Floor Statements

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the gentleman yielding me this time.

I rise today in complete support of H.R. 1720, the Veterans Health Care Facilities Capital Improvement Act, which is a 2-year authorization bill that will authorize the Secretary of Veterans Affairs to carry out major medical facility construction projects to improve, renovate, replace, and update our established patient care facilities within the Department of Veterans Affairs.

Certainly it is not before it is needed. If my colleagues have visited many of these facilities, as our chairman has, they would know how badly this updating and renovation is needed. I want to thank the chairman particularly. No one could have been more gracious and helpful than he has been to me in my particular part of this bill, and I appreciate that so much. The gentleman is so dedicated to better health care for veterans. The gentleman is the expert in the House of Representatives, and I look to him for guidance on these subjects. He has been just great with this. As a matter of fact, I appreciate the gentleman's whole committee, both Democrats and Republicans. They are trying to get a job done for the veterans, and they are doing an excellent job of it.

Again, I appreciate the gentleman from Colorado (Mr. Beauprez), who is on the committee and is one of my dear friends and colleagues from the State of Colorado and who has been absolutely dedicated to this project as well.

As the gentleman indicated, in addition to authorizing $168 million for fiscal year 2004 and $600 million for fiscal year 2005 for construction of undesignated major projects, H.R. 1720 also authorizes the Secretary of Veterans Affairs to carry out a major medical facility project at the former Fitzsimons Army Medical Center site in Aurora, Colorado. H.R. 1720 would authorize this project to be carried out, using a total of approximately $300 million.

The Veterans Medical Center in Denver and the University of Colorado hospitals have been in a partnership, a next-door partnership since the Second World War. They have shared expensive and specialized medical equipment and facilities, such as surgical suites and imaging equipment and expensive specialty diagnostics and medical treatments; but due to the lack of space and the landlockness of the hospitals there, when the University of Colorado needed to modernize and build on a new site, they went out to the Fitzsimons Army Medical Center and began building in 1995.

Mr. Chairman, I offer an amendment.

Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume, and I will not take the 5 minutes. I will try to make this as quick and painless as possible in deference to our chairman here.

Mr. Chairman, I rise today to offer an amendment to cut by 1 percent the level of funding in the appropriations bill, which amounts to $893 million. As most Members are aware, I have introduced similar amendments to appropriations bills. The same tiny 1 percent translates to one penny of every dollar we spend. Some might ask what we get for this penny. My amendments would have saved over $3 billion.

Mr. Chairman, I think the committee has done a good job; but we do have a deficit crisis, I think, and we need to deal with it. I think now is the time to deal with it, and this is one little way we can approach that.

Mr. Chairman, I demand a recorded vote.

Mr. Chairman, I offer an amendment.

Mr. Chairman, I rise today to offer an amendment to cut the level of funding in this appropriations bill by 1 percent which amounts to $4.66 million. As most of my colleagues are aware, I have offered similar amendments on a number of the appropriation bills, in fact, on most of the appropriation bills.

I want to emphasize particularly today that this is not a reflection on the job that the chairman of committee or the ranking member or this committee has done. In fact, my colleagues have done a good job, I think, of actually allocating less this year than was done last year. So it is not a reflection of that. What it is is a reflection of my deep concern about the deficit that we continue to pile up.

I think it is important to state the affect these amendments that I have offered would have on the deficit if they would be accepted on all the spending bills. Just a tiny 1 percent cut to all of the spending bills, one cent out of each dollar, would reduce the projected deficit by almost 25 percent.

The practical reality of this amendment is that we would save $100 billion if we had passed all of these as we go along. Of course, we have not. I think it is important to state that some of us are very concerned about this deficit and this is the way to do it.

We have to draw a line somewhere. The budget we have for the next year is too large. We can do something about the deficit right now. By voting for my amendment members would be stating that the American taxpayer should not have to pay higher taxes in the future because we could not control our spending today.

Our budget should be no different from the taxpayers' budgets at home. When we have less money, we should spend less money. It is really that simple.

Mr. Chairman, I demand a recorded vote.

Offered By: Mr. Hefley

Amendment No. 6: At the end of the bill (before the short

title), insert the following:

Mr. Chairman, I offer an amendment.

Mr. Chairman, my amendment is intended to cut $600,000 out of the IMET account to prevent Indonesia from receiving IMET funding in fiscal year 2004.

As many of my colleagues may remember, last week I offered an amendment to the Foreign Service Reauthorization Act of 2004 and 2005 that would limit Indonesia's participation in the IMET program. It passed overwhelmingly here. In fact, it passed overwhelmingly in the other body and everywhere it has been offered. My amendment would limit Indonesia from receiving International Military Education and Training funds until the President certifies to Congress, and not do away with it entirely, it just says until the President certifies to Congress that the Government of Indonesia and the Indonesian armed forces are taking effective measures, including cooperating with the director of the FBI, in conducting a full investigation of the attack and to criminally prosecute the individuals responsible for the attack.

What attack am I talking about? My colleagues may or may not remember, for those Members who are not aware, on August 31, 2002, the staff of the International School of West Papua, Indonesia, decided to go on a picnic, a Sunday afternoon picnic. The teachers lived and worked in Tembagapura, a company town located high in the mountains near the Grasberg gold and copper mine. The group of 11 people, including a 6-year-old child, drove in two vehicles to a picnic site about 10 miles away on the road to Timika. Because it began to rain, they decided to return to town for lunch.

The road they were traveling on now is not an ordinary road. The road is surrounded by the gold and copper mine and is heavily guarded by the Indonesian military; and in fact, at both ends of this mountain road are military checkpoints which seal the road and control access to Tembagapura.

As they returned home, the group was brutally attacked by a band of terrorists. Two Americans and an Indonesian were killed in the ambush. The attack, which occurred less than a half mile away from an Indonesian military checkpoint, went on, and listen to me with this because it is astounding to me. This attack was a half mile from a military checkpoint, and it went on for

45 minutes, with no one doing anything to stop it. Hundreds of rounds were fired at the teachers and at their vehicles. Most of the survivors, including the 6-year-old child, were shot. Several of the teachers were shot multiple times and suffered horrible injuries; and Mr. Chairman, I could go on and on about this, but in the interests of time and in deference to the chairman, let me just say that every indication in our investigation so far by the CIA, the FBI, and even the Indonesian police forces indicate that the military was responsible for this attack.

But after all these months, we are getting little or no cooperation in the investigation. That is what we want to get to the bottom of. We want to find out who did this and bring these killers to justice.

Mr. Chairman, I would encourage support of this amendment. I would hope that my colleagues would accept this amendment.

Mr. Chairman, I offer an amendment.

Mr. Chairman, I rise again today to offer an amendment to cut the level of funding in this appropriations bill by 1 percent. The amount equals $171 million.

This is the fourth time that I have offered such an amendment in recent times. I understand the appropriators have a difficult time narrowing down the requests from Members and the administration for money. However, we have to draw a line somewhere. And I feel strongly that the projected deficit for next year, $475 billion, that the bills we are currently working on are simply too large.

We can do something about the deficit. We can do it right now. By voting for my amendment, Members are stating for the record that the budget deficit is too large and that the American taxpayers should not be burdened in the future because we cannot control our spending today. It is important to offer amendments of this type, I think, and have votes for the record stating clearly who in this body believes in fiscal discipline.

I have no doubt that there are good programs. In fact, there are good programs, many good programs in this bill. In many respects, Mr. Chairman, these committees have done a good job on this bill. But some of these good programs will take a cut. While this is unfortunate, our budget should be no different from the taxpayers' budgets at home. When we have less money, we simply spend less money. It is really that simple.

What we are talking about, again, Mr. Chairman, is we are talking about saving one cent on the dollar. I urge support of the Hefley amendment.

Mr. Chairman, I demand a recorded vote.

Offered By: Mr. Hefley

Amendment No. 2: At the end of the bill (before the short

title), insert the following:

Sec. 136. Total Federal appropriations made in this Act

(other than appropriations required to be made by a provision

of law) are hereby reduced by $4,660,000.

Offered By: Mr. Hefley

Amendment No. 1: At the end of the bill (before the short

title), insert the following:

Offered By: Mr. Hefley

Amendment No. 2: In the item relating to ``international

military education and training'', after the first dollar

amount insert the following: ``(reduced by $400,000)''.

Mr. Chairman, I offer an amendment.

Mr. Chairman, once again I rise to offer an amendment to cut the level of funding in this appropriations bill, to cut by it approximately $272.1 million, or approximately 1 percent of the total outlays of the bill. The reason it is structured a little differently this time instead of 1 percent across-the-board cut, I do not want there to be any mistake about it, that we mean that 1 percent has to come out of every single program in this bill.

There are some wonderful programs in this bill the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Hobson) has put together and funded. There are probably some programs that the gentleman would agree need more money, and there may be some programs that the gentleman would agree probably should go out of existence because they are not working very well, so they should be eliminated.

The way this is structured is if we cut these funds, it would be up to the administration to decide where these cuts should go. I suppose we will once again hear about the impact these cuts would have on certain programs, but this amendment is particularly designed not to bring that into play. It is possible that a 1 percent cut could impact some of the small programs. That is why it is left up to the administration to decide where it is to come from.

But let us look at what a 1 percent cut would mean to some of the programs. In the $33.1 million line item for the Appalachian Regional Commission, this would mean a cut, $331,000. I said thousand. That is something we do not understand up here because we do not use that term. We talk in millions and billions. It would be $331,000.

One businessman has said that a businessman who could not find a way to save a penny out of a dollar should not be in business, and that is what we are talking about with this amendment. We are talking about a penny out of a dollar.

My reasons are simple. They are telling us this very week that next year our deficit will be $475 billion. That is 4.2 percent of the entire budget, and viewed in that light, the 1 percent cut that I am talking about is probably not adequate.

As I said yesterday on a similar amendment, when I came to Congress, we had a $200 billion deficit, and all of us, most of us, many of us, were convinced that is something we absolutely had to come to erase, we had to come to grips with. I am offering this amendment to say this needs to be a priority again. We need to balance our budget. Good things may fall by the wayside because a better value, that of balancing the budget, comes into play.

We are looking at doubling the amount from when I came here, and we do not seem to be worried about it at all. Given that context, I do not think asking the administration to find a savings of 1 cent on a dollar is too much to ask. Mr. Chairman, I urge adoption of the amendment.

Mr. Chairman, I demand a recorded vote.

Madam Speaker, the Transportation Security Administration is only a year old but is already wasting funds like an old-time Federal bureaucracy. The agency that is responsible for staffing the Nation's airports with security personnel is also responsible for nearly $250 million of waste.

Given the new and enormous task of securing 429 airports around the country, there is bound to be some financial waste. But the extent of the TSA's largess is indefensible. It has overstaffed rural airports, paid security companies inflated rates, purchased more than a thousand baggage scanners with dated technology for a million dollars apiece, leased sport utility vehicles for $200,000 a year rather than lease less-expensive sedans, and entered into a contract to recruit Federal screeners that escalated from the original estimate of $100 million to nearly $700 million, all of this on top of last year's $410,000 expense just to furnish the offices of the director and his chief aides.

Madam Speaker, the TSA gets my Porker of the Week Award.

Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the last word. I rise to engage the chairman of the subcommittee in a colloquy.

Mr. Chairman, this week, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service announced it was proceeding with the development of new voluntary guidelines to protect migratory birds from electrocution and collisions with power lines. This is an important development.

For the past 70 years, the Nation's rural electric cooperatives have provided power to millions of people in rural America. Distribution and transmission lines cross many miles of wide open spaces and sometimes those wide open spaces are filled with migratory birds. Under two laws, the Migratory Bird Treaty Act and the Golden and Bald Eagle Protection Act, electric utilities can be found guilty of so-called takings if birds fly into those lines or land on them and are killed. Many utilities have responded by redesigning the towers for new power lines and locating these lines outside of known flyways. Yet birds continue to fly into power lines and as things currently stand, these utilities are liable for penalties under these two laws. Mr. Chairman, no one in their right mind, when these laws were enacted, would have thought that these laws would be interpreted in this kind of a way.

The Fish and Wildlife Service has been very forthcoming in a series of meetings with myself and my colleagues, the gentlewoman from Colorado (Mrs. Musgrave) and the gentleman from Utah (Mr. Bishop). However, we ask you, Mr. Chairman, to join us in emphasizing to the Service the importance of resolving this issue. All of America, not just rural America, needs electric power and this problem has the potential of interfering with delivery of that power.

If I may, Mr. Chairman, I would like to yield a moment to the gentlewoman from Colorado who represents the eastern plains of Colorado and has spent an

enormous amount of energy on this particular subject. She actually represents an area bigger than some States.

Mr. Chairman, we do need your help on this and wanted to bring this matter to your attention. You also represent a great deal of rural area, I am sure many rural electrics, so you probably are quite aware of the problem.

I yield to the chairman of the subcommittee.

I want to thank the chairman for his assistance in this important matter.

Mr. Chairman, I offer an amendment.

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

Mr. Chairman, I will admit that I offer this amendment with a great deal of ambivalence because the gentleman from North Carolina (Mr. Taylor) takes a back seat to no one when it comes to trying to get control of the spending of our Federal budget. I have appreciated that over the years and have worked with him over the years on this effort.

This amendment does offer an across-the-board cut of 1 percent or about $194 million. Actually I think this is generally a good bill. It addresses concerns that I have concern about, many things that are very important to me, many areas that I have been concerned about for years, including wildfire prevention and suppression. It has managed to do this at a level of about $186 million less than last year. I appreciate that. That took a lot of effort. It is still $110 million over the President's request, however.

I offered a similar amendment on the Labor-HHS bill a week ago and intend to do this on most of the appropriations bills, so it is no reflection on your bill. It is just that I want some way to express the concern. Last week when we were talking about this, we were talking about a $400 billion deficit. Today they have changed those projections and now we are talking about a $450 billion deficit and say next year it will be $475 billion. When I arrived in Congress in 1987, we were running a $200 billion deficit and everyone thought that was the worst problem facing us. I have devoted over the years a lot of attention to that. We finally did balance the budget, and now we have a deficit that is twice as much as we were talking last year.

I know that in circumstances like those we face with a sluggish economy and mounting war costs, that we need to show fiscal restraint and we need to show that balancing the budget is an important value and an important priority that we are still concerned about. It seems like when we have the excuse of the war and the economy, that all of a sudden we say, oh, well, we've got that excuse so we can continue to spend. I thank the gentleman for the good job he has done on this bill. I do offer this amendment and urge its adoption.

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

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

Mr. Chairman, I have yielded back my time, and I do not want much time, but I want to say the gentleman from Washington is using the oldest trick that government uses and, that is, when any time you try to cut something, you pick out things and say, oh, it's coming out of here, it's coming out there. No, it does not have to come out here, and there. It can come out somewhere in there where they find waste, where they find things that are not the top priorities. You set the priorities and decide where that is. It does not have to come out of wildfire or some of the things are more high priorities. But this we do all the time. Anytime you talk about cutting, this is what we say we do.

Mr. Chairman, I demand a recorded vote.

Offered By: Mr. Hefley

Amendment No. 2: At the end of the bill (before the short

title), insert the following:

Mr. Chairman, my amendment is intended to highlight a troubling situation in Indonesia.

On August 31, 2002, the staff of the International School in West Papua, Indonesia decided to take a picnic. The teachers lived and worked in Tembagapura, a company town located high in the mountains near the Grasberg gold and copper mine. The group of eleven people, including a six-year old child, drove in two vehicles to a picnic site about ten miles away on the road to Timika. Because it began to rain, they decided to return to town for lunch.

The road they were traveling on is not an ordinary road. The road is surrounded by the gold and copper mine, and is heavily guarded by the Indonesian military. At both ends of this mountain road are military check points, which seals the road and control access to Tembagapura.

As they returned home, the group was brutally attacked by a band of terrorists. Two Americans, Ted Burgon (from Oregon) and Rick Spier (from Colorado), and an Indonesian man were killed in the ambush. The attack, which occurred less than a half-mile away from an Indonesian military check point, went on for approximately 45 minutes. Hundreds of rounds were fired at the teachers and their vehicles. Most of the survivors, including the six-year old child, were shot. Several of the teachers were shot multiple times and suffered horrible injuries.

Ted Burgon of Sunriver, Oregon was killed and his wife Nancy suffered facial cuts and abrasions. Rick Spier of Littleton, Colorado was killed, and his wife Patsy was shot in the back and foot. Francine Goodfriend of Rockford, Illinois was shot and has a spinal cord injury. Steven Emma of Broward County, Florida was shot in the legs, buttocks, and suffered injuries to his back. Lynn Poston of Olga, Washington was shot in the shoulder and legs. Suandra Hopkins of Sunriver, Oregon was shot in the side, legs, and pellets around the eye and his wife Taia was shot in the buttocks.

Following the attack, the Indonesian Police promptly began in investigation. They collected evidence, interviewed witnesses and reconstructed the ambush. The Indonesian Police issued a report (that I ask for unanimous consent to submit for the record) concluding, ``there is a strong possibility that the Tembagapura case was perpetrated by members of the Indonesian National Army Force, however, it still needs to be investigated further.''

In early November 2002, the Sydney Morning Herald reported that ``United States intelligence agencies have intercepted messages between Indonesian army commanders indicating that they were involved in staging an ambush at the remote mine in which three school teachers, two of them Americans, were killed. . . .'' The Washington Post has reported these same intelligence intercepts.

Despite this intelligence, the investigation of the attack has faltered. The Indonesian Police have been effectively removed from the case due to their report that implicated the military. The two senior Indonesian police officers who uncovered evidence of the army's involvement have been transferred to new posts, and the investigation has now been handed over to a joint military police team. Not surprisingly, the Indonesian military has exonerated itself. American investigative teams, including the FBI, have not been able to complete their investigations due mainly to the Indonesian military's refusal to cooperate and its tampering of evidence.

The evasions and obstructions of the Indonesian military are wholly unacceptable, and it is incumbent upon this Congress to see that a thorough investigation is conducted. The victims of this brutal attack deserve no less. My amendment is, therefore, intended to ensure

that the perpetrators of this heinous crime against Americans are brought to justice. To the extent that the Indonesian military was involved, the United States should insist on criminal prosecution of all involved parties.

My amendment would limit Indonesia from receiving International Military Education and Training (IMET) funds until the President certifies to Congress that the Government of Indonesia and the Indonesian Armed Forces are taking effective measures, including cooperating with the Director of the FBI, in conducting a full investigation of the attack and to criminally prosecute the individuals responsible for the attack.

My amendment will not prohibit the United States from continuing to conduct programs or training with the Indonesian Armed Forces, including counter-terrorism training, officer visits, port visits, or educational exchanges that are being conducted on the date of enactment it would prevent future exchanges.

Mr. Chairman, this amendment is important. It gives voice to our commitment that the United States will hold accountable the perpetrators and protectors of terrorism. We will exhaust every means to protect our citizens. We will pursue terrorists wherever they may be and hold to account. We will demand justice for attacks against our citizens and withhold aid from those countries that do not cooperate in bringing terrorists to justice. As President Bush has stated, ``if you are not with us you are against us.'' It is time for Indonesia to choose who it will align itself with, the terrorists or the coalition of nations that bring them to justice.

Make no mistake, a vote against this amendment is a vote against holding nations accountable for terrorist attacks.

Mr. Chairman, I offer an amendment.

Mr. Chairman, I ask unanimous consent that we have 10 minutes for debate on this amendment, 5 minutes controlled by me and 5 minutes controlled by the gentleman from Texas (Chairman Bonilla).

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

Mr. Chairman, I rise today to offer an amendment that would cut discretionary spending in the Agriculture, Rural Development, and Food and Drug Administration spending bill by 1 percent. This bill, as it is currently written, appropriates $17 billion in discretionary spending, and reducing this funding by a mere 1 percent would leave us with a funding level of $16.83 billion.

I hasten to say to the gentleman from Texas (Chairman Bonilla) that I am not doing this as a recrimination of the job that he or his committee has done. It is my intention to offer this or similar amendments on almost all of the appropriations bills. I had an amendment such as this drafted for the labor bill last week, and somehow or other it got lost in the shuffle, and we did not get it on. But I intend to do this on most of the bills.

There are many good things in this bill, so I am not singling this bill out to attack. I do this in recognition of the fact that we should not be spending money that we simply do not have.

Current CBO projections indicate the Federal Government is likely to end fiscal year 2003 with a deficit of more than $400 billion. Instead of continuing to increase spending, I submit that we should exercise fiscal restraint and work to alleviate shortfalls. Yet we continue to pour money into programs with little concern for current economic considerations.

While I realize that some programs funded under this legislation are receiving a decrease from fiscal year 2003, there are still a number of programs receiving substantial increases, and let me just highlight a few of these programs. The rural housing loan authorization is funded at $4.4 billion, an increase of $208.7 million over last year and $45.7 million over the President's budget request.

Distance learning and telemedicine program loans are funded at $636 million, which is an increase of $256 million over last year and $250 million above the President's budget request.

Conservation operations funded at $850 million, an increase of $30.4 million over last year and $136.4 million over the President's budget request.

I am not attacking these individual programs. These are good programs. But I am simply asking, can we afford these kind of increases? Clearly, balancing the budget is no longer a priority in this Congress. I think it should be. So I ask Members to support the 1 percent modest reduction in this legislation.

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

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

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

Mr. Chairman, I would say to the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Goodlatte), I was not suggesting that telemedicine is not a good thing for rural America or some of these other things. I am simply saying there are many spots in the agriculture bill where you could find the 1 percent I think that would not hurt rural America. I certainly do not mean to make an assault on rural America.

For many years, every week I give a Porker of the Week Award for what I consider to be wasteful spending. There is no department in the Federal Government that has not received that award, and all of them have received it at one time or another, defense, which I am most interested in, and others have received it. There is no department that has received it more than the Department of Agriculture over the years.

There is 1 percent there. I would hope we would take that 1 percent out. I do commend the gentleman from Texas (Chairman Bonilla) and the committee on the cuts that have already been made. I just think we can go a little further.

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

Mr. Chairman, I demand a recorded vote.

Offered By: Mr. Hefley

Amendment No. 4: Add at the end (before the short title)

the following new section: