Anthony Weiner

Mr. WEINER

Mr. WEINER. Would the gentleman yield on that point?

Mr. WEINER. I guess the question is what are we doing here. I think what we're doing here with this entire bill is saying what we, the Representatives of this country, who have the power of the purse, think should and should not be in the bill. What's the purpose of doing that, I ask the gentleman, if year after year after year, despite the preferences of this Congress, Presidents, Democrat and Republican alike, say, We don't really care what Members of Congress say. What is this exercise for? Why not have one giant waiver authority on everything and say we don't want to tie his hands. We do want to tie his hands; 319 of us say we do want to tie his hands. And if it wasn't abused year after year, I wouldn't be standing here.

Mr. WEINER. Actually, that's not true.

Mr. WEINER. If the gentleman would yield, first of all, the last time when it passed the House and died in the Senate, I had the waiver struck in that amendment as well, in fairness.

Mr. WEINER. Will the gentleman yield?

Mr. WEINER. First of all, I would ask the gentleman to observe decorum on the floor, referring to the gentleman in the first person, but I will respond. Do you know whose words these are? This is the Saudi Arabian Department of Education teaching to its ninth-graders. I did not write this. Now, I did translate it, but I did not write it. If the translation is incorrect, the gentleman will be the first to ever point that out. But I will say this. The simple question is this for my colleagues: If you want aid to go to Saudi Arabia, if, as the gentleman says, you somehow believe they need our foreign assistance, one of the richest kingdoms, on our blood money, that there is on Earth--

Mr. WEINER. I would ask the gentlemen to let me continue my point, because it's a good one. If he believes that our paying $80 a barrel for oil when the Saudis would do nothing to help us with it is a good idea, vote ``no'' on this, but don't say it's because you don't want to tie hands.

Mr. WEINER. What we want to do here is tie the President's hands to finally live up to what this Congress has said, which is not a dollar, not a shekel, not a pound, not a dime going to the Saudi Arabians of our tax dollars. Enough is enough. And I think that the gentlelady has it exactly right. No money. And you can't have it both ways. You can't say, Yes, I want no money, but I want there to be some wiggle room. We want no wiggle room in this case, I say to my colleagues. We want there to be no money going to this nation. They have blood on their hands. They say one thing and do something else. We all know it. 319 of us--and maybe with some help around here we'll get closer to 419 of us--have said, Enough is enough. Year in and year out. 2004, 217 said no more money; $960,000 went. In 2005, 293; $1.5 million went. 2006, 312 Members said no money, and $319,000. Have you no sense of dignity around here?

Mr. WEINER. Let me just finish. I'm reaching a crescendo.

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

Mr. WEINER

Mr. WEINER. Mr. Chair, I rise today in support of language in the manager's amendment to the Defense Authorization Bill (H.R. 2647) requiring the Government Accountability Office to study the costs to states and localities that choose to cover the difference between a first responder's military salary and their city salary. After the tragic events of September 11th, many New Yorkers heard the call to service and joined the Army, Marines, Navy, and Air Force in defense of their country. More than 11,000 New Yorkers went to Iraq and Afghanistan and 59 tragically lost their lives in defense of our country. Among these New Yorkers were the brave first responders who had already performed so admirably on that day, the police officers, fire fighters, and paramedics who put their lives at risk to help their fellow New Yorkers. In recognition of this further sacrifice, New York City revised its personnel code to maintain first responders' municipal salaries even during active duty military service. Five hundred ten New York City municipal employees, including 76 firefighters and 293 police officers, are currently serving overseas, putting the total number of City first responders who have served in Iraq and Afghanistan since 9/11 at over 2,000, with New York Police Department Officers comprising close to half of these. The combined salaries of these employees is over $ 148 million dollars, and it is estimated that the city has recouped only $59 million, costing the City over $89 million. These financial costs are further compounded by lost man hours, over 800,000 in all. This lost manpower has disproportionately affected the New York City Police Department to the tune of over 472,000 days. To explain this program better, let's take the hypothetical case of NYPD and Army Reserve Sergeant Smith. Sergeant Smith makes $55,000 annually as an NYPD officer and his active duty salary is $35,000. Being called to Iraq for a year-long tour of duty costs Sergeant Smith $20,000. New York City's program continues Sergeant Smith's $55,000 annual salary and Sergeant Smith would pay his military salary back to the City. Through New York City's policy, Sergeant Smith is made whole while still patriotically serving his country. New York City is not alone in honoring its first responders who choose to serve overseas in this way. Boston, Chicago, Indianapolis, Phoenix, and San Jose have similar programs, and many states, including Ohio, Texas, North Carolina, Wisconsin, and Washington have laws that provide full pay for all state and municipal employees serving on active duty. At this time, it is not known how many millions of dollars these programs are costing cities and states around the country. Through my amendment the GAO will study the costs incurred by local governments for picking up the costs for their employees serving on active duty. I would like to thank Chairman Ike Skelton and Ranking Member Buck McKeon for accepting this amendment.

Mr. WEINER

Mr. WEINER. The chairman will be recognized for generations to come for confronting the challenges that we face. You know, the fact of the matter is that the EPA, under a court's decision, is going to have the ability to write these regulations. We're taking the responsibility to do it here in this Congress. The fact of the matter is, despite some of the contrarian views on this floor, there is a real global crisis that we face. Despite the objections of my colleagues on the other side, there is a need to create new jobs, and this bill would create 1.7 million of them. But I want to give you one other reason that we should support this change in our policy. Ahmadinejad, the Saudi kingdom, they want exactly what my Republican friends are advocating--Don't do anything. Keep pumping the same amount of petroleum. Keep using the same amount of oil. Every time we put the pump to our gas tanks, we are helping the tyrants in Iran and the tyrants in Saudi Arabia export their terrorism. Why do we keep doing it? We need to change our behavior, and this bill recognizes it. It reduces carbon emissions and makes our Earth safer, of course; but it also creates new jobs and takes away the lifeblood to these terrorist regimes. We can't come to the floor and say I'm outraged at what's going on in Iran, I'm outraged at what's going on around the world with the exporting of terrorism and then continue the same policies where we pay for them. That's what our present policy does. Our policies are paying for the terrorists around the world, whether we like it or not. The American people understand that. We need energy independence. We need a thriving economy that creates 1.7 million new jobs. We need to reduce the carbon emissions, despite the fact that still some people in this House deny it's a necessity. We need to act, and that's what the Democrats are doing. global warming wow facts The number of Category 4 and 5 hurricanes has almost doubled in the last 30 years. Source: Inconvenient Truth Average global temperatures could increase 11 degrees Fahrenheit by the end of the century, with greater overall increases in the United States exceeding global averages, Source: US Global Change Research Program By 2030, local temperatures in NYC could rise by two degrees. This compounds an existing problem, known as the ``urban heat island effect.'' This is due to the fact the NYC's urban infrastructure absorbing and retaining heat. As a result, NYC is often four to seven degrees warmer than the surrounding suburbs, Source: PlaNYC 2030 key provisions in the bill Keep costs low for American families: the bill directs 15% of the allowances be auctioned with the proceeds going to consumers through a combination of refundable tax credits and electronic benefit payments. EPA and C130 estimate that the bill will cost American families less than 50 cents per day. Bill will cut foreign dependence on oil: Would require electric utilities to meet 20% of their electricity demand through renewable energy sources and energy efficiency by 2020. Cut Greenhouse gases: Bill reduces carbon emissions from major U.S. sources by 17% by 2020 and over 80% by 2050 compared to 2005 levels. economic benefits The stimulus bill and the energy bill will create 1.7 million new clean energy jobs nationwide, Source: Center for American Progress The energy efficiency provisions alone in the Waxman-Markey bill will generate 770,000 jobs nationwide by 2030. Source: American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy Clean-energy investments create over 16 jobs for every $1 million in spending. Spending on fossil fuels, by contrast, generates 5 jobs per $1 million in spending. Source: Center for American Progress NYS will see 109,000 new jobs and a net increase of about $10 billion in clean-energy investments. Source: Center for American Progress

Mr. WEINER

Mr. WEINER. First of all, let me express my great gratitude to the chairman and ranking member for including language that I had suggested and also into improving general transparency in the bill. The language that I inserted, that hopefully will be a part of the manager's amendment when passed, will ask the GAO the fundamental question, not only how much do the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq cost to our Federal taxpayers, but how much do they cost localities like mine where literally hundreds of thousands of hours have been lost by patriotic New Yorkers, particularly in homeland security jobs like police, fire and EMS, going off to fight on the frontlines, and yet the city taxpayers still wind up paying for it. Hundreds of thousands of hours have been lost. Now obviously the primary cost of the war is the lost lives and the injured men and women who serve for us, and we should always keep them in our thoughts and our prayers. But there also is a growing cost to localities, particularly ones with profound numbers of employees, like New York City has. How much is this costing? The GAO is going to have to come back to tell all of us in our localities how many of the Reservists have gone off but yet the local taxpayers still are winding up picking up those costs. These are important things to know. I want to thank the chairman for including it. I urge a ``yes'' vote on the manager's amendment so it can be included in the law.

Mr. WEINER

Mr. WEINER. Mr. Speaker, because I was attending a conference at the White House on immigration reform, I was unavoidably detained and would like to state for the Record that, had I been present, I would have voted ``yes'' on the McGovern-Jones amendment, would have voted ``yes'' on the McGovern-Sestak amendment, would have voted ``no'' on the Franks amendment, would have voted ``no'' on the Akin amendment, would have voted ``yes'' on the Holt amendment, would have voted ``yes'' on the Connolly amendment, and would have voted ``no'' on the Republican motion to recommit.

Mr. WEINER

Mr. WEINER. Mr. Speaker, I demand a recorded vote.

Mr. WEINER

Mr. WEINER. Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and pass the bill (H.R. 1676) to prevent tobacco smuggling, to ensure the collection of all tobacco taxes, and for other purposes, as amended.

Mr. WEINER. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days to revise and extend their remarks and include extraneous material on the bill under consideration.

Mr. WEINER. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, as States and localities face increasing pressure on their budgets around the country, there is one source of revenue that not only raises money for those localities but also performs an important health function, and that is to provide taxation on packs of cigarettes. The taxation varies dramatically from State to State, and, frankly, in New York State we have the highest State tax in the Nation, $2.75 a pack, and the highest local tax as well. We have a $4.25 per pack. In some places it's much lower. But every State in the union has some taxation that they put on their tobacco products, and it is collected, by and large, by wholesalers that put a tax stamp on. Most citizens, when they go out and purchase their cigarettes, do so legally, pay the tax, and there is no problem. However, as the taxes have gone up, we have unwittingly created a large and growing black market for smuggled tobacco products. And this legislation, which has bipartisan support in the Judiciary Committee and in this House, seeks to solve that problem. It does so in a number of ways. One, it makes it much more difficult for someone to sell tobacco over the Internet. Right now, UPS, DHL, the common carriers all are under agreement that they, themselves, are saying, We are not going to ship tobacco across the Internet because too often it's used as a way to avoid paying the taxes. There is one common carrier, the Postal Service, which still permits it. That is the carrier of choice for the overwhelming number of illegally smuggled cigarettes. And, frankly, the Postal Service has said, Congress, if you want us not to ship those cigarettes, you've got to tell us in a law that you want us not to. That's what we are doing today. Also, it increases the penalties under the Jenkins Act. If someone is going to seek to avoid paying tobacco taxes, violating the Jenkins Act is going to be a felony under this act. It is going to make it a requirement that sellers of Internet tobacco verify the purchaser's age and identify them through easily accessible databases, which is, in many cases, going to put some of these Internet tobacco carriers out of business. This is not only a matter of revenue, though, Mr. Speaker. This is also the source for a black market that has emerged that, according to the GAO, has allowed organizations as nefarious as Hezbollah to make the money on the float: buying tobacco, say, in South Carolina, driving it to Michigan, taking money that they saved by not charging people the tax, and taking that money and exporting it to fund terrorist activities. That is not a hypothetical. That's something that the GAO actually found to have happened. So I urge my colleagues to support this. This has broad support. We have worked very hard, that even organizations as disparate as the wholesale marketers, Phillip Morris, the National Association of Attorneys General, Lorillard, and the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids, all are supporters of the PACT Act. I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. WEINER. I thank the gentleman for his leadership on this and so many issues on the Judiciary Committee. It is indeed the fact that a lot of these Web sites continue to exist because they provide delivery by the United States Postal Service. The irony here is that UPS, FedEx, DHL, the big carriers have entered into an agreement with the State of New York that they are now following in all 50 States that they won't transport those tobacco products because there is a reasonable expectation that these Web sites are operating, and often brag about the idea that, if you go shopping for tobacco on the Internet, you're not going to have to pay the taxes. Well, we need to stop that activity. You can be against the high taxes in some States, or in favor of them. I think that the States, in their sovereign responsibility, have the right to come up with their own levels of taxation. But I think that we should all be able to agree that right now there is a giant truck-sized loophole that exists in the law that allows many people to avoid paying the taxes and allows the funds to go to nefarious hands. According to the GAO, Hezbollah raised $1.5 million from the sale of illegal tobacco in the 5 years 1996 through 2000. The largest case that they found was that millions of dollars of cigarettes were smuggled to Michigan from North Carolina in 1996--seized cigarettes and property and currency worth $2 million and proceeds that had been transferred to Beirut. But it's more obviously often smaller bore problems that have been created as well; that if you have people who are increasingly seeking, because of the large amount of taxation that there is on many of these products, a lot of the programs in our States that are funded theoretically from the tax revenues from tobacco are seeing shortfalls. In fact, we're reaching a point now where the rising tobacco tax rights are producing less revenue in some States. Some people thump their chest and say, Isn't that great. We have less smoking. But if you look at the back end, you see that the wholesalers and the manufacturers are still sending the same number of cigarettes out; we're just not collecting the revenues for it. I want to offer my gratitude to Mr. Scott for his chairmanship on the Crime Subcommittee, through which the bill passed. I also want to express gratitude to many members of the staff who have worked to make not only the bill work, but also the compromises and changes that we made. Mr. Coble, for example, was concerned that we wanted to allow some of the smaller test brands to be able to be sent out so market research could be done. We accommodated those concerns. And I think his staff was very, very helpful. If the Speaker will indulge me, I want to mention some of them by name: Perry Apelbaum of the Judiciary Committee; and Ameer Gopalani, Jesselyn McCurdy, Kimani Little and Caroline Lynch of the Subcommittee on Crime, Terrorism, and Homeland Security; John Mautz of Congressman Coble's staff; and Joseph Dunn of my staff. Also, some of the folks in the private sector who helped us craft this bill in a way that doesn't impact legitimate operators: Artie Katz, Lenny Schwartz, and Steve Rosenthal with the New York Association of Wholesale Marketers, who helped enlighten the committee on how the process actually worked; John Hoel and Sarah Knakmuhs with Altria; Eric Lindblom with the Campaign for Tobacco Free Kids; Anne Holloway with the American Wholesale Marketers Association; Lynn Beckwith with the National Association of Convenience Stores; and Laurie McKay with Dickstein Shapiro. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. WEINER. I thank Mr. Poe again, and I just want to make one other point: that there are colleagues on other committees who have had an interest in this, and they have been working hand-in-hand with the Judiciary Committee. I will insert an exchange of letters with one of those committees, the Oversight and Reform Committee, at this point in the Record. House of Representatives, Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, Washington, DC, May 19, 2009. Hon. John Conyers, Jr., Chairman, Committee on the Judiciary, Rayburn House Office Building, Washington, DC. Dear Chairman Conyers: I am writing about H.R. 1676, the ``Prevent All Cigarette Trafficking Act of 2009.'' The Judiciary Committee ordered this measure reported, as amended, on April 28, 2009. I appreciate your efforts to consult with the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform regarding those provisions of H.R. 1676 that fall within the Oversight Committee's jurisdiction. These provisions relate to the treatment of cigarettes and smokeless tobacco as nonmailable matter and new requirements which will be placed on the U.S. Postal Service as a result. In the interest of expediting consideration of H.R. 1676, the Oversight Committee will not separately consider relevant provisions of this bill. I would, however, request your support for the appointment of conferees from the Oversight Committee should H.R. 1676 or a similar Senate bill be considered in conference with the Senate. Moreover, this letter should not be construed as a waiver of the Oversight Committee's legislative jurisdiction over subjects addressed in H.R. 1676 that fall within the jurisdiction of the Oversight Committee. Please include our exchange of letters on this matter in the Congressional Record during consideration of this legislation on the House floor. Again, I appreciate your willingness to consult the Committee on these matters. Sincerely, Edolphus Towns, Chairman.

Mr. WEINER

Mr. WEINER. Mr. Chairman, I offer the said amendment made in order under the rule.

Mr. WEINER. Mr. Chairman, I request unanimous consent to modify the amendment with the version that is at the desk.

Mr. WEINER. First, I want to begin by offering my gratitude to the chairman of the committee and the minority, including their staff: Scott Olson, majority staff; and Dave Oxner on the minority staff. I don't intend to take the full time. You know, we have a phenomenon going on that we are trying, at the same time, to get people the credit that they want in order to be able to make purchases. We also want Fannie and Freddie not to take unnecessary risks. We are trying to strike that balance. This legislation does it, I believe. One of the challenges we have in some parts of the country, though, we have a large number of co-ops and condos that are in the stock that are now starting to find buyers. People are saying, you know what, the prices have come down, we want to make these purchases. At the same time, the standards have been raised by Fannie and Freddie such that, according to the regulation, that you need to have 70 percent of the units in any co-op or condo purchased before the first one will be financed and guaranteed by Fannie and Freddie. The problem is that you create this dynamic that people say I am interested, I am interested, I am interested. In order to reach that 70 percent threshold it's very, very difficult and you wind up chasing away people who simply don't want to wait that long. They leave with their deposits in hand, and, frankly we get into this cycle where these units remain on the markets. We need to clear out the stock. We also want to give credit where it's due. So what my amendment does is, it says listen, taking a look at the guidelines, taking a look at our desires not to have unnecessary risk taken, if you want to change, based on regional consideration, say, the gentleman from Florida, me from New York, Las Vegas, places that have a disproportionate number of these condos and co-ops on the market, we encourage Fannie and Freddie with this amendment to make those regional changes and requirements. Let me stress we are not saying we want them to make bad loans. That doesn't do that in this amendment, and I don't think we want to do that in this Congress. But we do want them to be flexible to say, you know what, if you have communities like New York, where people are saying I want to get involved in that market, I want to buy co-ops and condos, to make the limit, the threshold so high you wind up putting a damper on the investment that we want to see happen. I encourage a ``yes'' vote. I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. WEINER. I will do that the best I can, although it was a fairly obscure thing. I was commenting to the chairman earlier, we have outsourced so much of our authority to bureaucrats at the CBO, but they apparently were concerned that language in my bill would have required them to make loans or make certain changes in regulations. So what we did is we dialed down some of the language, and we said take actions that are appropriate to establish and revise schedules. I think we made some changes to make it clear we weren't requiring any specific action that might trigger a budget implication. I think the Parliamentarian has told us that this new language doesn't trigger PAYGO. And I didn't want--even at the thought that it might happen, I didn't want it to drag down the whole bill, so we made the changes they recommended.

Mr. WEINER. I yield back the balance of my time.