Christopher Shays

Mr. SHAYS

Mr. SHAYS. Mr. Chairman, how much time have we used on this side?

Mr. SHAYS

Mr. SHAYS. Mr. Speaker, I oppose this rule and I oppose this bill because this emergency supplemental includes much more than emergencies. But, more importantly, Mr. Speaker, if there are going to be nonemergency items, then what was appropriated for the FEC, the Federal Election Commission, of $1.7 million should stay in this budget. This rule takes the money out. I strongly oppose taking out the money for the FEC if we are to in fact have nonemergency items in this bill. This rule would do that.

Mr. SHAYS

Mr. SHAYS. Mr. Speaker, our legislation increasing the funding from $37 million to $87 million would provide a $200,000 maximum grant to each site assessment and redevelopment plan. It enables a community to go out throughout the community and determine what are the brownfields in their community, why these buildings are not being developed. In some cases they will find the absence of knowledge has led people to stay away. When they come and make a more thorough review of these sites, they realize they do not have the contamination problems they might think they have, and the community is able to promote the development of this land. This money also becomes a leverage to bring in private money as well as State and local money. It also provides a capitalization revolving loan fund of $500,000 each in addition to the $200,000 grant. We also are providing in our legislation $25 million to HUD for each of the next 4 years to provide for brownfield activity to leverage some of the State and local and private funding. I think one of the most important features of this is that it provides tax incentives. A business that comes in can expense out in the year of cost the cleanup of the sites, which makes it far more attractive to a business so that they can recoup their costs much earlier and not have to amortize it over 10, 20, 30, 40, or 50 years. Mr. Speaker, we have seen the success that has happened, that it has provided Bridgeport. We are seeing the kinds of success in cities like Waterbury with cleaning up old industrial sites. We are looking to make brownfields into greenfields. I cannot emphasize enough the need for allowing businesses to see land in urban areas as having a positive land value, not a negative land value. Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Connecticut [Mr. Maloney].

Mr. SHAYS. Mr. Speaker, we are eager to have cosponsors on this legislation. This is bipartisan. It is a Democrat and Republican bill. It has the endorsement of the President of the United States and the cooperation of the EPA. This in fact is legislation they would like to see become law, like to see these additional funds. We are looking forward to seeing it become law.

Mr. SHAYS. Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Connecticut [Mr. Maloney].

Mr. SHAYS

Mr. SHAYS. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Connecticut [Mr. Maloney]. We have collectively between us 10 minutes and we would like to take this opportunity to talk about legislation that the gentleman from Connecticut, the Fifth Congressional District, and I have introduced dealing with old industrial sites, abandoned sites that are not in productive use in urban areas. These sites, called brownfields, are the issue that we intend to address tonight and, in fact, address in our legislation. There are about 500,000 brownfield sites around the country in urban areas. These sites are old industrial areas that are basically lying fallow. Legislation that the gentleman from Connecticut and I have introduced attempts to address this issue. I would just say before yielding back to my colleague for a longer statement, in the city of Bridgeport, CT, last year the Clinton administration provided a grant of $200,000 for us to inventory all these old industrial sites called brownfields. This $200,000 was leverage for another $2 million that helped us categorize, inventory, and begin to clean up these sites on a unified basis. This was an initiative primarily of the Clinton administration backed by Congress. Our legislation seeks to add from the $36 million appropriated by the administration and Congress an additional $50 million to begin to categorize, classify, and clean up these sites. At the center of this legislation is the gentleman from Connecticut [Mr. Maloney] who has time now and I will have later so we can have a dialog. I would thank the gentleman for allowing me to make this introduction and tell the gentleman that it is really a pleasure to work with him on a bipartisan basis to begin to help do this very important thing, bring businesses back into urban areas to create jobs and to pay taxes by helping to clean up these sites.

Mr. SHAYS

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

Mr. SHAYS. Mr. Speaker, Stewart McKinney, my predecessor, a member of this House and our friend, died 10 years ago today. On that day 10 years ago, many of his colleagues came to this Chamber to mark the moment and express their grief, their admiration, their condolences, their remembrances. It was a deeply moving, impromptu tribute to a man whose life for me and the people of Connecticut's Fourth Congressional District continues to define the term ``representative.'' So I think it is fitting that the House pause once again, 10 years later, to reflect upon the life, the work, and the spirit of Stewart B. McKinney, a Representative. A generosity of spirit marked all he did. He gave. A man of virtually boundless affability, he gave his warmth and courtesy to clerks, elevator operators, and Capitol police as readily as to his House colleagues, Cabinet Secretaries and Presidents. A man of considerable means, he gave the use of his cars and his houses to staff and friends. A man of keen intellect and insight, he gave his tenure here not to the cause of self-advancement but to the causes of public housing, homelessness, and outcast Amerasian children. A self-avowed urbanist from a strongly suburban district, Stewart McKinney gave life to what others only preach about: urban revitalization. He stayed on the Committee on Banking and Financial Services when others moved on to the Committee on Commerce, the Committee on Ways and Means, or the Committee on Appropriations, because he wanted to improve public housing and economic development. Without regard to party positions, he helped draft and enact the law to save New York City from financial default. He stayed on the District of Columbia Committee when many advised him to move on to more powerful assignments, because he believed in cities. He believed the solution to D.C.'s problems contained the answers to Bridgeport's and Norwalk's and Stanford's--cities he represented in the 4th Congressional District. In doing so, he represented his constituents while giving a voice and a vote to those who live in view of this building, but have no voting representation in this Chamber. In the end, he gave what he no longer had, the physical strength to spend the night outside on a subway grate to demonstrate the plight of homeless people. His death from AIDS-related pneumonia came soon after. Despite a background of wealth and privilege, he represented us because he remained one of us. I think he was as proud of dropping out of Princeton as he was of his degree from Yale. If his wife, Lucy, did not beat him to it, he would be the first to tell you his family wealth was hers. In his hobbies of collecting convertibles and rebuilding houses, in his devotion to his family and staff, in the symbol of the Mickey Mouse telephone he used in his Cannon office, he maintained a healthy, well-grounded perspective on the triumphs and frustrations of daily life. It is too commonly called the common touch, but there was nothing common about Stewart McKinney. Yet, throughout his 17 years in Congress, through Vietnam, Watergate, the energy crisis, and all of the other burning issues of his day, he was as comfortable in a VFW hall in Bridgeport as the country club in Greenwich. Sometimes one group was more comfortable than the other to see him, but he had the ability to diffuse anger, soften opposition, and bring common sense to bear in uncommon circumstances. He was at once an idealist and a realist, straddling that contradiction as cheerfully and as fearlessly as he faced being labeled a moderate or liberal Republican when it was not meant as a compliment by those in his own party. He took his work seriously, but he never took himself too seriously, disdaining the pomposity and puffery of official Washington. He represented all of us because of all that he was. In a floor speech after Stewart's death his 1970 classmate and former colleague, Bill Frenzel, said we ought not ``to put wings on the dog,'' by glossing over all the things that made him so real to so many. He smoked too much. He could get frustrated and angry at the glacier pace of deliberative process. He hated missing so much of his children's lives. And I know he was frustrated to have been in the political minority all of his public life. But in his weaknesses, frustrations, failures and foibles, he represented the struggles and contradictions each of us faces everyday. Stewart McKinney died of AIDS. His wife, Lucy, carries on his work as chairman of the Stewart B. McKinney Foundation, dedicated to providing housing to persons and families with HIV disease. In this work, she daily transforms the cause of his death into the causes of his life: housing and care for those society might otherwise overlook. Because he was here in this Chamber, our Nation is better, our horizon brighter, our represented democracy richer. Ten years after his death, he still represents to me and many others the compassion, the vision, the good humor, and the common sense to which we aspire as individuals, Representatives and a Nation. Stewart McKinney was truly a great Representative and it is a privilege to serve in the office that he once served.

Mr. SHAYS

Mr. SHAYS. I yield to the gentleman from Massachusetts.

Mr. SHAYS. Mr. Chairman, reclaiming my time, I would love for a 4- and a 5- and a 6-year-old who is going to be influenced, that they would be influenced by seeing their parent work, and to see them at a gainful activity that is of community service. So I view that as a positive.

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

Mr. SHAYS. I yield to the gentleman from North Carolina.

Mr. SHAYS. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the requisite number of words. Mr. Speaker, I have been listening to this debate in my office, absolutely fascinated. I am seeing some people on both sides of the aisle who I absolutely have the most tremendous admiration for. I basically feel I have friends arguing with friends. But this is a very important debate. It is a debate about an attitude and an approach. I think that we could probably misread some of the motivation on that side of the aisle, and I think they could probably misread some of the motivation on this side. In my view, in the final analysis, it is not what you do for your children but what you have taught them to do for themselves that will make them successful human beings. I am sincerely not troubled by seeing a 4- or 5-year-old by his or her mother. I think of my dad taking me outside and working at 2 or 3 or 4, just seeing my parents active and doing something. I do not view this in the sense that this is a type of servitude. I view this as opportunity. If this legislation were to say or this amendment were to say 3 and under, I would be more sympathetic. If it was disabled, I would be more sympathetic. But it is just, to me, a gutting amendment. I do not understand why a 6-year-old or a 5-year-old cannot work by their parent. For me, I just feel that there is some kind of a disconnect that is taking place here. Democrats have pushed national service, legislation I strongly support; AmeriCorps, which I strongly support. Our side says we do not want the mandate and we do not want this kind of enforced opportunity to volunteer. Now I see the role reversed. It is almost like they are on the other side arguing against this concept of AmeriCorps and our side is arguing for it. For me, this is a logical step. Mr. Chairman, I had a young woman call me when I was a State legislator and say she wanted to live in Stamford. She had a young child at age 16. She was adamant that she be allowed to live in public housing in Stamford. I said, we do not have any. But she said, it is my right. I said, you have a young child. You are going to receive welfare. You are also going to be provided a place in Bridgeport. Maybe it is not Stamford.

Mr. SHAYS. Reclaiming my time, Mr. Chairman, to me it is not just being in the loving arms, it is seeing a parent who is setting an example. Sometimes it is in the loving arms, sometimes it is working side by side.

Mr. SHAYS. Reclaiming my time, the gentleman misses the point. I do think between 1 and 6 is a very important time in a child's life. I think part of that is seeing a parent contributing to society and to their community. I want a young child to see a parent contributing to society.

Mr. SHAYS. Reclaiming my time, with all due respect, Mr. Chairman, I think we can find 100 reasons why they may not want this. I think it is an approach and an attitude. I view this as opportunity. I congratulate the gentleman from New York [Mr. Rick Lazio] for what he is trying to do. I understand the concern. If there was an effort to amend this, I would be speaking for an amendment that said apply to 3 and under and disabilities, but it is just too broad. In my judgment it is a gutting amendment.

Mr. SHAYS

Mr. SHAYS. It is interesting, if the gentlewoman would yield, probably not many people know what we did with foster care and adoption because there was not this rancorous battle between Republicans and Democrats. So it does not always get the attention of the media, but it was excellent legislation that will do a lot of good.

Mr. SHAYS. Mr. Speaker, I am not going to ask the gentleman from Georgia [Mr. Kingston] to repeat that.

Mr. SHAYS. You know, I just would want to say that as we talk, people like the gentleman from Ohio, Mr. Kasich, budget chairman in the House, and Pete Domenici in the Senate are meeting with representatives from the minority in this Congress as well as the White House, and one thing that is quite clear in this Congress is that it is still a Republican controlled Congress, be it only by a margin of 10 votes, and the White House is a Democrat White House, but we all have to be Americans first and Republicans and Democrats second, and I just hope and pray that the talks that have taken place with the White House are yielding fruit. I think they are. I know what our ultimate objective is. We want to balance the Federal budget and get our country's financial house in order. We want to save our trust funds, particularly Medicare, not just for future generations, but for the generations that exist now, and we want to transform this caretaking social and corporate and agricultural welfare state into what some call caring opportunity society. I think that we are not just trying to transform social welfare in which the gentlewoman from Connecticut was so active, but we are looking to end welfare for corporations and we are looking to end welfare in the farming industry. And the gentleman from Georgia [Mr. Kingston] was so on target in pointing out that with the freedom to farm bill we are allowing the energies of the farmers to not be encumbered by lots of Government intervention and welfare payments.

Mr. SHAYS. It is kind of amazing to think that existing law does not allow hospitals and doctors to compete with the insurance industry in this very, you know, important effort of providing the best health care, and one thing I want to express some gratitude for: The President did veto our Medicare reform legislation. It was the election year, and it got caught up in that, sadly. But the bill that he submitted in terms of how it is what he wanted to budget on Medicare, a lot of the parts to the legislation were really taken out of our bill that he vetoed. Just in making reference to the very example you are talking now, allowing the private sector to compete with the insurance industry.

Mr. SHAYS. I think that we could point out that there are times that we have big disagreements with the administration, but this dealing with the fraud area, that was one area where we had some cooperation and we wanted to build on the cooperation we had with the White House. In that bill that passed on health care reform which dealt with the whole issue of portability, in that bill that you make reference to, section 2 which dealt with fraud, we also made health care fraud a Federal offense for public and private sector, and the reason why we did that was that we found that those that wanted to cheat the system were sometimes going from one State to another, and if the public sector was being more aggressive, it went into the private sector. So we put it all in one package so they could not escape and we could follow them, and in some instances we are talking about some organizations cheating the system not $10 million but literally hundreds of millions of dollars. So we are proud of the fact that that is something we did and grateful that the President agreed that it was something that he could sign.

Mr. SHAYS. The fact was we passed the legislation if it could have been signed into law by the President.

Mr. SHAYS. I might say to the gentleman before I introduce her that one of the reasons we have these abuses is the way that Medicare pays the bill is the bills are submitted and paid for and then after the fact, they are reviewed, basically 1 percent of the billings and 4 percent of the total billing costs. The money has already been paid out. Then they are asking the money to be returned. It is a crazy system. I am going to introduce the gentlewoman from Connecticut [Mrs. Johnson]. We are talking about the fact that our trustees have pointed out that Medicare is losing $35 million a day and that next year it is going to lose $55 million and the year after $78 million and the year after that, each day, $103 million, the year after that, in the fifth year of our plan, what we want to prevent from happening, in losing $134 million. Yet under our plan last year which the gentlewoman played the central role in, she made sure that we spent 60 percent more on Medicare under the life of the plan, and on a per-person basis, 50 percent more. You know the gentleman from Georgia [Mr. Kingston] and I were just marveling at the fact that only in Washington when you spend 50 percent more per beneficiary would someone call it a cut. I just welcome you. You are the leader in the health care field in the Committee on Ways and Means, you are my colleague in Connecticut, and it is just really great to have you join us.

Mr. SHAYS. When you say we passed, we passed it the first time. You mean the one that was signed into law by the President.

Mr. SHAYS. I had a senior who in one meeting, she gave me a stack of envelopes that must have been about 3 inches tall, many, many envelopes. They were all bills that she received. She received them all the same week. She simply said, why could they not have been put in one envelope? Some of them were duplicative. It was a pretty extraordinary thing. I will say to the gentleman that another person stood up at this meeting and said, ``You understand I am a man.'' I said, ``Sure, you look like a man. You look like a senior.'' He said, ``Well, I was charged for giving birth.'' He said, ``That is not possible but I was charged that.'' I notice, and the gentleman is in charge of this floor, but if I could have the honor of introducing my colleague the gentlewoman from Connecticut [Mrs. Johnson].