C. Young

Mr. YOUNG of Florida

Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Well, Mr. Speaker, I would respond to the gentleman that I do not think that is accurate. I did not leave the room to consult with any lawyer. There were two lawyers on our negotiating side. Senator Stevens is a lawyer, and the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Porter), the chairman of the subcommittee, is a lawyer. And as the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Obey) has suggested, we wrote that language for 3 or 4 hours, and we wrote the language, I think, at least seven times; but we all wrote the language trying to get us to the point that the law would say that the new President who is elected next week would be able to make the decision whether or not to implement these rules, and that this could take as long as until June of next year. Now, apparently some other lawyers decided the agreement was okay; and our leadership decided, hey, that agreement is fine, but the language as it was written in the view of the labor lawyers did not accomplish what we intended to accomplish. So on that, we have a little work yet; but we are working on it. It was also suggested that we ought not to be so partisan, and I really enjoy hearing the speakers on that side of the aisle talk about partisanship. I do not think we have raised any partisan issues. I have not attacked the Democrats; that is just not my style. I have worked all year, and last year as chairman, to have as fair and responsible relationship with both sides as I could possibly accomplish, and I think we have done a pretty good job there. Mr. Speaker, let me tell my colleagues who else thinks we did a pretty good job. The President of the United States yesterday in his press conference said: ``Again, we have accomplished so much in this session of Congress in a bipartisan fashion. It has been one of the most productive sessions.'' That was President Clinton who said that. Did everybody hear that? Just in case my colleagues did not hear it, let me read it again. He said, ``Again, we have accomplished so much in this session of Congress in a bipartisan fashion. It has been one of the most productive sessions.'' Well, I do not agree with everything the President says, but I tend to agree with that.

Mr. YOUNG of Florida. I yield to the gentleman from Wisconsin.

Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Mr. Speaker, that is correct. I would say to the gentleman that we did just that, and we negotiated a settlement that we thought was a fair settlement. It did not provide everything that I wanted, and I know it did not provide everything that the gentleman from Wisconsin wanted; but it was a compromise, it was a negotiated settlement. But as I started to say, under our process, then I take that product to my leadership, the same as the gentleman from Wisconsin takes to his leadership. Also, he communicates with the White House, and we do that as well. We have spent a lot of time with White House representatives during this negotiating period. But to say that we are both satisfied with everything is just not true. But here is where the rub comes. So much has been said tonight about the fact that the GOP torpedoed the deal, or ``budget deal torpedoed by the GOP.'' That is not true. That is a headline. That headline was not written in any conference meeting that I was in. And I think what it does is it just proves once again that we should communicate with each other, not through the media. Whoever wrote that headline, I guarantee my colleagues, was not in that negotiating session that we had until 1 o'clock Sunday night. They were not there. The deal was not torpedoed. Let me explain. Everybody pay attention to this. I want my colleagues to know exactly what it was that supposedly torpedoed the deal. We have heard so much talk about the language on the ergonomics that postpones the implementation. Now, in our negotiations, we agreed that we would allow time for the new President, whoever that new President might be, to make a decision on these rules; and we also at one point gave him until June of next year to implement or not implement. Now, we agreed on that; and we still agree on that. That is still our position. Now, where we had a bit of a problem is when the labor lawyers took a look at the language. They said, wait a minute, that is not what it does. So we thought maybe we better consult with our lawyers and find out how to write this language to make sure it does what we agreed to do. So that is where we are. The deal is not torpedoed. This issue is out there; and, of course, there are still some outstanding issues that have not been resolved yet that the gentleman from Wisconsin and I did not resolve during our negotiating session. But the deal is not torpedoed, I will say that again.

Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time for a closing statement.

Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself the balance of the time. I would say to our colleagues that it is interesting to negotiate with the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Obey), the distinguished ranking minority member on the Committee on Appropriations. He negotiates in good faith. We have some very strong differences which have been established throughout the years, but he does negotiate in good faith and he keeps his word. But to suggest that all of those negotiations have been useless and have gone to naught is just not accurate. When we do negotiate at our level, then obviously, I take what the product is to my leadership. That is the way the system works.

Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Mr. Speaker, if the gentleman would yield, I would advise the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Obey) that if there are any more suggestions of legislative terrorists or anything of that nature, I very likely will; but as far as the issues, we have debated them at least 69 times in the last month; and I do not intend to get back into that debate again. If there are some other outbursts like we heard here on legislative terrorists, which is just not acceptable, we would definitely respond to that.

Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I advised the gentleman that I would tell him if I had another speaker, and I would like to yield to another speaker now if the gentleman does not want to yield time now. I do so because the accusation of legislative terrorists cannot go unanswered. That is so far out of the realm of what is right, it is just not even something we should consider. But it was said. We did not demand that the words be taken down because we are trying to keep some comity here. We are trying to keep this on a basis that we are doing the people's business and not out here accusing and calling names. But legislative terrorists? That goes pretty far. I do not think that we can allow it to go unanswered. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Foley).

Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I have no intention of yielding at this point. If I do, before the time is expired, I would advise the gentleman in advance.

Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, I advise our colleagues in the House that this is another 1-day continuing resolution to make sure that the government continues to operate until midnight tomorrow night, while we continue to work away in a friendly, cooperative, bipartisan way to resolve the final outstanding issues before this Congress can adjourn. With that, Mr. Speaker, I announce to the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Obey), my friend, that I do not intend to have a lengthy debate on our side. And so I am going to reserve the balance of my time, probably until I get to my closing statement, depending on what issues might come up in the meantime. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. YOUNG of Florida. I yield to the gentleman from Wisconsin.

Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Mr. Speaker, pursuant to the provisions of House Resolution 662, I call up the joint resolution (H.J. Res. 121), making further continuing appropriations for the fiscal year 2001, and for other purposes, and ask for its immediate consideration in the House.

Mr. YOUNG of Florida

Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days within which to revise and extend their remarks on H.J. Res. 121, and that I may include tabular and extraneous material.

Mr. YOUNG of Florida

Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I move that the message together with the accompanying bill, be referred to the Committee on Appropriations.

Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I yield the customary 30 minutes to the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Obey) for the purpose of debate only on the consideration of this motion, pending which I yield myself 1 minute. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 1 minute just to suggest that if we want to expedite the consideration and if we want to conclude the negotiations on all of these final appropriations bills, and there was only one left, but now there are two because the President sent us this veto, we would like to expedite it and we do so by referring this veto message and the bill back to the Committee on Appropriations. I think it is as simple as that. I do not think we need to take a lot of time on this issue. Mr. Speaker, in the event that we do require additional time, I ask unanimous consent that the gentleman from Arizona (Mr. Kolbe), who is chairman of the Subcommittee on Treasury, Postal Service and General Government Appropriations, that he be permitted to control the time on our side.

Mr. YOUNG of Florida

Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days within which to revise and extend their remarks on H.J. Res. 120.

Mr. YOUNG of Florida

Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, this is another of the 1-day CR's. I do not think it requires a lot of debate. So I would like to use a couple of minutes just to compliment my friend and colleague, the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Obey). He looks wide awake this morning despite the fact that we had a long night last night. But at about 1 o'clock this morning, I think the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Obey) and I both felt that we had made some accomplishments in reaching the end on the issue of the last appropriations bill that is out there. Other than that, Mr. Speaker, there is nothing much more to say on this issue. We all know what the issue is. But the good news is that we are really at the end on the final appropriations bill. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Mr. Speaker, pursuant to the provisions of House Resolution 646, I call up the joint resolution (H.J. Res. 120) making further continuing appropriations for the fiscal year 2001, and for other purposes, and ask for its immediate consideration in the House.

Mr. YOUNG of Florida

Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Mr. Speaker, reclaiming my time, that is a good spin on that subject, but check the record. They were open rules. Mr. Speaker, I just ask for a vote on the CR, so we can get about the rest of our business tonight. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Mr. Speaker, pursuant to the provisions of House Resolution 646, I call up the joint resolution (H.J. Res. 119) making further continuing appropriations for the fiscal year 2001, and for other purposes, and ask for its immediate consideration in the House.

Mr. YOUNG of Florida. I yield to the gentleman from Wisconsin. MR. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, that is a distinction without meaning, because the fact is the gentleman says we were given amendments that we could offer under an open rule. But in fact that was a closed rule, because of the nature of the budget resolution, which was so artificially low in order to make room for your ``let's-pretend-tax-cut,'' that the rules were then used to preclude us from offering amendments that otherwise would have been in order under an open rule, and you know that as well as I do.

Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, I just wanted to make the point that all of the appropriations bills that we brought to the House floor were under an open rule, an open rule, and the rules of the House prevailed. I would just like to say to my friend, the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Obey), that when we did allow that extra time of debate on amendments that were not even in order, that is the courtesy we showed to the minority that when they were the majority party they never showed to us.

Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, I just want to reiterate, we could have passed a continuing resolution on Friday that would have kept us going until Monday night, and Members could have been home Saturday and Sunday in their districts tending to their district business. But the President refused to sign one that would take us until Monday night, so we are here doing it on Sunday to get to Monday night. So that is the real reason. Regarding the argument that my friend, the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Obey), makes about where we are in the process, the House Committee on Appropriations had concluded all of its appropriations bills in July, early July, and we had them all through on the floor. We had them all through on the floor, and 12 of the 13 were passed through this House. The 13th was prepared to be passed, but it was pulled off of the schedule in July, and we did not take it up again until we came back from the August recess. The House has done its job. But what has happened here, as the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Obey) has mentioned, is how many requests we have had from Members of the House on both sides of the aisle, Members of the Senate on both sides of the aisle, from the President of the United States, some of them just coming over, many slipped in the doorway in the last couple of days. So we have had to deal with all of these issues. That, plus the fact that we have spent hour after hour, day after day, on amendments to bills in the House that had nothing to do with an appropriations bill, that were not germane, that were subject to a point of order; but as a courtesy to the minority, we allowed them hours and hours and hours of extra time on those amendments that we knew were not even in order. In fact, in most cases, the sponsor of the amendment withdrew the amendment after the delaying tactics of using up that time. Now, that is why we are here. Let us be honest about it. We are here because the President will sign only a one-day CR per day, and we are here because there have been certain delaying tactics that have kept this House behind its appointed schedule. Now, we ought to get this CR through here quickly so the other body can pass it tonight and the President can have it and sign it in time for the government to continue tomorrow. There is another reason. Every hour that we spend on this floor now takes the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Obey) and myself, who are negotiators for the House, away from the negotiating table. We have Senators waiting in another room, waiting for us to come back to try to continue those negotiations, to go over the list of requests made by our colleagues here in the House, to see if we can agree to them or if we cannot agree to them. So these unnecessary delays are keeping us from concluding our business. That is one reason that the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Obey) and I, whether we like it or not, are going to be here until the late hours tonight, Sunday night, and probably into the early hours of Monday morning, if we are going to get this product completed and filed by tomorrow night. Mr. Speaker, I wanted to advise the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Obey) that at this point I have no further requests for time and will reserve the balance of my time so that we can conclude this CR. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. YOUNG of Florida

Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days within which to revise and extend their remarks, and that I may include tabular and extraneous material, on H.J. Res. 119.