Gene Taylor

Mr. TAYLOR of Mississippi

Mr. TAYLOR of Mississippi. How did the gentleman vote on this issue?

Mr. TAYLOR of Mississippi

Mr. TAYLOR of Mississippi. Is the Speaker's intention to in any way inform the Members so as to give them advanced warning of this ruling?

Mr. TAYLOR of Mississippi. Mr. Speaker, I have a parliamentary inquiry.

Mr. TAYLOR of Mississippi. Mr. Speaker, I have researched this and feel very strongly that it indeed involves the privileges of the House, since this is a matter constitutional in nature that is mandatory for this body to fulfill. It is my intention, should there be a ruling of the Chair that this is not a privileged resolution, to question the ruling of the Chair. Therefore, the timing of that ruling is of importance so that I can have the maximum number of Members who feel strongly about this issue on the floor. Would it be possible for me to be notified in writing 24 hours in advance, giving me the time that I should expect such ruling?

Mr. TAYLOR of Mississippi. At what point during the legislative business on that second day will this be brought to a vote?

Mr. TAYLOR of Mississippi. Mr. Speaker, pursuant to rule IX, I hereby give notice of my intention to offer a resolution that raises a question of privilege of the House. The form of the resolution is as follows: H. Res.-- Whereas rule IX of the Rules of the House of Representatives provides that questions of privilege shall arise whenever the rights of the House collectively are affected; Whereas, under the precedents, customs, and traditions of the House pursuant to rule IX, a question of privilege has arisen in cases involving the constitutional prerogatives of the House; Whereas section 8 of Article I of the Constitution vests in Congress the power to ``coin money, regulate the value thereof, and of foreign coins''; Whereas section 9 of Article I of the Constitution provides that ``no money shall be drawn from the Treasury, but in consequence of appropriations made by law''; Whereas the President has recently sought the enactment of legislation to authorize the President to undertake efforts to support economic stability in Mexico and strengthen the Mexican peso; Whereas the President announced on January 31, 1995, that actions are being taken to achieve the same result without the enactment of legislation by the Congress; Whereas the obligation or expenditure of funds by the President without consideration to make appropriated funds available for obligation or expenditure in the manner proposed by the President raises grave questions concerning the prerogatives of the House and the integrity of the proceedings of the House; Whereas the exchange stabilization fund was created by statute to stabilize the exchange value of the dollar and is also required by statute to be used in accordance with the obligations of the United States under the Articles of Agreement of the International Monetary Fund; and Whereas the commitment of $20,000,000,000 of the resources of the exchange stabilization fund to Mexico by the President without congressional approval may jeopardize the ability of the fund to fulfill its statutory purposes: Now, therefore, be it Resolved, That the Comptroller General of the United States shall prepare and transmit, within 7 days after the adoption of this resolution, a report to the House of Representatives containing the following: (1) The opinion of the Comptroller General on whether any of the proposed actions of the President, as announced on January 31, 1995, to strengthen the Mexican peso and support economic stability in Mexico requires congressional authorization or appropriation. (2) A detailed evaluation of the terms and conditions of the commitments and agreements entered into by the President, or any officer or employee of the United States acting on behalf of the President, in connection with providing such support, including the terms which provide for collateral or other methods of assuring repayment of any outlays by the United States. (3) An analysis of the resources which the International Monetary Fund has agreed to make available to strengthen the Mexican peso and support economic stability in Mexico, including-- (A) an identification of the percentage of such resources which are attributable to capital contributions by the United States to such Fund; and (B) an analysis of the extent to which the Fund's participation in such efforts will likely require additional contributions by member states, including the United States, to the Fund in the future. (4) An evaluation of the role played by the Bank for International Settlements in international efforts to strengthen the Mexican peso and support economic stability in Mexico and the extent of the financial exposure of the United States, including the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, with respect to the Bank's activities. (5) A detailed analysis of the relationships between the Bank for International Settlements and the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System and between the Bank and the Secretary of the Treasury, and the extent to which such relationships involve a financial commitment to the Bank or other members of the Bank, on the part of the United States, of public money or any other financial resources under the control of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System. (6) An accounting of fund flows, during the 24 months preceding the date of the adoption of this resolution, through the exchange stabilization fund established under section 5302 of title 31, United States Code, the manner in which amounts in the fund have been used domestically and internationally, and the extent to which the use of such amounts to strengthen the Mexican peso and support economic stability in Mexico represents a departure from the manner in which amounts in the fund have previously been used, including conventional uses such as short-term currency swaps to defend the dollar as compared to intermediate- and long- term loans and loan guarantees to foreign countries.

Mr. TAYLOR of Mississippi

Mr. TAYLOR of Mississippi. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the requisite number of words. Mr. Chairman, in the rush to pass bad legislation, in an attempt to, so-called, save the budget, again, I want to remind my colleagues that this House for the past 40 years has spent less money than the Presidents have asked us to spend. It has been brought to our attention that things get buried in bills that were never intended to be there. Well, who wrote the bills? And who is in power now? And who can change the system? For the freshmen, it has not happened yet, but later on this year they will be given the chance to vote on the VA and the HUD appropriation together. I have a lot of veterans in my district; I support them. I do not particularly care for the HUD programs, but they are lumped together. So rather than approaching it and saying, maybe we should separate the bills and have more than just 13 appropriations bills, that let us solve the problem, we are saying, no, we are not smart enough, we are going to give it to the President of the United States. Well, let me give my colleagues a for instance, since I am talking to my Republican colleagues, how would they like the idea of Bill Clinton on his own deciding whether or not we are going to build any more B-2's at $1 billion apiece? How would they like President Bill Clinton to say, I am going to veto the 20 B-2's in this year's defense budget and that frees up almost $20 billion and if you American people will stick with me, we will spend it on health care? Do they really think they are going to find two-thirds of the Members of this body to stand up to the senior citizens lobby and all the other lobbyists that will be asking for more health care? Because B-2's are built in one congressional district. There are folks that need health care in 435. Aircraft carriers are built in one congressional district. They cost $4 billion apiece. Do we want to give Bill Clinton the authority to say, if we just kill the next aircraft carrier, I can expand health care by $4 billion. Once again, are we going to pit the gentleman from Virginia [Mr. Sisisky] against 434 other Congressmen, whose people are going to say, give us more health care? What Members are asking this body to do is to give the President of the United States the authority to dismantle the Defense Department line by line. The Stenholm approach makes sense, because it makes sense that if a majority in this body thinks it makes sense to build an aircraft carrier, then a majority can put that carrier back in the budget. If a majority thinks it makes sense to put an amphibious assault ship in the budget, then we can put it back in. But I can tell my colleagues right now, if they search their heart of hearts, they know that there are not two-thirds of the Members of this body who will stand up to the senior citizens lobby or any other lobby when it comes down between a defense program and themselves. And what we have ensured by the passage of this, if we do not include the Stenholm amendment, is the dismantling of the American military industrial base and, in turn, the dismantling of the world's greatest fighting force.

Mr. TAYLOR of Mississippi. Mr. Chairman, if a President, when given total authority--and this is one man who can write a budget all by himself--cannot submit a balanced budget or even a budget that is within $100 billion of being balanced, how on Earth do you think he is going to save us from ourselves? I did not come here to give my job away. I came here because I was elected to represent the people of south Mississippi and fulfill the constitutional duties that were given to me. If I had seen a record from the Presidency, from the Presidents of the United States, that had showed they are more frugal than us, I might think otherwise, but the fact is that over the past 40 years the combined Presidential budget requests have actually exceeded what this Congress has spent. I do not think those people are capable of saving us from ourselves.

Mr. TAYLOR of Mississippi. Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?

Mr. TAYLOR of Mississippi. How many times has the President of the United States submitted to the Congress a budget that was even $100 billion within being balanced?

Mr. TAYLOR of Mississippi. No, I asked the gentleman a question.

Mr. TAYLOR of Mississippi. Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman please inform this body, within the past 12 years how many budgets have been submitted by the President of the United States that were even within $100 billion of being balanced?

Mr. TAYLOR of Mississippi. Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?

Mr. TAYLOR of Mississippi

Mr. TAYLOR of Mississippi. I hope our Speaker is listening because the American people would like to know when he is going to schedule the vote on the Mexican $40 billion bailout. I say to the Speaker, ``You want to call it a loan guarantee. Well, if you want to loan one of the most corrupt regimes in the world $40 billion, to cosign a note personally, you're welcome to do so.'' If the President of the United States would like to do so personally, Mr. Speaker, he is also welcome to do so. However, Mr. Speaker, do not ask the American people to cosign a loan to one of the most corrupt regimes in the world and be held accountable. A couple of years back, in fact less than 1\1/2\ years ago, the now Speaker and President said we have to pass NAFTA or the Mexican economy will fail. Well, I voted against it, but the majority voted for it. They passed NAFTA, and now the Mexican economy has failed. They said we have to pass NAFTA or we will lose jobs in America. Well, unfortunately the majority voted for NAFTA, and we have lost 700 manufacturing jobs in my south Mississippi congressional district alone. I say, ``Mr. Speaker, you all have been wrong twice. Let's don't be wrong three times. If you're not going to have a vote, then tell the American people you will not schedule a vote. But if you're going to have a vote on this bailout, tell the American people when it's going to be, and let's don't have it in the middle of the night when the television cameras and the reporters are gone.''

Mr. TAYLOR of Mississippi

Mr. TAYLOR of Mississippi. Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?

Mr. TAYLOR of Mississippi. Mr. Chairman, again I want to thank the gentleman from Pennsylvania [Mr. Clinger] for bringing this bill to the floor under an open rule. That in itself is certainly a step in the right direction. We have had this discussion both in publicly and privately. I remain unconvinced that the language that you inserted is clear enough to keep a high-priced lawyer from going to the different cities and different States and saying, ``If you fix your sewage treatment plant, you're going to spend millions of dollars. Why don't you put me court for so long that it will be past your administration. It will be someone else's problem until you get it fixed.'' But we all know it is not someone else's problem. It is someone downstream's problem. I ask the gentleman from Pennsylvania [Mr. Clinger] for the sake of the people in this room to read the language that he thinks addresses the problem. Because I think they are going to find it as ambiguous as I did.

Mr. TAYLOR of Mississippi. Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?

Mr. TAYLOR of Mississippi. Mr. Chairman, I was a city councilman when Federal revenue sharing funds were cut out. The biggest issue we faced back then was upgrading the Bay St. Louis sewage treatment plant. Had it not been for Federal mandate, that all-Democratic board would never have voted to clean up our city's wastewater treatment. It is just that simple. The citizens do not see the reward. The problem is passed downstream. It is just not fair that my city should poison any other city's drinking water, and it is just not fair that some other city like New York should poison New Jersey and that Connecticut should poison the folks downstream from them. Chicago's drinking water ends up in the Mississippi River. It goes to Natchez, it goes to New Orleans, and when the spillway is open, it flows in front of my house. I have made what I think is a reasonable request of the chairman of this committee, to see to it that when the Clean Water Act is finally reauthorized, because it has not been reauthorized, that this somehow does not be considered a new mandate, and because Federal funds are going to be cut, and they will be cut when we pass the balanced budget amendment, that the provisions of the bill that say when we cut back on Federal fundings, that the locals no longer have to abide by the law, do not apply to this law, because this is the kind of law that we need to keep on the books.

Mr. TAYLOR of Mississippi. Mr. Chairman, let me begin by thanking the Committee on Rules and the chairman, the gentleman from Pennsylvania [Mr. Clinger], for bringing this bill to the floor under an open rule so all points of view could be heard as we try to perfect this legislation. I think that is the key word, is that we are trying to perfect this legislation, not to defeat it, because it is a good bill. We are here today discussing unfunded mandates because in previous years Congress has hastily passed laws without regard to their effect on State and local governments. Laws that we thought would help people actually hurt them, because we did not take the time to see them through. We appear to be doing that again today. I offer an amendment to H.R. 5, the Unfunded Mandate Reform Act of 1995, to help prevent this mistake from recurring. This amendment will provide for the protection of public health by including sewage treatment regulation in the language of the bill. Our citizens pay taxes and they want to see positive results. They receive instant gratification when local governments pave the streets, improve the quality of the drinking water, or increase police protection to provide a highly visible deterrent to crime. Mr. Chairman, wastewater is a different matter. While sinks, showers, and commodes are draining properly, people do not care where it goes as long as it goes away. Therein lies the problem. It does not go away. It is discarded into streams, lakes, rivers, and oceans that carry the stench, the germs, the filth, to some other community downstream. The Mississippi River drainage basin services 41 percent of the mainland United States. This includes 31 States as well as two Canadian Provinces, an area of 1.5 million square miles. It is the largest drainage basin of the country and is inhabited by 80 million any untreated waste, waterborne disease or filth which enters any body of water in dozens of States will eventually flow past my State and many of your States. Mr. Chairman, surface filth flows past cruise ships and waterfront recreational areas in towns like Natchez and Vicksburg. Waterborne diseases end up in the drinking water of hundreds of cities who rely on the Mississippi River for their water supply. Small towns, cities, and even large metropolitan areas like New Orleans rely on the Mississippi River for their drinking water. However, closer to home, those of us who live in Alexandria, VA, should be aware that our drinking water is one tidal cycle away from the wastewater discharge of the city of Washington, DC. If Washington, DC, chooses not to treat its sewage because the mandates have been lifted, it is going in our drinking water tomorrow. It does not stop there, Mr. Chairman. The most productive commercial shrimping, fishing, and oystering industries in the world are found in the Mississippi River basin. Oysters, for examples, are filter feeders. They pump gallons of water through their bodies every day, and they retain any pollutants in that water. The crabs and shrimp and oysters that are harvested in front of my home town in Bay St. Louis, MS, live in those waters, but they end up on your dinner plates. As Members can see, there are some things that originate locally but affect us nationally. Just as our Nation should never force its unfunded and unsolved problems on the local communities, nor should the local communities pass their unsolved problems on to communities downstream, and in turn, back to our Nation. I agree that we have to get a handle on Federal mandates, but to throw them all out makes no sense at all. After all, we could have chosen to be city councilmen, we could have chosen to be State senators, but we chose to be national lawmakers because there is a time and a place for this Nation to make laws to help all of us, to see to it that some of us do not hurt all of us. The unfunded mandates bill is wise in that we should always know the cost of these laws, but there is a time and a place. After all, when you think about it, the Ten Commandments is an unfunded mandate. My concern is that since there were no hearings on the bill, clear and concise language needs to be included to ensure that we are not undoing present laws. These laws exist for a good reason. I was a city councilman when Federal revenue sharing funds were cut back.

Mr. TAYLOR of Mississippi. Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?

Mr. TAYLOR of Mississippi. Mr. Chairman, let me begin by complementing our chairman pro tempore on his extremely judicious use of his authority today. It really was refreshing to have a bill come to the floor under an open rule and let Members talk about it. I am saying that as a Democrat. I am asking my colleagues to judiciously use their authority. This is not an attempt to kill the bill. I am going to vote for the bill. This is an attempt to perfect it, an attempt to perfect it that I made in committee, an attempt to perfect it that I have made privately with the gentleman from Pennsylvania [Mr. Clinger], an attempt to perfect it in conversations I had with the gentleman from Ohio [Mr. Portman], and in conversations with the gentleman from California [Mr. Condit]. It is important, Mr. Chairman, that no one community poisons another community. That is the only point we are trying to make. The point is that the Clean Water Act was not reauthorized. Because it was not reauthorized, it will have to be reauthorized. When it does, it becomes new language. It there creates, in my mind and in a lot of people's minds, the question: Does that mean the wastewater effluent standards for our Nation go out the window, a very fair question to ask. All we want to do is put language in the bill that says, ``Yes, they will still apply, and all you lawyers out there who would love to sue the Federal Government and get into the taxpayers' pockets by suing them and holding us up in court forever, do not even apply for the funds, because we have made a statement of intent that as far as wastewater is concerned, we will continue to live by the same standards that we have had for about a decade now,'' a very good standard, a standard that has cleaned up the water in front of my home, in front of the home of the gentleman from Florida [Mr. Peterson], and in front of homes all across the country. Wastewater is something that starts locally but affects us nationally, and therefore it is a national issue. It is something that we need to point out. I have brought to the attention of reasonable people a problem that reasonable people should solve before it costs us a heck of a lot of money. this amendment. I hope he will. Should he not do so, I will ask for a recorded vote.

Mr. TAYLOR of Mississippi. We have a disagreement, and I think those experts also would not accept any challenge, too, where they would personally incur the costs from the flood of lawsuits that the lack of this language would cause.

Mr. TAYLOR of Mississippi. Mr. Chairman, let me make this perfectly clear. I do not want this done in a confrontational manner. You are a gentleman. But I do believe some of the things you said would mislead the Members of this body, and I know you would never intentionally do it. So I would like to point out to the body that as very clearly stated in the amendment, we refer to the Federal Water Pollution Control Act, and this is only a very narrow portion of that, which was also sent to every Member's office, so that no one could be misled into thinking that this is the entire Clean Water Act.

Mr. TAYLOR of Mississippi. That is not correct, I will say to the gentleman from Pennsylvania.

Mr. TAYLOR of Mississippi. Mr. Chairman, I say to the gentleman, ``Mr. Shuster, you are a gentleman, and I know that you would in no way ever intentionally mislead anyone. The amendment that I offered does not use the words `Clean Water Act' because I also am not totally in favor of everything that's in the Clean Water Act. That's why I didn't use the words. I used the words `effluent limitation.' I made it very specific because there are some things in the Clean Water Act that I would love to see taken out. So when you say''----