Anthony Weiner

Mr. WEINER

Mr. WEINER. Mr. Chairman, in 1998, when a terrorist bomb exploded in front of the U.S. Embassy in Nairobi, Kenya, one of the first humanitarian organizations to arrive at the scene was the Magen David Adom. Magen David Adom, or MDA, entered the collapsed embassy building at great personal risk and saved dozens of lives. They demonstrated why they are considered to be one of the world's finest humanitarian organizations. Despite the bravery and competence which the MDA rescuers exhibited that day and every day since its founding in 1930, the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies has refused to recognize the MDA as a fully participating member. The sole reason for this refusal is because the MDA's symbol is a Red Star, not the Red Cross or Red Crescent, the only symbols recognized by the International Federation. In 1864, when the nations of the world signed a treaty to provide protection for hospitals, medical personnel and patients in time of war, it was decided that the universal symbol for humanitarian services would be the Swiss flag with its colors reversed. In Turkey, a predominantly Muslim country, the Red Cross was considered a symbol of Christianity, and inappropriate for use as their humanitarian symbol. Instead, they declared that they would use a Red Crescent, a symbol derived from Islam. This was a reasonable request and the Red Crescent was recognized by the International Federation in 1868. Yet, in 1949, when Israel asked for recognition of its humanitarian symbol, a red star on a white field, based on the ancient symbol of the Jewish faith, the International Federation refused, insisting that Israel either adopt the cross of Christianity or the crescent of the Muslim faith. The Israeli government refused. Since that date, though it has worked in partnership with the International Federation of the Red Cross and Red Crescent, the MDA is still denied full membership in the International Federation. This has gone on too long. This October, the International Federation will hold its 27th meeting in Geneva, Switzerland. This amendment directs the President to work with the signatories of the Geneva Convention and support a resolution at the International Conference to allow for the MDA to become a full member of the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies. I urge my colleagues to support this amendment.

Mr. WEINER

Mr. WEINER. Mr. Speaker, as a member of the Committee on the Judiciary I have found a comfortable place standing somewhere between the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Canady) and the gentleman from New York (Mr. Nadler), and on this issue I believe I am there again. I want to commend the gentleman from Florida for drafting an excellent bill, one that I am proud to cosponsor. And I also am proud to support the amendment offered by the gentleman from New York, which I believe makes a good bill a little bit better. In 1963, the Supreme Court issued an important decision in Sherbert vs. Verner. In that case a South Carolina woman was denied unemployment compensation. Her denial was not based on any lack of interest in working but because she refused to work on Saturdays. South Carolina tried to argue that this woman had refused an employment opportunity. This, however, was not the case. Ms. Sherbert observed the Sabbath and she did no work from sundown Friday to sundown Saturday. The same is true for so many of my constituents. Her religious beliefs demanded that she decline employment opportunities that involved Saturday work, but her State saw fit to deny her unemployment compensation. Her case was litigated all the way to the Supreme Court, and there the Court held that the State's refusal violated the free exercise clause because its denial of unemployment compensation forced Mrs. Sherbert to choose between religious adherence and unemployment compensation benefits. The Court rightly ruled that South Carolina's interest in denying benefits was neither compelling nor was it narrowly tailored. Unfortunately, since that time the Supreme Court has retreated from that position and there have been several other examples that have emerged. The bill that the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Canady) and I and others have sponsored seeks to reverse that. And I believe that the gentleman from New York (Mr. Nadler) has said in his arguments on the floor that he supports that concept. It is something that all of us agree on. The gentleman from Florida has argued, and I agree, that this is not a bill that is intended to be an attack on civil liberties. What the Nadler amendment seeks to do is make that clear. Make it clear that in our efforts to restore religious liberties we are not taking a hatchet to civil liberties. I would not have sponsored the bill if I thought that that was the case. Mr. Speaker, I think that what the Nadler language does is make it very clear that while we are going to have conflicts between religious rights and between civil liberties with or without H.R. 1691, what this amendment makes clear is where we stand, and that is we are not trying to take from one group of rights to serve another group. The Nadler amendment strengthens what is already a very good and a strong bill. It allows us to all vote for strong civil liberties and strong religious liberties. Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to support H.R. 1691, and I urge support for the amendment offered by the gentleman from New York.

Mr. WEINER

Mr. WEINER. Mr. Speaker, the Silent Skies Act, which I am introducing along with Representatives Crowley, Hyde, Shays and fourteen other original cosponsors, is intended to expedite the implementation of the next generation of quieter airplane engines. So many members have airports in their district and have received the same letters from constituents. Every day and every night planes pass over your constituents' homes, businesses, and schools. They interrupt all aspects of life for those who reside under flight paths. While there is little we can do about the every-growing volume of air traffic, we can ensure the planes that fly overhead are as quiet as technology will allow. In 1990, Congress passed the Aviation Noise and Capacity Act, a measure that led to the implementation of Stage 3 aircraft and reduced noise from airplanes by 50%. By the end of this year, Stage 3 will be fully implemented and most of the U.S. commercial fleet will be in compliance with these new lower noise levels. While we recognize the contributions the airline industry has made in reducing the amount of noise coming from their aircraft, the number of flights going in and out of major airports continues to increase. Our constituents need relief. By September 2001, the International Civil Aviation Organization will have approved international standards for Stage 4 engines. Our bill simply says that our constituents deserve relief, and they deserve it as soon as possible. The Silent Skies Act mandates a 10 year timetable, beginning in 2002, to phase in Stage 4 engines. It is time for the Congress to take the lead again. This bill does just that. I am proud to introduce this bipartisan legislation and urge my colleagues to support this bill. Summary H.R. 2499, the Silent Skies Act This bill expedites the implementation of Stage 4-compliant aircraft. In 1990, Congress passed the Aviation Noise and Capacity Act, a measure that led to the development and implementation of Stage 3 aircraft, and reduced aircraft noise by 50%. By the end of this year, Stage 3 will be fully implemented and most of the U.S. commercial fleet will be in compliance with these new lower noise levels. Stage 4 represents the next level of noise reduction, and would reduce airplane noise by an estimated 40%. This bill directs the Secretary of Transportation to issue regulations establishing minimum standards for Stage 4 noise levels no later than December 31, 2001; Directs the phase in of these new standards over a ten year period, beginning in 2002; Directs the Secretary of Transportation to submit a report to Congress on the progress being made toward compliance with Stage 4 implementation; and Removes the noise level exemption for supersonic civil transport aircraft.

Mr. WEINER

Mr. WEINER. Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Rothman) for being such an active voice on this issue and so many others. If there was ever a bad time for a bad idea, this is probably it. The United Nations over its history has done some very great things to ensure peace and justice around the world, but it can also be rightly accused of taking every possible opportunity to throw obstacles in the way of the State of Israel and now obstacles in the way of pursuing a lasting peace in the Middle East. To dig up the Geneva Convention as an appropriate tool for the causes of the Palestinian Movement in the United Nations now is the worst possible abuse of the Geneva Convention. Never, as the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Rothman) pointed out, has it been used; and particularly now, it is an inappropriate time and an inappropriate place. As we have spent much of the last year looking at some true atrocities in the world, never in the time of the worst atrocities of Milosevic did the United Nations stand and seek to execute the Geneva Convention. Yet now, at the beginning of a new era in Israel, when a new administration takes over and, God willing, a new road to peace in the Middle East is about to be placed, we see the United Nations begin to move forward to activate the Geneva Convention which was intended to be used to protect civilians during wartime, not to solve territorial disputes. There are many of us who believe that the territories that the United Nations is looking at are not in dispute at all. We have to remember when the Palestinian Authority, when it entered into the Oslo Accords, took a pledge and signed in writing that they were not going to use the United Nations as a tool for their cause. At that time, the parties that agreed to pursue a peace in the Middle East did so with an understanding that we in this Chamber have argued for a great deal of time, and that is that the parties in that part of the world have to, in their own best interest, work out the road to peace, not from the United Nations in New York, not from the Capitol here in Washington, and not from small towns throughout the United States and the world, but the parties in that part of the world. This effort by the United Nations, which we opposed, we in the United States opposed, is contrary to that intent. This is not a time when we should belittle the Geneva Convention. This is not a time when the United Nations should once again enter into the frayed air. I would remind my colleagues, the United Nations Security Council, this is not the first time that they have sought to take their shots at the State of Israel. This is the same Security Council that sought to equate Zionism with racism, if my colleagues recall. So it should be no surprise that there is an anti-Israel bias in the Security Council. But for those of us who care about a lasting peace in the Middle East, care about a just peace in the Middle East that all of the parties can live with, I urge us in this Chamber to stand forthright in favor of this resolution. This is not the time, this is not the place for this anti-Israel resolution. This is also not the time or the place for the Geneva Convention to be bastardized in this way.

Mr. WEINER

Mr. WEINER. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman for yielding time to me. A 15-year-old pregnant girl, perhaps with no parents to care for her, perhaps even worse, parents that harm her, what crime has she committed? Why do we seek to punish her more by making a criminal out of someone that would try to help that girl? She is already a victim, and this bill would victimize her a second time. I understand the passion of my colleagues, and the previous speaker in particular, in their opposition to abortion. But what purpose do we serve by forcing an exquisitely lonely young girl to go it alone? What is the political gain that my colleagues see in forcing her into an unsafe abortion? What crime has she committed that is so egregious that she would then be forced to turn away or not turn to someone that might help her? As we posture about our love and respect for America's parents, I would hope in our zeal we are tempered a little bit by love and understanding for the young victims that we also represent. I do not ask my colleagues, any of my colleagues, who oppose a woman's right to choose to abandon their principles. But I do wish that supporters of this measure would not use the plight of the most helpless to make their points. I dare say that no one who speaks today and perhaps no one in this Chamber wants there to be even a single abortion. But this bill, all it does is make sure that someone who is in that unfortunate position is forced to be in that position all alone. Some who have spoken here today have said, oh, this is an issue of federalism; this is an issue of due process; this is an issue of respect for local courts. But someone in a position faced with these excruciating choices, is it not also an issue of compassion? Should we not also remember that? Why do my colleagues insist on mocking the idea that perhaps a grandmother is a person who can show great love for that victim? Why do we scoff at the notion that all families are not like those we are blessed to come from? Why do we celebrate our churches, our synagogues, and our mosques, yet we would make criminals out of a pastor who would help a young victim? I urge my colleagues to oppose this measure.

Mr. WEINER

Mr. WEINER. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from New York for yielding me the time. Mr. Speaker, I have great respect for my colleagues from New Jersey and Connecticut and Pennsylvania who are fighting so vigorously for this, but we really have to wonder what indeed is behind this. It does not seem to be the substance of the issue. The courts are handling the substance of this issue as we speak. If substance had anything to do with this debate, perhaps we would have had a hearing in the full committee, or even a hearing in the subcommittee, or even any kind of a hearing before this came to the House floor under the suspension calendar. Mr. Speaker, this is entirely about politics, but in that debate about politics, we must not lose sight of some of the facts here. This is not about one State's ability to tax another State. That is done commonly. It is going to continue to be done even after this bill is passed. One State can tax the income derived in another State. It happens in States all around this country. The fact of the matter is that residents of other States who come in and derive income, for example, in New York City derive great benefits from that, great benefits that without this type of a tax structure they would do nothing to pay for. People every day come into New York City. New York City provides the economic engine for the entire region of the country. We are proud of that. All we are doing is trying to find a fair and equitable and balanced way to pay for those expenses. Now the courts have decided that the construct the New York State legislature has arrived at is unconstitutional, period. It is the end of the story. Yet we are here, frankly, throwing aside all of our concerns about States' rights, tossing all of our conservative instincts away.

Mr. WEINER. Here is what I do support, Mr. Speaker. I support this body being somewhat deliberative some of the time. I believe that this is something that is clearly moving its way in a very expeditious way through the courts, and it has ruled in their favor. Yet we are here instead trying to chalk up political points, rather than trying to deal with the real issue, which is how those people who commute into New York City pay their fair share.

Mr. WEINER. If the gentleman would understand.

Mr. WEINER. I yield to the gentleman from New Jersey.

Mr. WEINER

Mr. WEINER. Mr. Chairman, I rise in support of the Hutchinson amendment. Mr. Chairman, the gentleman from Arkansas (Mr. Hutchinson) has outlined for us in great detail how we are simply seeking to make the civil asset forfeiture law, make it a little bit more fair and to make it so it can be used by law enforcement authorities. But there has been some argument here about whether or not we should have civil asset forfeiture at all, and I would like to spend a moment or two just reviewing some of the circumstances that perhaps my colleagues have not considered where civil asset forfeiture is the only way to really get at the root of crime, and it is the reason why we have had such great results against crime in many localities around the country. First of all, criminal forfeiture, which is something that my colleague from Massachusetts has argued in support of, and frankly I believe we all believe that criminal forfeiture where it is written into the law is the most important tool that should be used against a criminal is useless if the criminal is either dead or fugitive from the law. If someone leaves the scene of a crime, if we are in pursuit of them and they leave behind a sack of money and drugs, under the argument that has been made here we would not be able to seize that unless, of course, we are able to reach a much higher standard than presently exists. Secondly, criminal forfeiture is limited to the property of the defendant, and just as I said earlier, there are very frequently times, especially in the locality that I am from in New York City where we have homes, where we have apartments, where we have houses that are used for illegal activity and sometimes even used for illegal activity with the knowledge of the occupant. But since the occupant or the owner is not the person that does that criminal activity, civil asset forfeiture is frequently the only way that we can get it. If an airplane that is used for drug smuggling, for example, belongs to the wife of the defendant or belongs to a corporation or to his partner, this is a way that we can get at that article of crime. Also, civil forfeiture is the only way to seize drug money that is carried by a courier when there is no way to know exactly which drug dealer it belongs to. Eighty-five percent of such civil forfeiture cases are uncontested. Without civil forfeiture this money would have to be released to the courier. Again civil forfeiture is the only way to shut down a crack house or a property. Civil forfeiture is needed when we do not, we are not, when we are seizing something under federal law when the crime has happened under State law.

Mr. WEINER. I yield to the gentleman from Massachusetts.

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

Mr. WEINER. I just want a clarification on the notion that there was no hearings because indeed there were.

Mr. WEINER. Our substitute passed 26 to 1 last year in the Committee on the Judiciary of this House.

Mr. WEINER. Mr. Chairman, first of all just a point of correction on a couple of points. We do indeed have an innocent owner defense in the Sweeney- Hutchinson-Weiner substitute, and as to the point that there were not hearings on the bill, this virtually identical bill passed by 26 to 1 last year in the Committee on the Judiciary of this House.

Mr. WEINER. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for yielding. Mr. Chairman, I rise in support of the Hutchinson amendment and with deep reservations about the base bill, the Hyde-Conyers bill. There is a great deal, frankly, that we agree about in this debate. My good friend from Massachusetts read a litany of concerns about the present civil forfeiture dynamic. It is broken. It is broken. I believe that the Hyde effort is one that is laudable and goes a long way towards trying to fix the problem. But there also seems to be emerging in this House a fundamental debate about whether or not we should have civil forfeiture at all. And I would argue that we should, and I would argue that it has been a tool that has been very helpful. I would argue that law enforcement agencies all around this country have rallied to the cause of trying to preserve civil asset forfeiture because it is vitally necessary to continue the downward trend in crime that we have seen. That is why sheriff's associations around the country have supported the Hutchinson-Weiner-Sweeney substitute. That is why the City of New York and Los Angeles and other places have all supported the idea of making it important that the Government prove its case but just have a reasonable standard. Now, since we have heard so many horror stories about what is wrong with civil forfeiture, I think it is important that we understand that there are many times where it is used in ways that I think we all agree it is important, like a crack house in the Middle District of Tennessee that over and over again was the subject of criminal activity. The owner of the house was not the person who was doing the criminal activity, but it was allowed to go on there. The children, the spouse, people in the community were selling drugs out of that home. Finally that problem, which was right next to a church, was solved by using this civil asset forfeiture. There are frequently times that the criminal statutes do not allow us to fully sink our teeth into what some of these problems are. I believe that the main difference between the Hyde-Conyers bill and the Hutchinson-Weiner-Sweeney substitute are the burden of proof that we set. We do not make it a burden of proof that is so difficult that localities who are now making this argument will never be able to use civil asset forfeiture laws again. We make it a reasonable test. The Government still has to prove its case. They cannot seize their property and keep it wantonly. They are going to have a tough test. We are going to have provisions in the amendment that provide for counsel. But we also make sure that these forfeiture laws remain intact so we can continue to confiscate contraband, drugs, obscene matters, explosives, counterfeit money and seize the instrumentalities of crime, crack houses, handguns, and cash. We have to recognize that there are times that there is not the direct connection between the person and the criminal activity and the fact that we know with some certitude that that is an instrument of crime. The Hutchinson-Weiner amendment will allow us to get at the crime problem while dealing with many of the abuses that the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Hyde) has correctly pointed out.

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

Mr. WEINER. In fact, I would say to the gentleman from Massachusetts, the straw man here is the argument that these abuses represent the true state of civil forfeiture law in this country. In fact, these things that I am listing are how indeed law enforcement authorities every day are using the civil forfeiture statute. The abuses that exist, and they do, they represent the straw man in this debate because indeed we all want to do away with the abuses. The question becomes do we then say by doing away with these abuses do we obviate all civil forfeiture statutes? The gentleman from Illinois, the very distinguished chairman, argued on the well of this House that it was un-American in some way, and all I am trying to delineate for the American people and for the folks in this Chamber; the fundamental argument has emerged: Should we have civil forfeiture, and I believe we should.

Mr. WEINER. As I reclaim my time, I guess I understand from that question and that argument that the gentleman from Massachusetts supports civil forfeiture in those cases.

Mr. WEINER. I yield to the gentleman from Massachusetts.

Mr. WEINER. Mr. Chairman, we seem to have a problem about the premise. The gentleman seems to believe that the premise of civil asset forfeiture is always to be punitive, to penalize someone. In fact, the way it is most often used, as I described in the examples, is if there is a crack house in the middle of a block that is by being there, that is by its very existence, because someone fails to take action, what the Fed, in cooperation with the city and State authorities, are seeking to do, is take that crack house out of circulation.

Mr. WEINER. If I can reclaim my time, what I am arguing to the gentleman from Massachusetts is that there are some people who have looked on and listened to the debate and said why is it that we should have civil forfeiture statutes at all? Why is it necessary that they exist in the law? The gentleman from Illinois, the distinguished chairman, raised a very interesting question about whether it is indeed an un-American thing to do, and what I am trying to do is lay out the ways in the real world law enforcement authorities all across this country who from A to Z have lined up in favor of the Hutchinson-Weiner-Sweeney amendment are using it.

Mr. WEINER

Mr. WEINER. Mr. Speaker, on rollcall No. 220, had I been present, I would have voted ``no.'

Mr. WEINER

Mr. WEINER. Mr. Speaker, on rollcall No. 212, had I been present, I would have voted ``aye.''

Mr. WEINER

Mr. WEINER. Mr. Speaker, on rollcall No. 215, had I been present, I would have voted ``aye''.