C. Young

Mr. YOUNG of Florida

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

Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I thank my friend for his comments, but I think a vote of 420 to 2 is a pretty good indication of how the Members of this House feel about repealing that Spanish- American War tax. Most of the debate has centered around the other bill that I indicated earlier passed by a landslide, relatively speaking, because it had 14 more votes for it than it had against it. Now, on this Treasury Postal, General Government bill, that is almost a landslide, based on previous votes procedural problems were mentioned because of the adding of the Treasury Postal bill to the Legislative Branch conference report. That is probably not the best procedure, but we are a bicameral legislature. We have to work with the other body at the other end of the Capitol, as well as working with the President when we complete our conference reports. The Senate was of the opinion that they needed to add the Treasury Postal bill into the Legislative Branch conference report, so that is what we did. I would not have done that if the House had not passed the Treasury Postal bill. I would not agree to taking any bill and putting in another conference if the House had not already passed it, except under the most unusual circumstances. I just believe I owe that to the Members of the House to give them that protection. So I would not do that. However, if that is what has to be done on the part of the other body to get a bill through the process, then that is what we will do. It had been suggested that the IRS issue is a big issue, but I want the Members to know that we spent quite a bit of time talking about that. The gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Hoyer), who is my dear friend and I have tremendous respect for him and his abilities, he is great; and the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Obey), who is also my friend and has great ability and talent; and I know a lot of people that watch these debates might wonder, well, how do these guys ever get along together? Just because we have different opinions does not mean that we do not respect each other, because I respect both of those gentlemen. We work together. In fact, we sat down with the Speaker of the House before we brought this conference report to the floor and one of the issues we discussed was the issue of the additional money for the Internal Revenue Service. The gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Hastert), the Speaker of the House, gave his word to the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Obey) and the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Hoyer) that if we pass this bill, that he would be willing to guarantee that the additional money for the Internal Revenue Service would be added to a subsequent appropriations bill. Now, we talked a lot about that; and we were unable to come to a conclusion, so we made the determination to move ahead with this bill. We have talked a lot, and I know it was mentioned that maybe we should keep on talking. Well, unless the plan is just to delay the legislation and delay it and delay it, eventually we get to the point that it is time to end the talking, and it is time to take some action, and we think we are at that point. When we went to the subcommittee on the Treasury Postal bill back in July, 2 months ago, the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Obey) and myself, the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Hoyer), and the gentleman from Arizona (Mr. Kolbe) sat down and we talked with each other about several issues that were important to Members and had those conversations before we did the subcommittee markup. Again, prior to the time that we took the subcommittee markup to the full committee, the joint leadership, the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Hastert), the Speaker; the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Armey), the majority leader; the gentleman from Missouri (Mr. Gephardt), the minority leader; the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Obey) and myself, and the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Hoyer) and the gentleman from Arizona (Mr. Kolbe) and some of the other leaders sat down together in the Speaker's Office, and we talked about some of the issues in this bill. And we talked for a long time, and we decided to proceed with marking up that bill in the full committee. We have done that. We have brought it to the floor and we passed it. We have done a lot of talking. It is now time to take some action. This is a bill that I think meets the requirements, as we see them today. Should there be some adjustments? The gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Hastert) had made a firm commitment to the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Hoyer), and I know the Speaker of the House to be an honorable man, a man whose word can be taken as truth. If he gives his word, he keeps his word. He made a commitment to the gentleman from Maryland of what he would be willing to do on a subsequent bill to make this bill more attractive to the minority party. So I would hope, Mr. Speaker, that we would reject the motion to recommit, and I am told it will be a clean motion to recommit; there will be no instructions. I would say to the gentleman from Maryland I appreciate that, because I believe that that does save us some time here today, and we do have some other appropriations issues to deal with, such as appointing conferees on other bills that we can get into conference and bring back to the House. But reject the motion to recommit the bill, and then let us pass the bill. Now, if it goes to the White House and the President decides he wants to veto it, so be it. We will deal with that. But as of today, the President and no one in the White House has been willing to tell the subcommittee chairman of this bill that he would veto the bill. Neither the President nor any of his staff has told the chairman of the full committee, this Member, that he would veto this bill. Just this morning, the Speaker of the House communicated with the White House. He was not told that the President would veto this bill. So we are proceeding in good faith. We think that we have worked out a bill here that meets our responsibilities and does it in a very effective way. So, Mr. Speaker, I hope that we can get on to passage of this bill, and then get to work on the other conference reports that have to be considered and get them to the President so that he has adequate time to consider them before the fiscal year expires at the end of September. So I ask all of my colleagues to vote for this bill.

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

Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself the balance of the time. Mr. Speaker, this conference report included, as I said in my opening remarks, three different sections. One is the repeal of the Spanish- American War excise tax on telephone costs which passed this House by a vote of 420 to 2. So I take it that the substance of this portion of this legislation is not an issue. The Legislative Branch appropriations part of this package passed the House 373 to 50.

Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Arizona (Mr. Kolbe).

Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I yield such time as he may consume to the distinguished gentleman from Arizona (Mr. Kolbe), the chairman of the Subcommittee on Treasury, Postal Service and General Government.

Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I yield 5 minutes to the gentleman from North Carolina (Mr. Taylor), who chairs the Subcommittee on Legislative Branch Appropriations, which is the primary vehicle for this conference report.

Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, I am very happy to bring this conference report to the House. It was ready for consideration by the House before we recessed for our respective political conventions. But because of the schedule, we are just now getting to it today. The conference report includes three bills that have already been passed by the House. As my colleagues know, Mr. Speaker, the House has passed all 13 of our appropriations bills. We also passed the major supplemental that was requested by the President this year. We have already considered the conference report on that supplemental and on the Defense appropriations bill and the Military Construction appropriations bill. And so, we are on the move here. I am happy to report that this conference report includes the Legislative Branch appropriations bill and also the Treasury Postal bill, which funds in part the executive offices of the Executive Branch of Government, including the White House. It also includes a bill that was passed in the House by a vote of 420-2 on repeal of the Spanish-American War tax on telephone services. And so, we have those three bills that passed the House with substantial votes included in this conference report. Even the Treasury Postal bill passed the House by a vote that could be considered a landslide relative to previous votes. We passed that bill by a vote of 216-202. That is a lot better vote than we usually get on that bill. Nevertheless, we have worked hard with our counterparts in the other body, and we bring this conference report today. Mr. Speaker, I include for the Record the following table for the Treasury and General Government Appropriations Bill, 2001: [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] TH14SE00.001 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] TH14SE00.002 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] TH14SE00.003 Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Mr. Speaker, pursuant to House Resolution 565, I call up the conference report on the bill (H.R. 4516) making appropriations for the legislative branch for the fiscal year ending September 30, 2001, and for other purposes.

Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I yield back 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 regarding consideration of the conference report to accompany H.R. 4516 and that the gentleman from North Carolina (Mr. Taylor) and the gentleman from Arizona (Mr. Kolbe) may include tabular and extraneous material.

Mr. YOUNG of Florida

Mr. YOUNG of Florida. If the gentleman would yield, I think he knows that under the unanimous consent agreement that we reached yesterday that we are close to the end of completion of that bill. So it is certainly my hope that we can complete that bill and get it on to the Senate. That is the final appropriations bill to leave the House, and then we can turn our attention to the conference reports so that we can complete the process to send it to the White House.

Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?

Mr. YOUNG of Florida. I would suggest to the gentleman that I have not heard that rumor.

Mr. YOUNG of Florida. I thank my friend for yielding to me, and when I made this announcement, I did not intend to start the debate on the conference report. I merely wanted to allow the Members to know where they could see copies of this bill, so that when we get to that debate, no one would have the excuse of, well, I did not have a chance to see the bill; that was the only purpose, not to start the debate now, but to tell Members where they can see copies of this conference report so they can vote intelligently.

Mr. YOUNG of Florida

Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I rise to make an announcement relative to the appropriations schedule for the day. Mr. Speaker, at the direction of the leadership, the House and Senate appropriators and appropriations staff worked all through the night and have prepared the conference report on the legislative branch appropriations bill as well as the Treasury-Postal appropriations bill. That was filed this morning at approximately 7 a.m. Then, after the appropriators worked all night, the Committee on Rules worked for a good portion of the night and submitted a rule. We will take that conference report up sometime today, probably after we complete the consideration of our last appropriations bill for the District of Columbia. But the announcement I wanted to make is that the copies of the bill will be on the House Committee on Rules Web site and should be there now and also on the House Clerk's Office Web site so that Members will have an opportunity to look at the entire conference report. In addition, a summary on printed hard copy will be available in the Appropriations office so Members will have ample opportunity to look at the conference report prior to the time they are called on to vote.

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

Mr. YOUNG of Florida. I made the announcement so Members will have opportunity to review the entire report and to find areas they like and areas they do not like, and then we will pass the conference report.

Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Yes.

Mr. YOUNG of Florida. It is my understanding that the D.C. bill will be completed today. We are very close to completion on that bill.

Mr. YOUNG of Florida. They are not in the conference report.

Mr. YOUNG of Florida

Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Mr. Chairman, I yield 4 minutes to the distinguished gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Davis).

Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Mr. Chairman, I rise in support of the bill. I want to compliment the chairman and members of the subcommittee. This was not an easy bill to bring before the subcommittee or the full committee. There were considerable differences of opinion, to say the least. However, I am happy to report to our colleagues the good news. This is the final appropriations bill to go through the House of Representatives in this phase of our appropriations process. Not only is this number 13, but the House has already concluded work on the Supplemental. We have conferenced the Supplemental. We have conferenced the Military Construction appropriations bill. We have conferenced the Defense Appropriations bill. And several other conferences are under way as we speak. So we are moving right along. I think the Members will be happy to hear that this is the final bill, this is the 13th bill. I wanted to say something about the process. The gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Moran) when he spoke earlier talked about treating the Democratic amendments one way and Republican amendments another way. I will say to our colleagues that during the entire process on this bill and every other bill we have treated both Republicans and Democrats the same way. If an amendment was germane to the bill, we debated the amendment as much time as the Members wanted. And on occasion that was a lot of time. But we took whatever time was necessary to give everybody a fair opportunity to present their views and to support or oppose the amendments that were before the committee. Here in the House, on each of those amendments that we knew were subject to a point of order, we allowed the Member who sponsored that amendment sufficient time to explain the amendment before we ever pressed for the point of order. So I think we have bent over backwards. I served here for a long time in the minority, and I do not recall that ever happening to one of our amendments when we were in the minority. If there was a point of order lying, the point of order was raised and the amendment was stricken at that point. In fact, on one occasion, just a few days ago, we allowed 3 hours of debate under unanimous consent on an amendment offered by the Democratic side of the House knowing full well that it was subject to a point of order. The sponsor of the amendment knew that it was subject to a point of order, but yet we allowed 3 hours of debate. Now, how the gentleman could suggest that we have treated Democrats differently than Republicans I do not know. But we have bent over backwards to be extremely fair to both sides of the aisle. And what is fair for one side is fair for the other. I hope that we can resolve these differences today, Mr. Chairman; and I hope that we can pass this bill and let the appropriators get busy with the conference meetings with the other body so we can conclude our appropriations business well ahead of the beginning of the fiscal year.

Mr. YOUNG of Florida

Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of this bill. It is a good bill. The chairman and the ranking member and all the members of the subcommittee have done an outstanding job in bringing it to us originally, and bringing it to us from the conference committee. There has already been more than enough debate on this issue of our Nation's security on this particular bill. I urge the Members to support it very strongly.

Mr. YOUNG of Florida

Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the last last word. Mr. Chairman, I want to compliment the gentleman from Alabama (Mr. Callahan), as has so many other of my colleagues, for the tremendous job that he has done shepherding this bill through the process, getting us through the subcommittee and the full committee, and getting to first base here in the House. We will move on, then, to the other body. We will round second, then we will round third, and we will come home with a bill that is probably not as perfect as the gentleman from Alabama (Mr. Callahan) said that it was, but it is a bill that has to be passed. I also want to compliment the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Obey) and the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Pelosi) for the role that they have played, and I thank all of the Members who took part in this great debate all day yesterday and most of today. We have talked about a lot of issues. Some of them even were about appropriations, believe it or not. Most of them were authorizing issues. But, nevertheless, this was a good vehicle. We had good debate. For the most part, the Members were very respectful of each other and that is great. The gentleman from Alabama (Mr. Callahan) will play a major role in the balance of this Congress and in the next Congress and as many Congresses as he chooses to be here, because he is an obvious leader, and he is recognized as such. His ability to move this bill, which is one of the most difficult bills to pass, is proof positive of what I have said. I want to compliment all of our colleagues in the House, Mr. Chairman, because this, believe it or not, is the 11th appropriations bill. This is only July. This is the 11th appropriations bill that will go through the House not including the supplemental, which we have already passed and conferenced earlier. So I am proud of this House of Representatives. The differences are obvious. That is why there is 435 of us to express these differences. But this House has done a good job in meeting its constitutional responsibility to move appropriations bills. With that, Mr. Chairman, again, I want to compliment the gentleman from Alabama (Chairman Callahan) for an outstanding job, and I guarantee him that he is going to be chairman of something very, very important. In response to the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Obey), we are hoping that he continues to be the ranking minority member for a long time, emphasis on ``minority.'' Mr. Chairman, I ask the Members to oppose the motion of the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Obey) to recommit this bill and to get to final passage and send the bill on to the other body. Amendment Offered by Mr. Bereuter