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2000 EMERGENCY SUPPLEMENTAL APPROPRIATIONS ACT
(House of Representatives - March 29, 2000)

Text of this article available as: TXT PDF [Pages H1495-H1585] 2000 EMERGENCY SUPPLEMENTAL APPROPRIATIONS ACT The SPEAKER pro tempore. Pursuant to House Resolution 450 and rule XVIII, the Chair declares the House in the Committee of the Whole House on the State of the Union for the consideration of the bill, H.R. 3908. {time} 1232 In the Committee of the Whole Accordingly, the House resolved itself into the Committee of the Whole House on the State of the Union for the consideration of the bill (H.R. 3908) making emergency supplemental appropriations for the fiscal year ending September 30, 2000, and for other purposes, with Mr. Thornberry in the chair. The Clerk read the title of the bill. The CHAIRMAN. Pursuant to the rule, the bill is considered as having been read the first time. Under the rule, the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Young) and the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Obey) each will control 30 minutes. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Young). Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. (Mr. YOUNG of Florida asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.) Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Mr. Chairman, I am pleased to bring to the House today the 2000 Emergency Supplemental Appropriations bill. The Committee on Appropriations ordered this legislation reported by a nearly three to one bipartisan vote. It is reflective of a compilation of input from many sources on a large spectrum of issues. The request was thoroughly reviewed, hearings were held, input from Members outside the committee was received, and our committee painstakingly marked up the bill. The result of all of this is the bill before us. The bill includes $1.7 billion for counternarcotics activities in the Colombian and Andean region. By and large, the bill provides what the President requested for Colombia. In addition, the bill takes a more regional approach by providing increased help to the anti-drug efforts of Colombia's neighbors. Before any of the funds going to South America can be spent, the Secretary of State is to report on how the money will be used. The bill also funds high priority anti-drug activities in the Departments of Justice and Defense. Also included in this bill is nearly $5 billion for national security matters. The President's emergency request for $2 billion for operations in Kosovo and East Timor is met. I must remind our colleagues that this money replenishes funds that have already been spent for both of these operations. In fact, the money has been spent and borrowed from the fourth quarter operations and maintenance accounts of all of the military services. So that money has to be repaid, or the training activities in the fourth quarter of the fiscal year for our Nation's military will have to stand down dramatically. This bill also includes $1.6 billion to help cover increasing fuel costs facing the Defense Department. As we drive up to the gas tanks and fill up our cars, we see a tremendous increase in the cost of fuel. The ships that we drive, the airplanes that we fly, the trucks and the tanks that we drive, all of these things that use fuel are experiencing the same thing. So we do provide the money to make up for the increased fuel costs. The bill also includes $854.5 million to the financially troubled Defense Health Program, a health program that promises medical care for members of the military, their families, and those retirees who are eligible for military medical care. There are doctors, there are nurses, there are pharmacies, and there are medical people who provide medical care who have provided their services but have not been paid. We are in arrears to at least that amount of money. So we include it in this bill. The President did not request these two items; but they are urgently needed, and we will have to provide the money sooner or later. In the natural disaster and other emergencies areas, the bill includes $2.2 billion. This includes $400 million for USDA administered agriculture assistance, $250 million for wildland fire management, $600 million for LIHEAP, Low Income Home Energy Assistance, and $600 million for emergency highway reimbursements to States. Mr. Chairman, the committee tried to clean up all of the loose ends that we had relative to hurricane and flood disasters in the last year, and we believe this bill does complete all our responsibilities and obligations here. There are many other important issues addressed in the bill. The report provides a very complete description of them. The bill is somewhat difficult and a little controversial in places, and I respect the fact that there are multiple opinions on the bill. But I think the Committee on Appropriations listened to and respected the differing positions on the various provisions in the bill, including the strong support of the President of the United States. However, as usual with an appropriations bill, we could not report a bill that included everyone's position. Now the bill is before the entire House for consideration. It is important that we move this bill through the House today and we get it to the other body where deliberations can begin. We need to get this off of our schedules today because, Mr. Chairman, we have 13 other appropriations bills that we are trying to bring to this House in regular order and ahead of last year's schedule and certainly the year before's schedule, because this is a busy year for Members of Congress because of our national conventions, home work periods. So we need to get this bill out of here, get it into the negotiation with the other body. At this point in the Record, I would like to insert a table showing the details of this bill, as reported. [The table follows:] [[Page H1496]] [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T29MR00.001 [[Page H1497]] [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T29MR00.002 [[Page H1498]] [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T29MR00.003 [[Page H1499]] [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T29MR00.004 [[Page H1500]] [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T29MR00.005 [[Page H1501]] [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T29MR00.006 [[Page H1502]] [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T29MR00.007 [[Page H1503]] [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T29MR00.008 [[Page H1504]] Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time. Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 10 minutes. Mr. Chairman, at the end of last year, the President had asked for $568 billion in appropriated spending, and Congress had approved $578 billion. In this supplemental as it now comes before us, the President has asked for additional funds which would take his total request for the year to $573 billion. The supplemental has been added to by the committee so that, if this bill passes as it is now before us, we will wind up spending $587 billion over this existing fiscal year, which is $13 billion more than the President asked. In addition, the amendment that will be offered today and which will be supported by the Republican leadership will add yet another $4 billion to this package in the DoD arena. That will take total spending for this fiscal year to $591 billion, some $17 billion above the President's request. That additional $4 billion which is being asked for by the House leadership is there for a very simple reason. There is nothing wrong with what that money is actually being spent for. But the fact is it is being spent on routine items for one simple purpose, and that is to get around the very budget resolution that was passed just 5 days ago on this floor. Because by moving that $4 billion in expenditures into this existing fiscal year, my colleagues make room in the next fiscal year for $4 billion for Members' projects and Members' pork. Nice game if they can get away with it. I suggest Senator McCain get out his pencil. He better get ready, because a lot of stuff is going to come over there he is probably not going to like. This is one major reason to vote against this bill before us today. But there is another, in my view, even more serious reason. We are being asked by the President and the Speaker of the House to support $1.3 billion for Colombia. In my view, that is the camel's nose under the tent for a massive long-term commitment to a military operation in Colombia that has as much to do with the domestic situation in Colombia as it has to do with our drug problems here at home. General Wilhelm from SouthCom has indicated that this is the first year of a 5-year commitment, in his judgment. It seems to me if a can- do Marine like General Wilhelm is predicting that this is going to be a 5-year operation, that it is likely to last a lot longer, because things have a way of getting more complicated than Congress originally expects. As I said in the Committee on Rules, I detest Vietnam analyses under most circumstances, but I believe that, in this case, there is a very real parallel. In fact, there are two. When the Gulf of Tonkin resolution was debated in 1964, it took 2 days in the Senate. It took 40 minutes on the floor of this House. This Congress has rued the day ever since that it did not give more time to consider that proposition. Today, when my amendment comes before us to eliminate the most dangerous parts of that Colombian package, we will have exactly 20 minutes to discuss it, 10 minutes for those of us who are opposed to undertaking that involvement at this time. Let me tell my colleagues what I think the unanswered questions are that we ought to be asking. In my view, this Congress has no real knowledge of what it is we are about to embark upon. I do not see any real plan by the administration. I see a plan to have a plan, but I do not see a real plan. There is no specific authorization for this proposition. Before we slide into this operation, I think we ought to ask some questions. First of all, is this really an anti-drug campaign, or is it a political campaign, a pacification in Colombia? Will this really produce a reduction in drug availability in the United States? The House, in the rule it just adopted, has eliminated its ability to vote on the Pelosi amendment. The Pelosi amendment was an attempt to add additional money to fight drugs here at home by expanding our drug treatment and prevention program. I would point out that the Rand Corporation, in a study financed in part by the U.S. Army, indicated that a dollar spent to eliminate drug use here at home is 23 times more effective than a dollar spent to try to interdict or to reduce supply in some foreign land. Yet we are being prevented from voting on the most effective way to deal with drugs in this country. I also think we need to be aware of the fact that in Colombia itself there is substantial doubt about whether that society is ready to take this issue on. If they are not, we cannot do it for them. I do not know, for instance, how many Americans understand that if we take a look at the ruling elite in Colombia, their sons do not serve in combat. Because if one is a high school graduate, one is exempted from having to serve in combat in the Colombian armed forces. {time} 1245 Do my colleagues really think we are going to be able to sustain a 5- or 10-year military operation with that kind of divided duty in that society? I doubt it. What happens if the battalions that we are now training do not succeed? We are training a few thousand men so they can try to root out the narcos in 40,000 square miles of jungle. Let us say we succeed, which I think is highly unlikely. What is to prevent them from simply moving into the other 150,000 square miles of jungle in that country? I do not think very much. I think this is ill conceived and ill thought out. If this does not work, what is the next step? Will we then cut and run, or will we then deepen our involvement? I do not think, given our past experience in Vietnam, that we are likely to just say, ``Oh, well, we gave it the good old college try, so now we are going to yank the plug.'' I do not think whoever is the future president is going to be able to make that decision. That means a long-haul problem. What I am going to be asking this House to do, eventually, is to allow the money for police training to flow, to allow their helicopters to go down to Colombia, but I am going to be asking my colleagues to delay until July the vote on the over $500 million in additional funding that is meant to expand our basic military commitment in Colombia until the Committee on Armed Services, the Committee on International Relations, and the Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence can hold more hearings on this so that Congress knows what it is doing before it acts. And my amendment will provide expedited procedures to assure that we would be able to vote on it in July. We are being told that lots of very bright professional people have put this package together so we need have no fear. Well, I respect Secretary Albright, I respect General McCaffery, I respect Mr. Pickering in the State Department, I respect the Speaker of the House, the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Hastert). But with all due respect to them, every individual Member of this House has a constitutional duty to exercise his or her own judgment on an issue of this gravity, and I do not think we are able to do that under this truncated arrangement. So I would urge, for those and other reasons, that my colleagues oppose this bill today. I have no illusions that my amendment will pass. I think it is incredible we could not even vote on the Pelosi amendment, but I would urge Members not to make the same mistake that was made on this House floor in the Gulf of Tonkin. This may not be the same as Vietnam. There are undoubtedly major differences. But there are some very disturbing similarities, and I would urge my colleagues to take those similarities into consideration and delay consideration of this crucial vote until the Congress knows a whole lot more than it does today about what the proper course of action ought to be. Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time. Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from North Carolina (Mr. Hayes). (Mr. HAYES asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.) Mr. HAYES. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman from Florida for his great efforts in providing us with an excellent bill. I rise today to voice my enthusiastic support for his efforts, particularly as it relates to North Carolina. This supplemental calls for $94 million in unobligated balances for the emergency conservation program to be [[Page H1505]] used to repair damage done by Hurricane Floyd to buildings and farm equipment; provides $13 million in Federal crop insurance assistance; provides $81 million in relief for marketing loans for farmers in North Carolina; provides $43 million in rural water projects; $29 million for rural housing; $5 billion for peacekeeping in Kosovo, $2.2 billion more than the President's request. This supplemental fills in a lot of holes that have been created by this administration. Additional funding is appropriated to stop the administration's practice of asking our soldiers to do more with less. And if the Spence amendment is accepted, and I certainly hope that it is, and support it, the supplemental will include an additional $4 billion in emergency, badly needed defense funding. This funding includes $750 million in military health care for active duty and veterans, $230 million to reduce out-of-pocket housing expenses, $600 million to address recruiting shortfalls, $1.2 billion to meet funding requirements for our forward deployed forces, and $1.2 billion to meet critical shortfalls in equipment maintenance. Mr. Chairman, I again want to thank the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Young) and rise in enthusiastic support. I would respectfully urge our friends in the Senate to move forward on this bill with all dispatch. Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Mr. Chairman, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Alabama (Mr. Callahan), the chairman of the Subcommittee on Foreign Operations, Export Financing and Related Programs. (Mr. CALLAHAN asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.) Mr. CALLAHAN. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for yielding me this time. Just recently, Mr. Chairman, we heard our colleague from Wisconsin talking about the message that the President of the United States brought to this House of Representatives requesting that we bust the budget. I might remind the gentleman that the President was not for the balanced budget anyway, so we are not surprised he is sending us this message asking us to bust the budget. What we did in this process, with respect to that area of jurisdiction that we on the Subcommittee on Foreign Operations, Export Financing and Related Programs have, is reduce the President's request for foreign aid by $37 million. Simply put, the President of the United States, the man that the people of this country has placed in charge of our national security, has hired one of the most professional people in this country with respect to the ability to do something about the drug problem we have, Mr. McCaffery. And Mr. McCaffery and the President of the United States have come to us and said, give us the money to implement this policy. Who are we to second-guess the Commander-in- Chief and Mr. McCaffery, the drug czar? I am sorry that the minority Members do not have the confidence in the President of the United States to make a decision that is a responsible decision, but we must be responsible Members of the House of Representatives. The President has come to us, the Commander-in- Chief, and he tells us we have a very, very serious problem with drugs. And the President is absolutely right. He says we have a problem in Kosovo, and he is absolutely right. The President and I disagree on what the problem is in Kosovo, but, nevertheless, we have reduced his request for assistance to Kosovo for reconstruction. There is nothing in here to that effect. So the bottom line is the Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Services and the drug czar have come to us and said, after due diligent research, they have decided that this is the number one way that we can fight drug use here in the United States. I know that there appears to be an extreme lack of confidence in the ability of the President of the United States to make these decisions; but, nevertheless, he is the President of the United States and this Congress must decide whether or not we want to fight drugs based upon the suggested remedy that the President of the United States has sent to us or whether we want to play rhetoric and play demagoguery and delay this and let this drug situation develop even further. In addition to the President's request for Colombia, we found glaring holes in it in the committee process. For example, we found that there was not a sufficient amount of money for the surrounding countries of Colombia, and we increased the President's request. We did not decrease his drug effort request; we increased it to provide for the surrounding countries of Colombia to have an ability to also fight the drug situation. So here we are, a body that is destined to make a decision today based upon the request of the President of the United States. Mr. Chairman, I rise in support of this Emergency Supplemental Appropriations bill. I commend Chairman Young for his leadership on this measure, especially his efforts to support our Armed Forces who are under so much strain in the face of repeated deployments overseas. For Foreign Operations, this Emergency Supplemental includes a total of $1 billion and 241.7 million including $1 billion and 99 million for programs to fight America's international War on Drugs and $142.7 million for Kosovo and Southeast Europe. We did not provide an additional $210 million for debt relief at this time, but this is a subject we hope to be able to address when the proper conditions have been agreed to by the Secretary of the Treasury. In all, the Appropriations Committee recommendation reduces president's request for foreign aid by more than $37 million. Let me highlight the small but significant changes to the President's request made by the Committee. First, the Committee recommendation does not simply shift drug production and trafficking away from Colombia, and into other countries in the region, we have increased the President's request for Colombia's neighbors, including: $57 million for Bolivia; $42 million for Peru; $20 million for Ecuador; and $18 million for Panama, Venezuela, Costa Rica, and Brazil. Second, this bill will strengthen Human Rights and Judicial Reform in Colombia. The Appropriations Committee has recommended $98.5 million-- $5 million more that the President's request--for human rights and judicial programs. As Chairman of the Foreign Operations Subcommittee, I expect these funds are to be subject to the existing ``Leahy Law'' which restricts U.S. assistance for foreign security forces involved in gross human rights abuses. In addition, the Committee adopted 2 important amendments offered by Mr. Farr that strengthen the human rights requirements of this assistance. Mr. Chairman, for Kosovo and Southeastern Europe, the President has requested $250.9 million in emergency funds. This bill provides $142.7 million. Congress made clear last year that the U.S. should not play a major role in rebuilding Kosovo. From FY 2000 funds previously appropriated, more than $150 million is already available. Therefore, except for the Administration's request for $12.4 million for American officers in the international police force, the Committee does not recommend additional funding for Kosovo. The exception for the police force is due to an urgent need. Ethnic violence continues, and this violence endangers civilians and U.S. troops. Police, not the U.S. military, should maintain public security. This bill fully funds the President's request for $34 million in assistance for Montenegro, $35.7 million in assistance for Croatia, and $13.7 million in assistance for democratic opposition in Serbia. Also, this bill fully funds the President's request for a modest investment of $33.9 million to improve the military readiness of our allies in southeast Europe. The region remains volatile, and NATO needs to be in a position to operate cooperatively with these nations in case of another crisis. Finally, Mr. Chairman, this bill ensures continued Congressional oversight of these appropriations. None of the ``Plan Colombia'' funds can be spent until the Secretary of State notifies Congress regarding the exact uses of the funds. Further, all of the protections included in General Provisions from the Fiscal Year 2000 Foreign Operations bill apply to these funds, also. Mr. Chairman, the Foreign Operations spending in this bill is truly Emergency spending that benefits Americans. I know that many Members are uncomfortable supporting Supplemental funds for foreign aid. But every penny of foreign aid in this bill is designed to benefit Americans. This assistance will help stop illegal narcotics from entering the United States and it will help American soldiers complete their work in Kosovo more rapidly. I urge Members to vote ``aye''. Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from Michigan (Ms. Kilpatrick). (Ms. KILPATRICK asked and was given permission to revise and extend her remarks.) Ms. KILPATRICK. Mr. Chairman, the supplemental before us, and there has been much debate on it, really does not [[Page H1506]] address the total problem that we have. As a member of the Subcommittee on Foreign Operations, Export Financing and Related Programs, and we just heard the distinguished chairman, the gentleman from Alabama (Mr. Callahan), I want to thank him for his leadership in helping us to solve the problem in Zimbabwe; and my thanks to the full chairman, the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Young), for also supporting our efforts to address the crisis in Zimbabwe. As many of my colleagues know, South Africa, Zimbabwe, as well as the tragedy in Mozambique, is of insurmountable proportions. The country has been devastated. There is money in our foreign assistance accounts today to address that problem. This supplemental, though it did not accept the amendment I had for $60 million that would put $20 million in child survival, $20 million in development assistance, and $20 million in disaster relief to replenish the account so that Mozambique today can get the assistance they need, the dollars are there; and I urge the President to request the money today to address those problems. It is unfortunate that we have not moved yet on this tragedy. It has been over 3 weeks now. This has been in the media and some assistance has been sent. The helicopters, some food, and the personnel are on the ground in Mozambique. But over a million people are homeless today. Over 50,000 children are orphaned and cannot find their parents. We are the leaders in the world community. We have the resources and the disaster assistance account there for that purpose. Both the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Young) as well as the gentleman from Alabama (Mr. Callahan) have agreed with me and adopted my amendment in the Committee on Appropriations, and we have report language that says when the assessment is made, and I understand it is to be made this Friday, that we will send the money forward. Let us not slow down our progress. Mozambique is growing. It is one of the best countries on the continent. After years of struggle, they have put their house in order, but the cyclone has totally devastated them. Their housing, their hospitals, their food, their ability to grow their food has been devastated. I urge this Congress to adopt the language in the bill and to send the financial resources to Mozambique. Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from Indiana (Mr. Buyer), chairman of the Subcommittee on Military Personnel of the Committee on Armed Services. Mr. BUYER. Mr. Chairman, let me also thank the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Young) for his hard work on this bill. I could not help but think, as I was listening to the comments of the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Obey), who brought up a chart up here saying that the Republicans are busting the budget, that a few years ago he was standing here on the floor saying we were trying to starve children and put our grandmothers out on the streets. So when Republicans step forward and we fund particular programs, I am finding out that some of my colleagues enjoy the role of just playing the critic rather than being constructive and involving themselves in programs that help not only our people but our country be good neighbors in the world. I rise in strong support of this bill. A critical element of this bill is called ``Plan Colombia,'' which is the funding of a concerted effort aimed at reducing the supply of narcotics to the United States from this region in South America. Illicit drugs pose a clear and present threat to the well-being of American society as well as our entire hemisphere. In 1999, drugs killed 52,000 Americans, approximately, and caused more than $10 billion in damage to our country. The number of drug arrests and percentage of teens using drugs has steadily risen since President Clinton took office in 1993. The streets of America are literally awash in drugs, and this supplemental sends an unambiguous signal that we are finally getting serious about addressing this issue. Unlike the Bosnia and Kosovo debates we have had on in floor, the United States has a vital national interest that is threatened by the influx of drugs across our borders. These drugs find their way on to every street corner of America. Over 80 percent of the cocaine and heroin that makes its way to the United States comes from this region in South America. In December of 1999, I traveled to Colombia and Venezuela. I went into the jungles and Tres Esquinas where they were actually training the police battalions and, in my opinion, the democratically-elected government of Colombia is serious today about fighting the war on drugs. Now, I will acknowledge the comments of the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Obey) about the individuals who are drafted, young men not participating in the war, in armed combat. {time} 1300 We recognize that. But what we are training up is this narcotics police battalion. They are very serious in their efforts. The core plan of Colombia, in training these battalions, is very serious. The transportation of the them for the helicopters is necessary. I believe that Congress needs to step up to the plate. The President has acknowledged the commitment of the president of Colombia. We need the comprehensive strategy to fight this war, and this is the initial first step. Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 3 minutes. Mr. Chairman, the issue is not whether we should fight drugs. We should. The issue is what is the most effective way to do that. The issue is not whether we like the president of Colombia. I do. The question is whether his country, his society, and his military are reliable reeds to lean on when we are talking about starting a 5-year or more commitment of military involvement. I would like to once again read some of the comments made by James Hoagland, who I think everyone knows to be an objective, middle-of-the- road, and very sage reporter on international issues. This is some of what he said on March 19: ``In Colombia, the United States pursues unattainable goals largely for domestic political reasons with inappropriate tools.'' Mr. Chairman, I will insert the full text in the Record when we are in the full House, but I am quoting portions now. He goes on to say, ``Questions not being asked, much less answered, now in the rush into quagmire include the following: What happens when it becomes clear of the considered judgment of the U.S. Air Force officers that the Colombian military will not be able to maintain the Blackhawks under the conditions in which they will be flying is shown to be correct? Will the United States replace the helicopters that crash or are shot down at 13 million a copy? Will large numbers of U.S. advisors be provided to maintain the helicopter force? If cocaine exports from South America continue unabated, will 30 more or 300 more Blackhawks be furnished to expand the war? ``Clinton, of course, will not be around to provide the answers. Colombia's first Blackhawks will not arrive until 6 months after he leaves office. His successor will inherent an open-ended military obligation that can be trimmed back or abandoned only at domestic political cost. ``Sound familiar? Do the names Kennedy and Johnson come to mind?'' He then goes on to say, ``House Republicans have championed super- sized aid to Colombia with an eye to blasting Clinton and Gore if it is not passed. They are the true catalysts for this foreign policy fiasco. The Clintonites merely show the courage of their cynicism jumping aboard a train they hope will be derailed in the Senate. ``The House Republicans blithely ignore the fact that American demand is at the root of the drug problem more than Colombian supply. They vote down efforts by Representative Nancy Pelosi to add funds for drug treatment at home in the catch-all bill that provides aid to Colombia. They slice out of that same bill $211 million in debt relief for the world's poorest countries. They will shoot away the problems of the Third World. ``That has been tried elsewhere with similar fuzzy and contradictory thinking in Washington at the takeoff. I can [[Page H1507]] only wonder: Where is the Vietnam Syndrome when we really need it?'' I agree with those statements. Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Mr. Chairman, I yield 5 minutes to the distinguished gentleman from Texas (Mr. Paul). (Mr. PAUL asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.) Mr. PAUL. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for yielding me the time. Mr. Chairman, I rise in opposition to this bill. We have already appropriated $1.7 trillion for this year's budget. We do not need to appropriate another $9 billion. It is said that we need to appropriate this money to fight the drug war in Colombia. We have been fighting the drug war for 25 years. We have spent $250 billion on the drug war. Some day we will have to wake up and decide that the way we are fighting the drug war is wrong. As a physician, I can tell my colleagues, it is a serious problem. There are a lot of people suffering from drug usage in this country. But if something does not work, why are we so determined to pursue a process that does not work? Quite frankly, I am not sure the real reason why we are in Colombia has anything to do with drugs. I do concede a lot of individuals will be voting for this bill because of the belief that it might help. But it will not help. So we should reconsider it and think about the real reasons why we might be there. I had an amendment that was not approved. But what I would have done, if I had had the chance, I would have taken all the money from the overseas spending, Kosovo, Bosnia, East Timor, and the funds now for this new adventure down in Colombia, and put it into building up our military defense. That is what we need. We need better salaries, better medical care, and we need better housing for our military personnel. But here we go spreading ourselves thinly again around the world by taking on a new adventure, which will surely lead to trouble and a lot of expense. Members have referenced the 65 helicopters that will be sent to Colombia. There is one, I guess, cynical hope about what might happen with our involvement in Colombia. Usually when we get involved its only going to be for a short period of time. We were going to go into Bosnia for 6 months. We have been there 5 years. We were going to go to Kosovo for a short period of time. It is open-ended. We are in East Timor for who knows how long. And we will soon be in Colombia. But there was one time where we backed away, we literally surrendered and ran with our tail between our legs because we went in with helicopters, and that had to do with Somalia. We sent our Blackhawk helicopters in there. We had two of them shot down in Mogadishu. We had two others that crash landed when they returned to the base. Within a couple weeks, we were out of there. We did not send our Blackhawk helicopters into Kosovo because they would be shot down. Lets face it, it is not a good weapon. It will only lead to further involvement. Who is going to fly the Blackhawk helicopters? Do my colleagues think the Colombians are going to fly them? You can bet our bottom dollar we are going to have American pilots down there very much involved in training and getting in much deeper than we ever should be. So I think that, unfortunately, this could end up in a real mess. Maybe then we would have enough sense to leave. But we, in the Congress, ought to have enough sense not to go down there. This money can be better spent on national defense. We should be concerned about national security. When we get ourselves involved, whether it is the Persian Gulf or Bosnia or wherever, all we do is build up our enemies and expose ourselves more to terrorist attacks because we are not doing it in the name of security and resentment toward America builds. Under the Constitution, we should have a strong national defense, and we should provide for national security. Going into Colombia has nothing to do with national security and serves to undermine national defense. Even those who build helicopters are pretty blunt. One lobbyist said, ``It is business for us, and we are as aggressive as anybody. I am just trying to sell helicopters.'' What about the oil companies who support this war; which several oil companies do? Yes, they want investment security, so they want the military industrial complex to come down there and protect their oil interests. The oil interests are very supportive of this war, as well as the helicopter companies. But the American people, if they were asked, they would decline. A recent poll by Zogby showed that, essentially, 70 percent of the American people answered no to this particular question: ``Should the U.S. help defend militarily such-and-such country even though it could cost American soldiers their lives?'' It varied depending on which country. But, basically, 65 to 75 percent of the American people said no. The American people want us to mind our own business and not be the policeman of the world. Can any Member come to this floor and absolutely assure us that we are not going to lose American lives in Colombia? We are certainly committing ourselves to huge numbers of dollars, dollars that we do not have, dollars that if we wanted to could come out of the current $1.7 trillion budget we already have. So I would suggest to my colleagues, let us reassess this. It is not really a war on drugs. The war on drugs, by trying to reduce interdiction does not work. It has not worked. It is not going to work. It is only an excuse. It is an excuse for promoting military intervention in Colombia to satisfy those who are anxious to drill for oil there and for the military industrial complex to sell weapons. It's amazing to me to see an administration who strongly opposes law abiding American citizens from owning guns for self defense to be such a promoter of the big guns of war throughout the world. I ask for a ``no'' vote. Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2\1/2\ minutes to the distinguished gentleman from Oklahoma (Mr. Coburn). Mr. COBURN. Mr. Chairman, I want to change the focus of the debate a little bit. Last year the President, in 1999, sent to the Congress his State of the Union message and budget in which he said we were going to save 60 percent of Social Security. The Congress, led by the Republicans of Congress, said, no, Mr. President we are going to save 100 percent of Social Security. And we did just that. We stopped the raid on Social Security. It is time it look at the other program under which we are stealing money, and that is Medicare. The CBO announced in March that the estimated budget surplus of this country for fiscal 2000 will be $27 billion. It is interesting if we look to see where that money comes from. $23 billion of that made up of excess, Medicare, Part A Trust Fund payments and the interest thereon, is from Medicare. So what we are really saying is this surplus that we have, the vast majority of it, is Medicare Part A Trust Fund, and we are about to spend most of it. Let me outline for my colleagues for a minute where it is going to go: $26 billion surplus, $6.9 billion we have already spent by reversing through the budget that was passed by this House. There is going to be $2.2 billion in new supplemental outlays from this bill. There will be another $6 billion that we are going to use for agricultural emergency support payments. There is $4.2 billion in gimmicks in the budget from 601 to 596. And then there is $4 billion that I suspect we are going to pass on the House floor today to retire debt. That leaves us with $2.7 billion left. What that really says is we are going to spend $20 billion this year of Medicare Part A Trust Fund money. How should we do it? The only things that are emergencies are the things that should be in an emergency supplemental. That is number one. Number two is, it should be accompanied by a rescission bill that finds the excesses or trims other areas of government if, in fact, these are true emergencies. I would ask my colleagues to consider if they really want to take money from a program that is going to be bankrupt in 2014 and fund the vast array of items that are in this bill? I think not, on further reflection. [[Page H1508]] Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the distinguished gentleman from Iowa (Mr. Ganske). Mr. GANSKE. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman from Florida (Chairman Young) for yielding me the time. He is a true gentleman. And so I sadly rise in opposition to this emergency supplemental appropriations bill because it funds too many nonemergency programs. For example, this bill includes $20 million for a new FDA laboratory in Los Angeles. Did somebody just all of a sudden find out that the current lab is in dangerous disrepair? We should take care of this in the HHS appropriations bill. This so-called emergency supplemental also includes $96 million in economic assistance for countries in Eastern Europe and the Balkans, $104 million for an embassy in Sarajevo, $49 million for our weapons labs, $75 million for staffing at NASA; $55 million for atomic energy plant personnel and infrastructure improvements; $35 million for foster care and adoption assistance; $20 million for abstinence programs; $19 million for weatherization grants. Mr. Chairman, many of these programs are valuable and I think should be funded, but they should be funded through a normal appropriations process, not an emergency bill. And let us not forget the really big ticket items. This bill includes $2.1 billion for operations in Kosovo and East Timor. How long will we continue to support the extended deployment of our troops? An amendment is to be offered today to add $4 billion to address our military readiness problems. The reason our military is stretched is because we have sent too many of our soldiers on too many missions to too many countries. And that leads us to Colombia. Should we send more than $1.7 billion to Colombia in the form of emergency funding? I do not think so. We do have a serious drug problem. We should spend that money on drug treatment and increased border patrol. Our involvement in Colombia is just too important a decision to be made in limited debate in a supplemental spending bill. I support provisions in this bill to help victims of natural disasters, but we should not fund normal programs in an emergency bill. And so, Mr. Chairman, let us clean up this bill and help get those true emergency funds to those who need it. I urge a ``no'' vote on this supplemental. Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I yield 5 minutes to the distinguished gentlewoman from California (Ms. Pelosi). Ms. PELOSI. Mr. Chairman, I thank the distinguished ranking member for yielding me the time and for his leadership on this important issue. Mr. Chairman, I wish that we could have the time to have a full debate on the military assistance package to Colombia. I commend the gentleman for his attempt with his amendment to have a reasonable, as I said, full debate on that subject. But that will not be allowed under these rules. {time} 1315 I want to focus my attention on two areas in the bill. First let us stipulate that there are many fine projects in this bill. We all agree to that. That is why many people will be voting for it, because of issues that are of concern to their regions, and I respect that. I just want to say why, and even in light of the fact that I would normally support some of the provisions in the bill, that I find it impossible to do so because of the manner in which this bill has been brought to the floor. Are the American people not entitled to something better than a debate on military assistance to Colombia than having it as one provision in a multifaceted emergency supplemental bill? Why can we not have a debate on a very important foreign policy issue, and a vote that stands on its own? Is the Republican majority afraid of a debate in the House of Representatives? Are they afraid that their arguments are too weak, that they could not stand the scrutiny of the American people in a full debate on this issue? Let us stipulate that the President of Colombia is a brave and courageous man. President Pastrana has a very, very difficult task ahead of him. He deserves our support. What form that support should take is a matter that this House should debate, hear comment on, hold hearings on, in other words, the regular order. But the regular order is being cast aside for 20 minutes of debate, 10 minutes on each side, to debate whether we are going to commit all of this military assistance and all that goes with it, including putting our young people in harm's way, which we have already done, without a vote of this Congress. I am also very concerned that this military approach does not really get to the heart of the matter. This bill, this assistance to Colombia, is called an emergency because we have an emergency drug problem in our country and indeed we do. As we heard on this floor earlier today, 5\1/ 2\ million Americans need substance abuse treatment. Two million of them are getting it. We have a 3.5-million-person treatment gap in our country. If we want to reduce substance abuse in the United States, we must do that by reducing demand in the United States. Cutting off supply in Colombia is more costly and less certain. Let me tell my colleagues how much more costly. According to the Rand Corporation report, for every dollar spent to reduce demand in the U.S., you would have to spend $23 in the country of origin in coca leaf eradication. That means if you spend $34 million in the U.S. to reduce dependence on drugs by 1 percent, that same effect of reduction of 1 percent costs $723 million by taking the approach of the eradication of the coca leaf in the country of origin, in this case Colombia. But say that has to be part of a comprehensive drug problem. How can we bring an emergency supplemental bill to the floor of the House of Representatives whose emergency status in this area in terms of reducing substance abuse in the United States is dependent on reducing demand in the United States without one dollar in the bill, without one dollar in the bill being used for reduction in demand in the U.S., a formula that is 23 times more effective, according to the Rand Report which was done in conjunction with the Department of Defense and the Office of Drug Control Policy? So do not take my word for it. Twenty- three times more effective. On the subject of again Plan Colombia, of which this is a part, we were told that Plan Colombia was an over $7 billion proposal. Colombia would put up $4 billion, we would put up $1.7 billion, the EU would put up $900 million, and then IMF and the Multilateral Development Bank would put up money. This is the only money on the table, the military money. So when we are told this is the military part but there is a big humanitarian part, we have not seen that yet. That is why I am voting no on this bill and respectful of my colleagues' decision for their own part. Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Mr. Chairman, I yield 30 seconds to the gentleman from Alabama (Mr. Callahan). Mr. CALLAHAN. I would do anything, Mr. Chairman, but to tell the gentlewoman from California that she is all wet on some of her assumptions, but I rise primarily, Mr. Chairman, to inform the House that the gentlewoman from California's birthday is being celebrated this week, and we take this opportunity to wish the gentlewoman from California a very happy birthday. Ms. PELOSI. I thank the gentleman. If the gentleman will yield, I am pleased on my birthday to present the gentleman with the Rand Report which documents the assumptions that I presented. Mr. CALLAHAN. I hope they wrapped it nicely. Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Mr. Chairman, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from New York (Mr. Gilman), chairman of the Committee on International Relations. (Mr. GILMAN asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.) Mr. GILMAN. I thank the gentleman for yielding me this time. Mr. Chairman, I compliment the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Hastert), the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Young), the gentleman from Alabama (Mr. Callahan), and all those who worked so hard to bring this emergency antidrug aid package to the floor today. Passage of this bill affects every school, hospital, courtroom, neighborhood, all of our communities throughout America. [[Page H1509]] This bill will provide sorely needed assistance to our allies in Colombia who are all on the front lines in the war against illegal drugs. The numbers have been shocking. Eighty percent of the cocaine, 75 percent of the heroin consumed in our Nation comes from Colombia. Illegal drugs have been costing our society more than $100 billion per year, costing also 15,000 young American lives each year. As a result of inattention from the administration, the civil war in Colombia is going badly for that government. This weekend alone, 26 antidrug police were killed by the narcoterrorists in Colombia. The specter of a consolidated narcostate only 3 hours by plane from Miami has made it patently clear that our Nation's vital security interests are at stake. As the sun begins to set on his administration, President Clinton is finally facing the reality of the Colombian drug-fueled crisis with this emergency supplemental request. As former Supreme Court Justice Felix Frankfurter eloquently noted, and I quote, ``wisdom too often never comes, and so one ought not to reject it merely because it comes late.'' Heroes like Colombia's antidrug leader General Jose Serrano want our Nation to stand with them in their fight against the drug lords, including the right-wing paramilitaries. This legislation provides more assistance where it can do the most good with the Colombian antidrug police. Colombia is not asking for nor should we offer American troops in that war. Investing American aid dollars now in Colombia to stem the hundredfold cost to our society only makes common sense. It is a proper role for our government. We at the Federal level have the responsibility to help eradicate those drugs at their source. Accordingly, I am urging our colleagues to support this package. Colombia's survival as a democracy and our own national security interests are at stake here. The stakes could not be more clear and more critical. With regard to the comments of the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Pelosi), demand reduction composes 32.7 percent of the government's total spending on antidrug efforts while the amount spent on reducing overseas supply currently consists of only 3 percent of those expenditures. I again urge our Members to fully support this very important antidrug measure. Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I yield 3 minutes to the distinguished gentleman from New York (Mr. Serrano). (Mr. SERRANO asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.) Mr. SERRANO. I thank the gentleman from Wisconsin for yielding me this time. Mr. Chairman, I am really troubled about what we are doing here today, and I cannot believe we are doing it without much more debate. This looks to me very much like something from my younger years when we got involved in Vietnam. Let us understand this Colombia situation is a civil war. It is a civil war that has been going on for a long time. We have decided all of a sudden that it is a war on drugs. That is our excuse or it is some folks in our administration's excuse for getting involved in a civil war. And then the mistake we are making here which I brought out in committee and in subcommittee and other places is the fact that we are referring to the insurgent group in Colombia as narcoterrorists. The minute in this country you call somebody a terrorist, you close the door, and rightfully so, on ever negotiating with them. So by saying that we are going into Colombia to help the military, number one, which is wrong, fight the narcoterrorists, we just said that we are never going to negotiate with one side in a civil war. Now, I suspect that people in Washington are beginning to look at Latin America and beginning to get this feeling which was a bad feeling and a wrong feeling in the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s. They see a progressive President in Venezuela, Chavez; they see a new so-called socialist President in Chile and they say, ``Oh, my God, we've got to do something,'' so where do we set our anchor? In Colombia. And then to suggest that in Colombia only one side may be involved with drug money is to suggest we are reinventing that country. There is a major problem with drugs in Colombia, and it plays a role in everything that is done in that country. I wish that today we had the courage to look at this issue for what it is. We are getting involved in a civil war which we are going to pay for a price, a big price in the future. Secondly, we are closing off any opportunity to speak to one side. How do you bring peace to a country if that is what you want to do by shutting the door on one side? And, thirdly, we are thinking about Colombia as we thought about South America in the 1960s. We are looking at it in the year 2000 in the same way. We made mistakes then; we are going to make them again, and for what? So that some helicopter company somewhere can sell a few helicopters? It is not worth it. I wish we would reconsider this and vote as I will against this bill. Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Mr. Chairman, I yield 3 minutes to the gentlewoman from Florida (Mrs. Fowler). (Mrs. FOWLER asked and was given permission to revise and extend her remarks.) Mrs. FOWLER. Mr. Chairman, I rise in strong support of the supplemental and in strong support of the Lewis-Spence-Murtha-Skelton amendment to the bill which would provide an additional $4 billion for our severely underfunded Defense Department. In addition, later today, I will offer an amendment with the gentleman from Utah (Mr. Hansen) regarding the $40 million contained in this bill to implement the President's directive on the Navy's training range on the Puerto Rican island of Vieques. The bill would provide these funds to Puerto Rico as part of a deal to resume Navy and Marine Corps training on Vieques which has been suspended because of trespassers seeking to end our training operations there. The money would be used for economic development and to hold a binding referendum on Vieques on whether live-fire training should be resumed. The Fowler-Hansen amendment would essentially do two things: First, it would strike language that would permit any of the $40 million to be used for the referendum. It does not stop the referendum. As the San Juan Star accurately reported today, the referendum can still be held, just not underwritten by the U.S. government. Operations on a vital military training range should not be subjected to a public referendum. This is terrible public policy and will set a very dangerous precedent for other critical military activities. Second, it would require that before the $40 million is released to Puerto Rico, the President must certify to the Congress that live-fire training operations have been resumed. The amendment would also allow part of this $40 million to be spent on a health study on the island of Vieques immediately upon enactment without condition. I want to quote specifically referring to the live-fire training on Vieques from the Secretary of the Navy Richard Danzig. He has stated, and I quote, This training wins wars. Many Americans in uniform owe their lives to this crucial training. Many would perish without it. This is critical to the well-being of our young Marines and sailors. I urge my colleagues to support the Fowler-Hansen amendment which will be on the floor later this afternoon. Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the distinguished gentlewoman from Georgia (Ms. McKinney). {time} 1330 Ms. McKINNEY. Mr. Chairman, if this bill were not so serious, I would think it is a joke. Once again, the United States is proposing a huge military alliance with the foreign military known for its human rights abuses. Now, you think we would have learned our lesson by now. How long ago was it that Bill Clinton went to Guatemala and apologized for fueling that country's generation-long slide into chaos? But just a year later you can say here we go again. No one seriously denies the link of paramilitary groups to the Colombian government, and here we are going to turn over to known human rights abusers the means by which they can perfect their trade. As we stand here on the floor today, 3,000 union leaders, students, parents, [[Page H1510]] shopkeepers and others are standing before 3,000 armed Colombian soldiers, forming a human shield to protect the peaceful U'wa people that the Colombian government wants to move off their ancestral land to make way for Occidental Petroleum's oil rigs. We should be standing with the people, not giving aid and encouragement to Colombia's brutal military. We should have learned our lessons well about going in with the military where only diplomacy should be allowed to tread. Unfortunately, it appears that we have not. Because in addition to Plan Colombia, this bill also provides an additional $5 billion to keep us in Kosovo, another failed military blunder that diplomacy should have resolved. After our military gambit in Kosovo, we have left 31,000 rounds of depleted uranium rounds and 50 percent unemployment, in some areas rising to 85 percent. The crumbling infrastructure is yet to be rebuilt, and our European allies have not lived up to the commitments they made at the beginning of that adventure. Time and time again, this Congress commits our troops to military adventures without a plan to bring them home. Last year, U.S. aircraft flew over 1,000 sorties in Iraq, nearly a decade after that war was supposedly over. In Kosovo, our limited military engagement has turned into a permanent occupation. Now we are being asked to fund the Vietnamization of Barry McCaffrey's war without an exit strategy or end game. Mr. Chairman, I urge my colleagues to reject this so-called emergency amendment. Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Mr. Chairman, I have only one speaker to close, and I reserve the balance of my time. Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the distinguished gentlewoman from Wisconsin (Ms. Baldwin). (Ms. BALDWIN asked and was given permission to revise and extend her remarks.) Ms. BALDWIN. Mr. Chairman, on October 24, 1999, more than 10 million Colombians took to the streets of every major city in Colombia to rally for peace. These 10 million Colombians wanted to send a message that they were sick of war. They were terrorized by the kidnappings. They were exhausted with paramilitary violence and disgusted with drug trade. No mas, they said. No more. Peace is what Colombia needs. Peace will allow democracy to flourish. Peace will permit law enforcement officials to combat the flow of illicit drugs, and peace will create the conditions to address the income inequalities, the problems of displaced persons and economic development issues that will truly improve the lives of the Colombian people. Unfortunately, the aid package we are considering today will not help the peace process. In fact, it fails to address the underlying issues that are needed to promote peace in Colombia. I traveled to Colombia in 1993 to see the situation first hand. It was clear, then, that U.S. military aid and equipment that was intended to be used to stem the flow of illegal drugs was being misused, misused to suppress citizens in Colombia, including labor activists, community leaders, peace activists, human rights activists and collective farmers. The United States is properly concerned about the abuse of illegal drugs by our citizens. Interdiction and source reductions should be a part of a comprehensive drug control policy. This proposal does not reflect such a policy. The proposal we have before us today will do little or nothing to address the fundamental problems in Colombia; namely, economic inequality, civil war, lack of economic development, and judicial impunity. Unfortunately, we seem to be playing a game of public relations when we should be pursuing peace in the region. The CHAIRMAN. The gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Obey) has 1\1/2\ minutes remaining. Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 1\1/2\ minutes. Mr. Chairman, last week, the majority party in this House posed for political holy pictures and promised spending discipline and bragged about how much spending they were going to cut. This week they have brought to the floor this bill which adds $4 billion to the spending requests that the President has made for a supplemental. And then on top of that, it intends in an amendment that they will shortly offer to add yet another $4 billion in spending. And the reason they are going to do that in the DOD account is simply so they move $4 billion in spending from next year to this year, because that frees up $4 billion for them to add for Members' projects in the coming year. It is very simply a $4 billion end run around the spending ceilings which they bragged about imposing just 5 days ago. They must think that people are not watching. Well, I suspect they are. The net result is that they come in for this entire fiscal year spending $17 billion more than the President asks for. That to me is an indication of just how false those promises have been that we would see straight bookkeeping and fiscal discipline under their budget. That alone, I think, is a reason to defeat this proposition. I have already indicated my concern about the Colombian war effort, but I think this is yet another reason to vote against this budget hocus pocus. The CHAIRMAN. The gentleman from Florida (Mr. Young) has 5\1/2\ minutes remaining. Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself the balance of the time. Mr. Chairman, first I would like to compliment all of our colleagues for the very high level and profession

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2000 EMERGENCY SUPPLEMENTAL APPROPRIATIONS ACT
(House of Representatives - March 29, 2000)

Text of this article available as: TXT PDF [Pages H1495-H1585] 2000 EMERGENCY SUPPLEMENTAL APPROPRIATIONS ACT The SPEAKER pro tempore. Pursuant to House Resolution 450 and rule XVIII, the Chair declares the House in the Committee of the Whole House on the State of the Union for the consideration of the bill, H.R. 3908. {time} 1232 In the Committee of the Whole Accordingly, the House resolved itself into the Committee of the Whole House on the State of the Union for the consideration of the bill (H.R. 3908) making emergency supplemental appropriations for the fiscal year ending September 30, 2000, and for other purposes, with Mr. Thornberry in the chair. The Clerk read the title of the bill. The CHAIRMAN. Pursuant to the rule, the bill is considered as having been read the first time. Under the rule, the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Young) and the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Obey) each will control 30 minutes. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Young). Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. (Mr. YOUNG of Florida asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.) Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Mr. Chairman, I am pleased to bring to the House today the 2000 Emergency Supplemental Appropriations bill. The Committee on Appropriations ordered this legislation reported by a nearly three to one bipartisan vote. It is reflective of a compilation of input from many sources on a large spectrum of issues. The request was thoroughly reviewed, hearings were held, input from Members outside the committee was received, and our committee painstakingly marked up the bill. The result of all of this is the bill before us. The bill includes $1.7 billion for counternarcotics activities in the Colombian and Andean region. By and large, the bill provides what the President requested for Colombia. In addition, the bill takes a more regional approach by providing increased help to the anti-drug efforts of Colombia's neighbors. Before any of the funds going to South America can be spent, the Secretary of State is to report on how the money will be used. The bill also funds high priority anti-drug activities in the Departments of Justice and Defense. Also included in this bill is nearly $5 billion for national security matters. The President's emergency request for $2 billion for operations in Kosovo and East Timor is met. I must remind our colleagues that this money replenishes funds that have already been spent for both of these operations. In fact, the money has been spent and borrowed from the fourth quarter operations and maintenance accounts of all of the military services. So that money has to be repaid, or the training activities in the fourth quarter of the fiscal year for our Nation's military will have to stand down dramatically. This bill also includes $1.6 billion to help cover increasing fuel costs facing the Defense Department. As we drive up to the gas tanks and fill up our cars, we see a tremendous increase in the cost of fuel. The ships that we drive, the airplanes that we fly, the trucks and the tanks that we drive, all of these things that use fuel are experiencing the same thing. So we do provide the money to make up for the increased fuel costs. The bill also includes $854.5 million to the financially troubled Defense Health Program, a health program that promises medical care for members of the military, their families, and those retirees who are eligible for military medical care. There are doctors, there are nurses, there are pharmacies, and there are medical people who provide medical care who have provided their services but have not been paid. We are in arrears to at least that amount of money. So we include it in this bill. The President did not request these two items; but they are urgently needed, and we will have to provide the money sooner or later. In the natural disaster and other emergencies areas, the bill includes $2.2 billion. This includes $400 million for USDA administered agriculture assistance, $250 million for wildland fire management, $600 million for LIHEAP, Low Income Home Energy Assistance, and $600 million for emergency highway reimbursements to States. Mr. Chairman, the committee tried to clean up all of the loose ends that we had relative to hurricane and flood disasters in the last year, and we believe this bill does complete all our responsibilities and obligations here. There are many other important issues addressed in the bill. The report provides a very complete description of them. The bill is somewhat difficult and a little controversial in places, and I respect the fact that there are multiple opinions on the bill. But I think the Committee on Appropriations listened to and respected the differing positions on the various provisions in the bill, including the strong support of the President of the United States. However, as usual with an appropriations bill, we could not report a bill that included everyone's position. Now the bill is before the entire House for consideration. It is important that we move this bill through the House today and we get it to the other body where deliberations can begin. We need to get this off of our schedules today because, Mr. Chairman, we have 13 other appropriations bills that we are trying to bring to this House in regular order and ahead of last year's schedule and certainly the year before's schedule, because this is a busy year for Members of Congress because of our national conventions, home work periods. So we need to get this bill out of here, get it into the negotiation with the other body. At this point in the Record, I would like to insert a table showing the details of this bill, as reported. [The table follows:] [[Page H1496]] [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T29MR00.001 [[Page H1497]] [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T29MR00.002 [[Page H1498]] [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T29MR00.003 [[Page H1499]] [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T29MR00.004 [[Page H1500]] [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T29MR00.005 [[Page H1501]] [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T29MR00.006 [[Page H1502]] [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T29MR00.007 [[Page H1503]] [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T29MR00.008 [[Page H1504]] Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time. Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 10 minutes. Mr. Chairman, at the end of last year, the President had asked for $568 billion in appropriated spending, and Congress had approved $578 billion. In this supplemental as it now comes before us, the President has asked for additional funds which would take his total request for the year to $573 billion. The supplemental has been added to by the committee so that, if this bill passes as it is now before us, we will wind up spending $587 billion over this existing fiscal year, which is $13 billion more than the President asked. In addition, the amendment that will be offered today and which will be supported by the Republican leadership will add yet another $4 billion to this package in the DoD arena. That will take total spending for this fiscal year to $591 billion, some $17 billion above the President's request. That additional $4 billion which is being asked for by the House leadership is there for a very simple reason. There is nothing wrong with what that money is actually being spent for. But the fact is it is being spent on routine items for one simple purpose, and that is to get around the very budget resolution that was passed just 5 days ago on this floor. Because by moving that $4 billion in expenditures into this existing fiscal year, my colleagues make room in the next fiscal year for $4 billion for Members' projects and Members' pork. Nice game if they can get away with it. I suggest Senator McCain get out his pencil. He better get ready, because a lot of stuff is going to come over there he is probably not going to like. This is one major reason to vote against this bill before us today. But there is another, in my view, even more serious reason. We are being asked by the President and the Speaker of the House to support $1.3 billion for Colombia. In my view, that is the camel's nose under the tent for a massive long-term commitment to a military operation in Colombia that has as much to do with the domestic situation in Colombia as it has to do with our drug problems here at home. General Wilhelm from SouthCom has indicated that this is the first year of a 5-year commitment, in his judgment. It seems to me if a can- do Marine like General Wilhelm is predicting that this is going to be a 5-year operation, that it is likely to last a lot longer, because things have a way of getting more complicated than Congress originally expects. As I said in the Committee on Rules, I detest Vietnam analyses under most circumstances, but I believe that, in this case, there is a very real parallel. In fact, there are two. When the Gulf of Tonkin resolution was debated in 1964, it took 2 days in the Senate. It took 40 minutes on the floor of this House. This Congress has rued the day ever since that it did not give more time to consider that proposition. Today, when my amendment comes before us to eliminate the most dangerous parts of that Colombian package, we will have exactly 20 minutes to discuss it, 10 minutes for those of us who are opposed to undertaking that involvement at this time. Let me tell my colleagues what I think the unanswered questions are that we ought to be asking. In my view, this Congress has no real knowledge of what it is we are about to embark upon. I do not see any real plan by the administration. I see a plan to have a plan, but I do not see a real plan. There is no specific authorization for this proposition. Before we slide into this operation, I think we ought to ask some questions. First of all, is this really an anti-drug campaign, or is it a political campaign, a pacification in Colombia? Will this really produce a reduction in drug availability in the United States? The House, in the rule it just adopted, has eliminated its ability to vote on the Pelosi amendment. The Pelosi amendment was an attempt to add additional money to fight drugs here at home by expanding our drug treatment and prevention program. I would point out that the Rand Corporation, in a study financed in part by the U.S. Army, indicated that a dollar spent to eliminate drug use here at home is 23 times more effective than a dollar spent to try to interdict or to reduce supply in some foreign land. Yet we are being prevented from voting on the most effective way to deal with drugs in this country. I also think we need to be aware of the fact that in Colombia itself there is substantial doubt about whether that society is ready to take this issue on. If they are not, we cannot do it for them. I do not know, for instance, how many Americans understand that if we take a look at the ruling elite in Colombia, their sons do not serve in combat. Because if one is a high school graduate, one is exempted from having to serve in combat in the Colombian armed forces. {time} 1245 Do my colleagues really think we are going to be able to sustain a 5- or 10-year military operation with that kind of divided duty in that society? I doubt it. What happens if the battalions that we are now training do not succeed? We are training a few thousand men so they can try to root out the narcos in 40,000 square miles of jungle. Let us say we succeed, which I think is highly unlikely. What is to prevent them from simply moving into the other 150,000 square miles of jungle in that country? I do not think very much. I think this is ill conceived and ill thought out. If this does not work, what is the next step? Will we then cut and run, or will we then deepen our involvement? I do not think, given our past experience in Vietnam, that we are likely to just say, ``Oh, well, we gave it the good old college try, so now we are going to yank the plug.'' I do not think whoever is the future president is going to be able to make that decision. That means a long-haul problem. What I am going to be asking this House to do, eventually, is to allow the money for police training to flow, to allow their helicopters to go down to Colombia, but I am going to be asking my colleagues to delay until July the vote on the over $500 million in additional funding that is meant to expand our basic military commitment in Colombia until the Committee on Armed Services, the Committee on International Relations, and the Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence can hold more hearings on this so that Congress knows what it is doing before it acts. And my amendment will provide expedited procedures to assure that we would be able to vote on it in July. We are being told that lots of very bright professional people have put this package together so we need have no fear. Well, I respect Secretary Albright, I respect General McCaffery, I respect Mr. Pickering in the State Department, I respect the Speaker of the House, the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Hastert). But with all due respect to them, every individual Member of this House has a constitutional duty to exercise his or her own judgment on an issue of this gravity, and I do not think we are able to do that under this truncated arrangement. So I would urge, for those and other reasons, that my colleagues oppose this bill today. I have no illusions that my amendment will pass. I think it is incredible we could not even vote on the Pelosi amendment, but I would urge Members not to make the same mistake that was made on this House floor in the Gulf of Tonkin. This may not be the same as Vietnam. There are undoubtedly major differences. But there are some very disturbing similarities, and I would urge my colleagues to take those similarities into consideration and delay consideration of this crucial vote until the Congress knows a whole lot more than it does today about what the proper course of action ought to be. Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time. Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from North Carolina (Mr. Hayes). (Mr. HAYES asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.) Mr. HAYES. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman from Florida for his great efforts in providing us with an excellent bill. I rise today to voice my enthusiastic support for his efforts, particularly as it relates to North Carolina. This supplemental calls for $94 million in unobligated balances for the emergency conservation program to be [[Page H1505]] used to repair damage done by Hurricane Floyd to buildings and farm equipment; provides $13 million in Federal crop insurance assistance; provides $81 million in relief for marketing loans for farmers in North Carolina; provides $43 million in rural water projects; $29 million for rural housing; $5 billion for peacekeeping in Kosovo, $2.2 billion more than the President's request. This supplemental fills in a lot of holes that have been created by this administration. Additional funding is appropriated to stop the administration's practice of asking our soldiers to do more with less. And if the Spence amendment is accepted, and I certainly hope that it is, and support it, the supplemental will include an additional $4 billion in emergency, badly needed defense funding. This funding includes $750 million in military health care for active duty and veterans, $230 million to reduce out-of-pocket housing expenses, $600 million to address recruiting shortfalls, $1.2 billion to meet funding requirements for our forward deployed forces, and $1.2 billion to meet critical shortfalls in equipment maintenance. Mr. Chairman, I again want to thank the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Young) and rise in enthusiastic support. I would respectfully urge our friends in the Senate to move forward on this bill with all dispatch. Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Mr. Chairman, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Alabama (Mr. Callahan), the chairman of the Subcommittee on Foreign Operations, Export Financing and Related Programs. (Mr. CALLAHAN asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.) Mr. CALLAHAN. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for yielding me this time. Just recently, Mr. Chairman, we heard our colleague from Wisconsin talking about the message that the President of the United States brought to this House of Representatives requesting that we bust the budget. I might remind the gentleman that the President was not for the balanced budget anyway, so we are not surprised he is sending us this message asking us to bust the budget. What we did in this process, with respect to that area of jurisdiction that we on the Subcommittee on Foreign Operations, Export Financing and Related Programs have, is reduce the President's request for foreign aid by $37 million. Simply put, the President of the United States, the man that the people of this country has placed in charge of our national security, has hired one of the most professional people in this country with respect to the ability to do something about the drug problem we have, Mr. McCaffery. And Mr. McCaffery and the President of the United States have come to us and said, give us the money to implement this policy. Who are we to second-guess the Commander-in- Chief and Mr. McCaffery, the drug czar? I am sorry that the minority Members do not have the confidence in the President of the United States to make a decision that is a responsible decision, but we must be responsible Members of the House of Representatives. The President has come to us, the Commander-in- Chief, and he tells us we have a very, very serious problem with drugs. And the President is absolutely right. He says we have a problem in Kosovo, and he is absolutely right. The President and I disagree on what the problem is in Kosovo, but, nevertheless, we have reduced his request for assistance to Kosovo for reconstruction. There is nothing in here to that effect. So the bottom line is the Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Services and the drug czar have come to us and said, after due diligent research, they have decided that this is the number one way that we can fight drug use here in the United States. I know that there appears to be an extreme lack of confidence in the ability of the President of the United States to make these decisions; but, nevertheless, he is the President of the United States and this Congress must decide whether or not we want to fight drugs based upon the suggested remedy that the President of the United States has sent to us or whether we want to play rhetoric and play demagoguery and delay this and let this drug situation develop even further. In addition to the President's request for Colombia, we found glaring holes in it in the committee process. For example, we found that there was not a sufficient amount of money for the surrounding countries of Colombia, and we increased the President's request. We did not decrease his drug effort request; we increased it to provide for the surrounding countries of Colombia to have an ability to also fight the drug situation. So here we are, a body that is destined to make a decision today based upon the request of the President of the United States. Mr. Chairman, I rise in support of this Emergency Supplemental Appropriations bill. I commend Chairman Young for his leadership on this measure, especially his efforts to support our Armed Forces who are under so much strain in the face of repeated deployments overseas. For Foreign Operations, this Emergency Supplemental includes a total of $1 billion and 241.7 million including $1 billion and 99 million for programs to fight America's international War on Drugs and $142.7 million for Kosovo and Southeast Europe. We did not provide an additional $210 million for debt relief at this time, but this is a subject we hope to be able to address when the proper conditions have been agreed to by the Secretary of the Treasury. In all, the Appropriations Committee recommendation reduces president's request for foreign aid by more than $37 million. Let me highlight the small but significant changes to the President's request made by the Committee. First, the Committee recommendation does not simply shift drug production and trafficking away from Colombia, and into other countries in the region, we have increased the President's request for Colombia's neighbors, including: $57 million for Bolivia; $42 million for Peru; $20 million for Ecuador; and $18 million for Panama, Venezuela, Costa Rica, and Brazil. Second, this bill will strengthen Human Rights and Judicial Reform in Colombia. The Appropriations Committee has recommended $98.5 million-- $5 million more that the President's request--for human rights and judicial programs. As Chairman of the Foreign Operations Subcommittee, I expect these funds are to be subject to the existing ``Leahy Law'' which restricts U.S. assistance for foreign security forces involved in gross human rights abuses. In addition, the Committee adopted 2 important amendments offered by Mr. Farr that strengthen the human rights requirements of this assistance. Mr. Chairman, for Kosovo and Southeastern Europe, the President has requested $250.9 million in emergency funds. This bill provides $142.7 million. Congress made clear last year that the U.S. should not play a major role in rebuilding Kosovo. From FY 2000 funds previously appropriated, more than $150 million is already available. Therefore, except for the Administration's request for $12.4 million for American officers in the international police force, the Committee does not recommend additional funding for Kosovo. The exception for the police force is due to an urgent need. Ethnic violence continues, and this violence endangers civilians and U.S. troops. Police, not the U.S. military, should maintain public security. This bill fully funds the President's request for $34 million in assistance for Montenegro, $35.7 million in assistance for Croatia, and $13.7 million in assistance for democratic opposition in Serbia. Also, this bill fully funds the President's request for a modest investment of $33.9 million to improve the military readiness of our allies in southeast Europe. The region remains volatile, and NATO needs to be in a position to operate cooperatively with these nations in case of another crisis. Finally, Mr. Chairman, this bill ensures continued Congressional oversight of these appropriations. None of the ``Plan Colombia'' funds can be spent until the Secretary of State notifies Congress regarding the exact uses of the funds. Further, all of the protections included in General Provisions from the Fiscal Year 2000 Foreign Operations bill apply to these funds, also. Mr. Chairman, the Foreign Operations spending in this bill is truly Emergency spending that benefits Americans. I know that many Members are uncomfortable supporting Supplemental funds for foreign aid. But every penny of foreign aid in this bill is designed to benefit Americans. This assistance will help stop illegal narcotics from entering the United States and it will help American soldiers complete their work in Kosovo more rapidly. I urge Members to vote ``aye''. Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from Michigan (Ms. Kilpatrick). (Ms. KILPATRICK asked and was given permission to revise and extend her remarks.) Ms. KILPATRICK. Mr. Chairman, the supplemental before us, and there has been much debate on it, really does not [[Page H1506]] address the total problem that we have. As a member of the Subcommittee on Foreign Operations, Export Financing and Related Programs, and we just heard the distinguished chairman, the gentleman from Alabama (Mr. Callahan), I want to thank him for his leadership in helping us to solve the problem in Zimbabwe; and my thanks to the full chairman, the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Young), for also supporting our efforts to address the crisis in Zimbabwe. As many of my colleagues know, South Africa, Zimbabwe, as well as the tragedy in Mozambique, is of insurmountable proportions. The country has been devastated. There is money in our foreign assistance accounts today to address that problem. This supplemental, though it did not accept the amendment I had for $60 million that would put $20 million in child survival, $20 million in development assistance, and $20 million in disaster relief to replenish the account so that Mozambique today can get the assistance they need, the dollars are there; and I urge the President to request the money today to address those problems. It is unfortunate that we have not moved yet on this tragedy. It has been over 3 weeks now. This has been in the media and some assistance has been sent. The helicopters, some food, and the personnel are on the ground in Mozambique. But over a million people are homeless today. Over 50,000 children are orphaned and cannot find their parents. We are the leaders in the world community. We have the resources and the disaster assistance account there for that purpose. Both the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Young) as well as the gentleman from Alabama (Mr. Callahan) have agreed with me and adopted my amendment in the Committee on Appropriations, and we have report language that says when the assessment is made, and I understand it is to be made this Friday, that we will send the money forward. Let us not slow down our progress. Mozambique is growing. It is one of the best countries on the continent. After years of struggle, they have put their house in order, but the cyclone has totally devastated them. Their housing, their hospitals, their food, their ability to grow their food has been devastated. I urge this Congress to adopt the language in the bill and to send the financial resources to Mozambique. Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from Indiana (Mr. Buyer), chairman of the Subcommittee on Military Personnel of the Committee on Armed Services. Mr. BUYER. Mr. Chairman, let me also thank the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Young) for his hard work on this bill. I could not help but think, as I was listening to the comments of the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Obey), who brought up a chart up here saying that the Republicans are busting the budget, that a few years ago he was standing here on the floor saying we were trying to starve children and put our grandmothers out on the streets. So when Republicans step forward and we fund particular programs, I am finding out that some of my colleagues enjoy the role of just playing the critic rather than being constructive and involving themselves in programs that help not only our people but our country be good neighbors in the world. I rise in strong support of this bill. A critical element of this bill is called ``Plan Colombia,'' which is the funding of a concerted effort aimed at reducing the supply of narcotics to the United States from this region in South America. Illicit drugs pose a clear and present threat to the well-being of American society as well as our entire hemisphere. In 1999, drugs killed 52,000 Americans, approximately, and caused more than $10 billion in damage to our country. The number of drug arrests and percentage of teens using drugs has steadily risen since President Clinton took office in 1993. The streets of America are literally awash in drugs, and this supplemental sends an unambiguous signal that we are finally getting serious about addressing this issue. Unlike the Bosnia and Kosovo debates we have had on in floor, the United States has a vital national interest that is threatened by the influx of drugs across our borders. These drugs find their way on to every street corner of America. Over 80 percent of the cocaine and heroin that makes its way to the United States comes from this region in South America. In December of 1999, I traveled to Colombia and Venezuela. I went into the jungles and Tres Esquinas where they were actually training the police battalions and, in my opinion, the democratically-elected government of Colombia is serious today about fighting the war on drugs. Now, I will acknowledge the comments of the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Obey) about the individuals who are drafted, young men not participating in the war, in armed combat. {time} 1300 We recognize that. But what we are training up is this narcotics police battalion. They are very serious in their efforts. The core plan of Colombia, in training these battalions, is very serious. The transportation of the them for the helicopters is necessary. I believe that Congress needs to step up to the plate. The President has acknowledged the commitment of the president of Colombia. We need the comprehensive strategy to fight this war, and this is the initial first step. Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 3 minutes. Mr. Chairman, the issue is not whether we should fight drugs. We should. The issue is what is the most effective way to do that. The issue is not whether we like the president of Colombia. I do. The question is whether his country, his society, and his military are reliable reeds to lean on when we are talking about starting a 5-year or more commitment of military involvement. I would like to once again read some of the comments made by James Hoagland, who I think everyone knows to be an objective, middle-of-the- road, and very sage reporter on international issues. This is some of what he said on March 19: ``In Colombia, the United States pursues unattainable goals largely for domestic political reasons with inappropriate tools.'' Mr. Chairman, I will insert the full text in the Record when we are in the full House, but I am quoting portions now. He goes on to say, ``Questions not being asked, much less answered, now in the rush into quagmire include the following: What happens when it becomes clear of the considered judgment of the U.S. Air Force officers that the Colombian military will not be able to maintain the Blackhawks under the conditions in which they will be flying is shown to be correct? Will the United States replace the helicopters that crash or are shot down at 13 million a copy? Will large numbers of U.S. advisors be provided to maintain the helicopter force? If cocaine exports from South America continue unabated, will 30 more or 300 more Blackhawks be furnished to expand the war? ``Clinton, of course, will not be around to provide the answers. Colombia's first Blackhawks will not arrive until 6 months after he leaves office. His successor will inherent an open-ended military obligation that can be trimmed back or abandoned only at domestic political cost. ``Sound familiar? Do the names Kennedy and Johnson come to mind?'' He then goes on to say, ``House Republicans have championed super- sized aid to Colombia with an eye to blasting Clinton and Gore if it is not passed. They are the true catalysts for this foreign policy fiasco. The Clintonites merely show the courage of their cynicism jumping aboard a train they hope will be derailed in the Senate. ``The House Republicans blithely ignore the fact that American demand is at the root of the drug problem more than Colombian supply. They vote down efforts by Representative Nancy Pelosi to add funds for drug treatment at home in the catch-all bill that provides aid to Colombia. They slice out of that same bill $211 million in debt relief for the world's poorest countries. They will shoot away the problems of the Third World. ``That has been tried elsewhere with similar fuzzy and contradictory thinking in Washington at the takeoff. I can [[Page H1507]] only wonder: Where is the Vietnam Syndrome when we really need it?'' I agree with those statements. Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Mr. Chairman, I yield 5 minutes to the distinguished gentleman from Texas (Mr. Paul). (Mr. PAUL asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.) Mr. PAUL. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for yielding me the time. Mr. Chairman, I rise in opposition to this bill. We have already appropriated $1.7 trillion for this year's budget. We do not need to appropriate another $9 billion. It is said that we need to appropriate this money to fight the drug war in Colombia. We have been fighting the drug war for 25 years. We have spent $250 billion on the drug war. Some day we will have to wake up and decide that the way we are fighting the drug war is wrong. As a physician, I can tell my colleagues, it is a serious problem. There are a lot of people suffering from drug usage in this country. But if something does not work, why are we so determined to pursue a process that does not work? Quite frankly, I am not sure the real reason why we are in Colombia has anything to do with drugs. I do concede a lot of individuals will be voting for this bill because of the belief that it might help. But it will not help. So we should reconsider it and think about the real reasons why we might be there. I had an amendment that was not approved. But what I would have done, if I had had the chance, I would have taken all the money from the overseas spending, Kosovo, Bosnia, East Timor, and the funds now for this new adventure down in Colombia, and put it into building up our military defense. That is what we need. We need better salaries, better medical care, and we need better housing for our military personnel. But here we go spreading ourselves thinly again around the world by taking on a new adventure, which will surely lead to trouble and a lot of expense. Members have referenced the 65 helicopters that will be sent to Colombia. There is one, I guess, cynical hope about what might happen with our involvement in Colombia. Usually when we get involved its only going to be for a short period of time. We were going to go into Bosnia for 6 months. We have been there 5 years. We were going to go to Kosovo for a short period of time. It is open-ended. We are in East Timor for who knows how long. And we will soon be in Colombia. But there was one time where we backed away, we literally surrendered and ran with our tail between our legs because we went in with helicopters, and that had to do with Somalia. We sent our Blackhawk helicopters in there. We had two of them shot down in Mogadishu. We had two others that crash landed when they returned to the base. Within a couple weeks, we were out of there. We did not send our Blackhawk helicopters into Kosovo because they would be shot down. Lets face it, it is not a good weapon. It will only lead to further involvement. Who is going to fly the Blackhawk helicopters? Do my colleagues think the Colombians are going to fly them? You can bet our bottom dollar we are going to have American pilots down there very much involved in training and getting in much deeper than we ever should be. So I think that, unfortunately, this could end up in a real mess. Maybe then we would have enough sense to leave. But we, in the Congress, ought to have enough sense not to go down there. This money can be better spent on national defense. We should be concerned about national security. When we get ourselves involved, whether it is the Persian Gulf or Bosnia or wherever, all we do is build up our enemies and expose ourselves more to terrorist attacks because we are not doing it in the name of security and resentment toward America builds. Under the Constitution, we should have a strong national defense, and we should provide for national security. Going into Colombia has nothing to do with national security and serves to undermine national defense. Even those who build helicopters are pretty blunt. One lobbyist said, ``It is business for us, and we are as aggressive as anybody. I am just trying to sell helicopters.'' What about the oil companies who support this war; which several oil companies do? Yes, they want investment security, so they want the military industrial complex to come down there and protect their oil interests. The oil interests are very supportive of this war, as well as the helicopter companies. But the American people, if they were asked, they would decline. A recent poll by Zogby showed that, essentially, 70 percent of the American people answered no to this particular question: ``Should the U.S. help defend militarily such-and-such country even though it could cost American soldiers their lives?'' It varied depending on which country. But, basically, 65 to 75 percent of the American people said no. The American people want us to mind our own business and not be the policeman of the world. Can any Member come to this floor and absolutely assure us that we are not going to lose American lives in Colombia? We are certainly committing ourselves to huge numbers of dollars, dollars that we do not have, dollars that if we wanted to could come out of the current $1.7 trillion budget we already have. So I would suggest to my colleagues, let us reassess this. It is not really a war on drugs. The war on drugs, by trying to reduce interdiction does not work. It has not worked. It is not going to work. It is only an excuse. It is an excuse for promoting military intervention in Colombia to satisfy those who are anxious to drill for oil there and for the military industrial complex to sell weapons. It's amazing to me to see an administration who strongly opposes law abiding American citizens from owning guns for self defense to be such a promoter of the big guns of war throughout the world. I ask for a ``no'' vote. Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2\1/2\ minutes to the distinguished gentleman from Oklahoma (Mr. Coburn). Mr. COBURN. Mr. Chairman, I want to change the focus of the debate a little bit. Last year the President, in 1999, sent to the Congress his State of the Union message and budget in which he said we were going to save 60 percent of Social Security. The Congress, led by the Republicans of Congress, said, no, Mr. President we are going to save 100 percent of Social Security. And we did just that. We stopped the raid on Social Security. It is time it look at the other program under which we are stealing money, and that is Medicare. The CBO announced in March that the estimated budget surplus of this country for fiscal 2000 will be $27 billion. It is interesting if we look to see where that money comes from. $23 billion of that made up of excess, Medicare, Part A Trust Fund payments and the interest thereon, is from Medicare. So what we are really saying is this surplus that we have, the vast majority of it, is Medicare Part A Trust Fund, and we are about to spend most of it. Let me outline for my colleagues for a minute where it is going to go: $26 billion surplus, $6.9 billion we have already spent by reversing through the budget that was passed by this House. There is going to be $2.2 billion in new supplemental outlays from this bill. There will be another $6 billion that we are going to use for agricultural emergency support payments. There is $4.2 billion in gimmicks in the budget from 601 to 596. And then there is $4 billion that I suspect we are going to pass on the House floor today to retire debt. That leaves us with $2.7 billion left. What that really says is we are going to spend $20 billion this year of Medicare Part A Trust Fund money. How should we do it? The only things that are emergencies are the things that should be in an emergency supplemental. That is number one. Number two is, it should be accompanied by a rescission bill that finds the excesses or trims other areas of government if, in fact, these are true emergencies. I would ask my colleagues to consider if they really want to take money from a program that is going to be bankrupt in 2014 and fund the vast array of items that are in this bill? I think not, on further reflection. [[Page H1508]] Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the distinguished gentleman from Iowa (Mr. Ganske). Mr. GANSKE. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman from Florida (Chairman Young) for yielding me the time. He is a true gentleman. And so I sadly rise in opposition to this emergency supplemental appropriations bill because it funds too many nonemergency programs. For example, this bill includes $20 million for a new FDA laboratory in Los Angeles. Did somebody just all of a sudden find out that the current lab is in dangerous disrepair? We should take care of this in the HHS appropriations bill. This so-called emergency supplemental also includes $96 million in economic assistance for countries in Eastern Europe and the Balkans, $104 million for an embassy in Sarajevo, $49 million for our weapons labs, $75 million for staffing at NASA; $55 million for atomic energy plant personnel and infrastructure improvements; $35 million for foster care and adoption assistance; $20 million for abstinence programs; $19 million for weatherization grants. Mr. Chairman, many of these programs are valuable and I think should be funded, but they should be funded through a normal appropriations process, not an emergency bill. And let us not forget the really big ticket items. This bill includes $2.1 billion for operations in Kosovo and East Timor. How long will we continue to support the extended deployment of our troops? An amendment is to be offered today to add $4 billion to address our military readiness problems. The reason our military is stretched is because we have sent too many of our soldiers on too many missions to too many countries. And that leads us to Colombia. Should we send more than $1.7 billion to Colombia in the form of emergency funding? I do not think so. We do have a serious drug problem. We should spend that money on drug treatment and increased border patrol. Our involvement in Colombia is just too important a decision to be made in limited debate in a supplemental spending bill. I support provisions in this bill to help victims of natural disasters, but we should not fund normal programs in an emergency bill. And so, Mr. Chairman, let us clean up this bill and help get those true emergency funds to those who need it. I urge a ``no'' vote on this supplemental. Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I yield 5 minutes to the distinguished gentlewoman from California (Ms. Pelosi). Ms. PELOSI. Mr. Chairman, I thank the distinguished ranking member for yielding me the time and for his leadership on this important issue. Mr. Chairman, I wish that we could have the time to have a full debate on the military assistance package to Colombia. I commend the gentleman for his attempt with his amendment to have a reasonable, as I said, full debate on that subject. But that will not be allowed under these rules. {time} 1315 I want to focus my attention on two areas in the bill. First let us stipulate that there are many fine projects in this bill. We all agree to that. That is why many people will be voting for it, because of issues that are of concern to their regions, and I respect that. I just want to say why, and even in light of the fact that I would normally support some of the provisions in the bill, that I find it impossible to do so because of the manner in which this bill has been brought to the floor. Are the American people not entitled to something better than a debate on military assistance to Colombia than having it as one provision in a multifaceted emergency supplemental bill? Why can we not have a debate on a very important foreign policy issue, and a vote that stands on its own? Is the Republican majority afraid of a debate in the House of Representatives? Are they afraid that their arguments are too weak, that they could not stand the scrutiny of the American people in a full debate on this issue? Let us stipulate that the President of Colombia is a brave and courageous man. President Pastrana has a very, very difficult task ahead of him. He deserves our support. What form that support should take is a matter that this House should debate, hear comment on, hold hearings on, in other words, the regular order. But the regular order is being cast aside for 20 minutes of debate, 10 minutes on each side, to debate whether we are going to commit all of this military assistance and all that goes with it, including putting our young people in harm's way, which we have already done, without a vote of this Congress. I am also very concerned that this military approach does not really get to the heart of the matter. This bill, this assistance to Colombia, is called an emergency because we have an emergency drug problem in our country and indeed we do. As we heard on this floor earlier today, 5\1/ 2\ million Americans need substance abuse treatment. Two million of them are getting it. We have a 3.5-million-person treatment gap in our country. If we want to reduce substance abuse in the United States, we must do that by reducing demand in the United States. Cutting off supply in Colombia is more costly and less certain. Let me tell my colleagues how much more costly. According to the Rand Corporation report, for every dollar spent to reduce demand in the U.S., you would have to spend $23 in the country of origin in coca leaf eradication. That means if you spend $34 million in the U.S. to reduce dependence on drugs by 1 percent, that same effect of reduction of 1 percent costs $723 million by taking the approach of the eradication of the coca leaf in the country of origin, in this case Colombia. But say that has to be part of a comprehensive drug problem. How can we bring an emergency supplemental bill to the floor of the House of Representatives whose emergency status in this area in terms of reducing substance abuse in the United States is dependent on reducing demand in the United States without one dollar in the bill, without one dollar in the bill being used for reduction in demand in the U.S., a formula that is 23 times more effective, according to the Rand Report which was done in conjunction with the Department of Defense and the Office of Drug Control Policy? So do not take my word for it. Twenty- three times more effective. On the subject of again Plan Colombia, of which this is a part, we were told that Plan Colombia was an over $7 billion proposal. Colombia would put up $4 billion, we would put up $1.7 billion, the EU would put up $900 million, and then IMF and the Multilateral Development Bank would put up money. This is the only money on the table, the military money. So when we are told this is the military part but there is a big humanitarian part, we have not seen that yet. That is why I am voting no on this bill and respectful of my colleagues' decision for their own part. Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Mr. Chairman, I yield 30 seconds to the gentleman from Alabama (Mr. Callahan). Mr. CALLAHAN. I would do anything, Mr. Chairman, but to tell the gentlewoman from California that she is all wet on some of her assumptions, but I rise primarily, Mr. Chairman, to inform the House that the gentlewoman from California's birthday is being celebrated this week, and we take this opportunity to wish the gentlewoman from California a very happy birthday. Ms. PELOSI. I thank the gentleman. If the gentleman will yield, I am pleased on my birthday to present the gentleman with the Rand Report which documents the assumptions that I presented. Mr. CALLAHAN. I hope they wrapped it nicely. Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Mr. Chairman, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from New York (Mr. Gilman), chairman of the Committee on International Relations. (Mr. GILMAN asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.) Mr. GILMAN. I thank the gentleman for yielding me this time. Mr. Chairman, I compliment the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Hastert), the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Young), the gentleman from Alabama (Mr. Callahan), and all those who worked so hard to bring this emergency antidrug aid package to the floor today. Passage of this bill affects every school, hospital, courtroom, neighborhood, all of our communities throughout America. [[Page H1509]] This bill will provide sorely needed assistance to our allies in Colombia who are all on the front lines in the war against illegal drugs. The numbers have been shocking. Eighty percent of the cocaine, 75 percent of the heroin consumed in our Nation comes from Colombia. Illegal drugs have been costing our society more than $100 billion per year, costing also 15,000 young American lives each year. As a result of inattention from the administration, the civil war in Colombia is going badly for that government. This weekend alone, 26 antidrug police were killed by the narcoterrorists in Colombia. The specter of a consolidated narcostate only 3 hours by plane from Miami has made it patently clear that our Nation's vital security interests are at stake. As the sun begins to set on his administration, President Clinton is finally facing the reality of the Colombian drug-fueled crisis with this emergency supplemental request. As former Supreme Court Justice Felix Frankfurter eloquently noted, and I quote, ``wisdom too often never comes, and so one ought not to reject it merely because it comes late.'' Heroes like Colombia's antidrug leader General Jose Serrano want our Nation to stand with them in their fight against the drug lords, including the right-wing paramilitaries. This legislation provides more assistance where it can do the most good with the Colombian antidrug police. Colombia is not asking for nor should we offer American troops in that war. Investing American aid dollars now in Colombia to stem the hundredfold cost to our society only makes common sense. It is a proper role for our government. We at the Federal level have the responsibility to help eradicate those drugs at their source. Accordingly, I am urging our colleagues to support this package. Colombia's survival as a democracy and our own national security interests are at stake here. The stakes could not be more clear and more critical. With regard to the comments of the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Pelosi), demand reduction composes 32.7 percent of the government's total spending on antidrug efforts while the amount spent on reducing overseas supply currently consists of only 3 percent of those expenditures. I again urge our Members to fully support this very important antidrug measure. Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I yield 3 minutes to the distinguished gentleman from New York (Mr. Serrano). (Mr. SERRANO asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.) Mr. SERRANO. I thank the gentleman from Wisconsin for yielding me this time. Mr. Chairman, I am really troubled about what we are doing here today, and I cannot believe we are doing it without much more debate. This looks to me very much like something from my younger years when we got involved in Vietnam. Let us understand this Colombia situation is a civil war. It is a civil war that has been going on for a long time. We have decided all of a sudden that it is a war on drugs. That is our excuse or it is some folks in our administration's excuse for getting involved in a civil war. And then the mistake we are making here which I brought out in committee and in subcommittee and other places is the fact that we are referring to the insurgent group in Colombia as narcoterrorists. The minute in this country you call somebody a terrorist, you close the door, and rightfully so, on ever negotiating with them. So by saying that we are going into Colombia to help the military, number one, which is wrong, fight the narcoterrorists, we just said that we are never going to negotiate with one side in a civil war. Now, I suspect that people in Washington are beginning to look at Latin America and beginning to get this feeling which was a bad feeling and a wrong feeling in the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s. They see a progressive President in Venezuela, Chavez; they see a new so-called socialist President in Chile and they say, ``Oh, my God, we've got to do something,'' so where do we set our anchor? In Colombia. And then to suggest that in Colombia only one side may be involved with drug money is to suggest we are reinventing that country. There is a major problem with drugs in Colombia, and it plays a role in everything that is done in that country. I wish that today we had the courage to look at this issue for what it is. We are getting involved in a civil war which we are going to pay for a price, a big price in the future. Secondly, we are closing off any opportunity to speak to one side. How do you bring peace to a country if that is what you want to do by shutting the door on one side? And, thirdly, we are thinking about Colombia as we thought about South America in the 1960s. We are looking at it in the year 2000 in the same way. We made mistakes then; we are going to make them again, and for what? So that some helicopter company somewhere can sell a few helicopters? It is not worth it. I wish we would reconsider this and vote as I will against this bill. Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Mr. Chairman, I yield 3 minutes to the gentlewoman from Florida (Mrs. Fowler). (Mrs. FOWLER asked and was given permission to revise and extend her remarks.) Mrs. FOWLER. Mr. Chairman, I rise in strong support of the supplemental and in strong support of the Lewis-Spence-Murtha-Skelton amendment to the bill which would provide an additional $4 billion for our severely underfunded Defense Department. In addition, later today, I will offer an amendment with the gentleman from Utah (Mr. Hansen) regarding the $40 million contained in this bill to implement the President's directive on the Navy's training range on the Puerto Rican island of Vieques. The bill would provide these funds to Puerto Rico as part of a deal to resume Navy and Marine Corps training on Vieques which has been suspended because of trespassers seeking to end our training operations there. The money would be used for economic development and to hold a binding referendum on Vieques on whether live-fire training should be resumed. The Fowler-Hansen amendment would essentially do two things: First, it would strike language that would permit any of the $40 million to be used for the referendum. It does not stop the referendum. As the San Juan Star accurately reported today, the referendum can still be held, just not underwritten by the U.S. government. Operations on a vital military training range should not be subjected to a public referendum. This is terrible public policy and will set a very dangerous precedent for other critical military activities. Second, it would require that before the $40 million is released to Puerto Rico, the President must certify to the Congress that live-fire training operations have been resumed. The amendment would also allow part of this $40 million to be spent on a health study on the island of Vieques immediately upon enactment without condition. I want to quote specifically referring to the live-fire training on Vieques from the Secretary of the Navy Richard Danzig. He has stated, and I quote, This training wins wars. Many Americans in uniform owe their lives to this crucial training. Many would perish without it. This is critical to the well-being of our young Marines and sailors. I urge my colleagues to support the Fowler-Hansen amendment which will be on the floor later this afternoon. Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the distinguished gentlewoman from Georgia (Ms. McKinney). {time} 1330 Ms. McKINNEY. Mr. Chairman, if this bill were not so serious, I would think it is a joke. Once again, the United States is proposing a huge military alliance with the foreign military known for its human rights abuses. Now, you think we would have learned our lesson by now. How long ago was it that Bill Clinton went to Guatemala and apologized for fueling that country's generation-long slide into chaos? But just a year later you can say here we go again. No one seriously denies the link of paramilitary groups to the Colombian government, and here we are going to turn over to known human rights abusers the means by which they can perfect their trade. As we stand here on the floor today, 3,000 union leaders, students, parents, [[Page H1510]] shopkeepers and others are standing before 3,000 armed Colombian soldiers, forming a human shield to protect the peaceful U'wa people that the Colombian government wants to move off their ancestral land to make way for Occidental Petroleum's oil rigs. We should be standing with the people, not giving aid and encouragement to Colombia's brutal military. We should have learned our lessons well about going in with the military where only diplomacy should be allowed to tread. Unfortunately, it appears that we have not. Because in addition to Plan Colombia, this bill also provides an additional $5 billion to keep us in Kosovo, another failed military blunder that diplomacy should have resolved. After our military gambit in Kosovo, we have left 31,000 rounds of depleted uranium rounds and 50 percent unemployment, in some areas rising to 85 percent. The crumbling infrastructure is yet to be rebuilt, and our European allies have not lived up to the commitments they made at the beginning of that adventure. Time and time again, this Congress commits our troops to military adventures without a plan to bring them home. Last year, U.S. aircraft flew over 1,000 sorties in Iraq, nearly a decade after that war was supposedly over. In Kosovo, our limited military engagement has turned into a permanent occupation. Now we are being asked to fund the Vietnamization of Barry McCaffrey's war without an exit strategy or end game. Mr. Chairman, I urge my colleagues to reject this so-called emergency amendment. Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Mr. Chairman, I have only one speaker to close, and I reserve the balance of my time. Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the distinguished gentlewoman from Wisconsin (Ms. Baldwin). (Ms. BALDWIN asked and was given permission to revise and extend her remarks.) Ms. BALDWIN. Mr. Chairman, on October 24, 1999, more than 10 million Colombians took to the streets of every major city in Colombia to rally for peace. These 10 million Colombians wanted to send a message that they were sick of war. They were terrorized by the kidnappings. They were exhausted with paramilitary violence and disgusted with drug trade. No mas, they said. No more. Peace is what Colombia needs. Peace will allow democracy to flourish. Peace will permit law enforcement officials to combat the flow of illicit drugs, and peace will create the conditions to address the income inequalities, the problems of displaced persons and economic development issues that will truly improve the lives of the Colombian people. Unfortunately, the aid package we are considering today will not help the peace process. In fact, it fails to address the underlying issues that are needed to promote peace in Colombia. I traveled to Colombia in 1993 to see the situation first hand. It was clear, then, that U.S. military aid and equipment that was intended to be used to stem the flow of illegal drugs was being misused, misused to suppress citizens in Colombia, including labor activists, community leaders, peace activists, human rights activists and collective farmers. The United States is properly concerned about the abuse of illegal drugs by our citizens. Interdiction and source reductions should be a part of a comprehensive drug control policy. This proposal does not reflect such a policy. The proposal we have before us today will do little or nothing to address the fundamental problems in Colombia; namely, economic inequality, civil war, lack of economic development, and judicial impunity. Unfortunately, we seem to be playing a game of public relations when we should be pursuing peace in the region. The CHAIRMAN. The gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Obey) has 1\1/2\ minutes remaining. Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 1\1/2\ minutes. Mr. Chairman, last week, the majority party in this House posed for political holy pictures and promised spending discipline and bragged about how much spending they were going to cut. This week they have brought to the floor this bill which adds $4 billion to the spending requests that the President has made for a supplemental. And then on top of that, it intends in an amendment that they will shortly offer to add yet another $4 billion in spending. And the reason they are going to do that in the DOD account is simply so they move $4 billion in spending from next year to this year, because that frees up $4 billion for them to add for Members' projects in the coming year. It is very simply a $4 billion end run around the spending ceilings which they bragged about imposing just 5 days ago. They must think that people are not watching. Well, I suspect they are. The net result is that they come in for this entire fiscal year spending $17 billion more than the President asks for. That to me is an indication of just how false those promises have been that we would see straight bookkeeping and fiscal discipline under their budget. That alone, I think, is a reason to defeat this proposition. I have already indicated my concern about the Colombian war effort, but I think this is yet another reason to vote against this budget hocus pocus. The CHAIRMAN. The gentleman from Florida (Mr. Young) has 5\1/2\ minutes remaining. Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself the balance of the time. Mr. Chairman, first I would like to compliment all of our colleagues for the very high level and

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2000 EMERGENCY SUPPLEMENTAL APPROPRIATIONS ACT
(House of Representatives - March 29, 2000)

Text of this article available as: TXT PDF [Pages H1495-H1585] 2000 EMERGENCY SUPPLEMENTAL APPROPRIATIONS ACT The SPEAKER pro tempore. Pursuant to House Resolution 450 and rule XVIII, the Chair declares the House in the Committee of the Whole House on the State of the Union for the consideration of the bill, H.R. 3908. {time} 1232 In the Committee of the Whole Accordingly, the House resolved itself into the Committee of the Whole House on the State of the Union for the consideration of the bill (H.R. 3908) making emergency supplemental appropriations for the fiscal year ending September 30, 2000, and for other purposes, with Mr. Thornberry in the chair. The Clerk read the title of the bill. The CHAIRMAN. Pursuant to the rule, the bill is considered as having been read the first time. Under the rule, the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Young) and the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Obey) each will control 30 minutes. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Young). Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. (Mr. YOUNG of Florida asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.) Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Mr. Chairman, I am pleased to bring to the House today the 2000 Emergency Supplemental Appropriations bill. The Committee on Appropriations ordered this legislation reported by a nearly three to one bipartisan vote. It is reflective of a compilation of input from many sources on a large spectrum of issues. The request was thoroughly reviewed, hearings were held, input from Members outside the committee was received, and our committee painstakingly marked up the bill. The result of all of this is the bill before us. The bill includes $1.7 billion for counternarcotics activities in the Colombian and Andean region. By and large, the bill provides what the President requested for Colombia. In addition, the bill takes a more regional approach by providing increased help to the anti-drug efforts of Colombia's neighbors. Before any of the funds going to South America can be spent, the Secretary of State is to report on how the money will be used. The bill also funds high priority anti-drug activities in the Departments of Justice and Defense. Also included in this bill is nearly $5 billion for national security matters. The President's emergency request for $2 billion for operations in Kosovo and East Timor is met. I must remind our colleagues that this money replenishes funds that have already been spent for both of these operations. In fact, the money has been spent and borrowed from the fourth quarter operations and maintenance accounts of all of the military services. So that money has to be repaid, or the training activities in the fourth quarter of the fiscal year for our Nation's military will have to stand down dramatically. This bill also includes $1.6 billion to help cover increasing fuel costs facing the Defense Department. As we drive up to the gas tanks and fill up our cars, we see a tremendous increase in the cost of fuel. The ships that we drive, the airplanes that we fly, the trucks and the tanks that we drive, all of these things that use fuel are experiencing the same thing. So we do provide the money to make up for the increased fuel costs. The bill also includes $854.5 million to the financially troubled Defense Health Program, a health program that promises medical care for members of the military, their families, and those retirees who are eligible for military medical care. There are doctors, there are nurses, there are pharmacies, and there are medical people who provide medical care who have provided their services but have not been paid. We are in arrears to at least that amount of money. So we include it in this bill. The President did not request these two items; but they are urgently needed, and we will have to provide the money sooner or later. In the natural disaster and other emergencies areas, the bill includes $2.2 billion. This includes $400 million for USDA administered agriculture assistance, $250 million for wildland fire management, $600 million for LIHEAP, Low Income Home Energy Assistance, and $600 million for emergency highway reimbursements to States. Mr. Chairman, the committee tried to clean up all of the loose ends that we had relative to hurricane and flood disasters in the last year, and we believe this bill does complete all our responsibilities and obligations here. There are many other important issues addressed in the bill. The report provides a very complete description of them. The bill is somewhat difficult and a little controversial in places, and I respect the fact that there are multiple opinions on the bill. But I think the Committee on Appropriations listened to and respected the differing positions on the various provisions in the bill, including the strong support of the President of the United States. However, as usual with an appropriations bill, we could not report a bill that included everyone's position. Now the bill is before the entire House for consideration. It is important that we move this bill through the House today and we get it to the other body where deliberations can begin. We need to get this off of our schedules today because, Mr. Chairman, we have 13 other appropriations bills that we are trying to bring to this House in regular order and ahead of last year's schedule and certainly the year before's schedule, because this is a busy year for Members of Congress because of our national conventions, home work periods. So we need to get this bill out of here, get it into the negotiation with the other body. At this point in the Record, I would like to insert a table showing the details of this bill, as reported. [The table follows:] [[Page H1496]] [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T29MR00.001 [[Page H1497]] [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T29MR00.002 [[Page H1498]] [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T29MR00.003 [[Page H1499]] [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T29MR00.004 [[Page H1500]] [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T29MR00.005 [[Page H1501]] [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T29MR00.006 [[Page H1502]] [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T29MR00.007 [[Page H1503]] [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T29MR00.008 [[Page H1504]] Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time. Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 10 minutes. Mr. Chairman, at the end of last year, the President had asked for $568 billion in appropriated spending, and Congress had approved $578 billion. In this supplemental as it now comes before us, the President has asked for additional funds which would take his total request for the year to $573 billion. The supplemental has been added to by the committee so that, if this bill passes as it is now before us, we will wind up spending $587 billion over this existing fiscal year, which is $13 billion more than the President asked. In addition, the amendment that will be offered today and which will be supported by the Republican leadership will add yet another $4 billion to this package in the DoD arena. That will take total spending for this fiscal year to $591 billion, some $17 billion above the President's request. That additional $4 billion which is being asked for by the House leadership is there for a very simple reason. There is nothing wrong with what that money is actually being spent for. But the fact is it is being spent on routine items for one simple purpose, and that is to get around the very budget resolution that was passed just 5 days ago on this floor. Because by moving that $4 billion in expenditures into this existing fiscal year, my colleagues make room in the next fiscal year for $4 billion for Members' projects and Members' pork. Nice game if they can get away with it. I suggest Senator McCain get out his pencil. He better get ready, because a lot of stuff is going to come over there he is probably not going to like. This is one major reason to vote against this bill before us today. But there is another, in my view, even more serious reason. We are being asked by the President and the Speaker of the House to support $1.3 billion for Colombia. In my view, that is the camel's nose under the tent for a massive long-term commitment to a military operation in Colombia that has as much to do with the domestic situation in Colombia as it has to do with our drug problems here at home. General Wilhelm from SouthCom has indicated that this is the first year of a 5-year commitment, in his judgment. It seems to me if a can- do Marine like General Wilhelm is predicting that this is going to be a 5-year operation, that it is likely to last a lot longer, because things have a way of getting more complicated than Congress originally expects. As I said in the Committee on Rules, I detest Vietnam analyses under most circumstances, but I believe that, in this case, there is a very real parallel. In fact, there are two. When the Gulf of Tonkin resolution was debated in 1964, it took 2 days in the Senate. It took 40 minutes on the floor of this House. This Congress has rued the day ever since that it did not give more time to consider that proposition. Today, when my amendment comes before us to eliminate the most dangerous parts of that Colombian package, we will have exactly 20 minutes to discuss it, 10 minutes for those of us who are opposed to undertaking that involvement at this time. Let me tell my colleagues what I think the unanswered questions are that we ought to be asking. In my view, this Congress has no real knowledge of what it is we are about to embark upon. I do not see any real plan by the administration. I see a plan to have a plan, but I do not see a real plan. There is no specific authorization for this proposition. Before we slide into this operation, I think we ought to ask some questions. First of all, is this really an anti-drug campaign, or is it a political campaign, a pacification in Colombia? Will this really produce a reduction in drug availability in the United States? The House, in the rule it just adopted, has eliminated its ability to vote on the Pelosi amendment. The Pelosi amendment was an attempt to add additional money to fight drugs here at home by expanding our drug treatment and prevention program. I would point out that the Rand Corporation, in a study financed in part by the U.S. Army, indicated that a dollar spent to eliminate drug use here at home is 23 times more effective than a dollar spent to try to interdict or to reduce supply in some foreign land. Yet we are being prevented from voting on the most effective way to deal with drugs in this country. I also think we need to be aware of the fact that in Colombia itself there is substantial doubt about whether that society is ready to take this issue on. If they are not, we cannot do it for them. I do not know, for instance, how many Americans understand that if we take a look at the ruling elite in Colombia, their sons do not serve in combat. Because if one is a high school graduate, one is exempted from having to serve in combat in the Colombian armed forces. {time} 1245 Do my colleagues really think we are going to be able to sustain a 5- or 10-year military operation with that kind of divided duty in that society? I doubt it. What happens if the battalions that we are now training do not succeed? We are training a few thousand men so they can try to root out the narcos in 40,000 square miles of jungle. Let us say we succeed, which I think is highly unlikely. What is to prevent them from simply moving into the other 150,000 square miles of jungle in that country? I do not think very much. I think this is ill conceived and ill thought out. If this does not work, what is the next step? Will we then cut and run, or will we then deepen our involvement? I do not think, given our past experience in Vietnam, that we are likely to just say, ``Oh, well, we gave it the good old college try, so now we are going to yank the plug.'' I do not think whoever is the future president is going to be able to make that decision. That means a long-haul problem. What I am going to be asking this House to do, eventually, is to allow the money for police training to flow, to allow their helicopters to go down to Colombia, but I am going to be asking my colleagues to delay until July the vote on the over $500 million in additional funding that is meant to expand our basic military commitment in Colombia until the Committee on Armed Services, the Committee on International Relations, and the Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence can hold more hearings on this so that Congress knows what it is doing before it acts. And my amendment will provide expedited procedures to assure that we would be able to vote on it in July. We are being told that lots of very bright professional people have put this package together so we need have no fear. Well, I respect Secretary Albright, I respect General McCaffery, I respect Mr. Pickering in the State Department, I respect the Speaker of the House, the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Hastert). But with all due respect to them, every individual Member of this House has a constitutional duty to exercise his or her own judgment on an issue of this gravity, and I do not think we are able to do that under this truncated arrangement. So I would urge, for those and other reasons, that my colleagues oppose this bill today. I have no illusions that my amendment will pass. I think it is incredible we could not even vote on the Pelosi amendment, but I would urge Members not to make the same mistake that was made on this House floor in the Gulf of Tonkin. This may not be the same as Vietnam. There are undoubtedly major differences. But there are some very disturbing similarities, and I would urge my colleagues to take those similarities into consideration and delay consideration of this crucial vote until the Congress knows a whole lot more than it does today about what the proper course of action ought to be. Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time. Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from North Carolina (Mr. Hayes). (Mr. HAYES asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.) Mr. HAYES. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman from Florida for his great efforts in providing us with an excellent bill. I rise today to voice my enthusiastic support for his efforts, particularly as it relates to North Carolina. This supplemental calls for $94 million in unobligated balances for the emergency conservation program to be [[Page H1505]] used to repair damage done by Hurricane Floyd to buildings and farm equipment; provides $13 million in Federal crop insurance assistance; provides $81 million in relief for marketing loans for farmers in North Carolina; provides $43 million in rural water projects; $29 million for rural housing; $5 billion for peacekeeping in Kosovo, $2.2 billion more than the President's request. This supplemental fills in a lot of holes that have been created by this administration. Additional funding is appropriated to stop the administration's practice of asking our soldiers to do more with less. And if the Spence amendment is accepted, and I certainly hope that it is, and support it, the supplemental will include an additional $4 billion in emergency, badly needed defense funding. This funding includes $750 million in military health care for active duty and veterans, $230 million to reduce out-of-pocket housing expenses, $600 million to address recruiting shortfalls, $1.2 billion to meet funding requirements for our forward deployed forces, and $1.2 billion to meet critical shortfalls in equipment maintenance. Mr. Chairman, I again want to thank the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Young) and rise in enthusiastic support. I would respectfully urge our friends in the Senate to move forward on this bill with all dispatch. Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Mr. Chairman, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Alabama (Mr. Callahan), the chairman of the Subcommittee on Foreign Operations, Export Financing and Related Programs. (Mr. CALLAHAN asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.) Mr. CALLAHAN. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for yielding me this time. Just recently, Mr. Chairman, we heard our colleague from Wisconsin talking about the message that the President of the United States brought to this House of Representatives requesting that we bust the budget. I might remind the gentleman that the President was not for the balanced budget anyway, so we are not surprised he is sending us this message asking us to bust the budget. What we did in this process, with respect to that area of jurisdiction that we on the Subcommittee on Foreign Operations, Export Financing and Related Programs have, is reduce the President's request for foreign aid by $37 million. Simply put, the President of the United States, the man that the people of this country has placed in charge of our national security, has hired one of the most professional people in this country with respect to the ability to do something about the drug problem we have, Mr. McCaffery. And Mr. McCaffery and the President of the United States have come to us and said, give us the money to implement this policy. Who are we to second-guess the Commander-in- Chief and Mr. McCaffery, the drug czar? I am sorry that the minority Members do not have the confidence in the President of the United States to make a decision that is a responsible decision, but we must be responsible Members of the House of Representatives. The President has come to us, the Commander-in- Chief, and he tells us we have a very, very serious problem with drugs. And the President is absolutely right. He says we have a problem in Kosovo, and he is absolutely right. The President and I disagree on what the problem is in Kosovo, but, nevertheless, we have reduced his request for assistance to Kosovo for reconstruction. There is nothing in here to that effect. So the bottom line is the Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Services and the drug czar have come to us and said, after due diligent research, they have decided that this is the number one way that we can fight drug use here in the United States. I know that there appears to be an extreme lack of confidence in the ability of the President of the United States to make these decisions; but, nevertheless, he is the President of the United States and this Congress must decide whether or not we want to fight drugs based upon the suggested remedy that the President of the United States has sent to us or whether we want to play rhetoric and play demagoguery and delay this and let this drug situation develop even further. In addition to the President's request for Colombia, we found glaring holes in it in the committee process. For example, we found that there was not a sufficient amount of money for the surrounding countries of Colombia, and we increased the President's request. We did not decrease his drug effort request; we increased it to provide for the surrounding countries of Colombia to have an ability to also fight the drug situation. So here we are, a body that is destined to make a decision today based upon the request of the President of the United States. Mr. Chairman, I rise in support of this Emergency Supplemental Appropriations bill. I commend Chairman Young for his leadership on this measure, especially his efforts to support our Armed Forces who are under so much strain in the face of repeated deployments overseas. For Foreign Operations, this Emergency Supplemental includes a total of $1 billion and 241.7 million including $1 billion and 99 million for programs to fight America's international War on Drugs and $142.7 million for Kosovo and Southeast Europe. We did not provide an additional $210 million for debt relief at this time, but this is a subject we hope to be able to address when the proper conditions have been agreed to by the Secretary of the Treasury. In all, the Appropriations Committee recommendation reduces president's request for foreign aid by more than $37 million. Let me highlight the small but significant changes to the President's request made by the Committee. First, the Committee recommendation does not simply shift drug production and trafficking away from Colombia, and into other countries in the region, we have increased the President's request for Colombia's neighbors, including: $57 million for Bolivia; $42 million for Peru; $20 million for Ecuador; and $18 million for Panama, Venezuela, Costa Rica, and Brazil. Second, this bill will strengthen Human Rights and Judicial Reform in Colombia. The Appropriations Committee has recommended $98.5 million-- $5 million more that the President's request--for human rights and judicial programs. As Chairman of the Foreign Operations Subcommittee, I expect these funds are to be subject to the existing ``Leahy Law'' which restricts U.S. assistance for foreign security forces involved in gross human rights abuses. In addition, the Committee adopted 2 important amendments offered by Mr. Farr that strengthen the human rights requirements of this assistance. Mr. Chairman, for Kosovo and Southeastern Europe, the President has requested $250.9 million in emergency funds. This bill provides $142.7 million. Congress made clear last year that the U.S. should not play a major role in rebuilding Kosovo. From FY 2000 funds previously appropriated, more than $150 million is already available. Therefore, except for the Administration's request for $12.4 million for American officers in the international police force, the Committee does not recommend additional funding for Kosovo. The exception for the police force is due to an urgent need. Ethnic violence continues, and this violence endangers civilians and U.S. troops. Police, not the U.S. military, should maintain public security. This bill fully funds the President's request for $34 million in assistance for Montenegro, $35.7 million in assistance for Croatia, and $13.7 million in assistance for democratic opposition in Serbia. Also, this bill fully funds the President's request for a modest investment of $33.9 million to improve the military readiness of our allies in southeast Europe. The region remains volatile, and NATO needs to be in a position to operate cooperatively with these nations in case of another crisis. Finally, Mr. Chairman, this bill ensures continued Congressional oversight of these appropriations. None of the ``Plan Colombia'' funds can be spent until the Secretary of State notifies Congress regarding the exact uses of the funds. Further, all of the protections included in General Provisions from the Fiscal Year 2000 Foreign Operations bill apply to these funds, also. Mr. Chairman, the Foreign Operations spending in this bill is truly Emergency spending that benefits Americans. I know that many Members are uncomfortable supporting Supplemental funds for foreign aid. But every penny of foreign aid in this bill is designed to benefit Americans. This assistance will help stop illegal narcotics from entering the United States and it will help American soldiers complete their work in Kosovo more rapidly. I urge Members to vote ``aye''. Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from Michigan (Ms. Kilpatrick). (Ms. KILPATRICK asked and was given permission to revise and extend her remarks.) Ms. KILPATRICK. Mr. Chairman, the supplemental before us, and there has been much debate on it, really does not [[Page H1506]] address the total problem that we have. As a member of the Subcommittee on Foreign Operations, Export Financing and Related Programs, and we just heard the distinguished chairman, the gentleman from Alabama (Mr. Callahan), I want to thank him for his leadership in helping us to solve the problem in Zimbabwe; and my thanks to the full chairman, the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Young), for also supporting our efforts to address the crisis in Zimbabwe. As many of my colleagues know, South Africa, Zimbabwe, as well as the tragedy in Mozambique, is of insurmountable proportions. The country has been devastated. There is money in our foreign assistance accounts today to address that problem. This supplemental, though it did not accept the amendment I had for $60 million that would put $20 million in child survival, $20 million in development assistance, and $20 million in disaster relief to replenish the account so that Mozambique today can get the assistance they need, the dollars are there; and I urge the President to request the money today to address those problems. It is unfortunate that we have not moved yet on this tragedy. It has been over 3 weeks now. This has been in the media and some assistance has been sent. The helicopters, some food, and the personnel are on the ground in Mozambique. But over a million people are homeless today. Over 50,000 children are orphaned and cannot find their parents. We are the leaders in the world community. We have the resources and the disaster assistance account there for that purpose. Both the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Young) as well as the gentleman from Alabama (Mr. Callahan) have agreed with me and adopted my amendment in the Committee on Appropriations, and we have report language that says when the assessment is made, and I understand it is to be made this Friday, that we will send the money forward. Let us not slow down our progress. Mozambique is growing. It is one of the best countries on the continent. After years of struggle, they have put their house in order, but the cyclone has totally devastated them. Their housing, their hospitals, their food, their ability to grow their food has been devastated. I urge this Congress to adopt the language in the bill and to send the financial resources to Mozambique. Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from Indiana (Mr. Buyer), chairman of the Subcommittee on Military Personnel of the Committee on Armed Services. Mr. BUYER. Mr. Chairman, let me also thank the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Young) for his hard work on this bill. I could not help but think, as I was listening to the comments of the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Obey), who brought up a chart up here saying that the Republicans are busting the budget, that a few years ago he was standing here on the floor saying we were trying to starve children and put our grandmothers out on the streets. So when Republicans step forward and we fund particular programs, I am finding out that some of my colleagues enjoy the role of just playing the critic rather than being constructive and involving themselves in programs that help not only our people but our country be good neighbors in the world. I rise in strong support of this bill. A critical element of this bill is called ``Plan Colombia,'' which is the funding of a concerted effort aimed at reducing the supply of narcotics to the United States from this region in South America. Illicit drugs pose a clear and present threat to the well-being of American society as well as our entire hemisphere. In 1999, drugs killed 52,000 Americans, approximately, and caused more than $10 billion in damage to our country. The number of drug arrests and percentage of teens using drugs has steadily risen since President Clinton took office in 1993. The streets of America are literally awash in drugs, and this supplemental sends an unambiguous signal that we are finally getting serious about addressing this issue. Unlike the Bosnia and Kosovo debates we have had on in floor, the United States has a vital national interest that is threatened by the influx of drugs across our borders. These drugs find their way on to every street corner of America. Over 80 percent of the cocaine and heroin that makes its way to the United States comes from this region in South America. In December of 1999, I traveled to Colombia and Venezuela. I went into the jungles and Tres Esquinas where they were actually training the police battalions and, in my opinion, the democratically-elected government of Colombia is serious today about fighting the war on drugs. Now, I will acknowledge the comments of the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Obey) about the individuals who are drafted, young men not participating in the war, in armed combat. {time} 1300 We recognize that. But what we are training up is this narcotics police battalion. They are very serious in their efforts. The core plan of Colombia, in training these battalions, is very serious. The transportation of the them for the helicopters is necessary. I believe that Congress needs to step up to the plate. The President has acknowledged the commitment of the president of Colombia. We need the comprehensive strategy to fight this war, and this is the initial first step. Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 3 minutes. Mr. Chairman, the issue is not whether we should fight drugs. We should. The issue is what is the most effective way to do that. The issue is not whether we like the president of Colombia. I do. The question is whether his country, his society, and his military are reliable reeds to lean on when we are talking about starting a 5-year or more commitment of military involvement. I would like to once again read some of the comments made by James Hoagland, who I think everyone knows to be an objective, middle-of-the- road, and very sage reporter on international issues. This is some of what he said on March 19: ``In Colombia, the United States pursues unattainable goals largely for domestic political reasons with inappropriate tools.'' Mr. Chairman, I will insert the full text in the Record when we are in the full House, but I am quoting portions now. He goes on to say, ``Questions not being asked, much less answered, now in the rush into quagmire include the following: What happens when it becomes clear of the considered judgment of the U.S. Air Force officers that the Colombian military will not be able to maintain the Blackhawks under the conditions in which they will be flying is shown to be correct? Will the United States replace the helicopters that crash or are shot down at 13 million a copy? Will large numbers of U.S. advisors be provided to maintain the helicopter force? If cocaine exports from South America continue unabated, will 30 more or 300 more Blackhawks be furnished to expand the war? ``Clinton, of course, will not be around to provide the answers. Colombia's first Blackhawks will not arrive until 6 months after he leaves office. His successor will inherent an open-ended military obligation that can be trimmed back or abandoned only at domestic political cost. ``Sound familiar? Do the names Kennedy and Johnson come to mind?'' He then goes on to say, ``House Republicans have championed super- sized aid to Colombia with an eye to blasting Clinton and Gore if it is not passed. They are the true catalysts for this foreign policy fiasco. The Clintonites merely show the courage of their cynicism jumping aboard a train they hope will be derailed in the Senate. ``The House Republicans blithely ignore the fact that American demand is at the root of the drug problem more than Colombian supply. They vote down efforts by Representative Nancy Pelosi to add funds for drug treatment at home in the catch-all bill that provides aid to Colombia. They slice out of that same bill $211 million in debt relief for the world's poorest countries. They will shoot away the problems of the Third World. ``That has been tried elsewhere with similar fuzzy and contradictory thinking in Washington at the takeoff. I can [[Page H1507]] only wonder: Where is the Vietnam Syndrome when we really need it?'' I agree with those statements. Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Mr. Chairman, I yield 5 minutes to the distinguished gentleman from Texas (Mr. Paul). (Mr. PAUL asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.) Mr. PAUL. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for yielding me the time. Mr. Chairman, I rise in opposition to this bill. We have already appropriated $1.7 trillion for this year's budget. We do not need to appropriate another $9 billion. It is said that we need to appropriate this money to fight the drug war in Colombia. We have been fighting the drug war for 25 years. We have spent $250 billion on the drug war. Some day we will have to wake up and decide that the way we are fighting the drug war is wrong. As a physician, I can tell my colleagues, it is a serious problem. There are a lot of people suffering from drug usage in this country. But if something does not work, why are we so determined to pursue a process that does not work? Quite frankly, I am not sure the real reason why we are in Colombia has anything to do with drugs. I do concede a lot of individuals will be voting for this bill because of the belief that it might help. But it will not help. So we should reconsider it and think about the real reasons why we might be there. I had an amendment that was not approved. But what I would have done, if I had had the chance, I would have taken all the money from the overseas spending, Kosovo, Bosnia, East Timor, and the funds now for this new adventure down in Colombia, and put it into building up our military defense. That is what we need. We need better salaries, better medical care, and we need better housing for our military personnel. But here we go spreading ourselves thinly again around the world by taking on a new adventure, which will surely lead to trouble and a lot of expense. Members have referenced the 65 helicopters that will be sent to Colombia. There is one, I guess, cynical hope about what might happen with our involvement in Colombia. Usually when we get involved its only going to be for a short period of time. We were going to go into Bosnia for 6 months. We have been there 5 years. We were going to go to Kosovo for a short period of time. It is open-ended. We are in East Timor for who knows how long. And we will soon be in Colombia. But there was one time where we backed away, we literally surrendered and ran with our tail between our legs because we went in with helicopters, and that had to do with Somalia. We sent our Blackhawk helicopters in there. We had two of them shot down in Mogadishu. We had two others that crash landed when they returned to the base. Within a couple weeks, we were out of there. We did not send our Blackhawk helicopters into Kosovo because they would be shot down. Lets face it, it is not a good weapon. It will only lead to further involvement. Who is going to fly the Blackhawk helicopters? Do my colleagues think the Colombians are going to fly them? You can bet our bottom dollar we are going to have American pilots down there very much involved in training and getting in much deeper than we ever should be. So I think that, unfortunately, this could end up in a real mess. Maybe then we would have enough sense to leave. But we, in the Congress, ought to have enough sense not to go down there. This money can be better spent on national defense. We should be concerned about national security. When we get ourselves involved, whether it is the Persian Gulf or Bosnia or wherever, all we do is build up our enemies and expose ourselves more to terrorist attacks because we are not doing it in the name of security and resentment toward America builds. Under the Constitution, we should have a strong national defense, and we should provide for national security. Going into Colombia has nothing to do with national security and serves to undermine national defense. Even those who build helicopters are pretty blunt. One lobbyist said, ``It is business for us, and we are as aggressive as anybody. I am just trying to sell helicopters.'' What about the oil companies who support this war; which several oil companies do? Yes, they want investment security, so they want the military industrial complex to come down there and protect their oil interests. The oil interests are very supportive of this war, as well as the helicopter companies. But the American people, if they were asked, they would decline. A recent poll by Zogby showed that, essentially, 70 percent of the American people answered no to this particular question: ``Should the U.S. help defend militarily such-and-such country even though it could cost American soldiers their lives?'' It varied depending on which country. But, basically, 65 to 75 percent of the American people said no. The American people want us to mind our own business and not be the policeman of the world. Can any Member come to this floor and absolutely assure us that we are not going to lose American lives in Colombia? We are certainly committing ourselves to huge numbers of dollars, dollars that we do not have, dollars that if we wanted to could come out of the current $1.7 trillion budget we already have. So I would suggest to my colleagues, let us reassess this. It is not really a war on drugs. The war on drugs, by trying to reduce interdiction does not work. It has not worked. It is not going to work. It is only an excuse. It is an excuse for promoting military intervention in Colombia to satisfy those who are anxious to drill for oil there and for the military industrial complex to sell weapons. It's amazing to me to see an administration who strongly opposes law abiding American citizens from owning guns for self defense to be such a promoter of the big guns of war throughout the world. I ask for a ``no'' vote. Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2\1/2\ minutes to the distinguished gentleman from Oklahoma (Mr. Coburn). Mr. COBURN. Mr. Chairman, I want to change the focus of the debate a little bit. Last year the President, in 1999, sent to the Congress his State of the Union message and budget in which he said we were going to save 60 percent of Social Security. The Congress, led by the Republicans of Congress, said, no, Mr. President we are going to save 100 percent of Social Security. And we did just that. We stopped the raid on Social Security. It is time it look at the other program under which we are stealing money, and that is Medicare. The CBO announced in March that the estimated budget surplus of this country for fiscal 2000 will be $27 billion. It is interesting if we look to see where that money comes from. $23 billion of that made up of excess, Medicare, Part A Trust Fund payments and the interest thereon, is from Medicare. So what we are really saying is this surplus that we have, the vast majority of it, is Medicare Part A Trust Fund, and we are about to spend most of it. Let me outline for my colleagues for a minute where it is going to go: $26 billion surplus, $6.9 billion we have already spent by reversing through the budget that was passed by this House. There is going to be $2.2 billion in new supplemental outlays from this bill. There will be another $6 billion that we are going to use for agricultural emergency support payments. There is $4.2 billion in gimmicks in the budget from 601 to 596. And then there is $4 billion that I suspect we are going to pass on the House floor today to retire debt. That leaves us with $2.7 billion left. What that really says is we are going to spend $20 billion this year of Medicare Part A Trust Fund money. How should we do it? The only things that are emergencies are the things that should be in an emergency supplemental. That is number one. Number two is, it should be accompanied by a rescission bill that finds the excesses or trims other areas of government if, in fact, these are true emergencies. I would ask my colleagues to consider if they really want to take money from a program that is going to be bankrupt in 2014 and fund the vast array of items that are in this bill? I think not, on further reflection. [[Page H1508]] Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the distinguished gentleman from Iowa (Mr. Ganske). Mr. GANSKE. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman from Florida (Chairman Young) for yielding me the time. He is a true gentleman. And so I sadly rise in opposition to this emergency supplemental appropriations bill because it funds too many nonemergency programs. For example, this bill includes $20 million for a new FDA laboratory in Los Angeles. Did somebody just all of a sudden find out that the current lab is in dangerous disrepair? We should take care of this in the HHS appropriations bill. This so-called emergency supplemental also includes $96 million in economic assistance for countries in Eastern Europe and the Balkans, $104 million for an embassy in Sarajevo, $49 million for our weapons labs, $75 million for staffing at NASA; $55 million for atomic energy plant personnel and infrastructure improvements; $35 million for foster care and adoption assistance; $20 million for abstinence programs; $19 million for weatherization grants. Mr. Chairman, many of these programs are valuable and I think should be funded, but they should be funded through a normal appropriations process, not an emergency bill. And let us not forget the really big ticket items. This bill includes $2.1 billion for operations in Kosovo and East Timor. How long will we continue to support the extended deployment of our troops? An amendment is to be offered today to add $4 billion to address our military readiness problems. The reason our military is stretched is because we have sent too many of our soldiers on too many missions to too many countries. And that leads us to Colombia. Should we send more than $1.7 billion to Colombia in the form of emergency funding? I do not think so. We do have a serious drug problem. We should spend that money on drug treatment and increased border patrol. Our involvement in Colombia is just too important a decision to be made in limited debate in a supplemental spending bill. I support provisions in this bill to help victims of natural disasters, but we should not fund normal programs in an emergency bill. And so, Mr. Chairman, let us clean up this bill and help get those true emergency funds to those who need it. I urge a ``no'' vote on this supplemental. Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I yield 5 minutes to the distinguished gentlewoman from California (Ms. Pelosi). Ms. PELOSI. Mr. Chairman, I thank the distinguished ranking member for yielding me the time and for his leadership on this important issue. Mr. Chairman, I wish that we could have the time to have a full debate on the military assistance package to Colombia. I commend the gentleman for his attempt with his amendment to have a reasonable, as I said, full debate on that subject. But that will not be allowed under these rules. {time} 1315 I want to focus my attention on two areas in the bill. First let us stipulate that there are many fine projects in this bill. We all agree to that. That is why many people will be voting for it, because of issues that are of concern to their regions, and I respect that. I just want to say why, and even in light of the fact that I would normally support some of the provisions in the bill, that I find it impossible to do so because of the manner in which this bill has been brought to the floor. Are the American people not entitled to something better than a debate on military assistance to Colombia than having it as one provision in a multifaceted emergency supplemental bill? Why can we not have a debate on a very important foreign policy issue, and a vote that stands on its own? Is the Republican majority afraid of a debate in the House of Representatives? Are they afraid that their arguments are too weak, that they could not stand the scrutiny of the American people in a full debate on this issue? Let us stipulate that the President of Colombia is a brave and courageous man. President Pastrana has a very, very difficult task ahead of him. He deserves our support. What form that support should take is a matter that this House should debate, hear comment on, hold hearings on, in other words, the regular order. But the regular order is being cast aside for 20 minutes of debate, 10 minutes on each side, to debate whether we are going to commit all of this military assistance and all that goes with it, including putting our young people in harm's way, which we have already done, without a vote of this Congress. I am also very concerned that this military approach does not really get to the heart of the matter. This bill, this assistance to Colombia, is called an emergency because we have an emergency drug problem in our country and indeed we do. As we heard on this floor earlier today, 5\1/ 2\ million Americans need substance abuse treatment. Two million of them are getting it. We have a 3.5-million-person treatment gap in our country. If we want to reduce substance abuse in the United States, we must do that by reducing demand in the United States. Cutting off supply in Colombia is more costly and less certain. Let me tell my colleagues how much more costly. According to the Rand Corporation report, for every dollar spent to reduce demand in the U.S., you would have to spend $23 in the country of origin in coca leaf eradication. That means if you spend $34 million in the U.S. to reduce dependence on drugs by 1 percent, that same effect of reduction of 1 percent costs $723 million by taking the approach of the eradication of the coca leaf in the country of origin, in this case Colombia. But say that has to be part of a comprehensive drug problem. How can we bring an emergency supplemental bill to the floor of the House of Representatives whose emergency status in this area in terms of reducing substance abuse in the United States is dependent on reducing demand in the United States without one dollar in the bill, without one dollar in the bill being used for reduction in demand in the U.S., a formula that is 23 times more effective, according to the Rand Report which was done in conjunction with the Department of Defense and the Office of Drug Control Policy? So do not take my word for it. Twenty- three times more effective. On the subject of again Plan Colombia, of which this is a part, we were told that Plan Colombia was an over $7 billion proposal. Colombia would put up $4 billion, we would put up $1.7 billion, the EU would put up $900 million, and then IMF and the Multilateral Development Bank would put up money. This is the only money on the table, the military money. So when we are told this is the military part but there is a big humanitarian part, we have not seen that yet. That is why I am voting no on this bill and respectful of my colleagues' decision for their own part. Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Mr. Chairman, I yield 30 seconds to the gentleman from Alabama (Mr. Callahan). Mr. CALLAHAN. I would do anything, Mr. Chairman, but to tell the gentlewoman from California that she is all wet on some of her assumptions, but I rise primarily, Mr. Chairman, to inform the House that the gentlewoman from California's birthday is being celebrated this week, and we take this opportunity to wish the gentlewoman from California a very happy birthday. Ms. PELOSI. I thank the gentleman. If the gentleman will yield, I am pleased on my birthday to present the gentleman with the Rand Report which documents the assumptions that I presented. Mr. CALLAHAN. I hope they wrapped it nicely. Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Mr. Chairman, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from New York (Mr. Gilman), chairman of the Committee on International Relations. (Mr. GILMAN asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.) Mr. GILMAN. I thank the gentleman for yielding me this time. Mr. Chairman, I compliment the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Hastert), the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Young), the gentleman from Alabama (Mr. Callahan), and all those who worked so hard to bring this emergency antidrug aid package to the floor today. Passage of this bill affects every school, hospital, courtroom, neighborhood, all of our communities throughout America. [[Page H1509]] This bill will provide sorely needed assistance to our allies in Colombia who are all on the front lines in the war against illegal drugs. The numbers have been shocking. Eighty percent of the cocaine, 75 percent of the heroin consumed in our Nation comes from Colombia. Illegal drugs have been costing our society more than $100 billion per year, costing also 15,000 young American lives each year. As a result of inattention from the administration, the civil war in Colombia is going badly for that government. This weekend alone, 26 antidrug police were killed by the narcoterrorists in Colombia. The specter of a consolidated narcostate only 3 hours by plane from Miami has made it patently clear that our Nation's vital security interests are at stake. As the sun begins to set on his administration, President Clinton is finally facing the reality of the Colombian drug-fueled crisis with this emergency supplemental request. As former Supreme Court Justice Felix Frankfurter eloquently noted, and I quote, ``wisdom too often never comes, and so one ought not to reject it merely because it comes late.'' Heroes like Colombia's antidrug leader General Jose Serrano want our Nation to stand with them in their fight against the drug lords, including the right-wing paramilitaries. This legislation provides more assistance where it can do the most good with the Colombian antidrug police. Colombia is not asking for nor should we offer American troops in that war. Investing American aid dollars now in Colombia to stem the hundredfold cost to our society only makes common sense. It is a proper role for our government. We at the Federal level have the responsibility to help eradicate those drugs at their source. Accordingly, I am urging our colleagues to support this package. Colombia's survival as a democracy and our own national security interests are at stake here. The stakes could not be more clear and more critical. With regard to the comments of the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Pelosi), demand reduction composes 32.7 percent of the government's total spending on antidrug efforts while the amount spent on reducing overseas supply currently consists of only 3 percent of those expenditures. I again urge our Members to fully support this very important antidrug measure. Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I yield 3 minutes to the distinguished gentleman from New York (Mr. Serrano). (Mr. SERRANO asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.) Mr. SERRANO. I thank the gentleman from Wisconsin for yielding me this time. Mr. Chairman, I am really troubled about what we are doing here today, and I cannot believe we are doing it without much more debate. This looks to me very much like something from my younger years when we got involved in Vietnam. Let us understand this Colombia situation is a civil war. It is a civil war that has been going on for a long time. We have decided all of a sudden that it is a war on drugs. That is our excuse or it is some folks in our administration's excuse for getting involved in a civil war. And then the mistake we are making here which I brought out in committee and in subcommittee and other places is the fact that we are referring to the insurgent group in Colombia as narcoterrorists. The minute in this country you call somebody a terrorist, you close the door, and rightfully so, on ever negotiating with them. So by saying that we are going into Colombia to help the military, number one, which is wrong, fight the narcoterrorists, we just said that we are never going to negotiate with one side in a civil war. Now, I suspect that people in Washington are beginning to look at Latin America and beginning to get this feeling which was a bad feeling and a wrong feeling in the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s. They see a progressive President in Venezuela, Chavez; they see a new so-called socialist President in Chile and they say, ``Oh, my God, we've got to do something,'' so where do we set our anchor? In Colombia. And then to suggest that in Colombia only one side may be involved with drug money is to suggest we are reinventing that country. There is a major problem with drugs in Colombia, and it plays a role in everything that is done in that country. I wish that today we had the courage to look at this issue for what it is. We are getting involved in a civil war which we are going to pay for a price, a big price in the future. Secondly, we are closing off any opportunity to speak to one side. How do you bring peace to a country if that is what you want to do by shutting the door on one side? And, thirdly, we are thinking about Colombia as we thought about South America in the 1960s. We are looking at it in the year 2000 in the same way. We made mistakes then; we are going to make them again, and for what? So that some helicopter company somewhere can sell a few helicopters? It is not worth it. I wish we would reconsider this and vote as I will against this bill. Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Mr. Chairman, I yield 3 minutes to the gentlewoman from Florida (Mrs. Fowler). (Mrs. FOWLER asked and was given permission to revise and extend her remarks.) Mrs. FOWLER. Mr. Chairman, I rise in strong support of the supplemental and in strong support of the Lewis-Spence-Murtha-Skelton amendment to the bill which would provide an additional $4 billion for our severely underfunded Defense Department. In addition, later today, I will offer an amendment with the gentleman from Utah (Mr. Hansen) regarding the $40 million contained in this bill to implement the President's directive on the Navy's training range on the Puerto Rican island of Vieques. The bill would provide these funds to Puerto Rico as part of a deal to resume Navy and Marine Corps training on Vieques which has been suspended because of trespassers seeking to end our training operations there. The money would be used for economic development and to hold a binding referendum on Vieques on whether live-fire training should be resumed. The Fowler-Hansen amendment would essentially do two things: First, it would strike language that would permit any of the $40 million to be used for the referendum. It does not stop the referendum. As the San Juan Star accurately reported today, the referendum can still be held, just not underwritten by the U.S. government. Operations on a vital military training range should not be subjected to a public referendum. This is terrible public policy and will set a very dangerous precedent for other critical military activities. Second, it would require that before the $40 million is released to Puerto Rico, the President must certify to the Congress that live-fire training operations have been resumed. The amendment would also allow part of this $40 million to be spent on a health study on the island of Vieques immediately upon enactment without condition. I want to quote specifically referring to the live-fire training on Vieques from the Secretary of the Navy Richard Danzig. He has stated, and I quote, This training wins wars. Many Americans in uniform owe their lives to this crucial training. Many would perish without it. This is critical to the well-being of our young Marines and sailors. I urge my colleagues to support the Fowler-Hansen amendment which will be on the floor later this afternoon. Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the distinguished gentlewoman from Georgia (Ms. McKinney). {time} 1330 Ms. McKINNEY. Mr. Chairman, if this bill were not so serious, I would think it is a joke. Once again, the United States is proposing a huge military alliance with the foreign military known for its human rights abuses. Now, you think we would have learned our lesson by now. How long ago was it that Bill Clinton went to Guatemala and apologized for fueling that country's generation-long slide into chaos? But just a year later you can say here we go again. No one seriously denies the link of paramilitary groups to the Colombian government, and here we are going to turn over to known human rights abusers the means by which they can perfect their trade. As we stand here on the floor today, 3,000 union leaders, students, parents, [[Page H1510]] shopkeepers and others are standing before 3,000 armed Colombian soldiers, forming a human shield to protect the peaceful U'wa people that the Colombian government wants to move off their ancestral land to make way for Occidental Petroleum's oil rigs. We should be standing with the people, not giving aid and encouragement to Colombia's brutal military. We should have learned our lessons well about going in with the military where only diplomacy should be allowed to tread. Unfortunately, it appears that we have not. Because in addition to Plan Colombia, this bill also provides an additional $5 billion to keep us in Kosovo, another failed military blunder that diplomacy should have resolved. After our military gambit in Kosovo, we have left 31,000 rounds of depleted uranium rounds and 50 percent unemployment, in some areas rising to 85 percent. The crumbling infrastructure is yet to be rebuilt, and our European allies have not lived up to the commitments they made at the beginning of that adventure. Time and time again, this Congress commits our troops to military adventures without a plan to bring them home. Last year, U.S. aircraft flew over 1,000 sorties in Iraq, nearly a decade after that war was supposedly over. In Kosovo, our limited military engagement has turned into a permanent occupation. Now we are being asked to fund the Vietnamization of Barry McCaffrey's war without an exit strategy or end game. Mr. Chairman, I urge my colleagues to reject this so-called emergency amendment. Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Mr. Chairman, I have only one speaker to close, and I reserve the balance of my time. Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the distinguished gentlewoman from Wisconsin (Ms. Baldwin). (Ms. BALDWIN asked and was given permission to revise and extend her remarks.) Ms. BALDWIN. Mr. Chairman, on October 24, 1999, more than 10 million Colombians took to the streets of every major city in Colombia to rally for peace. These 10 million Colombians wanted to send a message that they were sick of war. They were terrorized by the kidnappings. They were exhausted with paramilitary violence and disgusted with drug trade. No mas, they said. No more. Peace is what Colombia needs. Peace will allow democracy to flourish. Peace will permit law enforcement officials to combat the flow of illicit drugs, and peace will create the conditions to address the income inequalities, the problems of displaced persons and economic development issues that will truly improve the lives of the Colombian people. Unfortunately, the aid package we are considering today will not help the peace process. In fact, it fails to address the underlying issues that are needed to promote peace in Colombia. I traveled to Colombia in 1993 to see the situation first hand. It was clear, then, that U.S. military aid and equipment that was intended to be used to stem the flow of illegal drugs was being misused, misused to suppress citizens in Colombia, including labor activists, community leaders, peace activists, human rights activists and collective farmers. The United States is properly concerned about the abuse of illegal drugs by our citizens. Interdiction and source reductions should be a part of a comprehensive drug control policy. This proposal does not reflect such a policy. The proposal we have before us today will do little or nothing to address the fundamental problems in Colombia; namely, economic inequality, civil war, lack of economic development, and judicial impunity. Unfortunately, we seem to be playing a game of public relations when we should be pursuing peace in the region. The CHAIRMAN. The gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Obey) has 1\1/2\ minutes remaining. Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 1\1/2\ minutes. Mr. Chairman, last week, the majority party in this House posed for political holy pictures and promised spending discipline and bragged about how much spending they were going to cut. This week they have brought to the floor this bill which adds $4 billion to the spending requests that the President has made for a supplemental. And then on top of that, it intends in an amendment that they will shortly offer to add yet another $4 billion in spending. And the reason they are going to do that in the DOD account is simply so they move $4 billion in spending from next year to this year, because that frees up $4 billion for them to add for Members' projects in the coming year. It is very simply a $4 billion end run around the spending ceilings which they bragged about imposing just 5 days ago. They must think that people are not watching. Well, I suspect they are. The net result is that they come in for this entire fiscal year spending $17 billion more than the President asks for. That to me is an indication of just how false those promises have been that we would see straight bookkeeping and fiscal discipline under their budget. That alone, I think, is a reason to defeat this proposition. I have already indicated my concern about the Colombian war effort, but I think this is yet another reason to vote against this budget hocus pocus. The CHAIRMAN. The gentleman from Florida (Mr. Young) has 5\1/2\ minutes remaining. Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself the balance of the time. Mr. Chairman, first I would like to compliment all of our colleagues for the very high level and profession

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2000 EMERGENCY SUPPLEMENTAL APPROPRIATIONS ACT
(House of Representatives - March 29, 2000)

Text of this article available as: TXT PDF [Pages H1495-H1585] 2000 EMERGENCY SUPPLEMENTAL APPROPRIATIONS ACT The SPEAKER pro tempore. Pursuant to House Resolution 450 and rule XVIII, the Chair declares the House in the Committee of the Whole House on the State of the Union for the consideration of the bill, H.R. 3908. {time} 1232 In the Committee of the Whole Accordingly, the House resolved itself into the Committee of the Whole House on the State of the Union for the consideration of the bill (H.R. 3908) making emergency supplemental appropriations for the fiscal year ending September 30, 2000, and for other purposes, with Mr. Thornberry in the chair. The Clerk read the title of the bill. The CHAIRMAN. Pursuant to the rule, the bill is considered as having been read the first time. Under the rule, the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Young) and the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Obey) each will control 30 minutes. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Young). Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. (Mr. YOUNG of Florida asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.) Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Mr. Chairman, I am pleased to bring to the House today the 2000 Emergency Supplemental Appropriations bill. The Committee on Appropriations ordered this legislation reported by a nearly three to one bipartisan vote. It is reflective of a compilation of input from many sources on a large spectrum of issues. The request was thoroughly reviewed, hearings were held, input from Members outside the committee was received, and our committee painstakingly marked up the bill. The result of all of this is the bill before us. The bill includes $1.7 billion for counternarcotics activities in the Colombian and Andean region. By and large, the bill provides what the President requested for Colombia. In addition, the bill takes a more regional approach by providing increased help to the anti-drug efforts of Colombia's neighbors. Before any of the funds going to South America can be spent, the Secretary of State is to report on how the money will be used. The bill also funds high priority anti-drug activities in the Departments of Justice and Defense. Also included in this bill is nearly $5 billion for national security matters. The President's emergency request for $2 billion for operations in Kosovo and East Timor is met. I must remind our colleagues that this money replenishes funds that have already been spent for both of these operations. In fact, the money has been spent and borrowed from the fourth quarter operations and maintenance accounts of all of the military services. So that money has to be repaid, or the training activities in the fourth quarter of the fiscal year for our Nation's military will have to stand down dramatically. This bill also includes $1.6 billion to help cover increasing fuel costs facing the Defense Department. As we drive up to the gas tanks and fill up our cars, we see a tremendous increase in the cost of fuel. The ships that we drive, the airplanes that we fly, the trucks and the tanks that we drive, all of these things that use fuel are experiencing the same thing. So we do provide the money to make up for the increased fuel costs. The bill also includes $854.5 million to the financially troubled Defense Health Program, a health program that promises medical care for members of the military, their families, and those retirees who are eligible for military medical care. There are doctors, there are nurses, there are pharmacies, and there are medical people who provide medical care who have provided their services but have not been paid. We are in arrears to at least that amount of money. So we include it in this bill. The President did not request these two items; but they are urgently needed, and we will have to provide the money sooner or later. In the natural disaster and other emergencies areas, the bill includes $2.2 billion. This includes $400 million for USDA administered agriculture assistance, $250 million for wildland fire management, $600 million for LIHEAP, Low Income Home Energy Assistance, and $600 million for emergency highway reimbursements to States. Mr. Chairman, the committee tried to clean up all of the loose ends that we had relative to hurricane and flood disasters in the last year, and we believe this bill does complete all our responsibilities and obligations here. There are many other important issues addressed in the bill. The report provides a very complete description of them. The bill is somewhat difficult and a little controversial in places, and I respect the fact that there are multiple opinions on the bill. But I think the Committee on Appropriations listened to and respected the differing positions on the various provisions in the bill, including the strong support of the President of the United States. However, as usual with an appropriations bill, we could not report a bill that included everyone's position. Now the bill is before the entire House for consideration. It is important that we move this bill through the House today and we get it to the other body where deliberations can begin. We need to get this off of our schedules today because, Mr. Chairman, we have 13 other appropriations bills that we are trying to bring to this House in regular order and ahead of last year's schedule and certainly the year before's schedule, because this is a busy year for Members of Congress because of our national conventions, home work periods. So we need to get this bill out of here, get it into the negotiation with the other body. At this point in the Record, I would like to insert a table showing the details of this bill, as reported. [The table follows:] [[Page H1496]] [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T29MR00.001 [[Page H1497]] [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T29MR00.002 [[Page H1498]] [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T29MR00.003 [[Page H1499]] [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T29MR00.004 [[Page H1500]] [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T29MR00.005 [[Page H1501]] [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T29MR00.006 [[Page H1502]] [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T29MR00.007 [[Page H1503]] [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T29MR00.008 [[Page H1504]] Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time. Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 10 minutes. Mr. Chairman, at the end of last year, the President had asked for $568 billion in appropriated spending, and Congress had approved $578 billion. In this supplemental as it now comes before us, the President has asked for additional funds which would take his total request for the year to $573 billion. The supplemental has been added to by the committee so that, if this bill passes as it is now before us, we will wind up spending $587 billion over this existing fiscal year, which is $13 billion more than the President asked. In addition, the amendment that will be offered today and which will be supported by the Republican leadership will add yet another $4 billion to this package in the DoD arena. That will take total spending for this fiscal year to $591 billion, some $17 billion above the President's request. That additional $4 billion which is being asked for by the House leadership is there for a very simple reason. There is nothing wrong with what that money is actually being spent for. But the fact is it is being spent on routine items for one simple purpose, and that is to get around the very budget resolution that was passed just 5 days ago on this floor. Because by moving that $4 billion in expenditures into this existing fiscal year, my colleagues make room in the next fiscal year for $4 billion for Members' projects and Members' pork. Nice game if they can get away with it. I suggest Senator McCain get out his pencil. He better get ready, because a lot of stuff is going to come over there he is probably not going to like. This is one major reason to vote against this bill before us today. But there is another, in my view, even more serious reason. We are being asked by the President and the Speaker of the House to support $1.3 billion for Colombia. In my view, that is the camel's nose under the tent for a massive long-term commitment to a military operation in Colombia that has as much to do with the domestic situation in Colombia as it has to do with our drug problems here at home. General Wilhelm from SouthCom has indicated that this is the first year of a 5-year commitment, in his judgment. It seems to me if a can- do Marine like General Wilhelm is predicting that this is going to be a 5-year operation, that it is likely to last a lot longer, because things have a way of getting more complicated than Congress originally expects. As I said in the Committee on Rules, I detest Vietnam analyses under most circumstances, but I believe that, in this case, there is a very real parallel. In fact, there are two. When the Gulf of Tonkin resolution was debated in 1964, it took 2 days in the Senate. It took 40 minutes on the floor of this House. This Congress has rued the day ever since that it did not give more time to consider that proposition. Today, when my amendment comes before us to eliminate the most dangerous parts of that Colombian package, we will have exactly 20 minutes to discuss it, 10 minutes for those of us who are opposed to undertaking that involvement at this time. Let me tell my colleagues what I think the unanswered questions are that we ought to be asking. In my view, this Congress has no real knowledge of what it is we are about to embark upon. I do not see any real plan by the administration. I see a plan to have a plan, but I do not see a real plan. There is no specific authorization for this proposition. Before we slide into this operation, I think we ought to ask some questions. First of all, is this really an anti-drug campaign, or is it a political campaign, a pacification in Colombia? Will this really produce a reduction in drug availability in the United States? The House, in the rule it just adopted, has eliminated its ability to vote on the Pelosi amendment. The Pelosi amendment was an attempt to add additional money to fight drugs here at home by expanding our drug treatment and prevention program. I would point out that the Rand Corporation, in a study financed in part by the U.S. Army, indicated that a dollar spent to eliminate drug use here at home is 23 times more effective than a dollar spent to try to interdict or to reduce supply in some foreign land. Yet we are being prevented from voting on the most effective way to deal with drugs in this country. I also think we need to be aware of the fact that in Colombia itself there is substantial doubt about whether that society is ready to take this issue on. If they are not, we cannot do it for them. I do not know, for instance, how many Americans understand that if we take a look at the ruling elite in Colombia, their sons do not serve in combat. Because if one is a high school graduate, one is exempted from having to serve in combat in the Colombian armed forces. {time} 1245 Do my colleagues really think we are going to be able to sustain a 5- or 10-year military operation with that kind of divided duty in that society? I doubt it. What happens if the battalions that we are now training do not succeed? We are training a few thousand men so they can try to root out the narcos in 40,000 square miles of jungle. Let us say we succeed, which I think is highly unlikely. What is to prevent them from simply moving into the other 150,000 square miles of jungle in that country? I do not think very much. I think this is ill conceived and ill thought out. If this does not work, what is the next step? Will we then cut and run, or will we then deepen our involvement? I do not think, given our past experience in Vietnam, that we are likely to just say, ``Oh, well, we gave it the good old college try, so now we are going to yank the plug.'' I do not think whoever is the future president is going to be able to make that decision. That means a long-haul problem. What I am going to be asking this House to do, eventually, is to allow the money for police training to flow, to allow their helicopters to go down to Colombia, but I am going to be asking my colleagues to delay until July the vote on the over $500 million in additional funding that is meant to expand our basic military commitment in Colombia until the Committee on Armed Services, the Committee on International Relations, and the Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence can hold more hearings on this so that Congress knows what it is doing before it acts. And my amendment will provide expedited procedures to assure that we would be able to vote on it in July. We are being told that lots of very bright professional people have put this package together so we need have no fear. Well, I respect Secretary Albright, I respect General McCaffery, I respect Mr. Pickering in the State Department, I respect the Speaker of the House, the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Hastert). But with all due respect to them, every individual Member of this House has a constitutional duty to exercise his or her own judgment on an issue of this gravity, and I do not think we are able to do that under this truncated arrangement. So I would urge, for those and other reasons, that my colleagues oppose this bill today. I have no illusions that my amendment will pass. I think it is incredible we could not even vote on the Pelosi amendment, but I would urge Members not to make the same mistake that was made on this House floor in the Gulf of Tonkin. This may not be the same as Vietnam. There are undoubtedly major differences. But there are some very disturbing similarities, and I would urge my colleagues to take those similarities into consideration and delay consideration of this crucial vote until the Congress knows a whole lot more than it does today about what the proper course of action ought to be. Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time. Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from North Carolina (Mr. Hayes). (Mr. HAYES asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.) Mr. HAYES. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman from Florida for his great efforts in providing us with an excellent bill. I rise today to voice my enthusiastic support for his efforts, particularly as it relates to North Carolina. This supplemental calls for $94 million in unobligated balances for the emergency conservation program to be [[Page H1505]] used to repair damage done by Hurricane Floyd to buildings and farm equipment; provides $13 million in Federal crop insurance assistance; provides $81 million in relief for marketing loans for farmers in North Carolina; provides $43 million in rural water projects; $29 million for rural housing; $5 billion for peacekeeping in Kosovo, $2.2 billion more than the President's request. This supplemental fills in a lot of holes that have been created by this administration. Additional funding is appropriated to stop the administration's practice of asking our soldiers to do more with less. And if the Spence amendment is accepted, and I certainly hope that it is, and support it, the supplemental will include an additional $4 billion in emergency, badly needed defense funding. This funding includes $750 million in military health care for active duty and veterans, $230 million to reduce out-of-pocket housing expenses, $600 million to address recruiting shortfalls, $1.2 billion to meet funding requirements for our forward deployed forces, and $1.2 billion to meet critical shortfalls in equipment maintenance. Mr. Chairman, I again want to thank the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Young) and rise in enthusiastic support. I would respectfully urge our friends in the Senate to move forward on this bill with all dispatch. Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Mr. Chairman, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Alabama (Mr. Callahan), the chairman of the Subcommittee on Foreign Operations, Export Financing and Related Programs. (Mr. CALLAHAN asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.) Mr. CALLAHAN. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for yielding me this time. Just recently, Mr. Chairman, we heard our colleague from Wisconsin talking about the message that the President of the United States brought to this House of Representatives requesting that we bust the budget. I might remind the gentleman that the President was not for the balanced budget anyway, so we are not surprised he is sending us this message asking us to bust the budget. What we did in this process, with respect to that area of jurisdiction that we on the Subcommittee on Foreign Operations, Export Financing and Related Programs have, is reduce the President's request for foreign aid by $37 million. Simply put, the President of the United States, the man that the people of this country has placed in charge of our national security, has hired one of the most professional people in this country with respect to the ability to do something about the drug problem we have, Mr. McCaffery. And Mr. McCaffery and the President of the United States have come to us and said, give us the money to implement this policy. Who are we to second-guess the Commander-in- Chief and Mr. McCaffery, the drug czar? I am sorry that the minority Members do not have the confidence in the President of the United States to make a decision that is a responsible decision, but we must be responsible Members of the House of Representatives. The President has come to us, the Commander-in- Chief, and he tells us we have a very, very serious problem with drugs. And the President is absolutely right. He says we have a problem in Kosovo, and he is absolutely right. The President and I disagree on what the problem is in Kosovo, but, nevertheless, we have reduced his request for assistance to Kosovo for reconstruction. There is nothing in here to that effect. So the bottom line is the Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Services and the drug czar have come to us and said, after due diligent research, they have decided that this is the number one way that we can fight drug use here in the United States. I know that there appears to be an extreme lack of confidence in the ability of the President of the United States to make these decisions; but, nevertheless, he is the President of the United States and this Congress must decide whether or not we want to fight drugs based upon the suggested remedy that the President of the United States has sent to us or whether we want to play rhetoric and play demagoguery and delay this and let this drug situation develop even further. In addition to the President's request for Colombia, we found glaring holes in it in the committee process. For example, we found that there was not a sufficient amount of money for the surrounding countries of Colombia, and we increased the President's request. We did not decrease his drug effort request; we increased it to provide for the surrounding countries of Colombia to have an ability to also fight the drug situation. So here we are, a body that is destined to make a decision today based upon the request of the President of the United States. Mr. Chairman, I rise in support of this Emergency Supplemental Appropriations bill. I commend Chairman Young for his leadership on this measure, especially his efforts to support our Armed Forces who are under so much strain in the face of repeated deployments overseas. For Foreign Operations, this Emergency Supplemental includes a total of $1 billion and 241.7 million including $1 billion and 99 million for programs to fight America's international War on Drugs and $142.7 million for Kosovo and Southeast Europe. We did not provide an additional $210 million for debt relief at this time, but this is a subject we hope to be able to address when the proper conditions have been agreed to by the Secretary of the Treasury. In all, the Appropriations Committee recommendation reduces president's request for foreign aid by more than $37 million. Let me highlight the small but significant changes to the President's request made by the Committee. First, the Committee recommendation does not simply shift drug production and trafficking away from Colombia, and into other countries in the region, we have increased the President's request for Colombia's neighbors, including: $57 million for Bolivia; $42 million for Peru; $20 million for Ecuador; and $18 million for Panama, Venezuela, Costa Rica, and Brazil. Second, this bill will strengthen Human Rights and Judicial Reform in Colombia. The Appropriations Committee has recommended $98.5 million-- $5 million more that the President's request--for human rights and judicial programs. As Chairman of the Foreign Operations Subcommittee, I expect these funds are to be subject to the existing ``Leahy Law'' which restricts U.S. assistance for foreign security forces involved in gross human rights abuses. In addition, the Committee adopted 2 important amendments offered by Mr. Farr that strengthen the human rights requirements of this assistance. Mr. Chairman, for Kosovo and Southeastern Europe, the President has requested $250.9 million in emergency funds. This bill provides $142.7 million. Congress made clear last year that the U.S. should not play a major role in rebuilding Kosovo. From FY 2000 funds previously appropriated, more than $150 million is already available. Therefore, except for the Administration's request for $12.4 million for American officers in the international police force, the Committee does not recommend additional funding for Kosovo. The exception for the police force is due to an urgent need. Ethnic violence continues, and this violence endangers civilians and U.S. troops. Police, not the U.S. military, should maintain public security. This bill fully funds the President's request for $34 million in assistance for Montenegro, $35.7 million in assistance for Croatia, and $13.7 million in assistance for democratic opposition in Serbia. Also, this bill fully funds the President's request for a modest investment of $33.9 million to improve the military readiness of our allies in southeast Europe. The region remains volatile, and NATO needs to be in a position to operate cooperatively with these nations in case of another crisis. Finally, Mr. Chairman, this bill ensures continued Congressional oversight of these appropriations. None of the ``Plan Colombia'' funds can be spent until the Secretary of State notifies Congress regarding the exact uses of the funds. Further, all of the protections included in General Provisions from the Fiscal Year 2000 Foreign Operations bill apply to these funds, also. Mr. Chairman, the Foreign Operations spending in this bill is truly Emergency spending that benefits Americans. I know that many Members are uncomfortable supporting Supplemental funds for foreign aid. But every penny of foreign aid in this bill is designed to benefit Americans. This assistance will help stop illegal narcotics from entering the United States and it will help American soldiers complete their work in Kosovo more rapidly. I urge Members to vote ``aye''. Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from Michigan (Ms. Kilpatrick). (Ms. KILPATRICK asked and was given permission to revise and extend her remarks.) Ms. KILPATRICK. Mr. Chairman, the supplemental before us, and there has been much debate on it, really does not [[Page H1506]] address the total problem that we have. As a member of the Subcommittee on Foreign Operations, Export Financing and Related Programs, and we just heard the distinguished chairman, the gentleman from Alabama (Mr. Callahan), I want to thank him for his leadership in helping us to solve the problem in Zimbabwe; and my thanks to the full chairman, the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Young), for also supporting our efforts to address the crisis in Zimbabwe. As many of my colleagues know, South Africa, Zimbabwe, as well as the tragedy in Mozambique, is of insurmountable proportions. The country has been devastated. There is money in our foreign assistance accounts today to address that problem. This supplemental, though it did not accept the amendment I had for $60 million that would put $20 million in child survival, $20 million in development assistance, and $20 million in disaster relief to replenish the account so that Mozambique today can get the assistance they need, the dollars are there; and I urge the President to request the money today to address those problems. It is unfortunate that we have not moved yet on this tragedy. It has been over 3 weeks now. This has been in the media and some assistance has been sent. The helicopters, some food, and the personnel are on the ground in Mozambique. But over a million people are homeless today. Over 50,000 children are orphaned and cannot find their parents. We are the leaders in the world community. We have the resources and the disaster assistance account there for that purpose. Both the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Young) as well as the gentleman from Alabama (Mr. Callahan) have agreed with me and adopted my amendment in the Committee on Appropriations, and we have report language that says when the assessment is made, and I understand it is to be made this Friday, that we will send the money forward. Let us not slow down our progress. Mozambique is growing. It is one of the best countries on the continent. After years of struggle, they have put their house in order, but the cyclone has totally devastated them. Their housing, their hospitals, their food, their ability to grow their food has been devastated. I urge this Congress to adopt the language in the bill and to send the financial resources to Mozambique. Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from Indiana (Mr. Buyer), chairman of the Subcommittee on Military Personnel of the Committee on Armed Services. Mr. BUYER. Mr. Chairman, let me also thank the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Young) for his hard work on this bill. I could not help but think, as I was listening to the comments of the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Obey), who brought up a chart up here saying that the Republicans are busting the budget, that a few years ago he was standing here on the floor saying we were trying to starve children and put our grandmothers out on the streets. So when Republicans step forward and we fund particular programs, I am finding out that some of my colleagues enjoy the role of just playing the critic rather than being constructive and involving themselves in programs that help not only our people but our country be good neighbors in the world. I rise in strong support of this bill. A critical element of this bill is called ``Plan Colombia,'' which is the funding of a concerted effort aimed at reducing the supply of narcotics to the United States from this region in South America. Illicit drugs pose a clear and present threat to the well-being of American society as well as our entire hemisphere. In 1999, drugs killed 52,000 Americans, approximately, and caused more than $10 billion in damage to our country. The number of drug arrests and percentage of teens using drugs has steadily risen since President Clinton took office in 1993. The streets of America are literally awash in drugs, and this supplemental sends an unambiguous signal that we are finally getting serious about addressing this issue. Unlike the Bosnia and Kosovo debates we have had on in floor, the United States has a vital national interest that is threatened by the influx of drugs across our borders. These drugs find their way on to every street corner of America. Over 80 percent of the cocaine and heroin that makes its way to the United States comes from this region in South America. In December of 1999, I traveled to Colombia and Venezuela. I went into the jungles and Tres Esquinas where they were actually training the police battalions and, in my opinion, the democratically-elected government of Colombia is serious today about fighting the war on drugs. Now, I will acknowledge the comments of the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Obey) about the individuals who are drafted, young men not participating in the war, in armed combat. {time} 1300 We recognize that. But what we are training up is this narcotics police battalion. They are very serious in their efforts. The core plan of Colombia, in training these battalions, is very serious. The transportation of the them for the helicopters is necessary. I believe that Congress needs to step up to the plate. The President has acknowledged the commitment of the president of Colombia. We need the comprehensive strategy to fight this war, and this is the initial first step. Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 3 minutes. Mr. Chairman, the issue is not whether we should fight drugs. We should. The issue is what is the most effective way to do that. The issue is not whether we like the president of Colombia. I do. The question is whether his country, his society, and his military are reliable reeds to lean on when we are talking about starting a 5-year or more commitment of military involvement. I would like to once again read some of the comments made by James Hoagland, who I think everyone knows to be an objective, middle-of-the- road, and very sage reporter on international issues. This is some of what he said on March 19: ``In Colombia, the United States pursues unattainable goals largely for domestic political reasons with inappropriate tools.'' Mr. Chairman, I will insert the full text in the Record when we are in the full House, but I am quoting portions now. He goes on to say, ``Questions not being asked, much less answered, now in the rush into quagmire include the following: What happens when it becomes clear of the considered judgment of the U.S. Air Force officers that the Colombian military will not be able to maintain the Blackhawks under the conditions in which they will be flying is shown to be correct? Will the United States replace the helicopters that crash or are shot down at 13 million a copy? Will large numbers of U.S. advisors be provided to maintain the helicopter force? If cocaine exports from South America continue unabated, will 30 more or 300 more Blackhawks be furnished to expand the war? ``Clinton, of course, will not be around to provide the answers. Colombia's first Blackhawks will not arrive until 6 months after he leaves office. His successor will inherent an open-ended military obligation that can be trimmed back or abandoned only at domestic political cost. ``Sound familiar? Do the names Kennedy and Johnson come to mind?'' He then goes on to say, ``House Republicans have championed super- sized aid to Colombia with an eye to blasting Clinton and Gore if it is not passed. They are the true catalysts for this foreign policy fiasco. The Clintonites merely show the courage of their cynicism jumping aboard a train they hope will be derailed in the Senate. ``The House Republicans blithely ignore the fact that American demand is at the root of the drug problem more than Colombian supply. They vote down efforts by Representative Nancy Pelosi to add funds for drug treatment at home in the catch-all bill that provides aid to Colombia. They slice out of that same bill $211 million in debt relief for the world's poorest countries. They will shoot away the problems of the Third World. ``That has been tried elsewhere with similar fuzzy and contradictory thinking in Washington at the takeoff. I can [[Page H1507]] only wonder: Where is the Vietnam Syndrome when we really need it?'' I agree with those statements. Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Mr. Chairman, I yield 5 minutes to the distinguished gentleman from Texas (Mr. Paul). (Mr. PAUL asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.) Mr. PAUL. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for yielding me the time. Mr. Chairman, I rise in opposition to this bill. We have already appropriated $1.7 trillion for this year's budget. We do not need to appropriate another $9 billion. It is said that we need to appropriate this money to fight the drug war in Colombia. We have been fighting the drug war for 25 years. We have spent $250 billion on the drug war. Some day we will have to wake up and decide that the way we are fighting the drug war is wrong. As a physician, I can tell my colleagues, it is a serious problem. There are a lot of people suffering from drug usage in this country. But if something does not work, why are we so determined to pursue a process that does not work? Quite frankly, I am not sure the real reason why we are in Colombia has anything to do with drugs. I do concede a lot of individuals will be voting for this bill because of the belief that it might help. But it will not help. So we should reconsider it and think about the real reasons why we might be there. I had an amendment that was not approved. But what I would have done, if I had had the chance, I would have taken all the money from the overseas spending, Kosovo, Bosnia, East Timor, and the funds now for this new adventure down in Colombia, and put it into building up our military defense. That is what we need. We need better salaries, better medical care, and we need better housing for our military personnel. But here we go spreading ourselves thinly again around the world by taking on a new adventure, which will surely lead to trouble and a lot of expense. Members have referenced the 65 helicopters that will be sent to Colombia. There is one, I guess, cynical hope about what might happen with our involvement in Colombia. Usually when we get involved its only going to be for a short period of time. We were going to go into Bosnia for 6 months. We have been there 5 years. We were going to go to Kosovo for a short period of time. It is open-ended. We are in East Timor for who knows how long. And we will soon be in Colombia. But there was one time where we backed away, we literally surrendered and ran with our tail between our legs because we went in with helicopters, and that had to do with Somalia. We sent our Blackhawk helicopters in there. We had two of them shot down in Mogadishu. We had two others that crash landed when they returned to the base. Within a couple weeks, we were out of there. We did not send our Blackhawk helicopters into Kosovo because they would be shot down. Lets face it, it is not a good weapon. It will only lead to further involvement. Who is going to fly the Blackhawk helicopters? Do my colleagues think the Colombians are going to fly them? You can bet our bottom dollar we are going to have American pilots down there very much involved in training and getting in much deeper than we ever should be. So I think that, unfortunately, this could end up in a real mess. Maybe then we would have enough sense to leave. But we, in the Congress, ought to have enough sense not to go down there. This money can be better spent on national defense. We should be concerned about national security. When we get ourselves involved, whether it is the Persian Gulf or Bosnia or wherever, all we do is build up our enemies and expose ourselves more to terrorist attacks because we are not doing it in the name of security and resentment toward America builds. Under the Constitution, we should have a strong national defense, and we should provide for national security. Going into Colombia has nothing to do with national security and serves to undermine national defense. Even those who build helicopters are pretty blunt. One lobbyist said, ``It is business for us, and we are as aggressive as anybody. I am just trying to sell helicopters.'' What about the oil companies who support this war; which several oil companies do? Yes, they want investment security, so they want the military industrial complex to come down there and protect their oil interests. The oil interests are very supportive of this war, as well as the helicopter companies. But the American people, if they were asked, they would decline. A recent poll by Zogby showed that, essentially, 70 percent of the American people answered no to this particular question: ``Should the U.S. help defend militarily such-and-such country even though it could cost American soldiers their lives?'' It varied depending on which country. But, basically, 65 to 75 percent of the American people said no. The American people want us to mind our own business and not be the policeman of the world. Can any Member come to this floor and absolutely assure us that we are not going to lose American lives in Colombia? We are certainly committing ourselves to huge numbers of dollars, dollars that we do not have, dollars that if we wanted to could come out of the current $1.7 trillion budget we already have. So I would suggest to my colleagues, let us reassess this. It is not really a war on drugs. The war on drugs, by trying to reduce interdiction does not work. It has not worked. It is not going to work. It is only an excuse. It is an excuse for promoting military intervention in Colombia to satisfy those who are anxious to drill for oil there and for the military industrial complex to sell weapons. It's amazing to me to see an administration who strongly opposes law abiding American citizens from owning guns for self defense to be such a promoter of the big guns of war throughout the world. I ask for a ``no'' vote. Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2\1/2\ minutes to the distinguished gentleman from Oklahoma (Mr. Coburn). Mr. COBURN. Mr. Chairman, I want to change the focus of the debate a little bit. Last year the President, in 1999, sent to the Congress his State of the Union message and budget in which he said we were going to save 60 percent of Social Security. The Congress, led by the Republicans of Congress, said, no, Mr. President we are going to save 100 percent of Social Security. And we did just that. We stopped the raid on Social Security. It is time it look at the other program under which we are stealing money, and that is Medicare. The CBO announced in March that the estimated budget surplus of this country for fiscal 2000 will be $27 billion. It is interesting if we look to see where that money comes from. $23 billion of that made up of excess, Medicare, Part A Trust Fund payments and the interest thereon, is from Medicare. So what we are really saying is this surplus that we have, the vast majority of it, is Medicare Part A Trust Fund, and we are about to spend most of it. Let me outline for my colleagues for a minute where it is going to go: $26 billion surplus, $6.9 billion we have already spent by reversing through the budget that was passed by this House. There is going to be $2.2 billion in new supplemental outlays from this bill. There will be another $6 billion that we are going to use for agricultural emergency support payments. There is $4.2 billion in gimmicks in the budget from 601 to 596. And then there is $4 billion that I suspect we are going to pass on the House floor today to retire debt. That leaves us with $2.7 billion left. What that really says is we are going to spend $20 billion this year of Medicare Part A Trust Fund money. How should we do it? The only things that are emergencies are the things that should be in an emergency supplemental. That is number one. Number two is, it should be accompanied by a rescission bill that finds the excesses or trims other areas of government if, in fact, these are true emergencies. I would ask my colleagues to consider if they really want to take money from a program that is going to be bankrupt in 2014 and fund the vast array of items that are in this bill? I think not, on further reflection. [[Page H1508]] Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the distinguished gentleman from Iowa (Mr. Ganske). Mr. GANSKE. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman from Florida (Chairman Young) for yielding me the time. He is a true gentleman. And so I sadly rise in opposition to this emergency supplemental appropriations bill because it funds too many nonemergency programs. For example, this bill includes $20 million for a new FDA laboratory in Los Angeles. Did somebody just all of a sudden find out that the current lab is in dangerous disrepair? We should take care of this in the HHS appropriations bill. This so-called emergency supplemental also includes $96 million in economic assistance for countries in Eastern Europe and the Balkans, $104 million for an embassy in Sarajevo, $49 million for our weapons labs, $75 million for staffing at NASA; $55 million for atomic energy plant personnel and infrastructure improvements; $35 million for foster care and adoption assistance; $20 million for abstinence programs; $19 million for weatherization grants. Mr. Chairman, many of these programs are valuable and I think should be funded, but they should be funded through a normal appropriations process, not an emergency bill. And let us not forget the really big ticket items. This bill includes $2.1 billion for operations in Kosovo and East Timor. How long will we continue to support the extended deployment of our troops? An amendment is to be offered today to add $4 billion to address our military readiness problems. The reason our military is stretched is because we have sent too many of our soldiers on too many missions to too many countries. And that leads us to Colombia. Should we send more than $1.7 billion to Colombia in the form of emergency funding? I do not think so. We do have a serious drug problem. We should spend that money on drug treatment and increased border patrol. Our involvement in Colombia is just too important a decision to be made in limited debate in a supplemental spending bill. I support provisions in this bill to help victims of natural disasters, but we should not fund normal programs in an emergency bill. And so, Mr. Chairman, let us clean up this bill and help get those true emergency funds to those who need it. I urge a ``no'' vote on this supplemental. Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I yield 5 minutes to the distinguished gentlewoman from California (Ms. Pelosi). Ms. PELOSI. Mr. Chairman, I thank the distinguished ranking member for yielding me the time and for his leadership on this important issue. Mr. Chairman, I wish that we could have the time to have a full debate on the military assistance package to Colombia. I commend the gentleman for his attempt with his amendment to have a reasonable, as I said, full debate on that subject. But that will not be allowed under these rules. {time} 1315 I want to focus my attention on two areas in the bill. First let us stipulate that there are many fine projects in this bill. We all agree to that. That is why many people will be voting for it, because of issues that are of concern to their regions, and I respect that. I just want to say why, and even in light of the fact that I would normally support some of the provisions in the bill, that I find it impossible to do so because of the manner in which this bill has been brought to the floor. Are the American people not entitled to something better than a debate on military assistance to Colombia than having it as one provision in a multifaceted emergency supplemental bill? Why can we not have a debate on a very important foreign policy issue, and a vote that stands on its own? Is the Republican majority afraid of a debate in the House of Representatives? Are they afraid that their arguments are too weak, that they could not stand the scrutiny of the American people in a full debate on this issue? Let us stipulate that the President of Colombia is a brave and courageous man. President Pastrana has a very, very difficult task ahead of him. He deserves our support. What form that support should take is a matter that this House should debate, hear comment on, hold hearings on, in other words, the regular order. But the regular order is being cast aside for 20 minutes of debate, 10 minutes on each side, to debate whether we are going to commit all of this military assistance and all that goes with it, including putting our young people in harm's way, which we have already done, without a vote of this Congress. I am also very concerned that this military approach does not really get to the heart of the matter. This bill, this assistance to Colombia, is called an emergency because we have an emergency drug problem in our country and indeed we do. As we heard on this floor earlier today, 5\1/ 2\ million Americans need substance abuse treatment. Two million of them are getting it. We have a 3.5-million-person treatment gap in our country. If we want to reduce substance abuse in the United States, we must do that by reducing demand in the United States. Cutting off supply in Colombia is more costly and less certain. Let me tell my colleagues how much more costly. According to the Rand Corporation report, for every dollar spent to reduce demand in the U.S., you would have to spend $23 in the country of origin in coca leaf eradication. That means if you spend $34 million in the U.S. to reduce dependence on drugs by 1 percent, that same effect of reduction of 1 percent costs $723 million by taking the approach of the eradication of the coca leaf in the country of origin, in this case Colombia. But say that has to be part of a comprehensive drug problem. How can we bring an emergency supplemental bill to the floor of the House of Representatives whose emergency status in this area in terms of reducing substance abuse in the United States is dependent on reducing demand in the United States without one dollar in the bill, without one dollar in the bill being used for reduction in demand in the U.S., a formula that is 23 times more effective, according to the Rand Report which was done in conjunction with the Department of Defense and the Office of Drug Control Policy? So do not take my word for it. Twenty- three times more effective. On the subject of again Plan Colombia, of which this is a part, we were told that Plan Colombia was an over $7 billion proposal. Colombia would put up $4 billion, we would put up $1.7 billion, the EU would put up $900 million, and then IMF and the Multilateral Development Bank would put up money. This is the only money on the table, the military money. So when we are told this is the military part but there is a big humanitarian part, we have not seen that yet. That is why I am voting no on this bill and respectful of my colleagues' decision for their own part. Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Mr. Chairman, I yield 30 seconds to the gentleman from Alabama (Mr. Callahan). Mr. CALLAHAN. I would do anything, Mr. Chairman, but to tell the gentlewoman from California that she is all wet on some of her assumptions, but I rise primarily, Mr. Chairman, to inform the House that the gentlewoman from California's birthday is being celebrated this week, and we take this opportunity to wish the gentlewoman from California a very happy birthday. Ms. PELOSI. I thank the gentleman. If the gentleman will yield, I am pleased on my birthday to present the gentleman with the Rand Report which documents the assumptions that I presented. Mr. CALLAHAN. I hope they wrapped it nicely. Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Mr. Chairman, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from New York (Mr. Gilman), chairman of the Committee on International Relations. (Mr. GILMAN asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.) Mr. GILMAN. I thank the gentleman for yielding me this time. Mr. Chairman, I compliment the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Hastert), the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Young), the gentleman from Alabama (Mr. Callahan), and all those who worked so hard to bring this emergency antidrug aid package to the floor today. Passage of this bill affects every school, hospital, courtroom, neighborhood, all of our communities throughout America. [[Page H1509]] This bill will provide sorely needed assistance to our allies in Colombia who are all on the front lines in the war against illegal drugs. The numbers have been shocking. Eighty percent of the cocaine, 75 percent of the heroin consumed in our Nation comes from Colombia. Illegal drugs have been costing our society more than $100 billion per year, costing also 15,000 young American lives each year. As a result of inattention from the administration, the civil war in Colombia is going badly for that government. This weekend alone, 26 antidrug police were killed by the narcoterrorists in Colombia. The specter of a consolidated narcostate only 3 hours by plane from Miami has made it patently clear that our Nation's vital security interests are at stake. As the sun begins to set on his administration, President Clinton is finally facing the reality of the Colombian drug-fueled crisis with this emergency supplemental request. As former Supreme Court Justice Felix Frankfurter eloquently noted, and I quote, ``wisdom too often never comes, and so one ought not to reject it merely because it comes late.'' Heroes like Colombia's antidrug leader General Jose Serrano want our Nation to stand with them in their fight against the drug lords, including the right-wing paramilitaries. This legislation provides more assistance where it can do the most good with the Colombian antidrug police. Colombia is not asking for nor should we offer American troops in that war. Investing American aid dollars now in Colombia to stem the hundredfold cost to our society only makes common sense. It is a proper role for our government. We at the Federal level have the responsibility to help eradicate those drugs at their source. Accordingly, I am urging our colleagues to support this package. Colombia's survival as a democracy and our own national security interests are at stake here. The stakes could not be more clear and more critical. With regard to the comments of the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Pelosi), demand reduction composes 32.7 percent of the government's total spending on antidrug efforts while the amount spent on reducing overseas supply currently consists of only 3 percent of those expenditures. I again urge our Members to fully support this very important antidrug measure. Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I yield 3 minutes to the distinguished gentleman from New York (Mr. Serrano). (Mr. SERRANO asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.) Mr. SERRANO. I thank the gentleman from Wisconsin for yielding me this time. Mr. Chairman, I am really troubled about what we are doing here today, and I cannot believe we are doing it without much more debate. This looks to me very much like something from my younger years when we got involved in Vietnam. Let us understand this Colombia situation is a civil war. It is a civil war that has been going on for a long time. We have decided all of a sudden that it is a war on drugs. That is our excuse or it is some folks in our administration's excuse for getting involved in a civil war. And then the mistake we are making here which I brought out in committee and in subcommittee and other places is the fact that we are referring to the insurgent group in Colombia as narcoterrorists. The minute in this country you call somebody a terrorist, you close the door, and rightfully so, on ever negotiating with them. So by saying that we are going into Colombia to help the military, number one, which is wrong, fight the narcoterrorists, we just said that we are never going to negotiate with one side in a civil war. Now, I suspect that people in Washington are beginning to look at Latin America and beginning to get this feeling which was a bad feeling and a wrong feeling in the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s. They see a progressive President in Venezuela, Chavez; they see a new so-called socialist President in Chile and they say, ``Oh, my God, we've got to do something,'' so where do we set our anchor? In Colombia. And then to suggest that in Colombia only one side may be involved with drug money is to suggest we are reinventing that country. There is a major problem with drugs in Colombia, and it plays a role in everything that is done in that country. I wish that today we had the courage to look at this issue for what it is. We are getting involved in a civil war which we are going to pay for a price, a big price in the future. Secondly, we are closing off any opportunity to speak to one side. How do you bring peace to a country if that is what you want to do by shutting the door on one side? And, thirdly, we are thinking about Colombia as we thought about South America in the 1960s. We are looking at it in the year 2000 in the same way. We made mistakes then; we are going to make them again, and for what? So that some helicopter company somewhere can sell a few helicopters? It is not worth it. I wish we would reconsider this and vote as I will against this bill. Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Mr. Chairman, I yield 3 minutes to the gentlewoman from Florida (Mrs. Fowler). (Mrs. FOWLER asked and was given permission to revise and extend her remarks.) Mrs. FOWLER. Mr. Chairman, I rise in strong support of the supplemental and in strong support of the Lewis-Spence-Murtha-Skelton amendment to the bill which would provide an additional $4 billion for our severely underfunded Defense Department. In addition, later today, I will offer an amendment with the gentleman from Utah (Mr. Hansen) regarding the $40 million contained in this bill to implement the President's directive on the Navy's training range on the Puerto Rican island of Vieques. The bill would provide these funds to Puerto Rico as part of a deal to resume Navy and Marine Corps training on Vieques which has been suspended because of trespassers seeking to end our training operations there. The money would be used for economic development and to hold a binding referendum on Vieques on whether live-fire training should be resumed. The Fowler-Hansen amendment would essentially do two things: First, it would strike language that would permit any of the $40 million to be used for the referendum. It does not stop the referendum. As the San Juan Star accurately reported today, the referendum can still be held, just not underwritten by the U.S. government. Operations on a vital military training range should not be subjected to a public referendum. This is terrible public policy and will set a very dangerous precedent for other critical military activities. Second, it would require that before the $40 million is released to Puerto Rico, the President must certify to the Congress that live-fire training operations have been resumed. The amendment would also allow part of this $40 million to be spent on a health study on the island of Vieques immediately upon enactment without condition. I want to quote specifically referring to the live-fire training on Vieques from the Secretary of the Navy Richard Danzig. He has stated, and I quote, This training wins wars. Many Americans in uniform owe their lives to this crucial training. Many would perish without it. This is critical to the well-being of our young Marines and sailors. I urge my colleagues to support the Fowler-Hansen amendment which will be on the floor later this afternoon. Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the distinguished gentlewoman from Georgia (Ms. McKinney). {time} 1330 Ms. McKINNEY. Mr. Chairman, if this bill were not so serious, I would think it is a joke. Once again, the United States is proposing a huge military alliance with the foreign military known for its human rights abuses. Now, you think we would have learned our lesson by now. How long ago was it that Bill Clinton went to Guatemala and apologized for fueling that country's generation-long slide into chaos? But just a year later you can say here we go again. No one seriously denies the link of paramilitary groups to the Colombian government, and here we are going to turn over to known human rights abusers the means by which they can perfect their trade. As we stand here on the floor today, 3,000 union leaders, students, parents, [[Page H1510]] shopkeepers and others are standing before 3,000 armed Colombian soldiers, forming a human shield to protect the peaceful U'wa people that the Colombian government wants to move off their ancestral land to make way for Occidental Petroleum's oil rigs. We should be standing with the people, not giving aid and encouragement to Colombia's brutal military. We should have learned our lessons well about going in with the military where only diplomacy should be allowed to tread. Unfortunately, it appears that we have not. Because in addition to Plan Colombia, this bill also provides an additional $5 billion to keep us in Kosovo, another failed military blunder that diplomacy should have resolved. After our military gambit in Kosovo, we have left 31,000 rounds of depleted uranium rounds and 50 percent unemployment, in some areas rising to 85 percent. The crumbling infrastructure is yet to be rebuilt, and our European allies have not lived up to the commitments they made at the beginning of that adventure. Time and time again, this Congress commits our troops to military adventures without a plan to bring them home. Last year, U.S. aircraft flew over 1,000 sorties in Iraq, nearly a decade after that war was supposedly over. In Kosovo, our limited military engagement has turned into a permanent occupation. Now we are being asked to fund the Vietnamization of Barry McCaffrey's war without an exit strategy or end game. Mr. Chairman, I urge my colleagues to reject this so-called emergency amendment. Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Mr. Chairman, I have only one speaker to close, and I reserve the balance of my time. Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the distinguished gentlewoman from Wisconsin (Ms. Baldwin). (Ms. BALDWIN asked and was given permission to revise and extend her remarks.) Ms. BALDWIN. Mr. Chairman, on October 24, 1999, more than 10 million Colombians took to the streets of every major city in Colombia to rally for peace. These 10 million Colombians wanted to send a message that they were sick of war. They were terrorized by the kidnappings. They were exhausted with paramilitary violence and disgusted with drug trade. No mas, they said. No more. Peace is what Colombia needs. Peace will allow democracy to flourish. Peace will permit law enforcement officials to combat the flow of illicit drugs, and peace will create the conditions to address the income inequalities, the problems of displaced persons and economic development issues that will truly improve the lives of the Colombian people. Unfortunately, the aid package we are considering today will not help the peace process. In fact, it fails to address the underlying issues that are needed to promote peace in Colombia. I traveled to Colombia in 1993 to see the situation first hand. It was clear, then, that U.S. military aid and equipment that was intended to be used to stem the flow of illegal drugs was being misused, misused to suppress citizens in Colombia, including labor activists, community leaders, peace activists, human rights activists and collective farmers. The United States is properly concerned about the abuse of illegal drugs by our citizens. Interdiction and source reductions should be a part of a comprehensive drug control policy. This proposal does not reflect such a policy. The proposal we have before us today will do little or nothing to address the fundamental problems in Colombia; namely, economic inequality, civil war, lack of economic development, and judicial impunity. Unfortunately, we seem to be playing a game of public relations when we should be pursuing peace in the region. The CHAIRMAN. The gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Obey) has 1\1/2\ minutes remaining. Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 1\1/2\ minutes. Mr. Chairman, last week, the majority party in this House posed for political holy pictures and promised spending discipline and bragged about how much spending they were going to cut. This week they have brought to the floor this bill which adds $4 billion to the spending requests that the President has made for a supplemental. And then on top of that, it intends in an amendment that they will shortly offer to add yet another $4 billion in spending. And the reason they are going to do that in the DOD account is simply so they move $4 billion in spending from next year to this year, because that frees up $4 billion for them to add for Members' projects in the coming year. It is very simply a $4 billion end run around the spending ceilings which they bragged about imposing just 5 days ago. They must think that people are not watching. Well, I suspect they are. The net result is that they come in for this entire fiscal year spending $17 billion more than the President asks for. That to me is an indication of just how false those promises have been that we would see straight bookkeeping and fiscal discipline under their budget. That alone, I think, is a reason to defeat this proposition. I have already indicated my concern about the Colombian war effort, but I think this is yet another reason to vote against this budget hocus pocus. The CHAIRMAN. The gentleman from Florida (Mr. Young) has 5\1/2\ minutes remaining. Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself the balance of the time. Mr. Chairman, first I would like to compliment all of our colleagues for the very high level and