Mac Thornberry

Mr. THORNBERRY

Mr. THORNBERRY. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that when the House adjourns this legislative day, it adjourn to meet at 9 a.m. today.

Mr. THORNBERRY

Mr. THORNBERRY. Mr. Speaker, I move that the House do now adjourn.

Mr. THORNBERRY

Mr. THORNBERRY. The gentlewoman is correct.

Mr. THORNBERRY

Mr. THORNBERRY. Mr. Speaker, I would like to take this opportunity to commemorate the contributions of the men and women who have served America while stationed at Sheppard Air Force Base, Wichita Falls, Texas and members of the community during their Independence Day celebration. The Sheppard Air Force Base July 4th, 2000 Freedom Fest is a celebration of freedom recognizing the contributions and sacrifices of patriots in the past and celebrating the promise of America's future. In honor of this event and these contributions, I enter the following proclamation into the official record of today.

Mr. THORNBERRY

Mr. THORNBERRY. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman from Kansas for yielding me this time and for all of his contributions to the special oversight panel. Mr. Chairman, when Congress passed the bill to reorganize the Department of Energy last year, it was clear from the language of the law and the intention behind the law that we intended to have some separation between the nuclear weapons complex and the rest of the Department of Energy. That is exactly what the President's foreign intelligence advisory board recommended as well as many other studies. We did exactly what his commission recommended. Yet, in implementing the law, the current Department has dual-hatted several positions. What that means is they give one person two jobs, one job inside the nuclear weapons complex and one job outside the nuclear weapons complex. I would tell my friend from Indiana, it is not nuclear weapons experts. These are procurement people, they are lawyers, they are security and counterintelligence people. The American Law Division at CRS has said that this dual-hatting practice is against the law we passed, period. The Ryun amendment simply enforces the law that we passed. The gentleman is correct, it is less than 20 people that this applies to, but let me tell my colleagues who one of those persons is. In the bill that we passed last year, we created a Chief of Defense for Nuclear Security whose job explicitly in the law is to set up policies and implement security policies at our nuclear laboratories and plants. That position has been held by a part-time person. That position has been held by a guy who has a job inside and a job outside in the rest of the Department of Energy. Now, I would suggest that that is partly responsible for the serious security problems that we have had. We have not had a full-time person looking at security inside the NNSA. Mr. Chairman, this amendment stops dual-hatting. It says we have to have a full-time person dealing with security; we have to have a full- time person dealing with counterintelligence, a full-time procurement officer, a full-time lawyer inside the NSA. I would also say to my friend from Indiana that I suggest General Gordon looks forward to the opportunity of putting his own people in here so that he can have them devoted fully to the nuclear weapons complex, rather than have other responsibilities in the rest of the Department. Mr. Chairman, this nuclear security breach at Los Alamos is a very, very serious matter. Certainly, there are other proposals to deal with it, but I think we have to be very careful and be responsible in what we do. Knee-jerk reactions are not appropriate. It is true that the authorizers are dealing with several provisions associated with this, but we should not miss any opportunity to stand up and say, when Congress passes a law and the President signs a law, it ought to be enforced. We should not allow any administration to get away with not enforcing the law, particularly when it has such serious security consequences for our country. Mr. Chairman, this amendment ought to be passed, and it ought to be passed strongly.

Mr. THORNBERRY

Mr. THORNBERRY. Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of H.R. 8, although I would prefer to abolish the death tax immediately and completely. But, the unusual budgetary scoring rules which we must follow do not allow us to take into account real world consequences of changes in tax policy, and so we must phase it out. While there is a lot of ``sound and fury'' in this debate, the essential point is this: It is wrong to tax death. It doesn't matter if someone has saved $5 or $5 million; it is wrong to tax death. People in my district and all around the country have worked hard all their lives, paid taxes on what they have earned, saved, and want to leave something so their children can have a better life. It is wrong to punish them for doing so. It also makes sense to get rid of this tax. A report by our Joint Economic Committee in December 1998 provides Members with a comprehensive look at the many studies that have been made on the effects of this tax. The JEC report found that: The death tax reduced capital stocks in the U.S. by 3.2%, limiting growth, job creation, and higher standards of living for our people. The death tax makes small businesses, particularly minority and female-owned small businesses, less likely to invest, expand, and hire new workers. Indeed, they are forced to spend thousands of dollars on lawyers, accountants, life insurance, and other tax avoidance measures. The death tax is ineffective at redistributing wealth, for those who believe that should be a desirable goal of the federal government. The death tax raises little, if any, net revenue for the federal government when the enormous costs of compliance and economic consequences of it are taken into account. Mr. Speaker, we should not punish growth, savings, and job creation. We should not punish people who try to leave a better life for their children. We should abolish the death tax once and for all.

Mr. THORNBERRY

Mr. THORNBERRY. Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of normal trading relations with China. Trying to determine what course will be the best for the United States and for the people of China in the long run is not easy. No one has a crystal ball. However, I believe that is in the best interests of the United States and of the people of China to have more contact with and interaction rather than less. First of all, trade with China directly affects hard-working Americans in my district. For example, more than one-third of our agricultural production is exported, and China is the largest potential overseas market for our cotton, beef, and other products. Secondly, we cannot afford to forget that China has more people than any other country in the world; it has the world's largest economy after ours; and it has a strong military with missiles and nuclear warheads which can reach the United States. While Chinese leaders have done a number of things with which we do not agree, we should not ignore or cut off contact with a country that will inevitably play an increasingly important role in world affairs. Finally, I believe that continuing trade with China is in the best interests of the people of China. They have more freedom today, than they ever had since the Communists took control in 1949. The areas where people have the greatest freedom are those areas with the most contact with the outside world. We should not hesitate to speak out strongly for the values we hold dear, such as freedom of religion. But we will not help the people of China to obtain that freedom by cutting back on our trade, contacts, and influence there. For these reasons I will vote for normal trade relations with China and continue to work for the national security interests and values of the United States.

Mr. THORNBERRY

Mr. THORNBERRY. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for yielding me the time. Mr. Chairman, I think the first thing that one ought to say when looking at this issue is that the government did make a promise, and it is important to keep that promise, not just for the retirees, but also for the young folks who are in the military now or are thinking about getting into the military. Like many of my colleagues, I have had the experience of talking with the young 22-year-old single male in the military and asking why he is staying or whether he is going to stay in the military and the subject of health care comes up from someone that we would not think would be particularly concerned about health care. I think all of us feel the frustration that the gentleman from Colorado (Mr. Hefley) talked about of trying to get greater attention to this issue and trying to find a way to solve this problem, to keep that promise when there are not the base hospitals to keep the promise. So it certainly has been a difficult thing. Mr. Chairman, I heard the gentleman from Mississippi (Mr. Taylor) say in front of the Committee on Rules that he wished he had a magic wand to wave over the country to solve it for everybody. Subvention is not a magic wand. As a matter of fact, I think there is no such thing as a magic wand, which is why we have to look at a number of options. The underlying bill that the gentleman from Indiana (Chairman Buyer) has put together gives us, I think, for the first time since I have been in Congress a path towards a solution. It is not mere rhetoric, but it moves us in a direction by extending the various pilot programs and by expanding them to help make sure that it is a fair test. My district is one of those that includes part of the subvention pilot program test, and I can give my colleagues a number of concerns that folks in my region have why it is not a true test. In my district, I also have people who live in a city that has a base that has been closed, and they are hundreds of miles away from the base where the subvention test is going on. In my district, I also have military retirees that live many miles from any significant city, and around the country there are a variety of circumstances, and no one approach, including subvention, or FEHBP, is going to solve them all. We have to have a multilayered approach in order to come as close as we possibly can to keeping that promise that we made to retirees. I think that is the essential point. What this bill does is gives us several options, tries to collect the information on what is needed but also moves us towards a time certain to make that decision, and we have never had that time certain before, but the essential point that has to be included in this or any other approach is that kind of choice; that is in the pharmacy benefit, which is in this bill. We can have the mail order choice, if that is what best meets your needs, or we can a pharmacy that is inside this organization, or an outside one. You pay a little different copay, but you have the choice to make the decision that best meets your need. That is the only way we will come close to meeting the commitment that we made to military retirees, giving them those options. The path that has been laid out by the chairman is the way to get to that point, and I thank the gentleman for offering it.

Mr. THORNBERRY

Mr. THORNBERRY. No, I do not yield to the gentleman from Maryland.

Mr. THORNBERRY. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 2 minutes. Mr. Chairman, we have heard several times during the debate that we need to put these revenues towards the purpose that they were originally intended. The fact of the matter is 96 percent of the money that comes from revenues from the Outer Continental Shelf come into the general treasury. This is a different situation than the Highway Trust Fund. It is not a user fee where these funds are dedicated to help the people who pay the taxes. This is the sale of assets owned by the whole people, all of the people of the United States. They come into the general treasury. Now, this bill is going to take them out of the general treasury and leave a big hole. My point is we need to plan on how we are going to fill that hole. Where is it going to come from? Is it going to come from education, biomedical research, defense, tax relief? We need to plan. So my amendment delays moving this to mandatory spending. We can continue to fund the purposes of the bill, but it prevents it from being an entitlement until we can have a chance to take it into account. Now, what my substitute also does is make CARA better. It helps improve it so it can do a better job of accomplishing the purposes that it was written to accomplish. No one has questioned that I do a better job of making sure we deal with this maintenance backlog, that we make PILT payments mandatory so they do not have to be questioned, and that we have common-sense private property rights, including an appraiser that the government pays for to make sure that people are getting treated fairly. Mr. Chairman, there are consequences to our action. My substitute basically takes CARA and says we have to think about those consequences. We have to prepare for them. We have to prepare the budget. We have to prepare for the taking care of these new lands that we are going to buy. We have to prepare for compensating communities that are going to lose this tax base. We have to prepare in the way of keeping private property rights sacred. I think that is a common sense approach, and it improves the purposes of this bill. Mr. Chairman, I yield the balance of my time to the gentleman from California (Mr. Pombo).

Mr. THORNBERRY. Mr. Chairman, how much time is remaining?

Mr. THORNBERRY. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Kingston).

Mr. THORNBERRY. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 1 minute. Mr. Chairman, I certainly understand the position that our colleagues from Louisiana are in. They have a problem, and they are looking for a solution. Obviously, the coast of Texas is right there next to the coast of Louisiana. We do not have exactly the same problems, but I sympathize with their position. But there are a number of other problems around the country. I am not saying the other problems are more important than this, but I am saying that we should not automatically put this problem at the head of the line. As the Washington Post said this morning, we should not put this on automatic pilot, put it ahead of education, ahead of defense, ahead of medical research and all of the other priorities that are there. We need to come together as a Congress and sort through those budgetary priorities. I would also add that the very valid interest that this bill tries to promote are promoted better in this substitute, because I take much better care because I have dedicated funds to go to deal with the maintenance problem. I have greatly improved private property rights so that the League of Private Property Voters supports my substitute. I think this does a better job of accomplishing their aim.

Mr. THORNBERRY. Mr. Chairman, I was referring to the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Saxton) who spoke earlier. Mr. Chairman, reclaiming my time, the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Gilchrest) talked about the maintenance backlog, which, of course, is there and is a serious problem, but my substitute addresses it far better, because under the underlying bill, there are three purposes under title VI how that money could be spent. I eliminate two of them. It can only be spent for maintenance, and I require a demonstrable reduction in maintenance backlog. It takes care of the backlog better. Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. THORNBERRY. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 1 minute. Mr. Chairman, I would like to remind my friend and colleague from New Jersey who argues that we cannot afford to delay 5 minutes, I would like to get all of my needs met right now, right away. I would like to fully fund the Federal obligation to special education right now. I would like to keep our promise to military retirees on their healthcare right now. The fact is, we have a budget framework we have to deal with. We have to prepare for these things. The gentleman said that the chairman has been working on this for several years; he has. But the budget has not been prepared for several years. If we take this money out of the general fund, then something has to suffer. The budget law says that mandatory spending has to be offset in some way. What are those offsets?

Mr. THORNBERRY. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 30 seconds. Mr. Chairman, I would remind my colleagues that the substitute retains all of the basic purposes in the underlying CARA bill. I do not change the allocations at all. I would also remind the gentleman that whatever one could argue the original purposes of the OCS revenue was, the fact is, it has been going into the general Treasury. We cannot just jerk it out and assume we have no impact on defense, education, on trying to have prescription drug benefits, on Medicare, biomedical research, or whatever else we care about. We have to prepare for the consequences of this action. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2\1/2\ minutes to the distinguished gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Goodlatte). (Mr. GOODLATTE asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

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

Mr. THORNBERRY. Mr. Chairman, I offer an amendment in the nature of a substitute made in order under the rule.

Mr. THORNBERRY. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 30 seconds. Mr. Chairman, I would respond to the gentleman from Louisiana that the gentleman has a remedy now. He can come to this House and get more money through the regular budget process to deal with the coastal problems that he is suffering. Nothing prevents him from doing that. But I know that he also wants to be fiscally responsible, because his constituents have other needs such as education and defense and high taxes. We need to bring all of that together to sort out those priorities. I would also remind the gentleman that my substitute requires a 5 percent a year decrease in the backlog. That begins now. And so we have to move towards where CARA will ultimately take us by putting more money towards those efforts. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2\1/2\ minutes to the gentlewoman from Idaho (Mrs. Chenoweth-Hage).

Mr. THORNBERRY. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Chairman, I would like to commend my chairman, the gentleman from Alaska (Mr. Young), and the others who have worked with him on this bill for trying to meet a very real need in this country. There is obviously a great deal of interest in this House to have a dedicated funding stream to help us take better care of coastal areas and to fund the Land and Water Conservation Fund, and for the other purposes identified in this bill. This bill is certainly a major departure from the way we have handled those issues in the past, and it gives us an opportunity to take better care of these resources. But I also believe that the Chairman's bill can be made better. It can be made more fiscally responsible. It can be made better so we take better care of the property we already have under our control, because, Mr. Chairman, there are consequences to our actions. There are severe consequences if this bill is allowed to pass in the form it is now. My substitute which I have offered is very similar in most respects to CARA. It differs from the Chairman's bill in four primary areas: It is more fiscally responsible, it ensures that we take better care of the property the Federal government already has, it ensures that communities affected by Federal action will be compensated, and it strengthens private property rights. Mr. Chairman, my substitute is much more fiscally responsible. Yesterday, the committee passed the Shadegg amendment, which requires a certification on social security, Medicare, and debt. That is a good start, but they are not the only priorities we have to worry about in this budget. There are a number of other priorities. I would refer my colleagues to today's Washington Post, a publication I am not used to citing. The Washington Post today, in one of their editorials, says, ``Our objection to this bill is not the purposes but the automatic spending with regard to the competing claims on the Federal dollars.'' The spending would be automatic. This program would go to the head of the line, ahead of national defense, ahead of education, ahead of tax collection, ahead of biomedical research, you name it. So we cannot automatically put this ahead of everything else without looking at the consequences. What I do, Mr. Chairman, is say we need time to prepare the budget. We just passed a 5-year budget. We need to take time before we move it to mandatory spending to take these new priorities into account. Secondly, we have to address the maintenance backlog that we have heard discussed in this debate. The Department of the Interior can tell us it is somewhere around $8 billion to $14 billion of backlog that we already have. It is big, it is getting worse, and if the Federal government takes in a lot more land under this bill, it is going to get far worse than it is now. My substitute has a dedicated fund for maintenance, and it can only be used for maintenance. Also, it requires that the maintenance backlog go down by 5 percent a year. If it does not go down to meet those targets, then the acquisition funds are reduced, so we have a guarantee that we deal with this maintenance problem which has plagued us. Third, my substitute makes the PILT payments mandatory. My substitute makes the PILT payments mandatory. We cannot ignore the consequences of our actions when the Federal government takes land off the private property rolls. That is going to grow under this bill. To say that PILT should be a matching program so if in Congress's discretion we happen to fund it that year I think is wrong. It needs to be mandatory like the rest of it, to ensure that these communities are compensated for the lack of the tax roll. Finally, my bill strengthens property rights. We have heard some of these property issues previously in the debate. I also add an appraiser. The Federal government has to pay for an appraiser to get an independent appraisal when the Federal government is taking over property. I require that there be a willing seller and that land acquisitions be approved by Congress. There are other provisions here as well. I take, in this substitute, the structure of CARA, I leave it essentially as it is, but I address those concerns that Members have addressed throughout this debate. I think this substitute is much more responsible. It helps us to deal with the consequences of this action. I hope my colleagues will agree and vote for it. Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. THORNBERRY

Mr. THORNBERRY. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to claim the time for purposes of control.

Mr. THORNBERRY. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 2 minutes. Mr. Speaker, seniors in my district are very concerned about the costs of prescription drugs, and they are glad that we will be addressing that issue this year. But seniors in my district are also very concerned about being able to pass along the fruits of their labors to their children, because many of the seniors in my district are farmers and ranchers and small business people, and they are weighed down by the effects of the death tax and their inability to pass along what they have worked for all their lives to their children and grandchildren. Many of them are still involved in their farms and ranches and small businesses. So as taxes go higher and higher, their costs of production go higher, and it is harder for them to make a living. So tax relief is an important part of this bill for seniors and for their children and for their grandchildren. The budget resolution that the House passed is a good balance that includes a prescription drug benefit and tax relief, and it also includes strengthening our country's defense. This budget resolution increases defense spending 6 percent over last year. It helps us do a better job of taking care of our people. But we know that more money alone doesn't solve all of our problems. We also have to reexamine our commitments and all of the deployments around the world. We have to address the fact that, in fiscal year 1998, $24 billion of defense spending is in unreconciled transactions. We do not know where it was spent. We have got to do a better job of making sure our money is spent smarter and more effectively, and this budget resolution as well as the continuing activities of this committee will help get us in that direction.

Mr. THORNBERRY. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Connecticut (Mr. Shays).

Mr. THORNBERRY

Mr. THORNBERRY. Mr. Speaker, unfortunately, I cannot support H. Con. Res. 282. I take a back seat to no one in my support, appreciation, and admiration for the individuals who served our Nation in the military over the course of the 20th century. I would support a resolution which recognized their contributions, although I would far prefer a more tangible showing of appreciation, such as fulfilling the promises of health care made to those who served. I cannot support this resolution, however, for several reasons. First, it seems to me that the House has enough business on its plate fulfilling its responsibilities under Article I of the Constitution and need not enter into an interesting but purely theoretical debate fostered by a magazine topic. Secondly, if we were to offer an opinion on the ``Person of the Century,'' it should actually be a person, not a class or category of persons. Words have meaning, and as we alter or stretch those meanings, we may well encourage inaccuracy or stretching of the truth. We have had enough of that recently. I also believe that we should not diminish the importance of the individual human being. The contributions to world history by American service men and women were accomplished by individuals. A man or woman is brave; an organization or class of persons is not. We should not diminish the importance of what a brave individual can do by redefining ``person'' to mean an entire category of persons. The key question to ask in assessing ``Person of the Century'' is how would things have been different without him or her. I have my personal view on who that should be, but my views are better argued in a magazine article rather than on the floor of the House of Representatives.

Mr. THORNBERRY

Mr. THORNBERRY. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for yielding me this time. Mr. Chairman, anytime we have to try to put together a Federal budget, we have a number of priorities and demands, and we have to try to find the appropriate balance among those different demands and priorities. I think that the budget which the Committee on the Budget has recommended is a far superior budget to the substitute now being offered. It starts out by making sure that we set aside 100 percent of the money we take from people in social security taxes and not let that money be spent for any other government program. It then goes on to strengthen Medicare and trying to set aside $40 billion so that we can modernize and improve Medicare to include a prescription drug benefit. I think all of us recognize that a system born in the 1960s needs to try to keep up with the changes of health care and this will allow us to do that. It goes further to retire a billion dollars of debt over the next 5 years, and it will strengthen and increase support for education and science, including vital medical research. It then has two other important priorities, I think, that are missing from the substitute now before us. The budget recommended by the Committee on the Budget has important provisions to have tax relief for American taxpayers. And I think it is very easy for those of us in Washington to forget whose money it is that we are talking about. We have got to remember that the Federal Government reaches into the pockets of hard-working Americans and takes away from them part of the money that they work hard each day to earn. We have to be sure that if we are going to do that, and take their money out of their pockets, that we spend that money better than they. I think that is a very difficult test for us to meet. Federal taxes are now higher than they have been at any time since World War II, and one of the priorities of this budget is to allow people to keep more of the money that they earn. Finally, this budget also has a priority to restore America's defenses. I believe that the first function, really, of the Federal Government, is to defend the country. So we have a 6 percent increase in defense spending, $1 billion more than the President. Our armed forces are committed all around the world. Some of us would not choose to have those same commitments, but the fact is they are there. Texas National Guard people are today on station in Bosnia. And while I wish they were not there, it is essential that we provide them everything that they need to do their job. But in addition to making sure we keep the commitments we have today around the world, we have to prepare for the future, and that means some investment; that means research; that means developing new kinds of systems to help protect us from incoming ballistic missiles, to help fight against the spreading of nuclear, chemical, biological and radiological weapons that are going all across the world. It means we have to be prepared to deal with new kinds of threats, threats with computers and threats to our vital national infrastructure. New things are threatening our country, and we have to be prepared to defend against them.