more information on this obstructionism to the letters on the back table. Lastly, as many of you will recall, we appear to have had some serious monkeying around with the prepared testimony of Colonel Simmons, who is here to testify today. First we received a version of his prepared testimony which made it absolutely clear that WHCA takes its order from the White House. That is something we all knew anyway. Then we received a second version of Colonel Simmons' testimony which left out the parts about White House control, and proceeded to blame all of WHCA's shortcomings on the Defense Information Systems Agency, or DISA. Later still, Colonel Simmons and the White House told us that they didn't know anything about the first version of the testimony; but we subsequently learned that Colonel Simmons' office did deliver the testimony--both the first and second versions--and he is now prepared to live with either one. That was the clarification we needed and why we recessed the hearing four weeks ago. Now, let's turn to the internal controls. When it comes to managing its property and finances, WHCA has unfortunately been, in a word, a disaster. For years it has ignored the laws and regulations which govern its contracting property management, and maintenance activities, with the result that millions of dollars in taxypayers' money has been wasted. For example, WHCA has consistently failed to submit spending requests to authorized contract officers for proper approval, as required by law. Instead, WHCA has effectively approved its own contracts, or sometimes even made purchases without a contract. The most notable recent result of this approach was the expenditure of 4.9 million dollars on two mobile communications systems which are almost never used, because they do not fit on the airplane as originally intended. This is the kind of mistake which can only be made in the absence of White House oversight. WHCA has also ignored regulations requiring competitive bidding in government contracting. It has spent millions of dollars per year on sole-source contracts which give no guarantee that the American taxpayers are getting their money's worth. From an accounting standpoint, WHCA has not kept track of its financial obligations and expenditures, and recently had 14.5 million dollars in invalidated obligations. The IG found that due to this lack of oversight, WHCA has been paying for some equipment and services which are no longer necessary; and has been paying for some items which were never even delivered to the agency; and has occasionally paid for the same items twice. In addition, the IG found that WHCA was only paying 17% of its bills on time, which means that the taxpayer is paying for interest and penalties on the remaining 83%. Nor has WHCA followed regulations governing maintenance management. According to the IG, WHCA spent $303,000 on a maintenance control system in 1993, but the system was generally not used. WHCA has also failed to keep track of its own property. The IG found that WHCA acquired a great deal of equipment--for example, $555,000 worth of computers--without recording it in the unit property book, which is the central record of all the unit's property. Now, let me give you a snapshot of WHCA's mission creep. Today, WHCA spends over $122 million dollars a year. It has an authorized strength of roughly 950 military personnel, with about 850 actually on duty at the present time. Moreover, the WHCA mission has expanded to include a whole list of services provided to the President, the Vice- President, the First Lady, and the entire White House staff. Far from its early telecommunications mission, consider a few of the tasks now performed by WHCA: WHCA provides stenographic services--a steno pool--for all White House events and functions. WHCA runs a frame shop, where pictures are framed for White House personnel. WHCA provides camera equipment, and developing and printing services, to White House photographers. WHCA provides comprehensive wire services--including the AP wire, UPI, Reuters, etc.--to White House staffers. And so on. The point is that this White House agency, without proper oversight, has gotten well off the reservation. Finally, there is a real accountability problem. Call it-- problem number four--which helps to cause problems two and three. There is a complete separation of accountability from control. DOD has to spend all of the money requested by WHCA, and it is technically responsible for ensuring that WHCA follows all the laws and regulations governing DOD activities. However, WHCA is actually controlled by White House staffers, who have gotten used to using WHCA for all sorts of non-military jobs, because they are not held accountable for the expense. In other words, the White House holds the credit card, and DOD has to pay the bills. In closing, let me say that it is time for common sense to return, and that's why we are here today.

Mr. SOUDER. And part of the problem here is that as we see these interconnections relate to policy, the question was we do not see the systematic abuse of Latin Americans or of African Americans or of Greek Americans. We did not hear how other groups were manipulated, but we saw Asian Americans basically being told if they want to have influence in the White House, as Johnny Chung says, ``It is like a subway; you have to put the coins in,'' and it is unfortunate that many of these people are Asian Americans, but it is not our fault. It is who abused them, who used them, who sold democracy to them. And they should be so angry right now and so irate at this administration for how they abused Asian Americans in these instances.

Mr. SOUDER. And the quote that is on there, ``Trie bragged on NBC that he could continue to hide out in Asia for 10 years. They will never find me.'' He said. His sister today said that she talks to him when she needs to; that she had not had a direct conversation, but that there had been a discussion that when the statute of limitation runs out, he will come back. And that seems to be the other mark of the way things are going. It is why this investigation is so hard. We will stay at this, but we could really use some help from the other side, rather than trying to say everybody does it, to get to the bottom of this. One last point that came up today. Miss Foung said that she felt that Asian citizens had a right to speak out and they were being picked on. My comment to her was very simple. This has been an incredible abuse of Asian Americans. Because what we have seen, for example, in the case of her brother putting approximately a half million dollars of illegal money, it looks like, in all cases certainly laundered money if not illegal foreign money into this, that he has a right to speak up. And he, right after he gave the $500,000, sent a letter, which was responded to by a personal letter from the President; also notes from Anthony Lake to the President explaining why they needed to respond to Charlie Trie about why we should not overreact to the so-called People's Republic of China's threats to Taiwan when they were threatening their coastal waters.

Mr. SOUDER. I believe between 25 and 30 that have fled and 60 that have pleaded the fifth amendment.

Mr. SOUDER. These are people that have fled the United States and will not testify. And we are having to get fairly small fish, documenting how their money is going through. And we know the Lums are the next step in this process.

Mr. SOUDER. If the gentleman will continue to yield, I ask if he could put my Charlie Trie picture up. We started today our first hearings that will be broadcast, I am not sure when, here on C-SPAN. In actuality, I have to correct myself. They are not going to be broadcast, because the witnesses invoked an old rule that says they did not want to be filmed. So we will see little bits and pieces and hear some in the news. So I will tell my colleague briefly some of what happened. We started to put some of the pieces out there that we are going to focus on. And one of the big pieces is Charlie Trie. And I wanted to acknowledge tonight that I actually have a colored picture, because we have had trouble and some criticism because we have had black and white and grainy pictures. This is a little grainy because this is from a magazine, because the White House does not want to send us color pictures of the President with Charlie Trie either. So if we can get a clear photo, and if they can see fit to send us one, we will be happy to print it. But up until now these things are going to be a little grainy and I apologize. I am not trying to say they are criminals because they are grainy, I am saying they are not really cooperating very much. Today we had Manlin Foung, Charlie Trie's sister, and her boyfriend, in what to me was pretty shocking testimony. In other words, usually people, when given $12,500, in the first case of each one, when they did not have it in the bank account and told to send it to the Democratic National Committee, they would think twice about that. And is it not even illegal to cut a check. They said they knew Charlie was going to get them the money right away. He had always been good before. Furthermore, we saw another 10,000 come in that way. These are people who had never been to a political event, who did not know anything about politicians, who did not know what the Democratic National Committee was. But she was trustingly laundering money for her brother. Furthermore, as it was brought out from numerous members' testimony, her name also appears with her sister and her mother, who have also never been involved before, in giving $2,000 checks, $1,000 each, one for primary and one for general election, all on the same date, to Senator Tom Daschle, minority leader of the other party. This is a web that is spreading farther and farther, and it is very disconcerting. Interestingly, rather than express outrage and shock, the minority attacked the chairman, they attacked the hearing, they attacked the witnesses, they attacked the staff. And rather than seeking the truth, it seems to be to try to obscure the truth or to blame it on other people or say maybe this has happened before. This is shocking stuff. We heard today the first connections, because while Charlie Trie set it up and called his sister, the money came from Antonio Pan, who is a former Lippo executive. What we are going to see over the next months, and we have another pending immunity proffer out to us from the Lums, who tie together and who have worked with Pauline Kanchanalak, they have worked with Charlie Trie, they have worked with----