Mark Souder

Mr. SOUDER

Mr. SOUDER. Mr. Chairman, reclaiming my time merely, the gentleman makes an excellent point, which is why we need to, occasionally on the House floor, protect things from points of order, like the National Endowment for the Arts. I attempted to offer an amendment to transfer funds from Goals 2000 over to breast cancer and we found out, much to all of our surprise to some degree, that the National Cancer Institute is not authorized. We went through a debate on what was going to be called Whole School Reform, because there it was authorized, but authorized under a previous Congress by sticking it in a bill that was moving through for authorization without a single hearing, without a single subcommittee process, without a single full committee vote, and, by the way, happened when Congress was under control of a different party. Yet that moved through with the appropriators. We will always be at a disadvantage to the Senate and always at a disadvantage in this process. Mr. Chairman, informally if we do not allow amendments on the floor that are not authorized, and informally I think it is a good rule to say that if the committee chairman of the authorizing committee asks the Committee on Appropriations to carry it, that they do. But the point is that we do not have a hard and fast rule on how to do this. Mr. Chairman, ergonomics, for example, was in this bill and, as we heard on the first day of this debate, it was added for one more year. In general, I absolutely agree with the gentleman from Wisconsin that things should move through in an orderly process. The Committee on the Budget sets targets, it goes to the authorizing committee and then goes to the appropriating committee. But as a practical matter, not only this Congress but every Congress has dealt with this fundamental substantive fact: When the President is of the opposite party of the House, often appropriations bills have to carry authorizing language to do different things, because otherwise it never gets done. Mr. Chairman, that is the case with this amendment, and I say that as a member of the committee.

Mr. SOUDER

Mr. SOUDER. I was not maintaining it went to local educational institutions. It went to try to educate people at the local level who are in institutions for juveniles. What I am arguing is that we cannot just say everybody in school is the problem. We also have to try to do literacy courses, vocational education training, and stuff for people who are lost but are coming back out. Juveniles in the system with the exception of those who may have committed a life sentence crime are not going to be there forever. This money moves money for education for those who are in juvenile institutions or adult institutions for training. I believe that is a better use of funds. The gentleman from Colorado, Mr. Bob Schaffer, proposed this amendment because he believes it is a better use of funds than some sort of Federal standards coming out of Washington that drive our school districts and often override what local school boards or the State institutions in education would favor.

Mr. SOUDER. Point of order, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. SOUDER. Is it in violation of House rules to malign the motives and try to prescribe motives to people when they have no idea what those motives were?

Mr. SOUDER. My point of order is I believe it is a violation of House rules to malign the integrity of other Members and their reasons for offering amendments.

Mr. SOUDER. Mr. Chairman, I will take back my point of order.

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

Mr. SOUDER. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the requisite number of words. Mr. Chairman, we are hearing another debate on the tough choices that we as Members of Congress have to make. We have had a number throughout this bill where there are two programs that some Members may support or not support, or in fact they may support both of them, then we have to make a priority funding. That is partly why the people elect us and pay us the salaries that we get to make those tough choices. Mr. Chairman, I am not here to suggest that the gentleman from California [Mr. Riggs] and the gentleman from Indiana [Mr. Roemer] are part of any scheme to attack technology assistance, just because they favor funding in charter schools. They have made their case that they believe there is enough money in one category and they need to move it into another, and I think it is really unfortunate when people attack the motives of Members of Congress when they try to move money between accounts. We ought to stop that on the House floor. Mr. Chairman, once we have decided that we are going to spend money in this bill, we have a right to stand up and advocate how we are going to do that. I am also not suggesting in any way that the gentleman from California or the gentleman from Indiana are any part of a filibuster on this bill. They have a sincere belief that it is important to switch funds, because they believe this area has been underfunded. Mr. Chairman, I agree with them. I am reluctant. I think the money ought to come out of Goals 2000, a program where we have not seen the success, where it is Federal meddling beyond the point where I think the Federal Government ought to meddle, rather than technology assistance, which I think is a much more defensible program. But this whole debate is uncomfortable for many of us whose primary goal has been to move the money back to the parents and individuals to make the decisions on education where we believe constitutionally the Founding Fathers wanted it. Mr. Chairman, that is what we tried to do through the tax cuts. By giving the $500 credit to parents to make that decision, they now have the choice to use it for health, they can use it for housing, they can use it for clothes or other expenses. But they can use it for either higher education or private school education. So, Mr. Chairman, we as part of this whole package, have given parents the flexibility who want to go to, in effect, private schools that would not be eligible under charter school funding or our current education bill. Mr. Chairman, this addresses another concern, which is what about charter schools to increase competition with public schools? I want to say up front that first off, like I say, I am uncomfortable about moving it from technology assistance, which I believe is a far more deserving program than Goals 2000. At the same time, charter schools are an innovative way to put pressure on the public schools for reform. In the public schools, however, we cannot abandon those who have been left behind in the public schools, particularly in districts where they do not have the tax support, or handicapped students, which is why we have not been striking at programs that address those areas where schools need the supplemental assistance most in our different amendments and why we have been looking at things like Goals 2000. Charter schools, however, have been innovative in trying to reach out. Hudson Institute, based in my home State of Indiana, found that 19 percent of the 8,400 students in charter schools they have surveyed had disabilities or impediments affecting their education, indicating that charter schools in fact serve proportionally more disabled students than traditional public schools. In the Center for Education Reform, the San Diego Chamber of Commerce found that the overall California charter schools enrolled 53 percent minority students. So we are seeing, even in the charter school area, an effort to try to address the highest risk areas where those parents have been left behind. Where higher income people can often go into an alternative school thing, and by Congress giving the tax credit to them we have increased that flexibility, now we need to give more choices to those who may not have that income. Mr. Chairman, if this amendment passes, I am willing to withdraw my amendment which was to follow, which is to move funds from Goals 2000 to charter schools, because I think it is important that we get the funding in the charter schools. I am disappointed that it would be coming out of technology assistance and computer assistance that I think is far more important than Goals 2000, but I am willing to consider withdrawing my amendment if this amendment looks like it is going to pass.

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

Mr. SOUDER. Mr. Chairman, reclaiming my time, I will always be pleased to be confused with the gentleman from Colorado, Mr. Bob Schaffer. I am proud of my vote the last time, so I stand here saying that the gentleman from Wisconsin [Mr. Obey] has worked with us on a number of points, and we appreciate that, but in general, it is easy to talk peace while carrying a sword to some degree. He knows that in fact we have worked with the President. We have agreed to work and compromise on a number of things in the budget agreement. He admits that he voted against the budget agreement whereas I voted for the budget agreement. So I think it is important in the American people, at least many of the people, there are some who are on the left or the right who have some justifiable criticisms with it but for the most part we are trying to move forward. When we agreed to the tax cuts in return for the President's spending more money, and presumably spending more money in education and social programs, many of us who were conservatives who had voted in the past to reduce the size of Government in Washington, to cut the spending here and give more power to the people back home, more power to the State governments, local governments, to parents and doing that through tax cuts and through transfer of funds to States with block grants, once we were defeated and the money is going to be spent at the Federal level, which, in effect, this budget agreement did, we can have a legitimate debate in Congress about how we are going to spend that money in Washington without having and being maligned about us trying to shut down the Federal Government, without us having to hand our voting cards over to the President of the United States and say we just have to take his priorities on education. We can discuss what are the best ways once we are going to spend these dollars at the Federal level on kids without the constant threat that the President is going to veto the bill if we win one vote and shut down the Government because, quite frankly, it is a joint thing when the Government shuts down. It was not just us so-called radical then-freshmen who shut down the Government. We passed our bills; the President of the United States refused to sign them. We bear joint responsibility when something like that happens. We need to try to work through this. And this does not mean that we have to roll over and say, oh, we are going to sign off on every priority the President has. As I understand from our negotiators, we did not agree that we were surrendering our right to reshape appropriations bills. What we did agree to is, we are going to put more money into education and youth programs, and we have been trying to do that. In fact, in title I of this amendment, we tried to move more money to education, because we also said that we did not believe, for example, in increasing OSHA; and then when we increased OSHA, we tried to move it into the compliance section rather than enforcement and administration, and we were defeated on that effort. We were trying to move money into education, and the minority voted against transferring those funds into education. So this is not a battle against transferring funds into education. Furthermore, we have been constantly maligned in the last few days as to whether we are trying to filibuster. The gentleman from Wisconsin [Mr. Obey] has been careful not to do that. In this case, he merely said we were offering a series of amendments, and that is true, and I think people are starting to realize that what we are doing is, we are having, and the gentleman from Illinois [Mr. Porter] encouraged us to do that when we were negotiating before these debates started, to have a good and healthy debate for the American people of what are our priorities, where do we think they should go. Those of us who wanted to cut expenditures and move power back to the States have now, in effect, at least in this Congress, had to back up a step and say, OK, the Federal Government is going to do it. In this case, the gentleman from Colorado, Mr. Bob Schaffer, proposing to move money from a program which admittedly does not put a straitjacket on State and local governments by having Goals 2000, but certainly puts a framework which pushes States toward that, which then puts pressure on the State educational leaders, on the local school boards to say, well, these are the national goals; are we going to be below the national level? If we would have put in the national history standards, which were an abomination, every school district would have been under tremendous pressure to explain why their standards were not like the ``national history standards.'' That is the danger of something like this, not that there is a straightjacket that forces people to do it, but that momentum overwhelms the ability of local governments to resist it. On the other hand, in the neglected and high-risk youth, as someone who has worked as the Republican staff director when the Republicans were a minority on the children and family committee, then worked in the Senate with Senator Coats on children and family issues. Then I have been a member of the Subcommittee on Early Childhood, Youth and Families; I cannot think of a more needed area than to work with these high-risk youth, and that is a better way to target our funds.

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

Mr. SOUDER. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the requisite number of words, and I yield to the gentleman from Colorado, Mr. Bob Schaffer.

Mr. SOUDER. Mr. Chairman, rather than ask for an extension of time with the chairman of the subcommittee, I wanted to make a couple of points and then ask a question. I understood him to say that he felt that the problem of juvenile delinquency was less than the need for the funds for Goals 2000. I want to get that clarified. But that in this amendment as we move to look at the question of national standards, the last speaker said it was not mandatory but that we needed national standards and people were looking for standards. I do not disagree that there needs to be stronger standards in the local schools and at the State level, but we have a fundamental disagreement over whether people are looking to Washington to set standards on anything. We do not have a particularly great record of putting standards on ourselves in this House or in the White House or in the executive agencies on a lot of different things. I do not think parents want to trust us with setting the standards out of here with all the dealmaking that occurs and with all the ability of different lobbying groups to influence it disproportionately here in Washington. I do not think they want the standards coming out of Washington, the involuntary pushing toward this. On the other side, in the discussion that the gentleman from Illinois [Mr. Porter] had with the gentleman from Colorado, Mr. Bob Schaffer, the question was, was this money going to the local schools. My understanding is that in Goals 2000, if they agree to cooperate and follow with certain things, some of the money goes there. But in the juvenile delinquency programs, it goes to the States which then move it down to the local level.

Mr. SOUDER. It says institutions in the States. It does not necessarily say State institutions.

Mr. SOUDER. Whether or not, and we can discuss whether State institutions move it to the local level. Let us assume for purposes of debate that we are moving it to the States for neglected children. We attempted in earlier amendments in title I to move money to vocational education for prevention as the gentleman from Ohio [Mr. Stokes] was referring to, we attempted to move money to IDEA, we will have additional amendments here to try to move it to education programs for high-risk students. This particular amendment is focused on the goals and then moving it to kids. It is hard to say that once somebody is in a juvenile institution that forever they are gone. The purpose of this program and as we reworked the Juvenile Justice Act in the authorizing subcommittee, we tried to look not only at prevention which is important but how we take those kids who are in the system and try to rehabilitate them and work with them while they are in the system. I believe that that ought to be done predominantly at the State level, which these funds do. This moves those funds to the State level. Presumably those State funds and those institutions are at the local community, but let us say that it goes to the State level. I believe that that is much more effective than arbitrary standards set out of Washington in education. That is what this amendment by the gentleman from Colorado, Mr. Bob Schaffer, does.

Mr. SOUDER

Mr. SOUDER. Mr. Chairman, I would like to explain the content and purpose of this amendment, which I strongly support. This would increase OSHA's Compliance Assistance Program by 50 percent, $23 million over the recommended amount of $45 million. Compliance assistance funding has been increased, but the increase has been insufficient. The increase in funding to this vital program would be offset by decreases to funding for Federal enforcement funding by $21 million, there is already $127 million for enforcement in the bill, and executive direction and administration by $2 million, of which there is $6.5 million in the bill. So we would leave the bulk of the enforcement dollars there. We would leave the bulk of the administration dollars there, but would put the dollars toward what we promised to do when we got elected, and that is to try to work more with the businesses and the workers at the factories, at the small businesses and companies around this Nation, to avoid accidents, serious accidents in particular, rather than do the more harassing type of things that we have heard so many stories about on the floor. We have heard a lot from Members here about the importance of health and safety laws. This is not a debate about health and safety laws, this is a debate about how best to protect the safety and health of our American workers. Is it better preserved by harassing or better preserved by working together with the businesses? We try to address these concerns in this amendment through onsite consultation programs, by designated State agencies conducting general outreach activities and providing technical assistance at the request of the employers, training and education grants, fostering and promoting voluntary protection programs that give recognition and assistance to employers who establish occupational safety and health programs, and the OSHA Training Institute. This amendment would reduce the overhead and administrative costs. It is a clear tradeoff. Mr. Chairman, I believe this is wanted. We have heard from Members of Congress during this debate that we have a tremendous backlog. Why not? In some States the demand for onsite State consultations for small businesses is so high that a small business owner who has asked OSHA for help can take up to a year for a consultation visit. This is ridiculous. The businesses want to work to try to make their environment safe, but cannot find out what they need to do. We need to focus on prevention, rather than harassment. Let me give you an example that we heard in the hearing with Mr. Dear and talked about, the head of OSHA, in an oversight hearing. There was a question about roofers and whether or not in asbestos that if you are chewing gum while you are working on a roof, it increases your risk. There was a rule put in fining businesses if their employees were found to be chewing gum on the roof. I am not sure what the point of this was, whether the businesses were supposed to hire a gum Nazi, who goes up on the roof to try to find out whether somebody is chewing gum, or every 20 minutes you haul the people down off the roof and have a mouth inspection. Mr. Dear's reaction was, yes, this regulation seemed a bit petty. The focus should have been to have the companies tell the employees, look, it is true; if you chew gum, you might inhale more through your mouth than you should. The problem comes when you put somewhat nonsensical rules in that are impossible to enforce, businesses just give up. Instead, we have what seems to be harassment on chewing gum or on other things, as opposed to focusing on the type of tragic deaths we have heard about here on the floor. This amendment would try to address that. We have debated last evening and at the end of last week taking some of the OSHA funds, which is an increase, and nobody proposed to eliminate OSHA, to cut OSHA, and nobody was trying to wipe out the health and safety efforts in this country. What we are saying is, we do not think there is any evidence, and nobody has disputed this, deaths have gone down whether or not Congress has increased OSHA, cut OSHA, or kept OSHA flat funding. The way OSHA currently works there has been no impact on the deaths. We heard, well, we are going to try to do more in compliance. But we wanted to move the increase over to vocational education. We were defeated. We wanted to move the increase over to disabled students. We were defeated. We heard about these great efforts to try to do compliance. OK, here is an amendment that says, we clearly see from the facts that the spending on OSHA has not had an impact on the rate of deaths, so let us try to reform OSHA internally. I believe that this amendment, like the others, is likely to get the support of the majority of this party. I do not know whether this amendment will pass, but an interesting thing is occurring. I want to make, again, this point. What is happening in these amendments in title I, and I think Members will see this in title II and I think they will see this in title III and in title IV, is that the majority of our conference is, to say the least, very uncomfortable with this bill. We are concerned about the specifics of this. Most of us in this party voted for the budget agreement.

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

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

Mr. SOUDER. Mr. Chairman, to reiterate this point, because we heard this last night, this is what Mr. Dear wants to have OSHA go to. We are not trying to wipe out the agency. He wants to move to working more toward businesses. We started that process and we are merely accelerating a process that the committee acknowledges that they want to do. Nobody accuses them of slashing and gutting. Mr. Chairman, we have to make some adjustments in the rhetoric here on the floor. In consultation visits with the State money for grants, we have made 26,000 visits, which is $1,200 a visit. When they do the inspection, they made 35,000 for $125 million, which is $3,000 per inspection. Mr. Chairman, we can reach more of these businesses. It will not take 277 years to get to every business in America. Furthermore, not every business in America is a violator. If we fund more for conferences, more for consultations, more for working with businesses, then we can have a declining amount in enforcement focused on those who are not following through. So when we have the follow-up to see whether the people have worked with it, and the checking, we can have more targeted enforcement because we will have more people understand. Mr. Chairman, that is what we are doing. We need an adjustment in the rhetoric on the floor in this debate.

Mr. SOUDER. Mr. Chairman, the Compliance Assistance Program, which I realize is only part of all the compliance efforts, is $45 million and it was $30 million, or roughly $34 million prior to the $11 million increase. So the increases sound larger, but, in fact, the dollar amount of a smaller increase in enforcement is about two-thirds of the dollars of the increase in compliance. When we came in, in the authorizing committee and were first working with OSHA reform, we were proposing much more dramatic changes. I understand that inside this you have moved it in the right direction. Part of what this debate is about is that at one point we were talking like 75/25. Now we are talking such small, incremental changes and what we are, in effect, doing is upping that incremental change but still leaving the disproportionate balance for enforcement at almost 3 to 1, exact opposite of what we started with. This amendment in trying to respond, many of us wanted to move the dollars over to education. But if we are going to keep it in OSHA, then we think that we should have accelerated that process. We are not disagreeing on the thrust of where you and the ranking minority member were going, but we believe it should of occurred at a faster rate.

Mr. SOUDER. My parliamentary inquiry is that since the second-degree amendment passed, is it true that no longer does the Istook-Manzullo amendment include a parental notification?

Mr. SOUDER. Mr. Chairman, I have a parliamentary inquiry.

Mr. SOUDER. Mr. Chairman, I demand a recorded vote.

Mr. SOUDER. Mr. Chairman, the question of the point of order goes back to our earlier discussion, which was there was a group of amendments that we intended to offer at an earlier point, and when one failed, several failed. We have tried to craft an amendment that we felt would be in order by inserting a different section. Mr. Chairman, my amendment would move funds from title X over to the National Cancer Institute for breast cancer research. I am disappointed because, as we tried to search through, it was not completely clear as to whether it would be able to withstand a point of order. I am terribly disappointed that the minority party would object and exercise this point of order to stop us from moving funds to breast cancer and from title X. I am disappointed because I think we have tried to work together through this bill and we have tried to recraft the amendment to make it in order.

Mr. SOUDER. Mr. Chairman, I believe that the amendment is germane. I understand the concern. I would like to address the House on the point of order.