Billy Tauzin

Mr. TAUZIN

Mr. TAUZIN. I just want to point out to the gentleman that not only can someone call Athens by many other providers other than COMSAT, COMSAT is not even a dominant carrier to Athens.

Mr. TAUZIN

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

Mr. TAUZIN. Mr. Chairman, I thank my friend for yielding to me. He is the most outspoken person on this floor in defense of buy-American policies and the workers of America who lose their jobs to this growing trade deficit. I want to commend him for constantly being on this floor and constantly reminding us in all of our legislation to focus on those very salient points he made. I want to also remind the gentleman, we are beginning a debate around America on the whole issue of how we collect Federal taxes in this country. Just to point out to him that this growing trade deficit is not due to one cause, but it is not unaffected by the fact that because we collect income taxes on America, which we cannot exempt from our exports, and we cannot apply to imports, and income taxes themselves add somewhere between 10 and 25 percent to the cost of every American export and every American product we try to consume in this country. Whereas, foreign products come in now more and more tax free, under GATT and NAFTA, they come in from countries that exempt their consumer taxes on them so that they can compete unfairly with good old American workers and American products. And if there is one thing that is driving me around this country in this national debate over taxes, it is this problem; that our Tax Code punishes an American for buying a product made in America, and rewards us for buying something made overseas. We ought to do something about changing that. I thank my friend for his vigilance on this point.

Mr. TAUZIN

Mr. TAUZIN. Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise in support of the Telephone Excise Tax Repeal bill. Members of the House--if there is one thing that we politicians are experts on, it is talking. Talking on the telephone is not a fit subject for taxes. My word, if there is at least one thing an American ought to be able to do for free--without paying a tax to the Government--it is talking. It is time to repeal the tax on talking. Under current law, Americans who use local telephone service, toll telephone service, or teletypewriter exchange service--in short, just about every American who uses a telephone--pays an excise tax for using that telephone service. The law requires the phone companies to figure out your phone bill, and then tack on an extra 3 percent to the bill. The Federal Government takes the 3 percent. You can go look at your monthly phone bill, and--right there--you will see what the Federal Government has taken from you because you used your telephone. For all of you who have advocated higher taxes on tobacco as a public health measure, you ought to be amazed that--here in the land of free speech and the hallowed First Amendment--we tax talking on the telephone more than we tax tobacco. I suppose that means that Congress thinks talking is a greater risk to the public than smoking. Americans should not have to pay a tax to the Federal Government for the privilege of calling their neighbors to chat, or of talking to Mom on Mother's Day or Dad on Father's Day. Our businesses and their customers should be able to talk to each other without sending money to the Federal Government because of it. Telephone service in America today is a basic necessity, a part of daily life. Congress knows the phone tax is an unreasonable tax. It started out as a war tax many, many decades ago. Maybe it made sense at the time, but it doesn't any more. Congress knows this is a dumb tax, and that's why Congress has voted to repeal it several times before. Congress enacted a law that established a schedule for this tax to expire in the 1970's. But the Federal Government later wanted more revenue so it changed the law and kept the tax. In the 1980's, Congress again passed a law that provided for this tax to expire, and again thereafter changed the law because the Federal Government wanted more revenue. Yet again, Congress passed a law scheduling this tax to expire in the 1990's, but then changed the law to keep the tax. Congress knows this is a bad tax--that's why it has voted to repeal this tax so many times, just to let it live when a quick fix of revenue was needed to float a huge deficit. It is time to bury this phone tax once and for all. By repealing this tax, we put the money of Americans back into the pockets of Americans-- every American who uses a telephone. We eliminate a highly regressive tax that hits lower-income people proportionately harder than others. For every American who uses a telephone, this legislation cuts your taxes and cuts your phone bill. I urge my colleagues to support the legislation.

Mr. TAUZIN

Mr. TAUZIN. Mr. Chairman, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Stearns).

Mr. TAUZIN. Mr. Speaker, I object to the vote on the ground that a quorum is not present and make the point of order that a quorum is not present.

Mr. TAUZIN. Mr. Chairman, with thanks to all who participated in this effort, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. TAUZIN. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume, indeed to close this debate and to again thank all the members of the committee who participated in this effort. As the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Markey) has done before me, let me add my thanks to the staff. He has done them all the honor of naming them personally. Let me concur in that, in that commendation to each one of you. The work of the staff has always been marvelous in terms of support for making sure this language is properly crafted and properly completed. I also wanted to add to that thanks to the staff of the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Dingell) and particularly to Andy Levin who has been an important part of this legislation and to the gentleman from Michigan personally for his assistance in working with us as a team as we usually do on the Subcommittee on Telecommunications to craft good legislation for our country. In short, Mr. Chairman, this is but a first effort. Members will see us again on this floor, I hope very soon, talking about privacy rights on the Internet and privacy rights for Americans in their health care records, in their financial records, in their financial transactions as they literally explore these new technologies in learning to communicate in commerce with one another a great deal more than even we know today. In that regard as we come to this floor, our effort will continue to again define and redefine and enlarge the right of Americans to conduct their communications and their privacy transactions in a way that respects and enlarges upon that expectation of privacy.

Mr. TAUZIN. Mr. Chairman, I wanted to take a minute to compliment the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Stearns) and his efforts at our subcommittee level indeed to make sure that our bill did not interfere with the rights of the legal standing community, the amateur radio operators who do assist dramatically in times of natural disaster. My home State of Louisiana as he knows was visited by Andrew as his was just a few years ago. We have a desperate need for the services. The work he did in our subcommittee to ensure that we did not interfere with those legitimate uses of scanners is an important aspect of this bill that I am very glad the gentleman highlighted today on the floor.

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

Mr. TAUZIN. Mr. Chairman, I yield 5 minutes to the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Boehner), chairman of the Republican caucus.

Mr. TAUZIN. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 30 seconds. Having been educated at Harvard on the Bayou, Nicholls State College in Louisiana, I deeply respect that philosophical training my friend has had. I take it from that that the Irish Catholic community is in support of this bill, and so is the Cajun Catholic community. Mr. Chairman, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Sam Johnson). (Mr. SAM JOHNSON of Texas asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. TAUZIN. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Chairman, let me first of all thank the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Bliley), chairman of the full committee, for his comments and support and his active assistance in the passage of this legislation. His statement I think in a very personal way again describes how important it is for Americans not only to have an expectation of privacy, but to have those of us in policy positions to reinforce and protect that expectation of privacy. I also want to commend the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Sam Johnson), our colleague who last week indeed pushed forward the anticloning legislation which is aimed to protect against the cloning of telephone numbers and the stealing of people's property through that process. As the Chairman alluded to, this bill and that bill go hand-in-hand and are part of an ongoing process to redefine in a technological age privacy rights in America. Mr. Chairman, let me quickly turn to the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Markey), my dear friend for whom my respect and admiration has always been bountiful, and which continues to grow as our relationship in Congress continues to widen and expand. Let me tell this House that very often we fail to say thank you to those who precede us in the work we do, and I want to say publicly ``thank you'' to the gentleman from Massachusetts, former chairman of the Subcommittee on Telecommunications, Trade and Consumer Protection, for the very excellent work he and his committee has done in the past to build a record of support for privacy rights and the law upon which we build today an extension of those rights. The gentleman has indeed been a leader in defining privacy rights in America in a technological age, and I want to pledge to the gentleman and to all of his past efforts, a continuation of that debate and I hope the full fruition of his goals and objectives, because I share them in defining privacy rights, not only in telephone service but on the Internet, in the broadband area; the privacy rights that should be able to protect people in their health records and their financial records as they do electronic commerce, in their property rights, and as people conduct business over the broadband services of satellite and wireless communications systems. In that regard, let me further elaborate on the very important need for this legislation today and again commend all of my colleagues for the unanimous vote we received in the Committee on Commerce to report this bill to the floor. Mr. Chairman, 43 million Americans now communicate via wireless cellular and PCS telephone devices. That does not even count the many millions of Americans who use cordless phones in their homes, which are indeed wireless devices inside our homes: 43 million Americans, 80 percent of which use wireless communications based upon the old analog system, which is easily compromised by scanners designed to do that. In our committee room we demonstrated how with a small piece of wire and a soldering iron we could take a legal scanning device and convert it into an illegal scanning device. We used information that was being promoted on the Internet to learn how to do it. On the Internet there were companies advertising that they would take a legal scanner and convert it so that it would be a device to listen in on one's neighbors and friends as they tried to conduct private conversations on the telephone. Literally, the problem is growing and becoming worse. We are told by the law enforcement community that while 43 million Americans are trying to communicate privately on their telephones, 10 million other Americans now have the technological power to listen in. That ought to be untenable in our society. Mr. Chairman, the right of privacy is intricately related to our freedoms and liberty in our society. Take away the right of privacy and we deny Americans intimately of their basic rights to be free. If we cannot be free in our communications, how restricted are we in our rights to participate as citizens in a free society with thought and free speech, highly regarded and, in fact, deeply protected in our Constitution? So we embark today on an effort to further protect the right of people to have that freedom, that right of privacy in an age when compromising communications technologically is becoming all too easy and all too accessible to people in our society. Mr. Chairman, let me say it again, as the gentleman from Massachusetts, my friend, has said it. The fact that I have the power to do something does not give me the right to do it. The fact that I have the power to harm someone physically does not give me the legal right to do it. The fact that I have the power to walk over to my neighbor's mailbox and intercept his mail and read it does not give me the right to do so. And Federal law prohibits that activity. In the same way, the fact that someone has the power, the capacity with a technological device to listen in on our conversations that we have an expectation of privacy about does not give that person, or anyone in our society, the right to listen in without a proper court order, because in fact a court has determined that that is permissible. Absent that fact, we all have an expectation of privacy, and we in government ought to do everything we can to protect that expectation of privacy. That is what this bill is about. This bill is designed to say in this analog era, as we move into a digital era where encryption, that is devices that are going to try to protect privacy in conversations and Internet communications, as these encryption devices are invented and as other smart people try to find technologically how to break into those encryption systems, we have nevertheless to say in law that while someone might be able to do it, while someone might be smart enough to intercept my conversation in the digital area, they still do not have a right to do it. Mr. Chairman, this bill says to intercept it is a crime. To take that conversation and give it to someone else is a crime. To publish it is a crime, as is currently the law. And it also says to the FCC that they do not have to wait for the Federal Justice Department to give them permission to enforce this law. You have to go out and protect the 43 million Americans who have a right to that protection. In short, this bill advances the freedom of Americans. It advances privacy rights, but it is just the first step. As my friend from Massachusetts said, we have much more work to do. We have much more to do in defining people's privacy rights and indeed to protect those rights as we move into a much more complicated age of communications in our society and in the world. I again want to thank my friend from Massachusetts for his incredible collegial effort to make this happen today and for building the base upon which this law is constructed to further improve the rights of Americans. Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. TAUZIN

Mr. TAUZIN. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days within which to revise and extend their remarks and to include extraneous material on H.R. 2369, the bill just passed.

Mr. TAUZIN

Mr. TAUZIN. Mr. Speaker, we have recently lost an important leader who made a significant difference in the lives of many people in southern Louisiana. The Chitimacha Indian tribe Chairman Ralph Darden had his life cut short on January 8th by a car accident. Chairman Darden took the small and impoverished Chitimacha Indian tribe virtually from rags to riches in the decade he led the tribe. He believed in hard work and in the tribal members gaining self-reliance and not dependency on the federal government. He helped bring about a dramatic economic development for both the Chitimacha tribe and the surrounding communities to the point that Chitimacha is the biggest employer in the parish--aside from government. But is was not only jobs and economic growth that Chairman Darden accomplished for the Chitimacha and southern Louisiana. He was committed to seeing that every Chitimacha child got a college education if they so desired and thus he helped underwrite their college scholarship program. He had served as President of the Chitimacha tribal school board and as a board member of the United South and Eastern Tribes. And he realized that the tribe had to diversify its economic interests and invest in land purchases and other industries for long term security. Already the tribe had one of the finest restaurants in south Louisiana named for the tribe's oldest living member, Mr. Lester. Chairman Darden looked out for the long term interests of his people. And he made his tribe one of the most respected ``model'' tribes in the country. Chitimacha Chairman Darden had earlier worked for the current Governor Mike Foster and they remained good friends. That he was widely respected and appreciated by the tribal members and by the surrounding community members was evidenced at his funeral attended by about 1,000 people. His sons gave moving tributes to their father and a young girl sang the ``Colors of the Wind'' song from the movie Pocahontas. I cannot improve on the tribute poem written by another notable Indian Howard Rainer ``To A Dear Friend'': ``Who was this leader among Chitimachas? Whose visions for his people went beyond the eyes of many? A man who shared his example that others might succeed. A Chitimacha who gave of his time for the cause of his tribe. A man who prayed for goodness to prevail to the prevail to the next generation. A leader whose heart heard the woes of many, and extended his hand to go on. Who was Ralph Darden? A mortal who gave that others might receive, A husband cherished by his wife, A father admired, A light to those who now shed their tears, May the Great Creator God Hear my prayer, I thank Him for my brother, Who shared his love and friendship, a gift I shall cherish, until we meet again!'' Mr. Speaker, I knew Chairman Darden. I want to extend my personal condolences to Chairman Darden's family and to the Chitimacha and surrounding communities, and pay my personal tribute for his many achievements. His death is a big loss for all of us.

Mr. TAUZIN

Mr. TAUZIN. Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of S. 1354. This bill would clarify a provision of the Communications Act regarding universal service. A change in the existing law is necessary to ensure that local telephone rates for Native Americans, and possibly other consumers, do not rise. Universal Service is based on the premise that all Americans should have access to telephone service at affordable rates. This long- standing principle is beneficial to all Americans: the more people that are connected to the telephone network, the more valuable the network is to each of us. Failure to enact S. 1354, may force rates to increase for local telephone service in many Native American communities as a result of certain carriers being excluded from the definition of an ``eligible telecommunications carrier'' under the Communications Act. S. 1354 makes a technical correction to the Act that will make it possible for telephone companies serving areas not subject to the jurisdiction of a State Commission, to be eligible to receive federal Universal Service support. The support will be necessary to keep local telephone rates affordable in these areas. Supporting S. 1354 at this time is critical because federal support for many of these carriers that serve Native Americans may run out as early as January 1, 1998. Let me take a moment to extend my appreciation to Mr. Hayworth of Arizona and Mr. Thune of South Dakota for working together on this important matter. These gentleman have been champions of this issue in the House and it is with their help that we are here today. The other body has properly passed this bill and has sent it to the House for our consideration. I am hopeful that we can pass this bill and it can be signed into law relatively shortly. I ask that all Members support S. 1354 and I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. TAUZIN

Mr. TAUZIN. Mr. Speaker, today I am introducing the Superfund Recycling Equity Act. This legislation addresses an unintended consequence of Superfund which has created a serious, negative impediment to our goal of increased recycling in our country. The Superfund Recycling Equity Act is the product of negotiations between the Government, representatives of the environmental community, and the scrap recycling industry. The bill which I am introducing is the same as H.R. 820 of the 104th Congress with some modifications addressing the concerns of the paper industry. The original negotiating parties have agreed to these minor changes. I am pleased that once again, this legislation attracts incredible support from numerous members across the ideological spectrum. The Superfund Recycling Equity Act aims to level the playing field between recyclable paper, glass, plastic, metals, textiles, and rubber and the competitive virgin materials where both the recyclable and virgin materials can be used as manufacturing feedstocks. Specifically, the bill relieves those who sell the recyclable materials from Superfund's liability regime if the recyclers meet specified conditions. These conditions ensure that sham recyclers are excluded from the bill's benefits. In order for legitimate recyclers to be relieved of Superfund liability, they must continue to prepare their product in an environmentally sound manner and sell their product to manufacturers who have environmentally responsible business practices. The language added to the bill to accommodate the paper industry's concerns does three things. It clarifies the term ``customary business practice,'' which previously was undefined. It specifies that the polychlorinated biphenyl [PCB] limits are concentration limits. Finally, if the EPA Administrator determines at some future date that recycled paper contains a hazardous substance heretofore unknown, recyclers would share with mill owner/operators any cleanup costs. The need for this legislation occurs due to rulemaking and subsequent court interpretations of the rulemaking, not as a consequence of statutory law. The Resource Conservation and Recovery Act [RCRA] regulates the way in which solid wastes, both hazardous and nonhazardous, are handled. However, another important purpose of RCRA appears directly in its title: To conserve and to recover--recycle-- scarce resources. While the RCRA statute states that solid wastes are discarded, or disposed of, when the RCRA rule defining solid waste was written, recyclables were included in the promulgated regulation as a subset of solid waste. From that moment forward, recyclables became, and remain, solid waste--not by Act of Congress--but by rulemaking. When Superfund was written, its liability section, section 107, tracked the RCRA rulemaking language and stated that those who dispose of hazardous substances are liable under Superfund's liability scheme. Despite the intent of public policy, whenever a recycler processes traditional recyclable materials and sells them to mills as feedstocks, or raw materials, for the manufacturing process, be it paper, glass, plastic, metals, textiles, or rubber, they are not selling a product-- but rather, under regulatory law--they are disposing of solid waste. Even though such substances are inert and harmless in the solid form, if the recycler sells material to mills that contain hazardous substances, which then contaminates the environment solely because of the activity of the mill's owner/operator, under current legal interpretations recyclers can be required to clean up all, or a portion, of that third party contaminated site. Perhaps you are thinking, I've heard this before, everybody caught in Superfund always says, I didn't pollute anything, and always points to the other guy who did it. Then consider this question. If a supplier of hazardous virgin material used as manufacturing feedstock, for example nickel or chromium, sold it to a mill which then creates a Superfund site, what portion of the cleanup is assigned to the supplier of the virgin material? The answer is none, not one penny. Neither the mill's owner/operator, nor the government can seek cleanup costs from suppliers of virgin materials. Why? Because legal interpretations consider virgin materials to be products, not wastes. One does not dispose of a product. But, one discards, or disposes, of waste. It the waste contains a hazardous substance found at the site, the person who shipped the waste to the site and the owner/operator, if one still exists, are required to pay the cost of cleanup. My bill does not relieve the recycler of liability for contamination related to the recycler's disposing of wastes off-site. My bill deals only with Superfund liability arising from the sale of recyclable material to a third party site which is contaminated by that third party. Let's review this. A recycler and a virgin material supplier each provide their product to a stainless steel mill, for example. Old, damaged, or obsolete stainless steel knives, forks, and spoons are sold to the mill by recyclers. Stainless steel is steel alloyed with nickel and chromium. Virgin material suppliers sell iron ore, chromium, a hazardous substance, and nickel, a hazardous substance, to the same mill. The mill creates a Superfund site where chromium and nickel are found. The mill operator, and/or the government, can and do seek out recyclers to help pay the cost of cleaning up the site. Yet neither the owner/operator nor the government can seek contributions for cleanup from the virgin material suppliers of the nickel and chromium. Clearly, this doesn't make sense. More importantly it stifles recycling activities in our country. If we are serious about recycling, and I believe that the public and their public officials are serious about it, then we must correct the anomaly. While I strongly believe that the existing inequities need to be corrected, I remain committed to the swift passage of comprehensive Superfund reform. The recyclers' concerns are one of many problems which due to the current liability system and remedy selection process have prevented Superfund from accomplishing more. I look forward to working with the subcommittee chairman, Mr. Oxley, and the Commerce Committee chairman, Mr. Bliley, to ensure that a more rapid cleanup of NPL sites begins this Congress. Please join me in cosponsoring the Superfund Recycling Equity Act and encouraging comprehensive reform during the 105th Congress.

Mr. TAUZIN

Mr. TAUZIN. Mr. Chairman, I rise in support of this bill. I want to bring to Members' attention a single case in Louisiana, 20 years old now, a Corps of Engineers levee project. The corps denied the project in 1976. The landowners overturned it. It went to court over and over again. Eventually the EPA exercised veto authority in 1985, denying the landowners' rights. When the landowners finally filed suit following that veto exercise in 1985, which they contested in court additionally, the court ruled that the 6-year statute of limitation had passed and they no longer had a right to file a claim for takings. Now, get this. They were in court for all these years, from 1976 to 1985. When they finally lose their case in 1985, EPA vetoes the project and therefore their land is taken from them, all viable use has been taken away. The court then rules that the 6-year statute of limitation is over and they should have filed years ago for the taking when they did not know a taking had yet occurred. They eventually had that decision overturned. It is 20 years and these property owners have not yet received relief. This bill is vital. It will end litigation, consolidate it and protect procedural rights of property owners in America.

Mr. TAUZIN

Mr. TAUZIN. Mr. Chairman, my friend points out again the need for us to move to a solution. Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Illinois [Mr. Hyde], the Chairman of the Committee on the Judiciary.

Mr. TAUZIN. Mr. Chairman, if that is what this amendment did, I would not support it either. However, the amendment does not provide for automatic dismissal. In fact, it provides that if it is a major, hard rock, absolutely grounded charge, that that Member who filed it can file it the next hour, the next day. He can refile it. It simply is a process to get rid of those frivolous ones that I know my colleagues want to get rid of. No, the gentleman from Louisiana [Mr. Livingston] has not found a good solution. Maybe I have.

Mr. TAUZIN. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. TAUZIN. I yield to the gentleman from Kentucky.

Mr. TAUZIN. Let me first thank the gentleman for his offer to do that, Mr. Chairman. With the gentleman's consent, let me take the time he has yielded to compliment him and the committee personally. This committee is one I think most of us have great confidence in. I cannot say that about the last committee. The concern I have is, while I think the whole House has great confidence in these gentlemen, the gentleman from Maryland [Mr. Cardin] and the gentleman from Louisiana [Mr. Livingston], and others who serve on the committee currently, the problem is that they are not always going to be here. They are not always going to be there to make sure this process does work the way it was intended. The problem is, it can get politicized again, as it was in the last committee. All I am trying to suggest is that at some point when the gentleman is not there and when we have a committee that is more partisan than, thank God, the gentlemen have been in the way they have handled this business, what do we do after 180 days when, as the gentleman says, they have already failed and there is no disposition?

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

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