Billy Tauzin

Mr. TAUZIN

Mr. TAUZIN. Mr. Speaker, I thought of something else that really does not make any common sense. Under the law, the way it is written today, interpreted by the Supreme Court, if I own a piece of property that may harbor some endangered species and I want to alter that property to enhance its capacity to hold that species, I cannot do it.

Mr. TAUZIN. You could if you wanted to pay----

Mr. TAUZIN. If I own a piece of property that I thought was mine and I want to enhance it for wildlife conservation, if there is an endangered species on it, I cannot even do that. The Government will not let me even enhance my property.

Mr. TAUZIN. I think you would probably find a way to hide that tick.

Mr. TAUZIN

Mr. TAUZIN. Mr. Chairman, I thank the chairman for the time and for his excellent work on behalf of reforming this agricultural program for America. Most programs in this bill that are being debated are subsidized American farm commodities. Sugar is not. Sugar is not subsidized currently under the farm programs. Sugar is the one commodity that is an import problem, not an export problem. Sugar is an import problem because across the oceans the sugar cartel exists that in many cases subsidizes the production of sugar in many countries and then has the capacity to dump undercost surplus sugar into our market unless we do something about it. The farm program has traditionally done something about it. It sets a limit on how much of this cheap subsidized foreign sugar can be dumped into the U.S. market. I can tell my colleagues what would happen if the proponents of the amendment to eliminate the sugar program succeed. They may or may not believe me. But I can tell my colleagues what really happened in the 1970's when the sugar program was not around for a 5-year period. What happened was for the first year, the dumped cheap sugar came in, American consumers were so happy. The price of sugar dropped about 8 cents a pound. Thirty-some-odd mills shut down in Louisiana. Sugar family farmers dropped out of business in Louisiana. I have got 20,000 families in the business in my district. They went out of business in the end. The bottom line is that after this awful destruction in the sugar farm economy, the price of sugar to the American consumer went up to 70 cents a pound, a tenfold increase. That is what we are in for if we yield to those folks who want to end the sugar program and allow cheap, subsidized, foreign, dumped sugar to come in at unlimited rates. I urge my colleagues to defeat that amendment. The current program guarantees stability of prices for Americans at about half the price most other people are paying in most nations in the world. It guarantees the farmer a chance to make a living, a chance to survive, a chance to produce sugar for Americans made in America. Without the sugar program, that chance ends; 20,000 sugar families in my district are likely out of business, 420,000 Americans out of business, a $26 billion loss of business for America. That does not make sense. We need to defeat this amendment aimed at killing the sugar program, because that is what it does. Mr. de la GARZA. Mr. Chairman, I yield 5 minutes to the gentleman from Texas [Mr. Stenholm], our distinguished colleague and a great leader in this effort. (Mr. STENHOLM asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. TAUZIN

Mr. TAUZIN. Mr. Speaker, several years ago in this House we debated a thing called program access in connection with the cable industry. It was a grand debate. It produced an override of a veto on that cable bill that year. But more importantly, what it produced for America was competition in the cable industry. It produced for America the direct broadcast television system [DBS] that is now providing cable programming to millions of Americans who did not live within reach of a cable system. It is providing competition in cable prices and cable programming to millions of Americans who were limited before the advent of [DBS] to buying their programming from a single monopoly supplier. We celebrated then a small victory for competition and for consumers. Has it worked? It has worked marvelously. There is finally real competition in cable programming. Consumers enjoy more choices. There are better products and better prices. We have just begun to see the benefits of that competition today. Today is a grand celebration of that notion of competition. Today, in a bipartisan way, we unleash the spirit of competition in all forms of telecommunications services, from telephones to computers, to services dealing with video programming, and data services to interexchange services that are going to link us as Americans together as one like never before and give us access to the world and the world access to us as never before. This is a grand celebration of a free market system, of competition, and of Americans in their government trusting Americans in the marketplace to make the right decisions for themselves. It is a grand strategy to unleash the technologies that geniuses are working on in labs across America and give them a chance to become tomorrow's Microsoft. Second, it is our opportunity to take these decisions away from a judge who has been making telecommunications policy for America and to return those decisions to the people's House, the Congress of the United States of America. Finally, this bill predicts between 1.5 million and 3.5 million new jobs for Americans without us having to tax and spend one dime to get this economy going. This bill unleashes new jobs and new job opportunities the likes of which this Congress has rarely had a chance to do. Imagine: 1.5 million to 3.5 million new families earning money instead of being dependent upon somebody else. That is what this bill promises for us, a little promise that we ought to keep on this House floor. Mr. Speaker, I want to commend the gentleman from Michigan [Mr. Dingell], the former chairman, the gentleman from Virginia [Mr. Bliley], our chairman, and particularly the gentleman from Texas [Mr. Fields] for the extraordinary work he has done. Let us celebrate their hard work, and let us celebrate the spirit of America, a free-market system and competition. Let us vote this good bill out today.

Mr. TAUZIN. Mr. Speaker, as the principal author of section 365 of the conference report, I rise to amplify the limited description of this provision in the statement of managers. In essence, this provision will permit a large ocean-going American-flag vessel operating in accordance with the Global Maritime Distress and Safety System [GMDSS] of the SOLAS Convention to sail without a radio telegraphy station operated by a radio officer or operator. In implementing this section, the Coast Guard can rely on the Federal Communications Commission to determine that a large-ocean going vessel has GMDSS equipment installed and operating in good working condition. We do not contemplate the Coast Guard conducting a rulemaking, public hearings, or other lengthy regulatory process. Rather, we contemplate a simple adaptation of current, well-established Commission certification procedures. Under section 359 of current law, the Federal Communications Commission is authorized to issue a certificate of compliance to the operator of a vessel demonstrating that the vessel is in full compliance with the radio provisions of the SOLAS Convention. By law, this certificate must be carried on board the vessel at all times the ship is in use. Thus, once a vessel operator has installed the necessary GMDSS equipment and demonstrated to the satisfaction of the Commission that the equipment is operating in good working condition, the operator will obtain a new or modified certificate of compliance from the Commission. By confirming that a vessel has on board such a valid certificate, the Cost Guard would fulfill its responsibilities under section 365. Let me emphasize, as well, that this provision does not alter the Commission's manning or maintenance requirements in any respect. Vessel operators, for example, will continue to be able to adopt two of the three permitted maintenance options: on-shore maintenance and equipment duplication. For too long, American-flag vessels have been saddled with the antiquated telegraphy station requirements of the 1934 act. Through our action today, we hope to help American-flag operators become more internationally competitive and to speed the introduction of the satellite-based GMDSS technology.

Mr. TAUZIN. Mr. Speaker, let me see if I can help set the record straight. Our bill does not give away spectrum to the broadcasters to do anything with other than to broadcast over the air in this transition from one technology to the other. And then it requires the return of the old technology spectrum to the people of the United States. Second, the bill provides that, if the broadcasters should use any of that spectrum for any purpose other than over-the-air broadcasting, they have to pay for it like everybody else. That is what the bill currently says. One final point: The issue of a broadcast spectrum is tied up with something called the public interest standard. It has to do with the trade we made a long time ago to licensed broadcasters who operate under a public interest standard, a relicensing by the FCC, and a review of that licensing over time. If my colleagues want to change that policy, and some do, they ought not make it in a budget meeting; they ought to make it in the committee of jurisdiction where we examine what happens on television and what broadcasters do with the license they get to operate in the public interest standard. I urge my colleagues to pass this bill and let us debate that issue in the committee of jurisdiction where it belongs.

Mr. TAUZIN

Mr. TAUZIN. Mr. Speaker, I'd like to commend the gentleman from Ohio [Mr. Oxley] and the gentlewoman from Arkansas [Mrs. Lincoln] for their bipartisan cooperation on this bill. To paraphrase Mark Twain, regulatory reform is a lot like the weather. Everybody talks about it, but nobody ever does anything about it. We've had a lot of passionate debate on both sides of the aisle this year saying we all want regulatory reform, that we need to put a stop particularly to the old style of regulation that costs a lot but does very little to actually improve the environment. Well, this is our chance to prove we mean it. Unless we act, EPA will be forced to issue another one-size-fits-all regulation that will cost, by EPA's own estimate, $800 million per year to implement. EPA is asking for our help, because they know that little, if any, real risk reduction would occur if these rules are promulgated. What this means for me is that one chemical plant in my district could be forced to spend about $34 million to replace a well-operated wastewater treatment system. Risk assessments performed by the company show that its surface impoundments already protect human health and the environment to RCRA risk standards. In fact, the emissions of highest risk hazardous constituents from all plant sources, including wastewater treatment, has been determined to have a lifetime cancer risk to the nearest receptor of less than one in a million. This plant has been growing and could put the resources to greater economic and environmental benefit. This bill represents a bipartisan agreement between Congress and the administration, and is the kind of targeted regulatory reform that many have been advocating. Chairman Oxley should be commended for recognizing the need to correct this court-imposed conflict between our environmental statutes. The administration also deserves credit for including this correction in its RCRA rifle-shot proposals.

Mr. TAUZIN

Mr. TAUZIN. Mr. Speaker, the letter I referred to, I will tell my friend, is a letter the President sent to the committee considering property rights legislation, one of the environmental reforms we have been fighting for on this House floor. The letter I referred to is a letter from the President telling the chairman of that committee: I do not care how you change this bill, I will veto any bill on this subject matter that hits my desk regardless of how you change it. That is the upshot of his letter. I will send the gentleman a copy of it. What I said is that that letter reflects the attitude of the White House. They will not negotiate with us on the environmental reforms. They will simply veto legislation.

Mr. TAUZIN. Mr. Speaker, the letter I referred to is a letter he sent to the Senate committee on property rights.

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

Mr. TAUZIN. Mr. Speaker, the President said that when he vetoed this bill. When he vetoed this bill, he said I would rather have 133,000 out of work than sign legislation that has modest environmental reforms.

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

Mr. TAUZIN. Mr. Speaker, we are in this crisis on this bill I think for one reason. It probably was summarized in a letter the President sent to the Senate committee considering the bill on property rights. His letter said, ``I don't care how you modify the bill, I don't care how you modify the environmental reform that the House passed, I will veto that bill. I will stand in the schoolhouse door and veto any environmental reform because I don't want to see any changes in the status quo.'' We see it reflected here. The President of the United States has said, ``I don't like the environmental reforms, I don't want any more trees cut in the Tongass Forest, so I will put 133,000 workers at risk of not going to work because I am going to veto this bill.'' This President is not about to negotiate these changes. He is simply against them. He has promised his environmental friends he will stand in the schoolhouse door and veto bill after bill after bill that makes any attempt to modestly restrain the environmental extremists who have written some of these laws and regulations into existence. He will veto risk assessment/cost-benefit analysis, he will veto property rights, he will veto reforms in environmental legislation. He will veto them even if it means putting 133,000 workers out of business and the parks closed. That is what this is all about. We ought to override that veto. We ought to put those workers back to work. We ought to make these modest reforms. It is a bill that has been approved by this House and by the Senate, by numbers sufficient to represent the majority will of the people of the United States. This President will not negotiate with us. We ought to override the veto.

Mr. TAUZIN

Mr. TAUZIN. Mr. Speaker, as we meet here on the eve of a new year, as we begin 1996 with the budget still unresolved, I think it is important to speak of the situation in historical context. In the 15\1/2\ years that I have been in Congress, I only experienced about 9 months of Government that was not divided where the House and the Senate and the White House were controlled by the same party. For most of that time, we have enjoyed or suffered through divided Government in America. The White House was controlled by one party, and the Congress was generally controlled by the other party. We are in that same situation today, only a little differently. In most of those 15 years, the Republican Party controlled the White House and the Democratic Party controlled the Congress. In the course of that 15-year period, we have had Government shutdowns. This is, I think, the fifth one we have experienced in the course of those 15 years. Most of them have been rather brief. They have been total shutdowns over a weekend or a few days, and eventually things were worked out. Unfortunately, the way things were worked out was typically business as usual. There were compromises made; there was gives and takes. There were deals cut. There was a sentiment that, well, it is better to take a bad deal and go home than to duke it out and see if we cannot resolve our budget problems and somehow eventually balance the U.S. budget. The product of business as usual over those 15 years of budget battles that led to temporary shutdowns and eventually continuing resolutions was a deepening and a worsening U.S. public debt. It has reached a point today, now, where every young person today is likely to spend as much as 80 to 90 percent of their income in taxes to some government, State, local or Federal, during their lifetime. That is what economists tell us the debt is doing to us. It has reached a point today where a young child born today will spend $187,000 just paying interest on the debt we have accumulated. It has reached the point today where if we do not begin solving the Medicare crisis in this country, we will have two choices 7 years from now. We will face a Medicare system completely bankrupt and we will either have no Medicare system for our elderly, or we will have to double payroll taxes on working Americans. That will be the choice 7 years from now if we do not stick around and resolve this budget debate in this, the early days of January, or, if necessary, through 1996 until we reach election day and let the voters decide who is right or wrong. At some point Americans are going to have to make a decision. Do they really like business as usual, where deals are cut at the end of every fiscal year and we go deeper and deeper into debt or would they rather some President at some time design a balanced budget amendment based on honest numbers within a reasonable period of time that will end this fiscal insanity both for ourselves and for our children? If you are conservative, you certainly want that done. If you are liberal and you see every year more and more of the Federal budget spent on interest on the debt instead of on programs for Americans, you ought to also want that done. We ought to agree upon that. And so during the course of the last few months and the year, we offered an amendment to the Constitution requiring that Congress do that. We were met with objections here in the House. We succeeded in passing it in the House. We were met with objections in the other body. They did not pass it in the other body. The objections generally ran like this. We do not need the Constitution to tell Congress to balance the budget. We can do it ourselves and we ought to do it now. That was the objection of the balanced budget amendment to the Constitution. We do not need a constitutional amendment. We can do it and we ought to do it now. Well, why not now? Why not a budget agreement that balances the budget in 7 years on honest numbers right now? That is what this historic fight is all about. That is why we are in this awful period of partial Government shutdown, why we have this awful debate on our hands were sometimes it gets acrimonious and personal, and it should never get to that point, but that is why we stand here in the course of these early days in January struggling with the notion of how do we negotiate eventually to a position of a balanced budget in 7 years using honest numbers without doing business as usual, without caving in to all those who want to keep on taxing and spending as we have done for generations to the point that our children now are deeply in debt and will remain in debt for the duration of their lives. How do we resolve it. We resolve it by agreeing now to a balanced budget plan.

Mr. TAUZIN

Mr. TAUZIN. Mr. Speaker, to hear the rhetoric in this debate one would think that most of the Government is shut down. That is not true. Most of the Government is up and running. It is about one-fifth of the Government that is not open for business today. And most of that one-fifth could be open for business today if the President had simply signed 3 appropriations bills the House and the Senate, representing a majority of the American people, sent to him in time for him to put his signature on it and to put these people to work. The President chose not to sign those bills and so most of that one-fifth of the work force is out of work today. As to that remaining number, they are tied up in a filibuster on the Senate side led by Members of the President's own party. So if you want to know why part of the Government is shut down today, it is because the President failed to sign the appropriation bills the House and Senate agreed upon, and because his own party has the final remaining appropriation bills tied up in the Senate in a filibuster. We are ready to go to work, pass a balanced budget bill for this country and get us on a course to fiscal sanity again.

Mr. TAUZIN

Mr. TAUZIN. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding me this time. Mr. Speaker, Members of the House, I, too, rise in support of this bill and for the motion to override the veto. Let me point out what the President did not do. He did not say this was a bad bill. In fact, he complimented it. He said he supported goals of this bill. He did not say that he objected to the safe harbor provisions of this bill. In fact, he said he supported the language of the safe harbor provisions of this bill. In fact, all he has said he objected to was the pleading requirements of this bill. Now, the pleading requirements are what the plaintiff lawyer does when he files a lawsuit, and what we have done is to make sure that the lawyer alleges a case, that you just do not go on a fishing expedition. Is that terrible? I suggest if we are trying to deal with frivolous lawsuits, that is the very least we ought to do is require the plaintiff lawyer to plead a case, to have a decent and not a frivolous lawsuit before the court. Second, he objected to the managers' language, not the language of the bill. I would remind the House that when a bill is sent to the President, the managers' language, the legislative history is not sent to the President. He does not veto the legislative history. He vetoes the language of the bill. He does not veto the language in the bill. He only objected to the language of the managers' report in that area. He suports, in fact, the safe harbor provisions that a previous speaker objected to this in this bill. Finally, he objected to what is called the rule 11 section, where frivolous lawsuits are punished; that is, the plaintiff is required to put up the cost of the lawsuit. I want point out to you that he said in his veto message that we did something wrong here; we did not have a balance between plaintiffs and defendants. First of all, it is plaintiffs who file frivolous lawsuits, not defendants. That is the problem. And rule 11 seeks to make sure when plaintiff lawyers file frivolous lawsuits that they have the obligation of paying the costs of the parties who are necessarily brought to court and required to hire attorneys. Let me point out our language was very fair. It said that existing rules would apply to each party, plaintiffs and defendants, and that a violation by a party, plaintiff or defendant, would require mandatory sanctions by the court. We have a balanced provision in here. What I concluded when I read this veto message is, one, the President likes the bill; two, he does not really want to sign it. He would rather we overrode his veto and we made it law. And, three, that we have huge bipartisan support for this bill, and we ought to, in fact, override the veto. Nearly 100 members of the Democratic side joined the Republican Party in this bill. It is a bill that has been in the works for well over 6, perhaps 8, years now. It is a bill in which a veto-proof majority in the House and Senate adopted the bill. It is a bill, in fact, that ought to become law. If the President will not sign it, then he is telling us to do it, and I suggest we do like Mikey, we just do it, override this veto.

Mr. TAUZIN

Mr. TAUZIN. Mr. Speaker, just a couple of weeks ago this House, by a vote of 320 Members in support, nearly 100 Democrats joining Republicans, voted for landmark securities litigation reform, a bill to stop frivolous lawsuits that are driving up the cost of doing business in America unnecessarily. Yesterday, amazingly, the President vetoed that legislation. He did so in a veto message that is equally amazing. He did it with the following excuses: One, that the pleading requirements were too strong. The pleading requirements are simply what one alleges in a lawsuit. That is all one has to do is allege a proper cause of action. Second, he did not like the statement of the managers. Not the bill, the statement of the managers included with the bill. And, third, he did not like the notion that rule XI, the provision that gives the court the right to assess costs on a frivolous lawsuit lawyer, the plaintiff's lawyer, he thought that was too hard on the plaintiff, not hard enough on the defendant. Mr. President, it is plaintiffs who file frivolous lawsuits, not defendants. Those are not good reasons to veto this bill. Why did he do it? My conclusion. He wants this House and the Senate to take responsibility for making this good bill law. He wants us to override. We will have that chance today. Let us override the veto.

Mr. TAUZIN

Mr. TAUZIN. Mr. Chairman, I rise in support of the manager's amendment and of course in support of the general bill. As the bill now stands before us today, this bill reforms the maritime program in a way that will save us significant income, both for the Government and, I think, for the program. From a $200 million program, this becomes a $100 million program, a 50-percent-plus savings to the U.S. Treasury at a time when we are trying to balance the budget. More importantly, this bill makes significant changes in the law that have been desired for a long time. First, it simplifies the procedures so that payments are made on a much simpler format with much less bureaucracy. It simplifies and also creates flexibility for the program so that vessel owners under the new rules and regulations are indeed allowed to alter their trade routes, replace older tonnage with new tonnage without necessarily receiving prior Federal consent to the program. It creates that flexibility. Yet at the same time, it puts a new requirement upon vessel owners to make their vessels available not just in wartime but also for general sealift reasons. The gentleman from Virginia [Mr. Bateman] has pointed out the incredible importance as a maritime nation of having a maritime capacity for sealift purposes in times of national emergency. Finally, this bill ends off-budget entitlement treatment of this program and creates instead the ordinary congressional oversight based upon an annual appropriations process. For all those good reasons, this is a good reform of the maritime security fleet program. It is designed, as I said, for flexibility, simplicity, for tax savings and at the same time new responsibilities for a maritime nation to make sure its maritime fleet is available in times of need for sealift capacity. I urge adoption of the bill and the manager's amendment.

Mr. TAUZIN

Mr. TAUZIN. Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of the rule. What we are dealing with is a part of litigation reform in America that deals with a specific kind of class action lawsuit brought against companies in America whenever their stock prices dramatically change. The problem with this section of the law is that it does not do what the law ought to do. The law ought to say that a wrongdoer pays for the wrong he committed and that a lawsuit makes sure that the wrongdoer compensates those he injured. In this particular section of the law, it does not matter whether you did anything right or wrong. In fact, over 90 percent of the lawsuits filed, these big class-action lawsuits, over 90 percent of them are settled for 10 cents on the dollar. In effect, they are shotgun lawsuits, strike lawsuits filed, designed to make all the parties contribute into a settlement fund at 10 cents on the dollar. What does that mean? It means that the law does not really punish the wrongdoer. It says whether you are wrong or not, whether you are guilty of any wrong, you are going to contribute to a 10-cents-on-the-dollar fund to settle this lawsuit. Why? Because the lawsuits are so huge, they are like aircraft carriers moving through our legal system that the expense of defending the suit is much higher than the cost of putting into that 10-cents-on-the-dollar fund. So everybody connected with the company puts into the fund to settle the lawsuit, make the lawyers go away, and the wrongdoers are never really punished. It is a system of law out of connection with the purpose of the law. So we need to change it. This bill we are bringing up on this rule is signed on a conference report by both Democrats and Republicans. It is a bill that, as was pointed out, introduced about 8 years ago, that got very little attention from the former chairman of the committee. It ended up getting only two hearings in all those years. It was finally made part of the Contract With America. It passed this House with 325 votes, nearly 100 Democrats joining the Republican majority in support of this bill. The Senate has now cleared it with an over two-thirds majority in the Senate. It is ready for us to act upon today. I urge adoption of this rule so that we can get on the conference report and hopefully pass this good bill to make this one important litigation reform. What does it do? It sets up the proportionate liability so that nobody is deep pocketed, sued in such a way that you better come up with a settlement or you are going to get hit for everything. It ends the deep pockets theory. It requires specific pleading. It sets up a system of dealing with frivolous lawsuits by making the party who brings a frivolous lawsuit responsible for the cost of that lawsuit. It sets up a new system to allow companies to legitimately advise people in advance of what they expect their company to do so that investors are being properly advised in terms of making investments. It does not eliminate the obligation of wrongdoers to pay for their wrong. In fact, it sets up a system of law to make sure real wrongdoers pay the tab. I urge adoption of the rule.

Mr. TAUZIN

Mr. TAUZIN. Mr. Speaker, I thank the chairman. Members, first of all, there is no motion to recommit. The Senate had that motion, and the Senate has already acted on the conference report. There will be a straight up or down vote on the conference report, and I rise in strong support of that vote in favor of the conference report. There is a reason why a majority of the Democrats joined the majority of the Republicans in this House in passing this bill earlier this year. There is a reason why so many Democrats from California, who live in the high-tech communities, rise in support of this bill in this conference report. It is because this bill finally addresses a legal system out of control. The gentlewoman from California, Ms. Harman, said it best. There are two sets of stockholder investors at risk here. On the one hand, there are stockholders who honestly believe they have been defrauded. This bill protects their right to sue and to collect if, in fact, there has been a fraud committed against them. There is another group of stockholders. They are the stockholders who are left with the company who gets sued. They are the stockholders that have to lose money because their company has to buy exorbitant insurance coverage to protect themselves from these strike suits. If Members do not think it is high, let me cite one high-tech company which was paying $29,000 a year for $2 million worth of coverage. When they went public, their insurance immediately jumped to $450,000 a year for a $5 million policy. Their counterpart in Canada, their competition, pays only $40,000 a year for a similar policy. It is because of our legal system gone awry that insurance costs have risen so high because of these strike suits. The investors in America's companies should not have to pay these exorbitant insurance costs and these strike suit legal costs. We should fix this system. If Members do not think it is broke, let me cite one good example from California. A company in California was strike sued immediately when their stock prices changed. A lawyer in California brought a suit saying, oh, there must have been fraud, the price of the stock dropped. And all the parties to the lawsuit, including the accountants in the office of the company, the board of directors, everyone had to go through an extensive period of a year of discovery. It got so expensive, that in the interest of the shareholders, who still were invested in the company, they agreed to settle at 10 cents on the dollar, where 90 percent of these cases are settled. And so they settled it, because it was cheaper to pay the lawyers to go away than it was to continue fighting the lawsuit. Guess what? Immediately thereafter another lawyer representing the stockholders who were still with the company brought another lawsuit against the company, alleging that it should not have paid anything to these lawyers for this frivolous lawsuit. They got sued for settling; they got sued in the firsthand. Danged if you do, danged if you don't. The law creates that kind of awful situation where stockholders get burned on both ends. The legal profession benefits. We need to fix this law so stockholders are protected, not lawyers. I urge adoption of the conference report.

Mr. TAUZIN

Mr. TAUZIN. Mr. Chairman, I rise in strong support of the amendment. This is the right bill for this amendment. This bill is about inappropriate lobbying. If there is a form of inappropriate lobbying that is most pernicious, it is the use of taxpayer dollars, which are supposed to be spent to carry out Government programs, instead using those taxpayer dollars to lobby this Congress and to work in collusion with outside groups to lobby this Congress. That is an act that ought to be prohibited in the civil statutes just as it is in the criminal statutes. By the way, this practice is not a Democrat or Republican one. It has been going on for years. We need to make it illegal.

Mr. TAUZIN

Mr. TAUZIN. Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of the rule. I want to pose a hypothet for you. Suppose today banks in America were lending money to parents who want to spend more than their income to have a good time tonight, and they were lending it to them with a mortgage on their children's income, children yet unborn. You and I would rush to the floor with a bill to make that illegal. We would not allow the banks in America to loan money to parents based upon a mortgage on their children's income. Yet your country does it day in and day out every time we pass a budget, and that ought to be made illegal. This rule begins the process of saying it is illegal for America to spend our children's money in advance of them even earning it for us to have a good time today. It is a good rule. We need to pass it. For those of you who oppose it because you are afraid of a tax cut for Americans in this bill, the blue dog Democrats offered us an alternative budget earlier this year with no tax cut. It got only 60-something votes. That calls into question the commitment of people in this House. Are we intent on making that practice illegal or not?

Mr. TAUZIN

Mr. TAUZIN. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman from Pennsylvania [Mr. Clinger] for yielding this time to me, and indeed I join him in cosponsorship of this amendment. It is a very worthy amendment. I, too, am delighted with the bipartisan nature of this debate tonight and would want to commend all the parties. It is about time for this. Let me say right up front this is the right place for this amendment. This bill is the right bill for this amendment, and I support this bill as I support this amendment. Why is it the right place for this amendment? This is a bill designed to deal with inappropriate lobbying influences upon this Congress. One of the most inappropriate lobbying influences upon this Congress is a use of taxpayer funds by agencies of our own executive government to influence and indeed to use those funds [[Page H 13121]] to hopefully affect the outcome of legislation before this body. The evidences of it are numerous. The outrageous evidences of it have come to the floor only just recently before this body. Examples of it are like the one I would cite where SBA actually sent materials out to small businesses across America to urge them to support, support the Clinton health plan last year, actively lobbying businesses that they are supposed to help organize to engage themselves in a campaign for a proposition before this House and the Senate. Examples like that are numerous. Second, the inappropriateness of this use of taxpayer funds in support of issues, in opposition to issues, before this Congress is often in collusion with private lobby groups who work before this body to influence the decisions that are made here. Here is a typical example. ``Taking it too far, a slide slow and panel discussion held at LSU in Baton Rouge.'' Sponsored by whom? Sponsored by the Coastal Energy and Environmental Resources Center, Sierra Club, Delta Chapter, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, and the Corps of Engineers to learn more about regulatory takings and the harmful potential effects of taking bills before the Congress, agencies of our Government using taxpayer funds to work with lobby groups organized to influence legislation before this Congress. Mr. Chairman, no one, no one should allow that to happen under Democratic or Republican regimes. If ever there was a nonpartisan amendment that was offered in the right place at the right time, this is it. We ought to adopt this amendment. We ought to say affirmatively in the law that agencies of our Government indeed can communicate with Congress, agencies of our Government can indeed express administrative positions to the general public, but no agency ought to use taxpayer funds whether by themselves or in collusion with private lobby groups to influence the outcome of legislation before this body. That ought to be illegal. This amendment makes it illegal.