Taxpayer Abuse Prevention Resolution of 2003

Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

I appreciate the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Gutierrez) and his concerns over this issue; and it is my understanding, and I am sure he will correct me if I am wrong, that after we spend

the time on the debate that the amendment is actually going to be withdrawn.

But it does not mean that the gentleman does not raise important issues.

The conflict between chartering and laws related to State banks and national banks is an ongoing one and, frankly, I have not studied it enough to know whether I would agree or disagree with the gentleman and his comments.

But I do know that this is not the proper forum to have this debate. This is something that probably should be brought up by the authorizing committee, because this goes so much to the heart of the very structure of the banking system in the United States. It should not be decided lightly. It should not be the subject of quick debate and superficial thought by this body. It demands long consideration. It requires hearings, and it requires very, very careful scrutiny.

The regulations which the gentleman mentions have already been in effect for a great number of months. Catastrophe has not happened. I do not believe that it is necessary for this House to adopt this amendment, and certainly, it is not proper for us to decide banking structure of the entire country in a few minutes of superficial debate on this crucial issue.

This is not the bill where we should decide this issue. This is not the time. This is not the place, and I oppose adoption of this amendment.

Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the last word.

Mr. Chairman, I just wanted to use this as an opportunity to notify Members who are listening: We are here on the floor. We have entered into time agreements for discussion on amendments, but the Members who are to present those amendments are not here on the floor. We need them to come to the floor to present their amendments so that we may move forward and resolve the consideration of this bill.

We know that we are not going to be able to complete bill consideration today because we have a short day so that Members can be home for Rosh Hashana observances later today, but I want to make sure that Members who have amendments are notified that they need to be coming to the floor. They need to be coming to the floor right now if they expect to present their amendments. Otherwise, they would lose the opportunity, of course, to do so.

Mr. Speaker, at this time, I am not aware of any amendments that are ready with Members here on the floor to present them.

So I have nothing further to add to my remarks at this time if the Chair wants us to wait a few minutes for Members to arrive. But I wanted to give that information.

Mr. Chairman, I reserve a point of order.

Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume, and I rise in opposition to the amendment.

With all due respect to my good friend from Colorado, I do rise in opposition to his amendment not because I oppose reducing spending. I wish the budget that we have adopted for this year was spending less money than we are overall. However, at some point, we make decisions, we develop a group consensus and we have to go ahead with that.

We made those decisions, Mr. Chairman, when we adopted the budget earlier this year. There were proposals for lower spending limits along the lines of what the gentleman from Colorado (Mr. Hefley) is talking about. I believe I supported those efforts, but we did reach a decision on what is the total amount of spending in this year's budget. We made the allocation to the individual subcommittees, and now we need to work within that particular framework.

If we adopted a revisiting of the amount today on one bill, then we do on other bills and so forth, that is fine; but we could do it at the next stage and next stage and so forth. We have to have a concept of finality. We have reached conclusions on the overall spending level for this year. Once we have done those, we need to work within those guidelines.

Secondly, when my colleagues want to reduce spending, as I do want to reduce Federal spending, it is much better to take a thoughtful approach and go through bills and say if we are not going to spend as much, this is where we cut because it is not as high a priority as some other things that we are doing in that piece of legislation.

The gentleman from Colorado's (Mr. Hefley) approach is not as good as that. It is an across-the-board approach. It reduces high-priority programs by the same amount that it reduces low-priority programs. That is not the best approach that we should be taking.

Again, we have made the decision on the overall spending for this year, and we should accept that decision and move forward with the appropriations process.

I yield to the gentleman from Colorado.

Mr. Chairman, I appreciate the gentleman's comments. I have a lot of faith in this administration. However, when we are deciding

what is high priority and what is a lower priority and, therefore, where our reductions should be made, I want to make sure that this Congress is involved in exercising our judgment, not only the administration.

Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Olver).

Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Chairman, I appreciate Mrs. Capito's amendment and the seriousness of this issue. When we talk about private collection of debts, we should understand that the Federal Government is already using private debt collectors in other areas. One significant example is student loans. I have certainly visited facilities where private companies are handling the confidential information involved. They are handling it with responsibility. They are handling it in compliance with all legal standards, and they are doing a very good job for the Government, not only getting revenue that we would lose otherwise if we did not collect on the debts but collecting on debts that the Federal Government was having difficulty being able to collect upon.

Not only is this happening in the Federal Government, it is happening in State government. We have a number of States that already use private vendors to collect delinquent taxes on behalf of their State government. Again, they manage to handle these issues of confidentiality in a very responsible manner. There is no reason to believe that a private entity is unable to do this.

There is reason to believe, however, that we have to do some serious things about improving the collection process. There is some $16 billion that the IRS says is not only owed but is collectible. However, it is not always efficient for the IRS to be the entity that does so. We need to have a mix of the people that are working directly for the IRS and those that are working for a private entity to collect these debts.

And for those that are concerned about our shifting jobs away from a particular area where debt collectors may be located, remember those same people can be hired in that area just as easily, in fact, sometimes more easily than they can in another. It is not a job loss issue for local communities. We have seen so often, when we make a transition to try to involve private enterprise, that often they will be in the same area as the public enterprise was located to collect these.

This is an issue that is, frankly, premature, however, because even though there are good reasons to go to this, we do not have legislation that now permits it. Mrs. Capito's amendment says: Do not do this. Well, guess what? Under

the current law, we cannot do it anyway. So it is not necessary to adopt an amendment to say do not do something that the law currently does not permit you to do.

I would like us to move in that direction. I will certainly acknowledge that, but we are not there yet, and it is unnecessary to have an amendment that stops us from doing something we cannot do at the current time. For these reasons, I oppose the gentlewoman's amendment.

Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, how much time remains on either side?

Mr. Chairman, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Olver).

Mr. Chairman, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Minnesota (Mr. Ramstad).

Mr. Chairman, I yield myself the balance of my time.

I want to repeat my opposition to this amendment. I think Members recognize that private debt collectors sometimes behave in an abusive manner. I think we also realize that sometimes government debt collectors sometimes behave in an abusive manner. It is not a question of whether that person is employed by the government or in the private sector, it is the question of whether that person is a responsible individual that is well-trained and is handling themselves with integrity. That can be just as true in the private sector as in the public sector.

Many States already use private debt collection and have seen their rate of collections increase because of that. The Federal Government already employs private debt collectors to assist in collecting other Federal debts. For example, student loans that involve sensitive personal and financial information, that is done successfully as well.

The amendment is not only something that opposes something which I think is a promising opportunity, but it is also unnecessary because current law does not permit the IRS to hire private debt collectors. Therefore, the amendment really accomplishes no change from the current law and is unnecessary. I oppose the amendment.

Mr. Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time.

I yield to the gentleman from Arizona.

Mr. Chairman, I would like to be clear for the record and inquire of the gentleman from Arizona (Mr. Flake), this means the gentleman is not offering the Flake amendment either at this time or at any later time?

Mr. Chairman, I ask unanimous consent that the pertinent portion of the existing unanimous consent agreement be amended accordingly to indicate the Flake amendment will not be considered.

Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Ryan).

Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Minnesota (Mr. Gutknecht).

(Mr. GUTKNECHT asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 1 minute.

I fail to understand how anybody is threatened by opportunity. When people say I want to keep the type of health plan I already have, they still have that option. They are not hurt by saying they have the options they have already and they have a new option; if they do not want it, do not take it. If somebody else wants it, let them take it. Why do we want to shut it off?

That is what the Moran amendment is all about, shutting off opportunity, telling people that if they do not like any of their current options, too bad, they do not get any other choices. The Office of Personnel Management has acted in a responsible manner to expand choices for people. We should let it happen. We should not have a knee- jerk reaction from people who feel threatened, for what reason I do not know; but there is no reason to fear what is going on here. We should reject the Moran amendment accordingly.

Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Sam Johnson).

(Mr. SAM JOHNSON of Texas asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from Connecticut (Mrs. Johnson).

Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Ryan).

Mr. Chairman, I offer an amendment.

Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

This is a simple housekeeping amendment. As we noted yesterday, the various points of order that were raised would have the effect of increasing the amount of spending in the bill beyond our subcommittee's allocation. This amendment simply brings the bill back within our allocation pursuant to our 302(b) allocation and with what we told the House before.

Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, I claim the time in opposition, and I yield myself such time as I may consume.

I will be brief on this because I do not think this amendment does any damage, and I will not oppose its adoption to our bill.

However, I think it is a mistake to pretend that it accomplishes anything. I know of no serious effort to change the definition of manufacturing that the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Brown) wants to make sure that we do not. But I do think it is important to address some of the other things that he mentioned.

For example, if we look at the fast food sector, typically, most of us see the counter. And maybe we get a glimpse into the kitchen behind it. Maybe, sometimes, we are there when a large semi truck pulls up to deliver some of the product that is involved in there. But there is a lot more that we do not see.

For example, let me tell you about Lopez Foods, a minority-owned business in Oklahoma City. Lopez Foods is one of the principal suppliers to McDonald's. It is a part of the fast food industry, but we do not see it when we are in the restaurant. If one visits their facility, one will see that it is a large, modern, clean facility, and it is filled with high-tech. You would not believe the kind of computer systems and mechanical systems that are necessary for the quality control to make sure the ingredients are in the same universal proportion for the product that is going to be shipped to McDonald's all over the country.

We do not see that in the fast food sector. It is a very different image from that of the smiling, young person or perhaps senior citizen that may be waiting on you on the other side of the counter. We need to understand that every sector, fast food included, has a supply chain. It has a logistics chain that is a part of that industry the same as the person who waits on you is a part of it. We need to understand that and realize that there are a lot of contributions to the economy of the United States of America that come from the restaurants that are sometimes demeaned with the term fast food, but it should not be considered a term of lightness at all.

So we will not oppose the amendment, but I certainly do oppose some of the characterizations that we heard earlier on it.

Mr. Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, if the gentleman will yield, as the gentleman is well aware and the gentlewoman is also, of course, the Department of Transportation, which is within the jurisdiction of our subcommittee, no longer has jurisdiction over transportation security issues. That is with the subcommittee that oversees the Department of Homeland Security.

I know that the gentleman from Kentucky (Chairman Rogers) is diligently reviewing this issue with the Transportation Security Administration and will be attentive to the comments that need to be referred, as the gentleman mentioned, to him.

The gentleman opines that perhaps we might be a part of the same package bill. I do not know that that will be the case, but I do know we will be in communication with the gentleman from Kentucky (Chairman Rogers).

Mr. Chairman, I move that the Committee do now rise.

Mr. Chairman, I offer an amendment.

Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Chairman, this amendment would prohibit the Office of Personnel Management from being able to offer or administer health savings accounts or health reimbursement accounts as part of the Federal Employee Health Benefits Plan.

Just yesterday, the Office of Personnel Management announced that starting on January 1, the Federal Employee Health Benefits Plan will include the option of Federal employees to enroll in high deductible health plans which offer health savings accounts or health reimbursement accounts.

A bipartisan group of Members in both the House and Senate have expressed very strong concern that these plans are untested in either the public or the private sector. For that reason, they should be viewed very cautiously in terms of whether or not they should be included in the Federal Employee Health Benefits Plan.

As Members know, Mr. Chairman, the Medicare prescription drug bill which was enacted this past December included a provision unrelated to either Medicare or to prescription drug coverage. It expanded and renamed medical savings accounts as health savings accounts. They are the same thing. Because there was so much controversy surrounding medical savings accounts, I guess they felt renaming it,

they will have a better chance of getting it through, but the same objections apply.

Health savings accounts are plans that combine a high-deductible, catastrophic insurance policy with a tax-exempt savings account dedicated for health care expenses. Health reimbursement accounts are similar to these HSAs except that they are not tax-exempt and the plan account credits may only be used for health care expenses.

The general concern is that health savings accounts and health reimbursement accounts circumvent the fundamental principles of group health insurance by dividing healthy people from sick people, putting them into different coverage options. Healthier enrollees tend to gravitate to the health savings accounts and other so-called consumer- driven financing schemes because low health care users, those who are younger and healthier, oftentimes more affluent, they are rewarded with unspent balances or credits at the end of each year. But the less healthy enrollees, the older enrollees, the poorer enrollees, they avoid health savings accounts and these so-called consumer-driven plans because they could pay out-of-pocket costs in the thousands of dollars. They are almost sure to use up the entire deductible, so it becomes prohibitively expensive for older people to use these kinds of plans. As a result, higher health care users use the traditional comprehensive plans. The phenomenon is called adverse selection. And it forces insurance carriers to raise premiums, to cut benefits, in fact, to squeeze the people who need health insurance coverage out of the market. They are not going to be able to afford the kind of health insurance cost that they need because they are reducing the risk pool.

Adverse selection occurred when these health savings accounts as similar plans were offered to public employees in Ada County, Idaho and in Jersey City, New Jersey. As a result, the county and city stopped offering these plans to their employees. They did not work. We have that empirical experience. The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office says that legislation introduced in the 105th Congress to make medical savings accounts available to the Federal Employees Health Benefits Program would have cost taxpayers $1 billion over 5 years. This plan will cost taxpayers $1 billion over 5 years and there is no offset in this bill for that additional cost. It is also projected that enrollee costs would skyrocket above the average annual premium increases. Obviously they are going to skyrocket because as you reduce the pool to the older, the sicker, the less affluent, it is a much higher risk pool and the insurance premiums are going to go through the roof.

Mr. Chairman, the Federal Employee Health Benefits Program has long been heralded as the model health care plan. However, the inclusion of these health savings accounts or health reimbursement accounts will jeopardize the quality and it will raise the cost, the FEHBP program will not be as successful as it has been in the past, and many people will suffer as a result. We should not proceed with implementing these untested plans without knowing the impact of these very high deductible health plans, what impact they will have on the future of the Federal Employees Health Benefits Plan.

That is why this amendment is absolutely necessary. It is essential for the future viability of the Federal Employee Health Benefits Plan. We should not be making Federal employees a Petri dish for these ideological ideas, Mr. Chairman. They have not been tested. In the few places where they have been tested they have not worked.

Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 30 seconds.

I would say to my very bright friend who I know feels very strongly about this, but the statistics that he cites are not with regard to public employees nor does it apply to the Federal Employees Health Benefits Plan, a very successful plan, one of the most successful in the country, where every Federal employee participates.

I would say to my friend that I do not know any Federal employee that has asked for this. Every Federal employee wants the system the way it is working now. I know thousands of Federal employees who are opposed to this.

Mr. Chairman, I yield 3 minutes to the gentlewoman from the District of Columbia (Ms. Norton).

Mr. Chairman, I yield myself the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, I appreciate the information we were just provided by the gentleman from Minnesota, but the fact is that none of the employees that he cites would be affected by this amendment. This amendment only affects Federal employees, and every Federal employee organization is in favor of my amendment and opposes putting health savings accounts, the same thing as MSAs, into the Federal Employees Health Benefits Plan. I have a letter from the National Association of Retired Federal Employees. This is their biggest issue. Don't do this to us. More than a million people are saying, don't do this. I have a letter from the National Treasury Employees Union supporting my amendment, opposing what this bill would do. The American Federation of Government Employees opposes it.

The gentleman from Wisconsin cited some other employees apparently that said it was a good thing, but they are not members of the Federal Employees Health Benefits Plan. Those who would be affected do not want it.

Support this amendment.

Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman from Massachusetts for yielding to me and for his leadership on this bill.

Mr. Chairman, there are several things that have been said that need to be clarified. First of all, this concept of medical savings accounts, health savings accounts, that is the same thing, has, in fact, not been shown to be successful. It has not even been tested. It just passed in December with the Medicare prescription drug bill. I mentioned two situations where they tried it out in Ada County, Idaho, and in Jersey City, New Jersey; and it was so unsuccessful, they had to terminate it. This does not work.

The gentlewoman from Connecticut talked about the need to be able to buy eyeglasses and dentures and so on. That is flexible spending accounts. We are in favor of flexible spending accounts. There is no problem with flexible spending accounts. That is not what we are talking about. We are talking about introducing a relatively radical new concept and using Federal employees as the guinea pigs.

The Federal employees health benefits plan has 249 different options, 249 different plans. This is not a problem with choice. The gentleman from Minnesota (Mr. Gutknecht), I believe it was, mentioned several public employees. They may not have the options. I am quite confident they do not have the options that Federal employees have. But the Federal employees health benefits plan is working. It is working better than any other health plan in the country, as far as I can see.

And now what do we want to do and why is this amendment so important? People who for ideological reasons, I think, more than any, perhaps to save some money, they are offering to young people, people who are the least likely to get sick, people whose priorities are buying a home, providing for their start-up family, any number of things, purchasing an automobile and so on, health care costs are not a big priority because they are young and they are healthy. And relative to the rest of the country, they are relatively affluent.

So it makes sense for them to purchase these HSAs. Some will because there will be a lot of aggressive marketing telling them how much they will save. But the deductibles are enormous. If they do get sick, if there is an accident, then they are in tough shape. But a lot of young people are willing to take the chance. I would have taken the chance. Most of us, when we were in our 20s and early 30s, take the chance. But that chance is not availability to older and sicker people. That is why the National Association of Retired Federal Employees has this as their number one priority. Because what happens when these younger healthier people choose these HSAs, MSAs, they pull out of the risk pool. They are no longer insured. And as a result, we have two different classes. We have the young and the healthy who are insured by these HSAs, and we are going to have the older and the sicker who are in the traditional comprehensive plans because health care is a much greater priority for them.

So what happens to these traditional plans for the older, the less healthy, to some extent the less affluent people, what happens? The risk pool is reduced. It is more exclusively the people who are most likely to have serious illnesses, and so the premiums go through the roof. They skyrocket. What we have done is to divide up the health benefits plans between the young and healthy and the older and the sicker, and it is the older and the sicker who will not be able to afford the medical care they need.

What happens to the medical profession? We are going to start squeezing. The same thing is going to happen to Medicare. We will start squeezing reimbursement because we cannot afford the kinds of premiums. We cannot afford to pay 72 percent of the average cost of premiums. The Federal Government cannot; so we will be cutting back. So doctors will have their reimbursement back. Everyone is going to suffer except those folks who are willing to take the risk. And one day, 20 or 30 years from that decision-making point, they are going to wish that they were part of the larger pool.

This is terribly dangerous, Mr. Chairman. We cannot let this happen. Do not do this to Federal employees. Do not do it to the Federal employees' health benefits plan. Support this amendment.

Mr. Chairman, I demand a recorded vote.

Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for yielding me this time.

Mr. Chairman, the Comptroller of the Currency's regulations, preemption regulations, are a huge expansion of that office's power. They exceed the OCC's congressionally-granted preemption authority. The rules effectively deny citizens the protections of their State's predatory lending and other consumer protection laws.

The OCC claims that it can provide the consumers protection equal to that currently provided by State consumer protection agencies. However, replicating the functions of 50 State consumer protection agencies will require an enormous increase in their budget and power. Congress did not grant, in any understanding of mine, the OCC unlimited preemption authority so the OCC could preempt all State consumer laws applicable to the national banks and, thus, become a national consumer protection agency.

Even supporters of this expansion should be concerned when such changes in policy are undertaken without the explicit consent of Congress. Expanding OCC's preemption authority should come only after a full debate and a vote by the people's representatives in this Congress, not by the agency's unilateral action.

This amendment, which is a limitation amendment, a limitation on funds, is the only opportunity to have this debate. Since stand-alone legislation is not likely to be considered by Congress this year, despite the efforts of the opponents of OCC's preemption to work with the Committee on Financial Services to advance legislation dealing with this issue.

Because it is a limitation amendment, while I agree with the chairman of my subcommittee that the issue ought to be taken up at the authorizing level, it is entirely appropriate to be brought up here as a limitation amendment by the gentleman from Illinois, and I support the amendment as a limitation amendment as entirely legitimate in controlling this abuse of power and this grab of power that, it seems to me, is not authorized by the legislation as it sits.

Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the last word.

Mr. Chairman, I would like to take this opportunity to say that the chairman has already indicated that we have a list of about 20 people who supposedly have amendments. And some of these have been planned for specific times, but some of them are open and have been planned for today. And if they have their amendments and they have been planned for today, then they should be here at this time.

But, in the meantime, I think it is worth spending just a few minutes in reviewing the situation that we found ourselves in last night. The legislation that we have before us is the yearly appropriations bill for the Subcommittee on Transportation, Treasury, and Independent Agencies appropriations. Year after year, this committee operates within the authorization by the Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure, and now, in this particular year, we do not have an authorization for at least 11-plus months of the year. And the authorization for most of the major transportation issues, which include the Federal Highway Administration, the Federal Transit Administration and the Federal Rail Administration, are all included in that bill which has not yet been passed. The authorization for even the extensions of authorization are only until September 24, just a matter of a week or so away, a little bit more than a week away, and do not extend into the fiscal year for which we are passing legislation.

So the Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure, which obviously has been trying to get an authorization bill through, and there has been tension between the House and the other body and with the President, with the administration, over what that bill should look like, have clearly not been able to make a bill that can be passed by the House and the other body and passed into law so that we could operate within our normal authorization process.

So, I think, while I am not sure of this, but in order to get to that point where they can get a bill passed, they felt it necessary to essentially eliminate all of the sections, all of the money sections, a total of $50 billion in expenditures which have to do with transportation procedures, and to eliminate essentially all of that last night, through points of order which, under our rules, were sustained, and therefore, $50 billion of expenditure for all of our important transportation programs got held up, taken out of the bill.

Construction dollars are worth 40 to 45,000 jobs per billion dollars of construction moneys. Not all of that was construction dollars, but a great portion of it was construction dollars; and so that has a very major effect upon the whole economy of the country.

So in the process, we have now a situation where we will not be able to do an authorization bill within the time frame of the fiscal year apparently; and, therefore, we will be stuck in a process where this appropriations bill itself cannot be completed, maybe it was not going to be completed, until some time in November; but it may not now be possible to complete it until some time into next year. Probably will not be possible to complete it until there is an authorization bill, whenever that happens to be.

So it has been a really horrendous kind of a process, a real failure of the

legislative process. It has been impossible to get an authorization bill prior to the appropriation legislation.

Amendment Offered by Mr. Butterfield

Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for yielding me time.

I, too, oppose this amendment. This is a bill which I had already indicated last night is very underfunded. Every one of the transportation programs in the bill, even before last night's activities of striking out parts of the bill, had been underfunded, and that includes, at least in terms of an inflationary increase, even the Highway Administration; but the Federal Aviation Administration and the Federal Rail Administration and the Federal Transit Administration are all below last year's 2004 enacted numbers in their totality, as well as the Treasury being in a similar situation.

They are in a situation where even before the things that had been removed last night had been done, the Rail Administration was $365 million below the enacted 2004 number. Under the Federal Transit Administration, the New Starts was $130 million below last year's enacted amount. The FAA's facilities and equipment program was $362 million below the enacted amount. The Secretary of the Treasury and the Department were $120 million below last year's enacted amounts, and the Internal Revenue Service was $107 million below last year's enacted amount.

All of these throughout the bill, there are those kinds of things which are already considerably more than 1 percent kinds of cuts from the previous year, and so I think that we are far from where we ought to be with this bill at the moment, and I am hoping the gentleman's amendment is not adopted.

Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for yielding me this time.

Mr. Chairman, I must admit that I find the idea of putting private, sensitive information in the hands of debt collectors very troubling, and tax collection is a fundamental responsibility of government.

However, in this instance, this program is limited to the effort, the proposal at least. And there is, as the chairman has pointed out, there is no legislation yet allowing this to be done. The proposal that has been put forward is only to use private collectors to go after what monies have already been adjudicated but not collected, that have just not been paid in after the judgments have been reached and the determinations by the normal staff of the IRS as to what was owed has been determined.

So there is out there for years people who have just avoided doing that. And it is not our business, necessarily, to go after them and waste a lot of time on the part of our staff in the IRS to go after that, nor is it necessary that there be any particular information, sensitive information, that has to be involved in that kind of process. The collection agency, as proposed, would merely go out and take what record is there of the determination of the tax case and try to negotiate a payment so that that record could be cleared. There are billions of dollars of that sort.

Now, that has nothing to do with the $300 billion of unpaid tax monies each year that are essentially evaded year by year, people who just are not paying what is owed under the tax laws in the normal process on a year-by-year basis. That kind of money is not involved in this whatsoever.

It is also true that the process has been tried a couple of times in a pilot form and has not been particularly successful. So it needs to be looked at rather carefully. I do not, as the chairman has said, think that we really have a problem, but I do not think we should eliminate the possibility of having that arrangement as a way that we can collect the delinquent, long-time unpaid judgments that the IRS has obtained over time.

It is my understanding, at least in the proposal that had been put forward, that there would be no effect upon the number of employees that were the regular employees of the Internal Revenue Service. So it is quite apart, but it has not been authorized and really does not require this. The amendment is not really needed.

Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the last word.

Mr. Chairman, I yield to the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Moran).

Mr. Chairman, I do not seek time in opposition. I rise merely to accept the amendment.

Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the last word.

Mr. Chairman, I yield to the gentlewoman from Texas (Ms. Jackson-Lee) for purposes of a colloquy with the chairman and myself.

Mr. Chairman, reclaiming my time, in response to those comments, I would address the chairman, that I agree that it is appropriate for the conferees on the Subcommittee on Transportation, Treasury, and Independent Agencies to be concerned about security, security for rail operations, which operate actually under the jurisdiction of our subcommittee, but as to the security on them, the primary jurisdiction does fall within the Subcommittee on Homeland Security of the Committee on Appropriations.

Mr. Chairman, reclaiming my time, I, again, agree with the urgency of the issue that has come up in terrorism, and I think it does appropriately ask for collaboration. I think is the word that the gentlewoman has used, collaboration with the other committee, and I hope that the gentleman from Oklahoma (Mr. Istook), within that context, that the gentleman and I might be able to work together as this subcommittee goes to conference since, probably, the Subcommittee on Homeland Security will be part of the same overall omnibus conference in that process and to make certain that rail somehow is not left out and that the security on rail is to our liking as well.

Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and agree to the resolution (H. Res. 109) urging passage of a resolution addressing human rights abuses in North Korea at the 59th session of the United Nations Commission on Human Rights, and calling on the Government of North Korea to respect and protect the human rights of its citizens, as amended.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong support of this resolution.

I thank our cosponsors for being a part of this, including the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Wolf), the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Pitts), the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Lincoln Diaz-Balart), the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Chabot), the gentlewoman from Florida (Ms. Ros-Lehtinen), the gentleman from Nebraska (Mr. Bereuter), the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Hoeffel), the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Wexler), the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Markey), the gentlewoman from Guam (Ms. Bordallo), the gentleman from Iowa (Mr. Leach), the gentleman from American Samoa (Mr. Faleomavaega), the gentleman from California (Mr. Gallegly), and the gentleman from Tennessee (Mr. Wamp), a good cross-section of Members, a bipartisan group, supporting House Resolution 109.

Mr. Speaker, the Government of North Korea is an historical anachronism, a totalitarianist Stalinist regime under the control of the Korean Workers Party, the so-called Dear Leader, or Kim Jong-Il, a man who demands godlike reverence and enjoys a decadent, opulent lifestyle while hundreds of thousands of children and their parents starve to death.

His regime, his dictatorship, Mr. Speaker, is one of the worst systematic abusers of human rights in the world today. Inside North Korea, there are no genuine freedoms of speech, religion, or assembly. The penal code imposes a penalty of death for a wide variety of crimes against the revolution, including defection, attempted defection, slander of party policy, listening to foreign broadcasts, and imagine that, one listens to a radio show and one can be charged with crimes against the revolution, and writing letters or possessing printed material that is considered reactionary.

The regime maintains an extensive system, Mr. Speaker, of political prison camps that hold an estimated 200,000 prisoners, including entire families of those suspected of disloyalty toward the dictatorship.

As confirmed by eyewitness testimony presented before the Committee on International Relations last year, camp conditions are horrific. Starvation, overwork, and disease kill most of the camp inmates. Others are used as targets for martial arts practice or as guinea pigs for lethal tests of chemical weapons.

Christians are tortured to death for refusing to renounce their faith in one who is greater than the Dear Leader. Female prisoners are not allowed to bear additional children, and their newborns are routinely and brutally killed before their eyes, usually by smothering or having their necks broken.

Based on reputable reporting, Mr. Speaker, House Resolution 109 recounts the abominable conditions inside North Korea and exhorts the dictatorship in Pyongyang to respect human rights for its citizenry. More immediately, it urges the Department of State to support the introduction and passage of a resolution on human rights abuses in North Korea at the current session of the U.N. Commission on Human Rights in Geneva.

At the State Department's suggestion, we included language that urges other members of the Commission to support that effort. While the Commission has censored numerous countries in recent years, North Korea has inexplicably escaped its notice. We hope that oversight will be corrected during this session.

I want to thank those 19 bipartisan cosponsors, particularly the gentleman from Illinois (Chairman Hyde); the gentleman from Iowa (Mr. Leach), the chairman of the Subcommittee on Asia and Pacific; and the gentleman from California (Mr. Lantos), the ranking member of the committee, for their support.

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

Mr. Speaker, I yield such time as he may consume to the gentleman from California (Mr. Royce), the distinguished chairman of our Subcommittee on Africa and a leader on issues of human rights relevant to North Korea.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days within which to revise and extend their remarks and include extraneous material on H. Res. 109 the bill under consideration.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank the gentlewoman from Guam (Ms. Bordallo) for her very eloquent remarks and my good friend from California (Mr. Lantos). We need a very strong show of support by our colleagues today, Mr. Speaker, on behalf of this resolution. The U.N. committee is meeting as we speak. This issue must be brought so the kind of scrutiny and, I would say, condemnation for these egregious abuses of human rights can be brought to the fore. North Korea has a horrific record on human rights; and it is about time the international community said so in one loud voice: no more.

Mr. Speaker, we have no further requests for time, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, I offer an amendment.

Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

I regret having to offer this amendment, which blocks funds to implement and enforce the OCC preemption regulations issued earlier this year. The last time we addressed this issue on the House floor was during consideration of the Commerce, Justice, State appropriations bill. The gentleman from California (Mr. Sherman) and the gentleman from Idaho (Mr. Otter), my able colleagues, offered an amendment at that time that would have prevented any funds in that bill from being used to enforce these preemption regulations.

At that time the opposition did not argue against the substance of our concerns, these ill advised preemption regulations that prevent State attorneys general from protecting their consumers. Instead, those opposed to our amendment merely put forward procedural arguments and indicated that this matter should be taken up under regular order, considered in the Committee on Financial Services.

We strongly agreed with those sentiments. In fact, 10 members of the Committee on Financial Services sent a bipartisan letter to the chairman of the committee as well as to the chairman of the Financial Institutions and Consumer Credit Subcommittee. In this letter, we asked for consideration of legislation to overturn the preemption regulations that I introduced in April of this year. This letter was sent 2 months ago, July 21, 2004, and we have not received the courtesy of an acknowledgment, much less a substantive reply. Therefore, we are forced to once again address this issue on appropriation legislation.

That is truly unfortunate, Mr. Chairman, because many Members on both sides of the aisle believe that these regulations not only represent a drastic expansion of the OCC's power but they also greatly exceed the OCC's congressionally granted preemption authority. Furthermore, the OCC's regulations effectively deny citizens the protections of their States' predatory lending and other consumer protection laws. While the OCC claims that it can provide consumer protection equal to that currently provided by State consumer protection agencies and the State attorneys general, we are concerned that replicating the functions of 50 State consumer protection agencies would require an enormous increase in the budget and the power of the OCC, yet will still deny millions of consumers the same level of protection they currently enjoy today from their State regulatory agencies.

Perhaps the most important question regarding the preemption amendments is whether Congress intended to allow the OCC to preempt all State consumer protection laws applicable to national banks. Clearly it was not the intent of Congress to create a national banking consumer protection agency when it granted the OCC limited preemption authority.

I thank the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Paul) for his cosponsorship in support on this issue. But there is still time to enact on this legislation before the end of session. After all, we are only asking that we have a subcommittee hearing.

Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, I yield 4 minutes to the gentleman from California (Mr. Sherman).

Mr. Chairman, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Olver), the ranking member of the subcommittee.

Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Let me just say that we wrote this letter on July 21, after we had the appropriations markup here on the House Floor. And it was stated by the gentleman from Alabama (Mr. Bachus) that we should go back to our committee.

Well, 10 Members, bipartisan, sent the letter and said, Let us have that markup; let us look at the OCC.

I just want everyone to understand that they have said continuously that local government, State government at the local level are the incubators of democracy, and we should let local governments do it because they do it best, and we should get the Federal bureaucracy less and less out of people's lives. Well, guess what the OCC, the big Federal bureaucracy has just done to every Attorney General across this country? It said, Step aside, we are in charge of consumer protection. That is wrong.

Lastly, just so that my colleagues know, you only can call them Monday through Thursday, Monday through Thursday if you have a complaint. I have checked all the 50 States and all of the attorneys general of all the 50 States. Fortunately, they work 5 days a week, some of them more than 5 days a week, with local offices closely accessible.

So I am going to withdraw the amendment but suggest that we are going to continue to have these debates until we have a vote up or down on the OCC and whether it can or cannot do this.