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Mr. Speaker, H. Res. 565 is a rule providing for consideration of H.R. 4516, the conference report for the Legislative Branch Appropriations bill for fiscal year 2001. The rule waives all points

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   House rules provide 1 hour of general debate divided equally between the chairman and ranking minority member of the Committee on Appropriations and one motion to recommit, with or without instructions, as is the right of the minority members of the House.

   There are many important provisions of this legislation and I want to briefly discuss the conference report that this rule makes in order. Regarding the Legislative Branch Appropriations, this bill continues our efforts since the 104th Congress to downsize the legislative branch of government. This bill before us today offers additional proof of our commitment to fiscal responsibility and this bill has overwhelming support. In fact, the Legislative Branch Appropriations bill passed the House only 1 month ago on June 22 by a 373 to 50 vote.

   Mr. Speaker, this conference report also includes funding for the Department of Treasury and general government appropriations. These appropriations fund many national priorities such as enhancing law enforcement, school violence prevention, combatting international child pornography trafficking, and enforcement of our existing gun laws.

   The Treasury Postal Appropriations bill passed the House last week, and I commend the gentleman from Arizona (Mr. KOLBE) for his hard work on this bill.

   I want to comment on the inclusion in this conference report of the repeal of the telecommunications tax of 1898. I am very pleased that this conference report eliminates the telecommunications tax , a tax that is currently limiting the opportunities of lower- and middle-income Americans to have affordable access to the information superhighway.

   This is just one more tax that makes it cost prohibitive for lower-income Americans to go online, and I support the inclusion of this provision in this conference report.

   The foolish and shortsighted tax policies of the 101st Congress should be stopped as soon as possible. That was the Congress that made that tax permanent that was originally imposed in 1898.

   This conference report gives us the opportunity to advance this common sense telecom tax repeal. There is no reason to delay sending this to the President as soon as possible.

   Mr. Speaker, I would like to close by noting that only 60 days ago, on March 25, this House passed the repeal of the telecommunications tax by a vote of 420 to 2. This rule was favorably reported by the Committee on Rules. I urge my colleagues to support the rule today on the floor so we may proceed with the general debate in consideration of this very important conference report.

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

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

   Mr. Speaker, I rise not only in opposition to this rule but to the heavy-handed manner in which the Republican leadership has chosen to conduct business in the hours before we adjourn for the August summer recess.

   Mr. Speaker, I must protest in the strongest possible terms the fact that the Republican leadership has, in the dark hours of night, cobbled together what they are calling a conference report on legislative branch appropriations. The majority must be snickering behind their hands, Mr. Speaker, because this so-called conference report is constructed of one bill which has actually passed both houses, the Legislative Branch Appropriations, as well as one that has only seen action on this side of the Capitol, Treasury Postal Appropriations.

   But there is something else. This appropriations conference report also contains a tax bill, the repeal of the telephone tax passed earlier by the House. This action was taken without any consultation with Democratic Members of the Committee on Appropriations, or with the Democratic leadership. Accordingly, no Democratic member of the Legislative Branch Conference Committee signed this report.

   Mr. Speaker, while I have a photocopy of the conference report, I am at a loss to try to explain to my colleagues exactly what is in it. The report was assembled literally in the dark of night, sometime between 11:00 p.m. last night and 7:01 a.m. this morning, when it was filed. Democrats were led to believe last night this conference agreement was going to contain a minimum wage increase, as well as several tax provisions.

   I have been assured that this document does not now contain the minimum wage but since the Committee on Rules did not provide us a single sheet of explanatory materials when we met at 8:30 a.m. this morning, I can only vouch for that by having quickly skimmed through this document.

   In addition, Mr. Speaker, in order to accommodate the rush to get out of town, the Republican leadership kept the Committee on Rules waiting until 11:00 p.m. last night and the House in session until 11:30 p.m. Once it was determined that more work was needed to be done on this so-called conference report, the Committee on Rules was sent home but the House was not adjourned. It was instead recessed until 7:00 a.m. this morning so that the Committee on Rules could meet and file a rule this morning on the same legislative day and, thus, avoid the necessity of sending a martial law rule to the floor this morning.

   Mr. Speaker, I must protest what I consider to be a disrespectful abuse of this institution and its Members, as well as the many employees who are required to hurry up and wait while the Republican leadership tries to figure out exactly how to run this body.

   Finally, Mr. Speaker, the rush to consider this matter is all the more peculiar since it seems that the Senate has absolutely no intention of considering this conference report until after the recess in September. This process makes no sense, Mr. Speaker, but it is a perfect example of the disregard the Republican leadership has demonstrated time and again for this institution, its practices, and precedents and the Members who serve here.

   I urge every Member of the House to oppose this rule if for no other reason than to stand up for regular order.

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

   Mr. LINDER. Mr. Speaker, I yield 5 minutes to the gentleman from Arizona (Mr. KOLBE), the chairman of the Subcommittee on Treasury, Postal Service, and General Government.

   Mr. KOLBE. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Linder) for yielding me this time.

   Mr. Speaker, I listened with interest to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Frost) and the comments he made about the procedures that were followed in bringing this conference report to the floor of the House. I will not comment on some of those procedures because they are, as we say, above my pay grade. They were decisions made beyond me, but I do want to comment about that part for which I have some knowledge and some responsibility, and that is the part in here, the very large part in here, that deals with the Treasury, Postal and General Government Appropriation.

   I think from a procedural standpoint, we need to understand a couple of things. First of all, I can remember on the floor of this House last year listening to the laments of the minority, our friends across the aisle, as they complained that we were not acting on appropriation bills in a timely fashion. Now, of course, today, if we pass the D.C. appropriations bill we will have passed all of the appropriations bills before the August recess. I believe that is an unprecedented number in modern times. So we are hearing the complaint today with this conference report that we are really rushing it, we are moving it too fast; and we have heard that there was not sufficient consultation with the minority about this.

   I regret very much that there was not more minority participation in the informal conference which took place on this bill, but I think it is very important that my colleagues understand that the minority was given full opportunity to participate, both the minority in the House of Representatives and in the Senate, and it was their decision, their choice, not to have staff members participate in the discussion of the provisions that were different between the House and the Senate bills as we tried to iron those out.

   Now, the process that we followed was one that is followed, as far as I

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   Was there a formal conference committee held? No. I cannot say how many times that I served on conference committees when I was in the minority of appropriations where the conference committee never met at all. So I do not think this process has been any different.

   I do regret very much that the minority chose not to participate in this process. They chose not to be involved in it. Nonetheless, the charge that was given to me was to make sure that we had a bill that was signable and passable, passable in the House and the Senate, signable by the President of the United States.

   I think when we get into a discussion of the conference report itself, we will have an opportunity to see that many of the concerns that were expressed on this floor during debate on the Treasury Postal bill, by the Members from the other side of the aisle, were addressed. Many, if not all, of the concerns that were expressed by the administration through their statement of administration policy, called the SAP, in the letter that was sent both to the House and to the Senate appropriators, virtually all of those issues were addressed.

   We have what I believe is a bill that is definitely a very good bill. It deals with the problems that confront the Internal Revenue Service, the Customs Service. We will have an opportunity to discuss those in greater detail as we go forward here, but I think that it is very clear to say that an opportunity was given for both sides to participate in this process. I do hope, before we get to a vote on the conference report, that there will be a much better understanding by all Members about the process, not only about the process but about the content of what is in this bill.

   I think when they do understand it, there will be a great deal of acceptance.

   Mr. FROST. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 1 minute.

   Mr. Speaker, I am unclear about what the gentleman just said. Is the gentleman suggesting that the Republican leadership in the Senate is not competent to bring a bill to the floor for a vote because this is the crux of the argument? The Treasury Postal bill was never voted on in the Senate on the floor. What they did was to short-circuit the normal legislative process, reach out from the conference committee on another bill and pick up a bill that had never been passed on the floor of the Senate.

   So I do not quite understand what the gentleman was saying. Was he saying that his own leadership on the other side of the Capitol was not capable of bringing a bill to a vote on the floor of the Senate? I am curious as to why they chose to pick this bill up and put it into conference when it had never been voted on by the full Senate.

   Mr. KOLBE. Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?

   Mr. FROST. I yield to the gentleman from Arizona.

   Mr. KOLBE. The answer is that over in the Senate, for reasons of their own, there was a dispute over some of the confirmations, as I understand it, confirmations of judgeships, and for that reason there was a hold placed on any of the appropriation bills after the legislative bill. So that became the only vehicle really that was available to us.

   Mr. LINDER. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Arizona (Mr. KOLBE), for him to respond.

   Mr. KOLBE. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. LINDER) for yielding the additional time so I can respond.

   Mr. Speaker, so the decision was made over in the Senate that in order to try to expedite this process and to get not only the legislative bill but the Treasury Postal bill and at least this one tax bill that had passed by such a very large margin done before the August recess, that they would put those together and that is the reason, very simply, why it was put on this bill.

   There was a debate that preceded yesterday on the Treasury bill. I am not sure how far they got yesterday before the end of the day, but they have had debate on the bill on the floor of the United States Senate.

   Mr. FROST. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 1 additional minute.

   Mr. Speaker, let me see if I understand this. If the Senate is incapable of voting on a bill, for whatever reason, if they are incapable of taking a bill to final passage, then that is the basis for rolling that bill into a conference. If I understand what the gentleman is saying, he is saying, well, they just cannot get anything done over there in the Senate. They have some problems so we have to help them by picking up a bill that they never voted on and just rolling it into the conference on another bill. That seems a very peculiar procedure, particularly since we are going to come back after the Republican and the Democratic conventions. It is not like this is the last day of the session. We will certainly be here for the full month of September so it seems like a very peculiar and unusual procedure.

   ANNOUNCEMENT BY THE SPEAKER PRO TEMPORE

   The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair would again remind Members to avoid improper references to the Senate, including characterizations of their actions.

   Mr. FROST. Mr. Speaker, I yield 4 minutes to the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Moakley).

   Mr. MOAKLEY. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Texas (Mr. FROST), the chairman of the Democratic Caucus, for yielding me the time.

[Time: 13:15]

   Mr. Speaker, this rule is coming to the floor under the most unbelievable circumstances. Last night when there was a baseball game going on between the Republicans and Democrats, there was another game going on upstairs, only this game had no referees and no umpires. After everyone else had gone home, the Committee on Rules waited around until 11 p.m. for the Republican leadership to decide our fate. Late last night, we finally get word that we are not going to meet, but the House would stay in session so that we could come back early this morning, file three rules, and immediately recess to begin another legislative day.

   The Republican leadership decided to take two appropriations bills, Legislative Branch and Treasury Postal, and work on them until 7 a.m. this morning, and then, 1 1/2 hours later, send them to the Committee on Rules. A couple of hours after that, here they are on the floor of the House. Meanwhile, Mr. Speaker, really, barely anyone has the foggiest idea what is in this bill. Yet, Mr. Speaker, we are supposed to vote on it.

   This convoluted process is just a part of a larger pattern of disrespect, not only for the Committee on Rules, but for the entire membership at large. Mr. Speaker, it is totally uncalled for. The Senate has already announced that they will not take this up until mid-September. Why the rush? I suspect, Mr. Speaker, the lightning speed with which this bill is arriving on the House floor has something to do with the contents.

   Once upon a time, Mr. Speaker, there were two noble suggestions on the House floor: one, to lift the American embargo on food and medicine to Cuba and the other one would lift the restrictions preventing American citizens from traveling to Cuba. A majority of the House recognized the wisdom in lifting the outdated prohibition on sending either American food or American medicine to our neighbors in Cuba. The House then voted 301 to 116 to pass the Moran amendment to lift the food and medicine embargo and the Senate passed a similar amendment by Senator DORGAN.

   A majority of the House recognized that this embargo that was started some 40 years ago when things were a lot different than they are today. Communism was a real threat; Cuba was a real threat. But, Mr. Speaker, that policy has not worked for 40 years, and the American people have asked us to change.

   Mr. Speaker, there are sick people in Cuba who could use our help. They live 90 miles from the world's best doctors,

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   The House also passed the Sanford amendment to allow Americans to travel to Cuba by a vote of 232 to 186. It is one of the most fundamental rights we have as Americans, the right to travel freely, and that also is being denied.

   But despite those majority votes, the Republican leadership removed these limitation amendments in the wee hours of this morning and hope we would be none the wiser.

   So in order to change the will of the majority of the House, we are considering this rule and these bills under a skewed, undemocratic process. So I urge my colleagues to oppose the rule. The Cuban people and the American farmers deserve better.

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

   I would point out that there is a compromise in the works on the Cuban language, language that I joined the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. MOAKLEY) in supporting and that will, I presume, be on the agricultural bill. He can rest assured that this will be taken care of on the floor.

   Mr. MOAKLEY. Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?

   Mr. LINDER. I yield to the gentleman from Massachusetts.

   Mr. MOAKLEY. Mr. Speaker, as my colleagues may recall, this language came through on the agriculture bill, but then they decided to take it off and put it on the Treasury bill, and they were sure it would be there. Now they are going to put it back on the agricultural bill.

   Mr. LINDER. Mr. Speaker, reclaiming my time, I think I made my point, and I reserve the balance of my time.

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