John Tierney

Mr. TIERNEY

Mr. TIERNEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield such time as he may consume to the gentleman from Maine (Mr. Baldacci).

Mr. TIERNEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank the gentleman from California (Mr. Ose), the chairman of the subcommittee, and the Senate Governmental Affairs Committee for their willingness to negotiate the amendments to H.R. 327 that we are considering today. H.R. 327 is a substantial improvement over the small business paperwork bills that were considered by the House in the last two Congresses. The controversial penalty provisions have been removed, and the bill includes provisions suggested by the Democratic minority that will reduce the paperwork burden on small businesses. Mr. Speaker, small businesses are the backbone of the economy and are where the new jobs are being created. However, many small and family- opened businesses spend a great deal of their resources learning about and complying with applicable laws. I am pleased that we are looking at ways to make it easier for small businesses to understand what information they are required to provide to the government and ways to simplify and streamline the paperwork process. H.R. 327, as amended, requires OMB to annually produce a list of compliance assistance resources available to small businesses. This list must be printed in the Federal Register and posted on the Internet. This bill also requires each agency to establish one point of contact to act as a liaison with small businesses. H.R. 327 requires agencies to make efforts to further reduce paperwork required of businesses with fewer than 25 employees. The bill establishes a task force to make recommendations for electronic reporting and improving information dissemination. And H.R. 327 requires agencies to report on the number of enforcement actions they take and the number of instances when they reduce and waive penalties. Mr. Speaker, 4 years ago we considered similar provisions when the House considered H.R. 3310. Unfortunately, H.R. 3310 also contained provisions that would have prohibited agencies from penalizing businesses for most first-time information-related violations. These provisions would have removed agency discretion and created a safe haven for willful, substantial, and long-standing violations. They were strongly opposed by the Clinton administration, labor, environmental, consumer, senior citizen, health, trade, and firefighter groups, as well as by some State attorneys general. The gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Kucinich) and I offered an amendment to address these concerns. However, the amendment failed. Because of the surrounding controversy, the bill was never considered in the Senate and we lost the chance to implement the provisions we are considering today. The bill was resurrected in the next Congress as H.R. 391. The Kucinich amendment, which fixed the controversial provisions, narrowly failed by a vote of 214-210. Again, because the controversial provisions remained in the bill, it never became law. Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to see that H.R. 327 does not include the controversial penalty provisions, and it will likely become law. I am pleased to say that this version of H.R. 327 includes suggestions made by the Democratic minority of the Committee on Government Reform. For instance, the focus of the bill is on compliance assistance. The bill helps businesses figure out what information they need to provide to which agencies and makes it easier for them to provide the information. Furthermore, the task force will make recommendations for implementing interactive systems for information collection requirements and electronic reporting. This will allow small businesses to identify applicable requirements over the Internet and get immediate feedback on electronic submissions in order to help ensure that they submit consistent and usable data. Moreover, the task force will recommend ways to strengthen information dissemination so that agencies can more efficiently share the information they gather with other agencies and the public. In addition, the original bill required agencies to provide an annual list of paperwork requirements by statistical code. However, this list likely would not be used by small businesses, and it would merely provide a statistical analysis of the quantity of information regulations. Mr. Speaker, the purpose of this bill is not to count regulations, but to help small businesses understand and comply with the information collection requirements. The bill directs a task force to study the feasibility of such a list and whether such a list would actually benefit small businesses. And the bill requires a useful annual list of compliance assistance resources. While I understand, Mr. Speaker, that there will be a colloquy between the chairman of the Committee on Small Business and the gentleman from California (Mr. Ose), that information that is shared with us is, of course, their opinion and is not part of the legislative history. H.R. 327 includes a provision suggested by the gentleman from Vermont (Mr. Sanders) and adopted 4 years ago that focuses paperwork reduction on small businesses with fewer than 25 employees. This amendment helps direct our efforts to truly small businesses that need our help the most. The definition of small businesses that was incorporated into H.R. 327 originally was so broad that it included numerous businesses that many do not consider small. It included petroleum refineries with up to 1,500 employees, pharmaceutical companies with up to 750 employees, and banks with up to $100 million in assets. Thus, the bill helps most businesses, not just small businesses. Therefore, I believe it is appropriate to focus agency efforts on businesses that really are small. Mr. Speaker, information collection is one of the most important jobs of the Federal Government. It allows the government to enforce the law without burdening businesses with in-depth site investigations. Nevertheless, it is difficult for small businesses to fully understand what is required of them. And many businesses have expressed frustration with the fact that they have provided similar information to more than one source in government. I believe the government should help small businesses understand their responsibilities and streamline the information collection process. This bill serves both purposes without jeopardizing the underlying protections. Furthermore, it should help us take advantage of the information age by using the Internet to gather and disseminate information. These changes have been suggested by numerous sources, including the General Accounting Office. I urge my colleagues to support this motion. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. TIERNEY. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. TIERNEY. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. TIERNEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, I in no way intended to imply that this colloquy would not appear on the Journal. However, it will not be part of the history of this particular bill, having come through committees and subcommittees and been negotiated. I daresay that there was no part of that colloquy to which the minority was privy. They were not given the courtesy of an advance copy of that colloquy through the subcommittee. I do not know what the reason for that was, but certainly I do not want to leave it with the public or the Speaker the impression that that was part of the legislative history, the negotiations between the subcommittees, the committees, the Senate or the House, in having the bill come before us. I would also like to clarify a point that was made by my colleagues during their little discussion, and that is that the task force is required to consider whether publishing a list of the information collection requirements applicable to small businesses would actually be feasible and would actually help small businesses. This bill does not require publication of a list. The task force should also consider different opinions for organizing such a list if they find it would be feasible and beneficial to small businesses. The bill leaves it up to the task force to consider whether any such list should be organized by NAICS codes or in some other manner that makes it easier for small businesses to identify applicable requirements. Some people are concerned that such a list will be too unwieldy for anyone to use, and because businesses do not fit neatly into precise categories, businesses will still have to figure out which requirements listed for a given category actually apply to them. So we have asked the task force to look at and see if this would be helpful and to report back to us. The key point here is that the bill clearly leaves it up to the task force to consider whether publishing any such list makes sense, and, if so, to determine what would be the best way to organize it. It would then be up to Congress to consider the task force findings, colloquies notwithstanding. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. TIERNEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume, just to briefly say that the record should reflect, Mr. Speaker, that that colloquy, of course, reflects the personal opinions of the two Representatives involved and is not the opinion of the committee as a whole or of the House, and also just to indicate that small businesses, and this will put the gentleman's mind at ease, I think, small businesses certainly are included in the process through the provision for public comment of the task force draft report. This committee and the committees over in the Senate did a lot of time negotiating out the resulting provisions of this bill, and we are pleased with that. It has come to a general agreement that I believe is going to pass in the form that is printed. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time. Parliamentary Inquiry

Mr. TIERNEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, I have no further requests for time. I would just like to make a comment in closing, and that is I think we are doing the exact right thing here today in passing this Small Business Paperwork Relief Act. But I would be remiss if I did not respond somewhat to a lot of the hyperbole that we have heard on the other side. Nobody wants small businesses to be overburdened with regulations, but certainly I think in the days of Enron and Global Crossing and Tyco and right on down the line, we can all appreciate the damage that has been done in the past couple of decades as we threw regulation after regulation away or loosened them to the point where some corporations, particularly large corporations, have sort of missed their mission and their responsibility to the American people. In that sense it calls upon government to have the kind of governance that we have always had in this country, and that is a balanced governance. It is a free market with the hand of government regulation balancing it. The obvious goal here is to strike that balance so it does not overburden business, but still protects the people in the way it should and the way they want it to protect them, whether it is about their health, about collecting taxes that are necessary for public goods and services or so on down the line. The nameless or faceless bureaucrats that people take to task on the other side of the aisle sometimes are people that are working as hard as they can to do the best job that they can do to provide good public services, and I think they should be commended. The responsibility lies here. The responsibility lies in this body to make sure that we give them the tools to work with as they craft the regulations, that we have the kind of oversight that is necessary to make sure that when they craft those regulations, they are, in fact, as uncumbersome as possible and get right to the point. That is part of what this bill is all about today. I think that is why it will pass with an overwhelming majority. I think we have started to do that job, take on some responsibility and give some guidance to the people who craft those regulations and help small businesses, because truly they do need help to have those regulations apply to help the American people and them, but have them do so in the least onerous way possible. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. TIERNEY

Mr. TIERNEY. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the last word. Mr. Chairman, this bill started as a bipartisan committee effort. It was done in order to fund the emergency needs for defense and homeland security. That is why it was so grating to sit here last night and again today while many of our Republican members, including chairpersons and others who want to do the right thing, agree that the original bill was focused on emergencies, but that their leadership hijacked it and changed that bill, still all have the audacity to stand up here and wave the flag and insinuate that other people who want to talk about things that are extraneous to the bill are somehow unpatriotic. They shamelessly join in and make those insinuations, and somehow they want to know that they or their proxies are the ones who are changing the nature of this bill. Every American knows and every Member of this House knows that Members on both sides of this aisle support and continue to support the security of this country and the protection of our troops. Shame on those who try to hide their shenanigans by implying otherwise. The question is, do they have no shame. Late last night before the majority abandoned its attempt to move this bill in the dark, we witnessed the shameful spectacle of the Speaker of this House, and others, claim as political those who question the nondefense, nonhomeland security aspects of this bill. That was disgraceful, even for a majority that has made the disparagement of the democratic process an art form. Let us review the situation again, Mr. Chairman. This committee did bipartisan work. It passed a defense and homeland security emergency spending bill. It went to the Committee on Rules where the majority of Republicans rewrote that bill. Essentially, they took it and they spread the American flag out; they put the Committee on Appropriation's work on it, and then they added things. They added violations to the Caribbean Basin initiative that just happens to have two of their Members, one from South Carolina, one from North Carolina, who took politically harmful votes earlier in the year to be helped in their upcoming elections. They changed distribution of hospital funds. It just so happened that Members of the Republican Party with tough elections ended up with their hospitals getting more and hospitals around the Nation getting less so that could happen. They reported to put in a deeming in the budget amount that the leadership could not otherwise get through both bodies in this Congress and which forces the rest of the year every other place of education, transportation, housing and so on to be cut, and it raises the debt ceiling, hidden in this bill, tucked in there so that no Member of the majority party will have to stand up and be counted. They did this even though most of the people over there on that side of the aisle have signed a bill saying that it would take three-fifths of this body in an open vote to make such an increase in the debt ceiling. It is the Speaker's job to represent and uphold the integrity of this House and not to play partisan politics with our security needs. It looks like ours needs to be reminded of that. He took to the floor to participate in the shameful waving of the flag to mask political additions by the Republican majority to this bill. The debt ceiling in America is America's credit card limit, the maximum that we can charge on our credit cards, if you will. The Republicans are rightfully embarrassed, as they should be, that they took a $5.6 trillion surplus and in one year, they blew it out so that they need to raise the amount that this country can borrow. Now, we as American families could understand that if they had to raise it to borrow to invest in the future needs of our families and this country. For instance, if they had to borrow for security reasons, but they do not, or for housing, but they do not, or for education, but they do not, or transportation, or each retirement. But these Republicans are not raising the credit limit of this country because they want to invest in those things; they are not borrowing for our security. There is plenty of money in there and both sides of the aisle would vote to have this country secure. They are not helping us secure housing needs. They are not educating our children with the money; in fact, they are cutting the education funding and leaving the children behind. They are not doing it for our retirement, because, in fact, as a result of this, they are going to have to spend the Social Security and Medicare trust funds. The Republicans are raising the debt of America because they gave our savings away to their wealthy neighbors. What American would take their credit card, increase the debt and use that money to give it to their wealthy neighbors at the expense of their children's education, their parents' retirement and prescription drugs, their communities' needs? But that is exactly what has been done here, and they have the audacity to stand up and call others who question nondefense needs and nonhomeland security needs as political. The majority wrapped this bad act in the flag together with the bipartisan emergency security funding, and brought it here hoping Americans would be distracted by their waving of the flag. It is a disgrace. When Webster comes out in the future with a pictorial dictionary, next to ``bravery'' it is going to have the photos of Americans who fought in Afghanistan, who helped in New York, and who paid their taxes to support the unity, freedoms and civil liberties of this country. Next to the words ``political cowardice'' it will need space enough to fit a group so large as to encompass the entire Republican caucus, chief among them the so-called moderates who voted for this crummy rule and wring their hands afterwards.

Mr. TIERNEY

Mr. TIERNEY. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding me this time. Mr. Speaker, the Children's Defense Fund, which so many of us remember as the original individuals who doctored the slogan ``leave no child behind'' before it was so unceremoniously expropriated by our President for an education bill that he then went on and left all the children behind because he did not fund it, here we have a welfare bill where they ask recipients to go to work, but they do not give them the tools to really go to work that gets them out of poverty. I think that is why it is necessary to vote against this bill that the majority party is putting forward and look more seriously at the alternative being put in by the substitute by the Democrats. Essentially, we need to expand the educational opportunities for individuals that are trying to move from welfare to work to make sure that they have the tools to get a job that pays enough to lift their children out of poverty. Vocational training, postsecondary education, work study, internships, job training, English as a second language, GED courses, basic adult literacy, these are all tools necessary for people to be able to do work that, in fact, will pay. In my State of Massachusetts, we have a business community that understands this. In fact, a joint report issued by the Massachusetts Taxpayer Foundation and the United Way of Massachusetts Bay concluded that at no time in history have they had a greater need for people with a basic education, at least 2 years beyond high school, in order to fulfill their needs for employees to be productive and to have an economy that really moves forward. Their recommendation, as employers generally perceived as to be more conservative than others, was that we need a system that allows people to have those educational tools so that they can hire them now. It is not enough to put them on a temporary education program stretched out over 5 years so that some day down the road they might get a certificate. Our industries in business need them to get it sooner to put them to the level where they can be productive and effective for those companies now. So we have both the business community and others who are interested in the welfare and well-being of these individuals, indicating that we have to give them the kind of education that really matters, have that educational opportunity be 24 months, lift people from poverty, and truly leave no child behind. Just do not talk about it; do it.

Mr. TIERNEY

Mr. TIERNEY. Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from South Carolina (Mr. Spratt).

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

Mr. TIERNEY. Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Maine (Mr. Allen).

Mr. TIERNEY. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. It is clear from the size of this Department of Defense budget, including the $48 billion-or-so increase, that the administration and others here are using the circumstances of our involvement in Afghanistan and the circumstances of September 11 to put money into this budget for all manner of programs whether or not they deal with priority threats to this country now and here. Every Member of this body is concerned and wants the best defense possible for this country. We all want support for the men and women who serve. We want fair pay, decent housing, working weapons. We are collectively concerned with the security of this country, and we need to be certain we allocate our limited resources toward programs that target those threats and risks which are the most likely to endanger us now and in the near future. This amendment then focuses on just that. It is to make the point that this bill is a repository for already-repudiated programs, some of which our own Secretary of Defense is surprised to still see in this bill. The amendment does it by prohibiting the Department of Defense from using funds this fiscal year for space-based national missile defense, or Star Wars. Not sea based, not air based, not land based, not components of any of those. We should debate those matters. But this amendment focuses on space-based, or Star Wars, programs, the same concept which was here before, on which we spent billions of dollars and lost that money. This bill authorizes $54 million for a Boost Program Space-Based Lasers, which act as interceptors in space, as well as the kinetic physical interceptors. This space-based interceptor has gone through two iterations already. They are behind schedule and over budget. Testing for this space-based laser system has been pushed back indefinitely. And that is just the testing for the system. Nobody can even predict when such a space-based system might actually be deployed. How does continued funding for this program serve us towards a more agile force? We should not repeat the past errors, like Safeguard, which was the first stab at a failed missile defense space wars system in the 1970s. Rushing to fund an untested program with the questionable capabilities of this one makes no sense. It jeopardizes strategic judgment and wastes our much-needed money. At the very least, we should be alarmed that we are not taking the time as a Nation to have a thoughtful dialogue on this and the ramifications of this national missile defense system. There are billions in this budget that have little to do with our priority realistic threats to our security. This Star Wars program is but one small part of that. Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. TIERNEY. Mr. Chairman, I am told the gentleman is like that all the time, so I will not carry on, except to note that the chief investigator of the director of Operations, Testing and Evaluation has said that the deployment of this is so far into the future, it is beyond the horizon. Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Kucinich).

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

Mr. TIERNEY. Mr. Chairman, I yield the remaining time to the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Frank).

Mr. TIERNEY. Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the gentlewoman from Illinois (Ms. Schakowsky).

Mr. TIERNEY. Mr. Chairman, it is Mr. Kadish's plans, which the director of Operations, Testing and Evaluation said had no testing regime that anybody could trust or that would work. Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Holt). (Mr. HOLT asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. TIERNEY. Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Doggett).

Mr. TIERNEY. The gentleman is correct.

Mr. TIERNEY. The gentleman is correct.

Mr. TIERNEY. No, the amendment does not affect space-based sensors. It only affects space-based interceptors.

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

Mr. TIERNEY

Mr. TIERNEY. Mr. Speaker, it is interesting to note the fact that 495 Members of Congress have bachelor's degrees. It is interesting to note the fact that 127 Members of Congress have masters degrees. It is interesting to note the fact that 224 Members of Congress hold law degrees. The House is soon going to begin debate on reforming our welfare system. As we do so, I urge my colleagues to recognize the direct correlation between education and earning potential. What this Congress needs to do is to ensure that educational opportunities can count as work for at least 2 years for those individuals on welfare. That is why I, along with the gentlewoman from New Jersey (Mrs. Roukema), have introduced H.R. 4210, the Working From Poverty to Promise Act, which would, among other things, allow for expanded educational opportunities to count as work full-time for 24 months. In the long run, we need individuals to become independent with stable family lives, while also meeting the labor needs of our increasingly sophisticated economy. We can ill afford to be shortsighted in our reform by forcing people into low-wage jobs with no potential for advancement. That simply continues the cycle of dependency. The business community in my region has concluded that it too has benefited when people are prepared to work at a level adequate to fulfill the challenging and advanced positions and to make their companies profitable. Mr. Speaker, the President's plan which is embodied by the House majority would be much improved if amended to let welfare recipients have real opportunity through education and job training.

Mr. TIERNEY

Mr. TIERNEY. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to speak of one of the great horrors of our century: the Armenian genocide. As a member of the Congressional Caucus on Armenian Issues, I once again join my colleagues in recognizing the great tragedy of the Armenian people. As we all know, the genocide of the Armenian people occurred in 1915, when the Ottoman Empire began to force Armenians from their homeland, and lasted until 1923. These eight years saw the deaths of 1.5 million innocent victims and 500,000 exiled survivors. Despite the tremendous magnitude of the genocide, the world stood by as families were torn asunder and millions of lives were taken. There is no doubt that calling the events by their rightful name-- genocide--is an important element of this recognition of responsibility, and I was pleased to sign a letter to the President urging him to do exactly that next week when we commemorate this tragic event. I would hope that all leaders would join me in denouncing this act of genocide. Today, as I once again honor the victims of the Armenian genocide on behalf of the 6th district of Massachusetts, I also honor the commitment and perseverance of the Armenian-Americans who have tirelessly struggled to ensure that the great sorrow of their people becomes known to all people. It is the very least that this Congress can do to stand up and commemorate the Armenian Genocide, and I am pleased to join my colleagues in doing so.