Floor Statements

Mr. Speaker, people who continue to believe that there is a conflict between historic preservation and economic development have obviously never been to New Bedford, Massachusetts. A few days ago I had both the honor and the pleasure of participating in the sixth annual public reading of Moby Dick, one of the great works in American literature, the opening pages of which are set in New Bedford. Our reading takes place at the Whaling Museum, which is one of the important features of the national Park which we established as a tribute to America's whaling history. Integrating respect for the cultural and aesthetic heritage of the 19th century with the economic demands of the 21st is a difficult job, but done right, is an extremely rewarding one for the people not just of New Bedford but of the entire region, and indeed of the state. No one has been more effective in working at this task than Antone Souza, which explains why the New Bedford Standard Times made him its Man of the Year for 2002.

I have myself benefited enormously from Tony Souza's tutelage in trying to help these efforts, and I invite all of my colleagues who do not understand how preservation of a city's heritage is not only not an obstacle to economic development but, properly understood, a strong engine for it, to visit us in New Bedford.

And an important part of any such visit should be time spent with Tony Souza, whose experience and expertise in this area so potentially valuable for so many parts of America is always available, because of his passion for what he does, and his generosity in sharing his experience.

Mr. Speaker, I want to join in congratulating Tony Souza on being made Man of the Year, and even more important, in thanking him for the enormous contributions he has made to New Bedford, and to our national heritage. And in accord with our rules about being clear as to any conflicts of interest that might potentially arise, I am proud to note that he is the husband of my Deputy District Director, Elsie Souza. Together they form an extraordinarily effective partnership in so many ways.

Mr. Speaker, so that Members can fully understand the important public policy implications of the thoughtful approach to preservation which we take in New Bedford, I ask that the New Bedford Standard Times article on Antone Souza be printed here.

Souza Synonymous With Revitalization

(By Jack Spillane)

If Tony Souza's ideas were like footprints, those

footprints could be seen throughout the city of New Bedford,

and even into the surrounding towns.

From the restoration of the Zelterion Theatre to the

renovation of the Grinnell Mansion on County Street, Mr.

Souza has, for more than a quarter century, fought the battle

to preserve the architectural gems of New Bedford's past.

The executive director of the Waterfront Historic Area

League since 1996, Mr. Souza is the latest in a long line of

city preservationists who have, over time, reinvented a

downtown that was once considered the worst section of the

city.

For his body of work, Mr. Souza is The Standard-Times New

Bedford Man of the Year for 2002. Nominations came from the

community and the newspaper staff, with a newsroom committee

making the final selection,.

It has been a rewarding labor for Mr. Souza.

``The first time I went in (the Zeiterion) after it was

restored and I saw all the kids enjoying the live theater

that none of us had the opportunity to view when we were

growing up, I literally cried,'' he said.

Mr. Souza sees himself as far more than a preservationist;

he says he's also an educator for the city's working-class

children, regularly going into the schools to talk about

architectural history.

Mr. Souza also sees historic preservation as a spark plug

for the community's business growth.

He gives the example of the Star Store's restoration and

conversion into a UMass-Dartmouth campus spurring shop and

restaurant growth downtown.

``Historic preservation is economic development,'' he said.

The past year has been a particularly successful one for

Mr. Souza and WHALE.

The nonprofit group, after struggling for many years,

raised some $600,000 and has stabilized the structure of the

Corson Building, a key textile-era commercial structure in

the middle of the National Park.

The most ambitious project in the past year was a private-

public partnership with developer Hall-Keen LLC to save five

abandoned downtown office buildings.

Urban planners believe one of the keys to reviving downtown

is to restore residential housing. When professional

residents live downtown, they says, the shops and restaurants

follow.

WHALE won three prestigious awards this year, one of them

from the National Trust for Historic Preservation for the

best managed preservation organization in America.

``WHALE has always looked at projects that no one else can

handle and assumes those projects for itself,'' said former

Mayor John K. Bullard.

``This takes guts, intelligence and lots of support. That

effort would not be happening, without Tony Souza's

leadership.

Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?

Mr. Speaker, I was assured that the gentleman said there will be debate on these appropriations. My only question is, in which fiscal year will the debate on the current appropriations occur, this one or next one? We are starting to run out of fiscal year.

Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank him. I am reassured because he just said something very important and precedent setting. He said when we debate the appropriations bills for the next fiscal year. We did not debate the appropriation bills for this fiscal year. So at least I will take comfort from an assurance from the majority that in the next fiscal year, unlike the current one, the House may actually debate the appropriations bills.

I submit the following for the Record:

As Unitarian Universalists, we are committed to: justice,

equity, and compassion in human relations; use of the

democratic process; the goal of world community with peace,

liberty, and justice for all; and respect for the

interdependent web of all existence of which we are a part.

The undersigned members and friends of the Unitarian

Universalist Society of Wellesley Hills therefore stand in

moral opposition to preventive US military action against

Iraq, for a number of reasons: It will lead to loss of life,

both American and Iraqi, both civilian and military, as well

as great human suffering. It will divert resources away from

pressing domestic needs, isolate the United States from many

of our allies, and increase anger against this country from

those who wish us harm. And it will set a dangerous precedent

of first-strike response by nations that feel threatened.

In opposing a preventive war and promoting a just and

peaceful world, the undersigned call upon the United States

government to: refrain from adopting a foreign policy of

preventive military strikes as a means of preventing war and

terrorism; find an alternative to violence and threats of

violence for resolving international problems and establish

the United States as a model international peacemaker; fully

involve the American people in democratic processes to create

and implement foreign policy; fully respect the inherent

worth, dignity, and civil liberties of all people; refrain

from justifying the taking of any civilian lives; and refrain

from jeopardizing the future of our planet by initiating

violence in the name of peace.

Mr. Speaker, on Monday night, literally on the eve of our swearing in as members of the 108th Congress, I spoke in Wellesley, Massachusetts at the Unitarian Universalist Society of Wellesley Hills at the invitation of that society. The topic they asked me to address was the potential war in Iraq, and I spoke to a crowd of several hundred people expressing my reasons for opposing a war in Iraq at this time. I was struck by the extremely large turnout--overflowing the hall--on a weeknight, and on a day when there had been a significant snowstorm, leaving the roads in difficult condition.

At the conclusion of the question and answer period, a representative of the society presented me with the attached statement, signed by approximately 160 people in the group. (I should note that the attendance at the meeting was much larger because not everyone who attended had been previously solicited to sign the statement.)

Mr. Speaker, given the grave nature of the question of whether or not to go to war, and the strong interest expressed by these citizens, I welcome their contribution to our debate and I ask that the Statement Against A Preventive War In Iraq presented by Members and Friends of the Unitarian Universalist Society of Wellesley Hills be printed here.

Mr. Speaker, I move that the House do now adjourn.

Mr. Speaker, I object to the vote on the ground that a quorum is not present and make the point of order that a quorum is not present.

Mr. Speaker, this continuing resolution which I think instead ought to be called this continuing saga of one budget's lonely effort to struggle into maturity is in part a continuing story of the majority's refusal to allow the corporate responsibility bill to go forward. There is some language in here finally that would allow the Public Company Accounting Board to get a couple million dollars in advance from the Treasury. That comes several months late after a couple of unsuccessful efforts that we made; finally the committee has done this.

But on the committee point of funding the corporate responsibility bill known as the Sarbanes-Oxley bill, this continuing resolution continues to refuse to do that. When the President signed the bill with great fanfare months ago, it called for an authorization of $776 million. This bill has in fact a lower figure than the original budget request as amended, and even if we throw in the pay parity, the appropriations level in this bill, as I last saw it, is more than $200 million less than Sarbanes-Oxley called for. That is $540 million instead of $776 million.

So the President signs the bill with great fanfare, and then refuses to fund it. The Securities and Exchange Commission was given a great number of new responsibilities, and none of them are effectively funded in this bill.

The bill also will continue a situation in which public housing authorities are in crisis. Public housing authorities were told by the Republican Party that when they lost the money for the drug elimination program that had been a specific amount, $300 million, not to worry. When the majority eliminated the drug elimination program, quite surprisingly to me, which made funds available to housing authorities to combat drug abuses in the housing projects by hiring police and other ways, they were told that is okay, they could fund this out of their regular, ongoing operation.

But this bill, this procedure, has shorted those housing authorities. So they, in the first place, lose the $300 million for the drug elimination program, and now they are given less money than they needed even without that $300 million, and already because of the stop and go and interruptions of the continuing resolution and some mistakes on the part of HUD, public housing authorities all over this country are going to be short of money. Elderly people are going to be looking for police protection and maintenance, and people are going to be looking for a whole range of basic protections and they will not be there because of the majority's handling of this matter.

So with regards to both Sarbanes-Oxley and public housing, this bill is sorrily deficient.

Mr. Speaker, I am sorry that the gentleman from Oklahoma (Mr. Istook) feels that we are unduly taxing his capacities by raising all of these complex issues. I did not think that the Sarbanes-Oxley corporate accountability bill came as entirely a shock to Members on the other side of the aisle.

We just heard that we are raising new issues. All we are asking for and all I mentioned was let us fund the Securities and Exchange Commission at the level this House and the rest of the government said was appropriate last August. It is not a complicated matter. I am not trying to raise new obstacles. The gentleman said this is just an ordinary bill.

I thought there was a decision by the Congress and the President last summer that ordinary was not good enough for the Securities and Exchange Commission, that we had to do some extraordinary things to combat abuses in the securities industry. So when I say that we should fund the level that we said we would fund, apparently for the gentleman from Oklahoma (Mr. Istook) that is too complicated.

Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?

The gentleman says it has been introduced, but it is not in this version here. It has been introduced for later adoption. It is not a number that is in this bill.

Providing more money than this administration asked for for opposing corporate abuses is not a great thing. What the gentleman from Virginia has said is they have now introduced a bill to be acted on at some future date that will carry out the funding level of Sarbanes-Oxley. But the fact is that we are now in our sixth or seventh continuing resolution and we have not got it yet. I am pleased to know that a bill has been introduced, but it does not do anything for the SEC now. Why not simply in this version of the continuing resolution put that number in there? The bill passed in August. The President in August signed the bill and said, ``I'm improving corporate accountability.'' Several opportunities have gone by to actually fund it at that level, and the answer from the gentleman from Virginia is, ``Don't worry. Hope is on the way. The Lone Ranger is coming. We actually introduced the bill.'' I never heard of a bill being introduced that was immediately implemented.

If, in fact, that is the right number, why not have it in this bill?

Mr. Speaker, when we have points of order, they are important because they establish precedents, and for that reason I intend, if the Chair rules in favor of this point of order, to join in trying to overturn it because I cannot think of a more damaging precedent.

What this does is to take advantage of the fact that the House did not complete the fiscal 2003 appropriations when it should have in the last calendar year. Thus we are now dealing with fiscal 2003 appropriations in a Congress later than we should, not just a year later but in a Congress later than we should. Because it is a later Congress than it should be, the 302(b) allocations expired. Instead of routinely reenacting them, the majority waived the requirement for itself in a rule and did not waive it for any amendment; so the precedent being set will be as follows: Do not get the work done on time, let it go over until the next Congress months after it should have been done; then abstain from the routine act that the gentleman from Wisconsin mentioned, give yourself a waiver from your failure to act, and do not give it to anyone else. So the precedent is that if you delay the appropriations bills, you can bring them to the floor in an unamendable fashion, totally unamendable so that when we complain about the underfunding of the Securities Exchange Commission we are told do not despair, we have introduced a bill and one of these days we might even act on it. Nothing could be more damaging to the democratic fabric of this House.

And I will say that I often, when an appeal to the Chair is made, will vote to uphold the Chair even when I disagree with the legislative consequence, but in this case we are not talking about a standing rule of the House. We are not talking about interfering with those rules that try to govern our deliberations. We are talking about objecting to a deliberate scheme to bring the appropriations for the entire government to the floor of the House in an absolutely unamendable fashion.

The leadership on the other side used to boast, the chairman of the Committee on Rules, about we always get a motion to recommit. This is a motion to recommit, an entirely germane motion to recommit on the substance that is being ruled out of order on this ground, and for that reason I hope the Chair will not sustain this degradation of democracy.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman, and that is true. But it is also true that we could have in this House passed those appropriations bills without any action from any other body, and it is a fact in addition that we did not finish the work last year that put us in the situation which the majority takes advantage of by denying the House the chance to have even a germane recommit on the motion.

Mr. Speaker, I move to appeal the decision of the Chair.

Mr. Speaker, there is a close contest as to which aspect of this bill is more outrageous, its terribly deficient substance or its antidemocratic procedure. As to the substance, as the gentleman from Wisconsin just mentioned, this bill continues the Republican position of complete and total hypocrisy with regard to corporate accountability. When the Sarbanes-Oxley bill was signed, the President quite proudly cited this as an example of his concern for increased corporate accountability. A key piece of that bill which the President signed called for an increased appropriation for the Securities and Exchange Commission so it could do the large number of new responsibilities it is given by Sarbanes-Oxley. Consistently since the passage of this bill at every budget opportunity, the Republican majority in this House has refused to make one penny of that available so that none of the additional responsibilities of Sarbanes-Oxley have been funded. This bill continues the pattern of hypocrisy, of having called for and signed into law funding for Sarbanes-Oxley to the SEC and not providing it. The President has sent up before that for fiscal 2004. Of course given this Committee on Appropriations and this House's track record, fiscal 2004 will not be passed until late in 2004, but even if it were to be in an unprecedented way passed on time, it will have been over a year and a half between the signing of the bill and its funding.

Similarly, let me warn Members that when they go back from here, they will be told by public housing authorities if they have them in their district and people who administer section 8 that this appropriation substantially underfunds both, public housing authorities for a combination of reasons, including the incompetence which has kept the bill from being passed in a timely fashion and the priorities of an administration that is in power. Public housing authorities will not be given enough operating money to run their budgets.

When the Republican majority at the President's behest abolished the drug elimination program by which public housing authorities fought drug use, they were told, well, that is okay, they can fund it out of their regular operating budget, but now comes the second part of that. They have underfunded the operating budget. So first they say fund that $300 million program nationally out of their operating budgets and then they cut the operating budgets by hundreds of millions more so there will be no chance of doing that.

So the Sarbanes-Oxley bill is rendered once again a nullity under this in substantial part. The public housing authorities are given too little money to do their basic operations, and there is not enough money to continue the existing section 8 contracts, and as I guess as an admission of the indefensibility of this bill, the Republicans have of course come up with the most antidemocratic procedure imaginable so that no amendment addressing any aspect of what I have just talked about will be in order. So we have I guess a synergy, a terrible bill which can only be put forward with an outrageous procedure.

Mr. Speaker, I would just repeat because people ought to understand that there is a synergy here. It is a bill so deficient in its substance that it can only be brought to the floor under an antidemocratic procedure that presents the substance from being addressed. And let me say Members of this body who vote for this rule and prevent any amendment, when they go back to their districts and talk about their support for public housing authorities that are in trouble, the elderly housing with the drug problems that they want to fight, talk about their commitment to Sarbanes-Oxley, will be telling people things that will be in direct contrast to their actions. Vote for this rule and you vote to keep the funding needed to make Sarbanes- Oxley a reality, you vote against allowing the public housing authorities to meet their basic operating needs so that when elderly people complain to you about the problems of heat, the problems of law enforcement, the problems of maintenance, understand that voting for this rule makes you responsible for that.

Mr. Speaker, I thought we had a doubleheader here, but apparently we have a trifecta. Not only do we have a bill that is lousy in its substance and indefensible so that procedurally no amendment can be offered, but it is in both cases so bad that the majority will not even explain or defend it. So the procedure is bad, the substance is worse, and the majority confirms that by refusing quite sensibly to try to say a word in its defense.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from New York (Mr. Israel).

Mr. Speaker, I yield 4 minutes to the gentleman from Oregon (Mr. Blumenauer).

Mr. Speaker, I yield such time as he may consume to the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Kanjorski).

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

Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?

Mr. Speaker, I had been asked as the ranking member designate and had no objection to it. So I do not know exactly what the procedure was. We had been told there was an objection on the part of the Republican leadership. We had been willing to approve it.

When I was consulted by the Democratic leadership, I said for this extension we should go forward. So I do not know, this is a different version than I had heard. We had been informed that there was an objection on the Republican side.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 45 seconds to the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Kanjorski).

Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Eshoo).

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself the remaining time. I will be brief.

I am pleased that we were able as the first legislative effort this year to have the Committee on Financial Services bring forward a bipartisan bill that is going to be accepted unanimously. There will be differences on some ideological issues, and I look forward to our being able to debate those in a civil fashion, and I think it is important to note the differences on some issues will in no way interfere with our ability to work together in a cooperative way on the great bulk of issues that are not ideological and not partisan.

So I, as my first act as the ranking minority member, am grateful to the chairman for giving us a chance to come forward this quickly in a bipartisan fashion.

I do want to note that there is one unsung hero in this act and it is an unsung hero that is actually criticized and is unusually in the position of a hero, and that is an entity called the Federal Government. It has become very popular in America today to denounce government.

The people who talk about less government generally are applauded, and we are told that we have to get the government to stop interfering with the private sector, but we are here bringing forward a bill that will be passed unanimously because there are some important issues in this society which the private sector cannot do by itself. If there was not a National Flood Insurance Program, we would have serious difficulties.

I should add that I agree with those who spoke earlier, the gentleman from Nebraska and the gentleman from Oregon, about the need for reform. That is why I was pleased that the gentleman from Ohio took the bait, and I was glad to agree with him in resisting a longer authorization. This is a 1-year authorization, precisely so that we can as a committee work on the kind of reforms that will be both environmentally and fiscally sound that this program can have.

Whether it is reformed in one way or not, it will remain an example of the government coming to the aid of the private sector in dealing with an important national need that the private sector by itself cannot deal with. It is not an entirely government enterprise either. It is an example of private/public sector cooperation, and on that grounds I am glad to have it.

I would also add just for the historical record, I have the Congressional Record from the last day. At least on the last day of the session in November, no unanimous consent request was made. So I do not see any record that anybody here objected to it, but the important issue is we are bringing forward this bill. I believe it is going to pass unanimously, and it is certainly my commitment and I know the chairman's to begin a process this year so that we can within a few months come forward with a bill that will have a longer and reformed authorization, and I will be glad to do that.

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

Mr. Speaker, this rules package is a very important continuation of the majority's effort to shut down democratic debate. The ranking minority member spoke about this rule allowing the chairs of committees to roll votes. Basically what it represents is a willingness of the Republican Members to roll over, to beg, to sit up and do whatever their leadership tells them, because what this does is degrade the possibility of democratic debate in committees.

People not familiar with the jargon probably do not fully understand what is being proposed. You will go to a committee session, a markup as we call them, and vote on the legislation, and you will offer an amendment to try to change things. Under these rules you may very well not know whether your amendment has won or lost. There will be a debate on the amendment and the Chair of that committee can then postpone the voting on that amendment until the end of that session. And what do you do if you have offered an amendment that might be somewhat controversial that has a chance to pass? What do you do if you could have passed the amendment if you have made a slight change? How do you then decide what to do next? Obviously there is no way you can have a rational debate in a committee if, having offered an amendment, you cannot tell whether or not that amendment has passed or not.

So what this does is simply ratify the Republican approach, which is all power is lodged in whatever leadership is in charge at the particular moment and the Members are to be excused from the irritation of having to think about it. When the majority came to power in 1995 they wanted to give it a proxy. They said the problem with proxy voting is that people vote without listening to the debate. They are not there. They vote by proxy. So they have now come up with a proposal that has all of the abuses of proxies and none of the efficiencies. At least proxies allowed you to determine an issue one at a time.

What will happen is you will go to a committee meeting. Members will not be there. They will troop in obediently at the end and vote as the Chair tells them, and it will have destroyed the possibility of debate earlier because you simply cannot logically legislate if you do not know what the outcome has been of these amendments.

Now the majority has succeeded in a number of ways in this House, during my tenure here with their being in control, in shutting down debate. I have to say that sadly they have had an accomplice in this, the media. We had wide coverage in the press gallery of our ceremonial oath taking. Now that we are dealing with extremely controversial measures that will further the degradation of democracy in the U.S. House of Representatives, very few people are here to cover it. So I guess they will once again get away with it. But the consequence will be very clear. The extent to which there is now rational debate and openness in the committees will be substantially diminished.

The Republican leadership is apparently willing obediently to vote for this rules package, although I am told that many of them objected to parts of it, to give once again their right to make decisions to their leadership.