Todd Tiahrt

Mr. TIAHRT

Mr. TIAHRT. Mr. Chairman, this amendment is very simple, very straightforward. It asks for a very clear choice. We can either fund this so-called paid volunteer program called AmeriCorps or we can fund the veterans. It would transfer approximately $20 million to the Veterans Health Administration medical care and $20 million to VA medical and prosthetic research. The remaining would go toward deficit reduction. Let us remember for just a moment the gulf war crisis. We had a crisis; our young men and women rose to the occasion. They answered the call. They volunteered their time, even their lives in some instances. We succeeded with victory. They came home. We declared them heroes. We had parades. But yet for many of them, for many of them, the war is not over. They still face gulf war syndrome. Instead of spending money on this higher priority, we are spending it on paid volunteers. What is a volunteer, Mr. Chairman? Earlier today we heard that the American Heritage College Dictionary defines a volunteer as someone who does charitable or helpful work without pay. The stated purpose of the creation of the AmeriCorps in 1993, was to promote voluntarism in this country, particularly among young people. The problem with AmeriCorps is quite clear. It pays people to do something that millions of Americans already do without financial reward. An independent survey showed that in 1994, 89.2 million Americans, 18 and over, volunteered in some capacity for an average of 4.2 hours per week. They were not moved by the lure of a lucrative Government job, but instead by the true spirit of voluntarism and genuine service. True volunteers are people, both young and old, who donate their time and energy and spirit to help others. AmeriCorps is not true voluntarism. According to a 1995 GAO audit, it was reported that it cost taxpayers about $27,000 per year per recipient in AmeriCorps. Mr. Chairman, true volunteers do not expect to be paid $15.65 an hour or receive health insurance or a stipend to go to college, as the average AmeriCorps volunteer does. During 1993 and 1994, it was reported that 1,200 paid AmeriCorps volunteers worked at the Department of Agriculture, 525 work at the Interior Department, 210 at the Justice Department, 135 at EPA, and 60 at the National Endowment for the Arts. If that is not bad enough, Mr. Chairman, almost half of the money spent on AmeriCorps ends up funding the Federal bureaucracy or paperwork, rather than in community service. Mr. Chairman, while I respect the goals of these young men and women who are involved in AmeriCorps, I greatly admire the 89.2 million Americans who volunteer their time, energy, and their spirit without being paid. AmeriCorps may do worthy work, but can we really afford to pay volunteers to do volunteer work? Can we afford to teach our youth that voluntarism means getting paid over $15 per hour? Do we really believe that the best way to help cultivate a new generation of true volunteers is by paying college students to do volunteer-type work? And do we really believe that this money cannot be better spent on the veterans? Last week the Pentagon confirmed, Mr. Chairman, what many of us had believed, that some of our gulf war vets may have been exposed to nerve gas after the Army blew up an Iraqi ammunition depot that contained rockets armed with chemical agents. The intent of my amendment would be to transfer $40 million from AmeriCorps to the VA health care and research. I believe these accounts are underfunded in the committee's mark, especially in light of last week's revelation by the Pentagon. What Member does not believe we should not have a moral obligation of this Congress to do whatever we can to find out what is causing the ailments that have plagued nearly 10,000 of our courageous gulf war vets? If American soldiers were exposed to chemical agents, it is incumbent upon this Congress to allocate American tax dollars in a judicious and prudent manner. We still have veterans who suffer from agent orange and even some that go back to problems that come out of the Korean conflict and World War II. So, Mr. Chairman, my amendment offers a simple choice for this House. Will we continue to fund the President's liberal experiment on how to kill the flame of real voluntarism in America, or will this House vote to allocate those precious dollars to the courageous men and women who are willing to volunteer their lives to protect our freedom? My amendment would require that each Member of this House decide for themselves who will they support, this Nation's veterans or President Clinton's paid volunteers. Mr. Chairman, this amendment is a commitment to both the true spirit of voluntarism and to our Nation's vets. I urge its adoption and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. TIAHRT. Mr. Chairman, I offer an amendment.

Mr. TIAHRT. Mr. Chairman, this is a program that, I think, is a little misguided. It is a failed Government program. It does follow the liberal mantra of the need for perceived voluntarism in America. Whenever there is a problem, let us come up with a program, and once again we have done that with our Federal Government. But it sends such a confusing message. The American College Dictionary says a volunteer is someone, and I quote, someone who does charitable work or helpful work without pay, end of quote. Well, AmeriCorps pays people even while there are 89.2 million Americans, according to the independent survey conducted in 1994, 89.2 million Americans 18 and over volunteer about 4.2 hours per week, and yet we have a program here that pays volunteers $31,000 per year. That is $15.65 per hour. It includes health insurance; it includes a stipend to go to college. It is not the type of voluntarism that is the American tradition. It also takes money away from programs that could be very valuable like Pell grants or like money for volunteers. People have actually risked their lives for this country, and yet they get better benefits by being a paid volunteer. And where do these people work? Well, 1,200 of these AmeriCorps volunteers are at the Department of Ag, 525 are at the Interior Department, 210 at the Justice Department, 135 at the EPA, 60 at the National Endowment for the Arts. Another example is the political activity during the Summer of Safety, quote unquote, program in San Francisco. They were out there campaigning against the three strikes and you're out provision in the crime bill. This is what President Clinton called citizenship at its best. I think most taxpayers disagree. Although I respect the goals of the young men and women who are involved in the AmeriCorps, I admire the other 89.2 million Americans who truly volunteer without pay. They volunteer their time, they volunteer their energy and their spirit. Let us not fool ourselves and the American people into believing that AmeriCorps has anything to do with true voluntarism or true citizenship. Mr. Chairman, this amendment is a commitment to both true spirit of voluntarism and to reducing the Federal deficit. I support its adoption.

Mr. TIAHRT

Mr. TIAHRT. Mr. Speaker, Bart Simpson said, ``I didn't do it, nobody saw me, you can't prove anything.'' Mr. Speaker, that is what we are hearing out of the White House when it comes to the files that were requested from the FBI: I did not do it. Bernard Nussbaum says, and he was White House counsel, he says he did not request these FBI files; yet 341 of them were sent to the White House on a letter with his name on it: Nobody saw me. The President says he did not read the files. But that is kind of what the gentleman from Texas, Dick Armey, said: ``That is like the President saying he did not inhale.'' You can't prove anything. That is because the White House is withholding 2,000 pages of information related to Travelgate documents, which is what spurred the request for the FBI files to begin with. Mr. Speaker, it is time for the White House to come clean about Travelgate and about Filegate because the American people deserve to know the truth about what is going on within those walls.

Mr. TIAHRT

Mr. TIAHRT. Mr. Speaker, yesterday Senate majority leader Robert J. Dole became a private citizen. He left us in Congress a legacy of integrity, honesty and character. Character is something that you develop when no one is around, as Senator Dole did in his service to his country during World War II and the 39 months that followed as he struggled to regain his ability to walk. Honesty is something that he has provided to the American public even when it was unpopular. Integrity is something Senator Dole has undergone with three decades of public scrutiny and three presidential campaigns. He has worked hard throughout that time to do the right thing. Mr. Speaker, we will miss Senator Dole on the Hill, but we will welcome him with open arms as he moves into 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.

Mr. TIAHRT

Mr. TIAHRT. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the last word. Mr. Chairman, this is not specifically addressed to the amendment that is being offered by the gentleman from Texas [Mr. Combest]. I want to speak in favor of the legislation because I am very concerned about how the United Nations has mismanaged not only classified information but other financial matters that they have gotten, and I am speaking specifically to Cambodia, where they lost some $20 million plus worth of equipment that has just disappeared. We are not just talking about hardware here, we are talking about classified information and the inability of the United Nations to handle that information in a prudent fashion. Before I came to the Congress, I worked for the Boeing company, and I worked in classified areas where top-secret documents were stored and handled and even developed. We were under very strict guidelines. And if I look at what has happened in Somalia, as pointed out by Senator Snowe, if similar occurrences had occurred in the work environment that I was working under, it would have resulted in a certain loss of job and a potential prosecution under U.S. law. Because we are giving classified information to the United Nations, they do not fall under the same guidelines, the same legal restrictions that we have here in the United States. This information can be passed on or lost or stolen and can fall into the wrong hands. I share the concerns of the gentleman from Texas [Mr. Combest] for situations where we have U.S. troops in critical situations and that there may be a sudden need to share locations of anti-aircraft missile sites, but when we look at the general trend that goes on in the United Nations when they handle information of this classified nature, they do not have the proper guidelines. They do not follow the common sense criteria that we have laid out in the United States. Mr. Chairman, I have risen in strong support of the amendment of the gentleman from Kansas, Representative Brownback, because I believe there needs to be some confidence on the part of the United States that when it does share information that was gained at a very high cost in terms of expensive satellite systems or in developmental hardware or in a high cost to taxpayers, that it not fall into the hands of people who could use it against the very people that paid for the information; that it could go against the best interests of this country, whether it is military purposes or social purposes or political purposes or whatever. I think it is important that this type of information be guarded; that there be a high degree of responsibility in making sure that it is only narrow in its scope; that it is directed specifically for an instance, and that broad-based intelligence, classified intelligence information is not shared for unnecessary purposes. Mr. Chairman, I do not see those guidelines around. So I think the Brownback amendment is certainly a step in the right direction and I would stand in support of the Brownback amendment.

Mr. TIAHRT

Mr. TIAHRT. Mr. Chairman, we have been trying to move to verify how these Nunn-Lugar funds are being spent. I had an incident occur in Fort Riley, KS, which is just north of my district, which we checked into the financing of. What happened is we paid for the jet fuel for two IL-76's to bring over approximately 150 Russian soldiers. They then went to Fort Riley and we showed them our latest hardware. Then we put them on charter buses and ran them over to Topeka, KS, to show them the treasures of the czar. Then we hauled them back and eventually brought them back down to McConnell Air Force Base, near Wichita, and flew them back to Russia, all at taxpayers' expenses. So I inquired where did these funds come from, from the Pentagon, and lo and behold some of these funds come from Nunn-Lugar. Now, whether this is a good opportunity or not, I think we should have Russians as friends rather than enemies, but these funds are not being spent as they were intended. They are not reducing the amount of chemical weapons and biological weapons and not reducing the nuclear threat as they were intended do. So, if they are not going to do it, the administration fails to verify, where is the evidence this is actually occurring in Russia? We hear about other countries, but what about Russia? Why should we borrow money from our children's future to fund these trips over here to America to the treasures of the czar and not let the money go for the specific purposes? That is why I am supporting the Solomon amendment, is that we do not have any verification that they are actually doing what we intended them to do and that they are misusing these funds, in my mind. If we want to do these sort of trips, then we should do it under that aspect and let it go through Congress, let us debate it and bring it up here and vote on it. But let us make sure if we are going to spend money to reduce the nuclear threat that the money actually goes for that purpose. And I do not think it is going that way and that is why I am supporting the Solomon amendment.

Mr. TIAHRT

Mr. TIAHRT. Mr. Speaker, this is not about CEO's, but it is about senior citizens. One of the things that happens when we raise the minimum wage, it is a historical fact, inflation follows, and when inflation follows, that hurts the people, people who are seniors, the worst because they have fixed incomes, they are unable to make their payments. The second thing it does is it does cost jobs. Now, we have heard this example about New Jersey, the restaurant jobs. But that is an isolated instance. As my colleagues know, my grandfather died when he was 94 years old, and he smoked. Does that mean that smoking is not hazardous to your health? Of course it is. That was an isolated instance. It does cost jobs, and it does hit the minority communities the worst. So we are costing jobs, we are hurting the elderly, and yet we are pushing for a minimum-wage increase. But the real thing, the hidden benefit to the President and to the liberals here in Congress, is that it is a tax increase. We will realize inflation. We will realize more higher taxes, more revenue. That is what happened in the early 1980's. My colleagues remember when we had the windfall tax? It was because of inflation. We had 14 percent inflation. Mr. Speaker, we can drive inflation, we can hurt the elderly, we can hurt minorities, and we can increase taxes at their expense. But I think it is bad policy. We can, however, put more money in the pockets of the poor through earned-income tax credits, through $500-per-child tax relief, through the McIntosh-Klug-Tiahrt tax plan, which actually has more takehome pay for people who are heads of households than if we did increase the minimum wage. That is the type of policy this country needs. Seventy-five percent of the people on minimum wage are students. They come from average household incomes of $50,000. Do they need it? No, this is bad policy. I am against the rule, and I urge my colleagues to vote against it.

Mr. TIAHRT

Mr. TIAHRT. Mr. Chairman, I rise in opposition to the gentlewoman's amendment. The amendment requires the American people to subsidize facilities for the taking of life of the most helpless among us, the unborn child. Most of the American people do not want to go out of their way to ensure a preborn child is killed, let alone paying for the medical facility in which the abortion is committed. Our views often do not agree on this issue, but one thing the vast majority do agree on, and that is they do not want their tax dollars going to fund abortions. The Reagan and Bush administrations did not allow abortions in overseas hospitals, Congress has voted three times to prohibit it, once in the DOD appropriations bill and twice in the national security appropriations bill. I urge my colleagues to once again vote no on the DeLauro amendment.

Mr. TIAHRT

Mr. TIAHRT. Madam Speaker, I rise in opposition to the Young amendment. Now is the time to improve this 1978 law. The children of Native American descent who are harmed by overbroad application of the Indian Child Welfare Act can not lobby, they can not write letters and they can not wait. It is time to relieve them of the fear of being taken away from their mom and dad and it is time to give children without parents the chance to be adopted. This legislation does not interfere with the Tribal courts jurisdiction over a child on a reservation or a child who has even one parent that is connected with a tribe. Title III of H.R. 3286 simply restores individual freedom to those children and birth-parents whose only connection with a tribe is genetic. I urge my colleagues to support title III.

Mr. TIAHRT

Mr. TIAHRT. Madam Speaker, I want to thank the gentlewoman from Ohio for spearheading this effort. I really appreciate her efforts for the children who I think are the most neglected Americans, the children without parents. Madam Speaker, I think this bill is very important because it does remove the barriers that have hampered us from placing children out of foster care into loving homes. I support the three major provisions of this bill: The $5,000 adoption tax credit, and also the portion that removes interracial barriers from adoption so the kids are not trapped in foster care, waiting for a like racial home. But I think probably the most controversial part and the one that I most strongly support is the reform to the Indian Child Welfare Act. I know there was a grave need for this act, and I think it has just gone beyond the scope of it. In the State of Kansas where I am a Representative, we have seen Kansas State courts try to put some boundaries on the Indian Child Welfare Act and bring some common sense into it. For example, we heard testimony Tuesday of a young woman who is 13 years old. She had been placed in this home since she was 8 months old. It is like she is dangling over the fire. She is worried about being withdrawn from this home into an institutional setting or into foster care instead of staying with loving parents. Let us not just base it on one example. I have seen so much debate occur on this floor based on one limited example. But there is story after story after story where these children are at risk of being pulled out of their loving homes. I think it is time, if we want to encourage adoption in America, that we remove some of these legal barriers, remove these financial barriers, and make it easy to transition them out of child care or out of foster care into loving, warm homes where they have a bright future. There are many tremendous success stories. I think of Representative Ben Reifel, who was an adopted child, who represented the State of South Dakota in the early 1950's and early 1960's. Because he had warm, loving parents who took him in, gave him a bright future, he served this body right here on the floor of this House. I think there are other wonderful stories out there waiting to be created if we can only remove the barriers that exist today in this adoption language and adoption law. Madam Speaker, I support this rule, I support the bill, and I am anxious to pass it in whole, and not take out any part.

Mr. TIAHRT

Mr. TIAHRT. Mr. Speaker, last night on NBC's television program called ``The Fleecing of America,'' it was revealed that Clinton's Department of Agriculture has hired a political pollster for $33,000, our tax dollars, by the way, to go out and poll some political people, white Americans only. This particular pollster is known for polling for Democrat women. And so she went out and polled, in Kansas by the way, white Americans not Hispanics, not blacks but white Americans, in Kansas, the swing voters, to find out how they were feeling about the Food Stamp Program. It just so happens that the House chairman of the Committee on Agriculture, the gentleman from Kansas, [Mr. Roberts], is running for the Senate against a female opponent in Kansas. But our tax dollars were being spent to find out what the Kansas public was thinking. How long is the American public going to put up with this? How long is the American public going to allow their tax dollars to be used for political purposes by this administration? I ask Secretary Glickman to ask Under Secretary Haas to resign.

Mr. TIAHRT

Mr. TIAHRT. Mr. Speaker, today I am introducing the Parental Freedom of Information Act to provide parents in America with the information they need to guide the education of their children. Teachers have told me that involved parents are the most important thing the public schools need to help students learn. Involved parents must be informed parents. The Parental Freedom of Information Act will guarantee that parents have access to their child's curriculum, the contents and result of standardized tests and medical records, including psychiatric and/or counseling records. Recently, parents have been denied access to instructional materials used in classes which they might find objectionable. They have been denied achievement tests that have been administered and then withheld from parental inspection, and treatments by unqualified school counselors have been administered to children contrary to the expressed objections of parents, and the records of this treatment were denied to the parents. Parents have been forced into the courtroom to find out what is going on in the classroom. This act in no way seeks to influence curriculum or standardized tests. It simply provides the basic information which involved parents need to guide the education of their children.

Mr. TIAHRT

Mr. TIAHRT. Mr. Speaker, we are talking about raising the minimum wage because it is at a 40-year low? Well, we have raised the minimum wage several times, and yet it is still at a 40-year low. I do not think it is working. Common sense is not working, because historically it does push inflation. Unions tell me that purchasing power is at an all-time low because of inflation, and yet that is what the problem is and we want to raise the minimum wage. Well, 75 percent of the people on minimum wage are students. Most of them in minority communities. That is the area that is hit the worst when we increase the minimum wage, the minority communities--6.5 percent of the people on minimum wage are heads of households. Now, we have tried to help the working poor, the heads of households on minimum wage, with an earned income tax credit, actually putting more money into their pocket, and it is not inflationary. That was vetoed by Mr. Clinton. We also had a $500 per child tax credit, which would have put more money in the pockets of the working poor. Mr. Clinton vetoed it. Neither of them inflationary, neither of them eating into the wages of working Americans and the working poor. It is time for Congress to do the right thing for the working poor and the working families. Oppose the minimum wage.

Mr. TIAHRT

Mr. TIAHRT. Mr. Speaker, the first officially named U.S. Army Reserve center located outside of American territory will be dedicated in the memory of Brig. Gen. Richard J. Dirgins on April 19, 1995, in Schwetzingen, Germany. Dirgins, a native of Fairfield, CT, and an alumnus of Norwich University, Vermont, led the 7th Army Reserve Command for almost 7 years. The general died January 14, 1995, just months after relinquishing command of the 7th ARCOM, which has 23 Army Reserve units in Germany and Italy. Presently 11 of the command's units are mobilized in support of Operation Joint Endeavor. Dirgins's many years of service in the Army will be remembered in an outdoor ceremony at Tompkins Barracks that will include the unveiling of a bronze plaque and a portrait and the planting of a tree outside the building which will bear his name.

Mr. TIAHRT

Mr. TIAHRT. Mr. Speaker, earlier today I was unavoidably detained. Had I been present, I would have voted in the affirmative on rollcall vote No. 119 (H.R. 2337) and rollcall vote No. 120 (H. Res. 316). I would request that my statement be placed in the appropriate location in today's Congressional Record.

Mr. TIAHRT

Mr. TIAHRT. Mr. Speaker, I believe my colleagues will be interested in Dr. Birnbach's testimony related to partial birth abortions. Mr. Chairman, members of the subcommittee, my name is David Birnbach, M.D., and I am presently the director of obstetric anesthesiology at St. Luke's-Roosevelt Hospital Center, a teaching hospital of Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons in New York City. I am also president-elect of the Society for Obstetric Anesthesia and Perinatology, the society which represents my subspecialty. I am here today to take issue with the previous testimony before committees of the Congress that suggests that anesthesia causes fetal demise. I believe that I am qualified to address this issue because I am a practicing obstetric anesthesiologist. Since completing my anesthesiology and obstetric anesthesiology training at Harvard University, I have administered analgesia to more than 5,000 women in labor and anesthesia to over 1,000 women undergoing caesarean section. Although the majority of these cases were at full term gestation, I have provided anesthesia to approximately 200 patients who were carrying fetuses of less than 30 weeks gestation and who needed emergency nonobstetric surgery during pregnancy. These operations have included appendectomies, gall bladder surgeries, numerous orthopedic procedures such as fractured ankles, uterine and ovarian procedures, including malignant tumor removal, breast surgery, neurosurgery, and cardiac surgery. The anesthetics which I have administered have included general, epidural, spinal, and local. The patients have included healthy as well as very sick pregnant patients. Although I often use spinal and epidural anesthesia in pregnant patients, I also administer general anesthesia to these patients and, on occasion, have needed to administer huge doses of general anesthesia in order to allow surgeons to perform cardiac surgery or neurosurgery. In addition, I believe that I am also especially qualified to discuss the effect of maternally administered anesthesia on the fetus, because I am one of only a handful of anesthesiologists who has administered anesthesia to a pregnant patient undergoing in-utero fetal surgery, thus allowing me to watch the fetus as I administered general anesthesia to the mother. A review of the experiences that my associates and I had while administering general anesthesia to a mother while a surgeon operated on her unborn fetus was published in the Journal of Clinical Anesthesia vol. 1, 1989, pp. 363-367. In this paper, we suggested that general anesthesia provides several advantages to the fetus who will undergo surgery and then be replaced in the womb to continue to grow until mature enough to be delivered. Safe doses of anesthesia to the mother most certainly did not cause fetal demise when used for these operations. Despite my extensive experience with providing anesthesia to the pregnant patient, I have never witnessed a case of fetal demise that could be attributed to an anesthetic. Although some drugs which we administer to the mother may cross the placenta and affect the fetus, in my medical judgment fetal demise is definitely not a consequence of a properly administered anesthetic. In order to cause fetal demise it would be necessary to give the mother dangerous and life-threatening doses of anesthetics. This is not the way we practice anesthesiology in the United States. Mr. Chairman, I am deeply concerned that the previous congressional testimony and the widespread publicity that has been given this issue will cause unnecessary fear and anxiety in pregnant patients and may cause some to unnecessarily delay emergency surgery. As an example, several newspapers across the United States have stated that anesthesia causes fetal demise. Because this issue has been allowed to become a ``controversy'' several of my patients have recently expressed concerns about anesthesia, having seen newspaper or heard radio or television coverage of this issue. Evidence that patients are still receiving misinformation regarding the fetal effects of maternally administered anesthesia can be seen by review of an article that a pregnant patient recently brought with her to the labor and delivery floor. In last month's edition of Marie Claire, a magazine which many of my pregnant patients read, an article about partial birth abortion states: ``The mother is put under general anesthetic, which reaches the fetus through her bloodstream. By the time the cervix is sufficiently dilated, the fetus has overdosed on the anesthetic and is brain-dead.'' These incorrect statements continue to find their way into newspapers and magazines around the country. Despite the previous testimony of Dr. Ellison, I have yet to see an article that states, in no uncertain terms, that anesthesia when used property does not harm the fetus. This supposed controversy regarding the effects of anesthesia on the fetus must be finally and definitively put to rest. In order to address this complex issue, I believe that it is necessary to comment on three of the statements which have recently been made to the Congress. First, Dr. James McMahon, now deceased, testified that anesthesia causes neurologic fetal demise. Second, Dr. Lewis Koplick supported Dr. McMahon and stated: ``I am certain that anyone who would call Dr. McMahon a liar is speaking from ignorance of abortions in later pregnancy and of Dr. McMahon's technique and integrity.'' Third, Dr. Mary Campbell of Planned Parenthood has addressed this issue by writing the following: ``Though these does are high, the incremental administration of the drugs minimizes the probability of negative outcomes for the mother. In the fetus these dosage levels may lead to fetal demise--death--in a fetus weakened by its own developmental anomalies.'' My responses to these statements are as follows: One, there is absolutely no scientific or clinical evidence that a properly administered maternal anesthetic causes fetal demise. To the contrary, there are hundreds of scientific articles which demonstrate the fetal safety of currently used anesthetics. Two, Dr. Koplick has stated that the ``massive'' doses used by Dr. McMahon are responsible for fetal demise. This again, is incorrect and there is not scientific or clinical data to support this allegation. I have personally administered ``massive'' doses of narcotics to intubated critically ill pregnant patients who are being treated in an intensive care unit. I am pleased to say that the fetuses were born alive and did well. Three, Dr. Campbell has described the narcotic protocol which Dr. McMahon had used during his D&X procedures: it includes the administration of Midazolam (10-40 mg) and Fetanyl (900-2,500 g). Although there is no evidence that this dose will cause fetal demise, there is clear evidence that this excessive dose could cause maternal death. These doses are far in excess of any anesthetic that would be used by an anesthesiologist and even if they are incrementally given over a 2 to 3 hour period these doses would in all probability cause enough respiratory depression of the mother, to necessitate intubation and/or assisted respiration. Since Dr. McMahon cannot be questioned regarding his ``heavy handed'' anesthetic practice. I am unable to explain why we would willingly administer such huge amounts of drugs if he did indeed administer 2,500 g of fentanyl and 40 mg of midazolam to a patient in a clinic, without an anesthesiologist present, he has definitely placing the mother's life at great risk. In conclusion, I would like to say that I believe that I have a responsibility as a practicing obstetric anesthesiologist to refute any and all testimony that suggests that maternally administered anesthesia causes fetal demise. It is my opinion that in order to achieve that goal one would need to administer such huge doses of anesthetic to the mother as to place her life at jeopardy. Pregnant women must get the message that should they need anesthesia for surgery or analgesia for labor, they may do so without worrying about the effects on their unborn child. Thank you for your attention. I am happy to respond to your questions.

Mr. TIAHRT

Mr. TIAHRT. Madam Speaker, Vice President Gore, in his national performance review, indicated that Clinton's Secretary of Energy, Secretary O'Leary, and the Department of Energy, was 40 percent inefficient in their environmental management and it is going to cost the taxpayers $70 billion over the next 30 years. Madam Speaker, what does that mean to taxpayers or what is that like? What is the equivalent of being 40 percent inefficient? That is like filling your car with gasoline, putting 10 gallons of it in, or running 10 gallons out of the pump and 4 of it goes on the ground and 6 of it goes in your tank. That is like sitting down at a restaurant, for every five bites you attempt to take, two of them end up in your lap. That is like sending your child to school and expecting your child to sleep for more than 2\1/2\ hours every day. Forty percent inefficient, I think that is too much for the taxpayers. Seventy billion dollars, too much of a burden for the taxpayers. Yet it is condoned by Mr. Clinton. He will not call for reforms. He will not abolish the waste. He will not ask Secretary O'Leary to resign.

Mr. TIAHRT

Mr. TIAHRT. Mr. Speaker, Steven Covey has the seven habits of highly effective people. Let me propose the seven habits of a highly ineffective Energy Secretary. First, always have Madonna's jet on the runway, ready to go at any time. Second, make sure you have plenty of champagne and caviar on ice. Third, make sure you always have a five-star hotel and restaurant booked. Fourth, always take a huge entourage with you on your trips. Remember, the more the merrier. Fifth, lavishly spend as much taxpayer money as you can on those feel-good self-help workshops. Sixth, even if you run out of money, you can transfer money from a nuclear storage program or just furlough your employees. Seventh, if you run into any trouble, just blame Congress. Mr. Speaker, Secretary O'Leary, the congenital flier, has some bad travel habits. It is time to revoke her free ride and end the indefensible practice of furloughing DOE workers while spending lavishly on those feel-good self-help workshops and on her personal travel budget.

Mr. TIAHRT

Mr. TIAHRT. Yes, the judge felt that that was not reasonable suspicion. Let me just read through the facts of this case.

Mr. TIAHRT. I could not agree more with the gentleman from Arizona. We have fundamentally three problems in the United States today: One is economic and that is where we are struggling to balance the budget. If nothing else we would create more jobs, and I think that is very important for people who are trying to rise out of poverty and get out of the situation where drug abuse is so prevalent. The second major problem is kind of our social structure, how we deal with people truly in need. Our welfare system needs to have the work ethic put back into it. Many people are trapped into a system that is hopeless. They cannot see a way of dealing with it. And so they resort to drugs to escape temporarily. One thing that we could do in our legislative process is get the work ethic back into the welfare system so that people can have hope. We have heard so much about self-esteem. But we cannot have self-esteem without accomplishment, and we cannot have accomplishment without work. It is so important that we get our work ethic back into our system. We also have got to provide opportunities for people as they rise out of poverty. That is why this Congress has supported increasing college loans. It is very important for the future of this country. But we must also, in order to effectively progress in education, eliminate the deadwood, like programs of Goals 2000, which has been largely ineffective. We spend hundreds of millions of dollars in the bureaucracy here inside the Beltway and do not educate one child. it is wasted money. That money would be more effectively spent by States directly in the classroom. But we also must look at our criminal justice system and how we deal with those who by their very violent acts and by their total excessive abuse and by pushing drugs on minors and young people, that we deal with them quickly and harshly. We must enforce the hot stove principle. When someone puts their hand on a hot stove, it does not take long to figure out that that is not the type of action that we want to follow up on or do again. So should our crime system be. That when someone commits an act that is not acceptable to our society, like pushing drugs to minors, like violent acts of criminals, then they should have quick and just punishment and not let it linger on. That is the second major problem and it is part of the social structure that we can deal with in some part through legislation. But the third problem in our society is a crisis of the soul, a problem of the heart. This is a problem, and this is not going to go away by spending more money on social programs. This country has spent since the 1960s $5 trillion on our social programs. Yet every social indicator that we have, drug abuse, violence, divorce, domestic violence, child abuse, is all getting worse. We have spent a tremendous amount of money. In order to make $1 trillion, one would have to make about $1 million dollars a day for 2,000 years just to get $1 trillion. It is a tremendous amount of money. People do not realize how much money that is. But yet we have spent it trying to increase the lot for people who are truly in need and it has been wasted. We must change the system. But in dealing with the crisis of the soul, the money is not going to be solving the problem. Instead, we are going to have to each take ownership of the problem and it is going to have to start with individual responsibility, inside our home. If we want a better family, we must be better spouses, better parents, spend more time with our children. If we want to have a better church, it is important that we be involved in the church, through attendance and through helping with classes like Sunday School. If we want a better neighborhood or a better community, we have to be a better neighbor. It is this type of ownership that is going to change the problem. There is a gentleman who owns a machine shop in Wellington, KS, just north of Wellington, KS. In about the mid 1960s, he grew tired of driving back and forth to Wichita, KS, where he had a job as a machinist at Boeing Company and he started his own machine shop. He had 4 employees to start with. Now he is up to 200 employees. Last August I was in his brand new building which sits across the street from his original facility. In that building he has a machine that is 30 feet wide and 200 feet long. It sits on 21 tons of concrete. The surface which is stainless steel is totally flat. You can drop a marble or a ball bearing on it anywhere on that surface and it will not roll. It is a 3-spindle 5-axis machine, and it cost $7 million for him to procure the machine and get it placed in this building. As I looked at this machine, having come out of the aerospace industry, I asked him what parts was he going to manufacture on this machine. Bill Meredith is his name. He said, ``You know, I don't know at this point. I'm looking at several different things.'' I was astounded. I thought, how is it that this man is successful when he does not even know what parts he is going to be running across this machine which costs $7 million? So I asked him, ``Bill, why is it you're so successful? Is it because you're willing to take the risk, to borrow $7 million and employ additional people? Or is it because you're on the leading edge of technology?'' Bill said, ``It's really neither of that. It's not because I have borrowed the money or because I'm willing to take the risk. The reason I'm successful is because I have good people working for me.'' I thought, that is probably the solution to our problems. We need to get good people involved in the process, to take ownership in the problems that we have in this country. In a book written by Marvin Olasky, who is a history professor at the University of Texas, called the Tragedy of American Compassion, he talks historically how we dealt with people who were truly in need over the years and how we used to require something from the people as they received benefits. The men would chop wood in the time when wood was used as a source of energy and women would sew or take care of other children and they learned to read and they got involved back in the system and it helped them rise out of their temporary position of poverty into successfully participating in society. What we have now too often is a situation where people have relied on the Government to provide for those truly in need. We pay taxes. It is the Government's problem. We have lost that ownership in solving the problems. Mostly it was charitable organizations that dealt with people who were truly in need. Now we have moved it to the Government and it has not worked effectively. In order for us to make that transition back to successfully moving people out of temporarily being poor as opposed to being caught in the welfare cycle, second and third generation being caught, get them involved in moving into a productive time, Marvin Olasky advocates each of us being involved, good people being involved. I think that that is what this country is going to have to do. We cannot rely on the Federal Government to solve our problems. We have a 30-year history after spending $5 trillion proving that the system does not work. It is broke, it is anti-family, it is anti-work, it is anti- property accumulation. It teaches the wrong example for a system of free enterprise. Each of us must answer the call and take ownership in the problem. If we do, I think that we will have a much better country.

Mr. TIAHRT. I would be glad to yield.

Mr. TIAHRT. If we take a practical application of what Clinton's appointee, Judge Baer, would view, his view of America as you have expressed, suppose you are a common citizen and you are driving your automobile, and for some reason a policeman acknowledges that they are behind you by putting on their lights. The normal behavior, according to the Clinton appointee, would be for you to speed off and try to elude the police. I cannot imagine how dangerous our highway system would be every time a police officer attempted to stop someone for perhaps having a headlight burned out or an unsafe condition ahead where they would speed ahead. I think that Judge Baer here is exactly wrong. I think this exemplifies what is wrong with liberals in our judicial system, and it exemplifies why many people are concerned and frustrated by our current court system. There is another program that was thwarted by the Clinton administration, and it was a successful program. It was put in an article in the Policy Review written by Charles Molony Condon, who is the attorney general of South Carolina. While he was working as a circuit solicitor in South Carolina, he became aware of the problem that this Nation is having with crack babies, and he became aware of its through the Charleston Medical University of South Carolina's hospital. He said that he found out that about 1 in 10 children born nationwide has been exposed to cocaine in the womb, and this affects approximately 350,000 babies every year. The hospital, MUSC, the Medical University of South Carolina, said that they have seen bills reach $750,000 from crack babies, for one crack child. Most are born to welfare mothers, so Medicaid and the hospital end up picking up the bill. In one instance, the General Accounting Office had found that a single cocaine baby can run up a lifetime tab of $1 million in medical costs and educational costs. Mr. Condon decided that he would try to do something about it, and working with the hospital, they aggressively confronted pregnant women, talking to them about the consequences of their drug abuse. They were having trouble getting women to voluntarily seek help, but in this program they were given a choice: either seek drug treatment or face arrest and jail time. They did this over a 25-year period, and over that 25-year period they were able to see crack babies in this hospital going from approximately 24 per month down to about 5 to 6 per month. It was called an amnesty program and it had a very positive effect. But then in came the Clinton administration with allegations of discrimination and accusing the hospital of violating privacy rights. The Clinton administration, along with the ACLU, threatened to cut off the $54 million in Federal assistance that MUSC was receiving, which was about 60 percent of their annual budget. This boiled down to, according to the article, the Clinton administration protecting not the children but the right of the mothers to escape the consequences of their neglect. As reported by Health and Human Services Secretary Donna Shalala, South Carolina's crack baby program was discriminatory. But according to Charleston police Chief Rubin Greenberg, he said the program benefited the black community most of all. I want to quote from the end of this article. It says: One of the most basic responsibilities a mother has is to her child. If a mother injected cocaine into the tiny arm of her infant, causing permanent brain damage or death, certainly that mother would be arrested and prosecuted. Yet that is exactly what addicted mothers do when they consume cocaine throughout their pregnancy. In South Carolina, we tried to do something about it. The program we created was working. Now it is no more. And as long as the powerful Federal bureaucrats continue to manipulate Federal funding to serve a bizarre agenda that is deaf to the cries of damaged babies, there is nothing more we can do. Why is the Clinton administration stopping us from protecting our children?'' Here we have an effective program that was dealing with some of the core issues, some of the heart-rending problems that we are having in our society, unborn children being abused by drug abuse. They developed a program. It was being studied and sought out by other States, other States were looking at it as a model, and yet it was effectively shut down by the Clinton administration. I think that this program and others leave us puzzled. Why do the liberals in the Clinton administration oppose getting good sentences, allow criminals to be released, and when an effective program is in place, they move in with a force, with a vengeance, and shut down a program that has been successful. Even though we have drug abuse, especially through teenagers, it is not doing enough. I think we have not gone far enough. Overall drug abuse seems to be waning or being leveled off, but teenage drug abuse is up while enforcement is down. I think President Clinton has not only ignored the drug problem but he has actively hampered the efforts of drug control agencies. In February 1993, less than 1 month in office, President Clinton eliminated 83 percent of the staff at the Office of National Drug Control Policy. Continuing the abdication of leadership, the President also eliminated the drug testing program for the White House staff.

Mr. TIAHRT. Let us go over the facts of the case and then you can make a judgment yourself. Early in the morning on April 21st, I assume this is 1995, Officer Richard Carroll sat in his unmarked car staking out a street on Washington Heights known as a prime location for drug dealers. At 5:00 a.m., it was early in the morning, he observed a double-parked rental car with Michigan plates. Four men walked up to the car without speaking to the driver. They put two black duffle bags into the trunk of this car. When they spotted the officer, they all ran off in different directions. Officer Carroll then pulled over the driver, Carol Bayless, again, searched the car, finding the cocaine and the heroin with a street value of at least $4 million. Subsequently, there was a videotaped confession where she said, yes, she knew what she was doing. She has done this 20 times before. It goes back to most people would probably consider running from the police some type of reason for suspicion. I think that is the way it is viewed in Wichita, KS, and I am sure it is probably viewed that same way in Arizona. I think it is just cause, and it probably shows why we have lost some faith in our judicial system when we have liberal judges turning loose criminals, confessed criminals, on what has been termed a technicality, or his term was, not enough reasonable suspicion to make this arrest. It is, I think, a poor excuse for why we are having problems turning criminals loose.

Mr. TIAHRT. Madam Speaker, this country is facing an increasing problem with youth violence and drug abuse. After 3 years of reducing the effectiveness of fighting against drug abuse, Mr. Clinton is trying to salvage his image by appointing a new drug czar. Despite the rhetoric, President Clinton has been unable to win the war on drugs. When President Clinton swore in his new drug czar, he said a lot of positive things against the country's battle against drugs. But let us not be fooled by President Clinton's claim to have made a sizeable dent in the war on drugs. If he had, we would not have such an increase in drug use and a decrease in drug arrests. According to Investors Business Daily, two articles, one by Matthew Robinson on September 11, 1995, and John Barnes, June 6, 1995, ``President Clinton has failed to properly fight the war on drugs.'' DEA, our Drug Enforcement Agency, their arrests fell from 7,878 the last full year under the Bush administration to 5,279 in 1994 under the Clinton administration. Drug-related arrests, made in cooperation with overseas law enforcement agencies, fell from 1,856 in 1992 to 1,522 in 1994. Although 140 new DEA intelligence specialists were trained in 1992, zero were trained in 1994. President Clinton slashed the Office of National Drug Control Policy by 84 percent, cutting the staff from 116 to just 25. He eliminated 355 DEA agents and 102 personnel from the Justice Department's organized crime enforcement task force. President Clinton dropped the drug issue from the top to the bottom of the National Security Council's list of 29 priorities. In a household survey on drug abuse, as shown on this chart, it was published in September 1995, the estimated number of 12- to 17-year- olds who have reportedly smoked marijuana grew from 1992, 1.6 million, to 1994, 2.9 million. In the 14- and 15-year-old age group, it saw a 200-percent increase in the use of marijuana. I have another chart that talks about how drug enforcement has been down under the Clinton administration. This depicts the number of Federal marijuana defendants, which has dropped 18.6 percent, in 1993 it was 5,500, to 4,100 by 1995. Also, the prison time is getting shorter. In this chart, the average prison sentence for marijuana defendants is down 13 percent. In 1992, the sentence was 50 months. By 1995, it has dropped down to 43 months. It is not just confined to drug abuse, either, Madam Speaker. We have a problem with violent juvenile crime. The juvenile crime clock, which is published by Crime Strike, says that a juvenile is arrested for murder every 2 hours and 10 minutes; for rape, every 51 minutes; for robbery, every 13 minutes; and an aggravated assault, every 8 minutes. Juveniles are not tried as adults as often. Despite the increasingly violent nature of juvenile crime, as well as the increased number of juveniles involved, the percentage of juvenile cases referred to adult courts has actually declined. In 1984 it was 5.2 percent, approximately 54,000 cases out of 1 million. By 1993, a decade later, the adult court referrals had grown to 61,000, approximately, but it was just 4.8 percent of the 1.29 million offenders taken into custody. I believe the liberal Clinton administration is part of the basic problem. In our war on crime, the liberals have become soft on criminals, and it is making it hard for the rest of us. I think this is why many Americans are losing faith in our court system. One of the most recent examples is an appointee by President Clinton, Judge Harold Baer, a liberal judge in New York City. I have two articles I would like to refer to. One is in the Columbus Dispatch. It was published on February 5. It is entitled ``Outrage in New York.'' To give you kind of a background, I will just take some excerpts from this article. Judges routinely make close calls in dispersing justice. Sometimes, though, a judge makes a decision so mind-boggling, so dumb, that it makes people wonder what planet he is living on. Such has been the case in New York City, where on January 24, U.S. District Court Judge Harold Baer, Junior, let a confessed drug courier walk free after police officers observed 80 pounds of cocaine and heroin being loaded into the trunk of her car. The mayor, the police commissioner, and nearly everyone else in New York is up in arms over this nonsensical ruling. I have a chart here that just kind of depicts how many drugs were in the trunk of that car when the arrest was made. There was 75 pounds of cocaine, and actually 4 pounds of heroin. That was heading toward Michigan, according to the confession of Carol Bayless, who was at the wheel of the car. That is enough so that every school child in Detroit would have one dose of cocaine. This appeared to be an open-and-shut case, but in a bit of twisted reasoning, Judge Baer said that the officer had no reasonable suspicion to pull over Bayless. He excluded the drugs and the confession, a videotaped confession where Bayless admitted that she was paid $20,000 to take the drugs to Detroit, something she had done at least 20 times before, either for her son or for other dealers. But this evidence was thrown out. No drugs, no case. Bayless was facing the possibility of life in prison. She whooped in celebration. If this was not bad enough, Judge Baer's written decision reeked with contempt for the police, particularly Officer Carroll who made the arrest, who has 10 years of experience on the street and a spotless record. Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan, who got President Clinton to appoint Baer to the bench, has had some buyer's remorse, according to the article. He suggested Baer be sentenced to live in that neighborhood for a year to see if that would change his mind. Federal prosecutors are pondering appeal. They hate to overturn a judgment based on a subjective matter like reasonable suspicion, but in this case prosecutors should appeal, and the courts should overturn Baer's judgment and put Bayless on trial because justice demands it. On ``ABC World News Tonight'' at 6:30, February 8, eastern time, there was an article run. Part of it was talking about this same ruling. Part of the report said: ``Last month Federal Judge Harold Baer ruled that neither the woman's confession nor the drugs found in her car could be used in court because police lacked sufficient reason to stop her or search her car.'' Here the police saw four men dumping duffle bags into the woman's car at around 5:00 in the morning and when the men saw the police, they ran away. This was not sufficient suspicion for Judge Baer, who wrote that in Washington Heights residents regard police officers as corrupt, abusive, and violent. Had they not run when the cops began to stare at them, it would have been unusual. Well, in Wichita, KS, the fourth district of Kansas, I think that type of behavior would have been reason to stop someone, and I think that the abuse that has occurred from the excessive amount of drugs in our society justifies having this ruling overturned.