Zach Wamp

Mr. WAMP

Mr. WAMP. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for the time. Mr. Chairman, this legislation is long overdue. Risk assessments and cost- benefit analyses are critical to the economic health of our nation's citizens, businesses, and local governments. As a member of the Science Committee, I understand the importance of H.R. 1022 and the common sense approach it will bring to the regulatory process. It is the first step in restoring logic and order to our nation's regulatory nightmare. important basis for sound regulatory and risk management decisions. But, if there is no rhyme or reason to the process of assessing risk, they can harm industries and destroy jobs. Let me give you an example of how manufacturers in my state are affected. One of the biggest industries in the Southeast and in Tennessee, my home State, is the appliance manufacturing industry. This industry employes over 28,000 people in Tennessee and over 50,000 people in southern States like Florida, Georgia, North and South Carolina, Virginia, Alabama, and Kentucky. Mr. Chairman, the biggest threat to this industry is not foreign competition. Believe it or not, the biggest threat to this industry is the impact of federal regulations. More and more, these costly, and unreasonable regulations are redirecting human, financial, and technical resources to comply with the growing number of Government mandates. The appliance manufacturing industry is one of the last remaining true American manufacturers. More than 80 percent of the major appliances used by American consumers are produced here in the United States. The total impact on the appliance industry of a growing burden of federal regulations is a serious and immediate concern to manufacturers in my state and the entire Southeast region of the country. That is exactly why I introduced an amendment during committee mark- up which explicitly requires regulators to consider the total burden of government regulations on companies or products, of any industry, and to accurately evaluate financial impacts on manufacturers in all industries. Currently, the Department of Energy does not take into account consideration of the total financial or technical resource burden on manufacturers of continuously redesigning all of their major products to meet the standards. What is more absurd is that neither the EPA or the Department of Energy coordinate with one another to take into account the problems manufacturers have in meeting separate, and often conflicting, standards at the same time. As you can imagine, these EPA and Department of Energy standards are often times conflicting, which simply adds to the manufacturers' cost of compliance. For the sake of our Nation's manufacturers, I strongly urge passage of this bill.

Mr. WAMP

Mr. WAMP. Madam Speaker, I come tonight, thanking the gentleman from Nebraska, slightly under the weather tonight but I wanted to take the opportunity to come and talk about two institutions in this country, Madam Speaker, that are really not in very good shape. One is this institution, an outstanding heritage this institution of Congress has had, but today we are not in favor among the voters out there still looking at this institution as arrogant and out of touch. But you know, we are doing something about that. We came on the very first day and passed the Accountability Act, holding us to the same laws as the people in this country have to live under. And we are making major strides in the last few weeks here in Congress, to clean up our act and to be honest with the American people about what goes on here and be good stewards of the tax dollars, once again. But another institution that I have to bring to the well tonight that is in dire need of a jump start right now in the legal institution in this country, where our lawyers have taken on the same kind of arrogance in many ways. I would argue that much like we have led the reforms of the last few weeks here and tried to clean up our act, the bar association and the attorneys in this country need to lead the way for tort reform. I encourage our attorney friends to join us on substantive and positive reform of this system which the American people need to count on. One of the basic tenets of our Constitution is the notion of a fair and speedy trial. If you are an American citizen that has been unfortunate enough to either be sued or have to sue somebody to pursue justice, you know that the concept of a fair and speedy trial is not easy to come by in this day and age. We have a system in this country of insurance law, where the attorneys actually work for an insurance company instead of the defendant, sometimes even instead of the plaintiff. Once they work for that insurance company, that insurance company is just going to keep paying them until that amount that they designated that they would pay for legal fees is completely drained. And through that deep pockets theory, everybody sues everybody until everybody's insurance company is working with an attorney, and they keep working until all the money is gone. And the case is not going to be settled until the money is all gone. We should not be about bashing lawyers. I do not want to do that. I do not want lawyers bashing Members of Congress. I think we need to uphold this institution and promote the institution and encourage our friends in the legal community to help us with their reform. Lawyers are good people. Many of my friends are attorneys. Many of the people who helped me come to Congress are attorneys. Even some trial lawyers, I think, are good folks. But for too long they have made all the rules in this country. And it is time for the people to run the show again. my home city of Chattanooga, Don Warner, told me that in most construction lawsuits everybody loses, plaintiffs, defendants, and all, except the attorneys. And they all win. They get paid, get paid good. They go home. Everybody else loses. Attorneys split up the money and the plaintiffs and defendants share what is left. Most of the time that is not hardly anything. You know, Madam Speaker, I believe in this country we must preserve the right to petition the court for justice, but we must also encourage and have a system of laws that encourage the settlement of our disputes without litigation. I thank the Speaker tonight, and I thank the gentleman from Nebraska for his leadership on this issue. I encourage all those in this body to support H.R. 10 as we try to clean up the legal mess in the United States of America.

Mr. WAMP

Mr. WAMP. Mr. Chairman, this morning I was attending an event away from Capitol Hill to which I had been committed before the change in meeting time of the House to 9 a.m. Unfortunately, when the bells rang for the vote on the Hefley amendment, I was unable to return in time and I would therefore ask that the Record reflect that I would have voted ``yes'' on the Hefley amendment to H.R. 7.

Mr. WAMP

Mr. WAMP. Mr. Speaker, I come today as a freshman Member of this body with a burden on my heart to speak to the American people about this crisis in Mexico. I think it points out that we have a crisis in Washington, because some people are still not listening to the American electorate. I think the people out here deserve to know some of what we are privy to know here in Washington, DC, relative to the Mexican bailout and the actions, in the last few hours, of the administration. Today I was briefed at the Republican policy meeting by our Treasury Secretary, Robert Rubin. While I have a tremendous amount of admiration and respect for Mr. Rubin, I realize that he is in a very difficult situation because he was thrown into, as our new Treasury Secretary, this unfortunate situation in Mexico. Mr. Speaker, many people in our conference, in the Republican Conference, believed for the last 2 weeks as the administration came to us, Mr. Greenspan, Mr. Rubin, and made their case for why we needed to consider a $40 billion bailout of Mexico's peso, we believed that Congress was the only way that they could come and tap into the resources necessary to try to achieve their objectives. We did not believe, from the questions that we asked at the meetings which we attended, that the Stabilization Fund was even possible to tap into. We continued to believe that as the administration continued to work with our leadership for the last 2 weeks, and proposals were brought before us, that they had to come through Congress where the money is appropriated in this country to get even a little part of money, let alone 40 billion dollars' worth of money. The Stabilization Fund was off limits. Today I asked Mr. Rubin, ``Mr. Rubin, exactly when and why was the Stabilization Fund decision made to tap into this fund and to use an Executive order from the President to take this $20 billion?'' He gave me three answers. I think the American people need to hear them. First of all, he said he recognized that it was preferable to come to Congress for this money. I think it is preferable. That is an understatement. It is preferable to come to Congress for a $40 billion loan package to anybody, any time. Second, he said ``Until the International Monetary Fund, the IMF, raised their commitment from $7-some-odd billion to $17.5 billion, using this fund was not an option because collectively it did not get to 40 billion dollars' worth of guarantees,'' which is what they needed in order to meet the problems in Mexico. Third, Mr. Speaker, and most importantly, he said the crisis got out of hand. On Monday the crisis got out of hand and it required quick and decisive action. I tip my hat to him. Clearly this is quick and decisive action. However, Mr. Speaker, let me make some points representing this freshman class that was just elected to the 104th Congress. Many questions are left unanswered. Today, still no answers to these questions: How long is the term on this debt? Three years? Five years? How long? Exactly how is it going to be repaid? Are these direct payments or are these loans? Again, today they could not give us a definitive answer. What are the conditions that Mexico must meet in order to receive this financial commitment? Still left unanswered, yet through this Executive order, $20 billion is pulled from the Stabilization Fund. Mr. Speaker, I have not been in Congress very long, but I was in the real estate business for a long time before I got to Congress. I can tell Members that if our Government was in the banking business--and I don't think we ought to be--if we were, we would have required a pro forma, a first mortgage, good credit history, on and on and on, none of which we got. Mr. Speaker, this is a bad deal for the American people. I come to the floor today outraged for the American people that, first, they have overlooked the citizens of this country, who spoke loud and clear on November 8 that they are tired of the Government running off anywhere without them, that this is their House of Representatives, this is their Congress, this is their Government, this is their country. Second, Mr. Speaker, the Congress has been circumvented in a major way, with billions and billions of dollars. I am a populist conservative freshman. I represent, I believe, the majority wishes of the Third District of Tennessee, and in fact, I believe this freshman class represents the heart of the American electorate. We are upset about this. You know one reason they circumvented Congress? They knew they could not get this through this Congress because they ran into a wall called the freshman class of the 104th Congress, which I believe stood 80 or 90 percent against even talking about a multibillion-dollar bailout to Mexico. Mr. Speaker, who is to say this is not going to happen again? We know that it is. It is high time, Mr. Speaker, that the American people have a voice in Washington, DC, on either end of Pennsylvania Avenue. It is time we listened to you. I am here to carry the torch for the American people.

Mr. WAMP

Mr. WAMP. Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of the Flanagan resolution and thank my colleague from Illinois for bringing this issue into the balanced budget amendment debate in a productive manner. The same special interests who have for years tied up the balanced budget amendment debate are now resorting to scare tactics to try to get older Americans on their side in opposition to the balanced budget amendment. They have scared seniors in my district by saying that balanced budgets will require cuts in their Social Security benefits, cuts in their fixed incomes, and threaten their way of life. But this is not true. In fact, the Seniors' Coalition, a national organization, supports the balanced budget amendment, because they know that spiraling deficits are the biggest threat to our national well- being. We can achieve a balance without touching Social Security. Our party and our leadership are on record opposing cuts in Social Security-- opposing cuts--and so am I. Now, passage of this resolution would do three things. First, it would hold our feet to the fire in passing budgets under the balanced budget amendment that do not use the Social Security trust funds to mask the deficit or to raid those funds for other purposes, whether increased spending or deficit reduction. Second, it would force each Member of this House to go on record by voting their intent to leave Social Security off the table once a balanced budget is passed. And, third, it would allow us to debate the merits of a balanced budget amendment in this Chamber without restrictions from the distortions our opponents would like to throw at us about how this is all some evil attempt to steal someone's Social Security benefits. It is not. What better guarantee can we give older Americans and all Americans that we have the political will and the strength of our convictions to balance the Federal budget without affecting Social Security or raising taxes than to pass this resolution first, then proceed to passing the Barton version of the balanced budget amendment? I respectfully urge your ``yes'' vote on both measures.