THIS SEARCH THIS DOCUMENT THIS CR ISSUE GO TO
Next Hit Forward Next Document New CR Search
Prev Hit Back Prev Document HomePage
Hit List Best Sections Daily Digest Help
Doc Contents
[Page: H11669] GPO's PDF---
Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Mr. Speaker, pursuant to the provisions of House Resolution 662, I call up the joint resolution (H.J. Res. 121), making further continuing appropriations for the fiscal year 2001, and for other purposes, and ask for its immediate consideration in the House.
The Clerk read the title of the joint resolution.
The text of House Joint Resolution 121 is as follows:
H.J. Res. 121
Resolved by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That Public Law 106-275, is further amended by striking the date specified in section 106(c) and inserting ``November 1, 2000''.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Pursuant to House Joint Resolution 662, 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. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
Mr. Speaker, I advise our colleagues in the House that this is another 1-day continuing resolution to make sure that the government continues to operate until midnight tomorrow night, while we continue to work away in a friendly, cooperative, bipartisan way to resolve the final outstanding issues before this Congress can adjourn.
With that, Mr. Speaker, I announce to the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. OBEY), my friend, that I do not intend to have a lengthy debate on our side. And so I am going to reserve the balance of my time, probably until I get to my closing statement, depending on what issues might come up in the meantime.
Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 7 1/2 minutes.
Mr. Speaker, I am wearing this wrist band in solidarity with the over 300,000 workers who will suffer repetitive motion injuries, some of them career-ending, because of the gutlessness of this Congress in refusing, for over a 10-year period, to put some protection for those folks into the law.
Mr. Speaker, I have gone into plant after plant in my district and I have seen especially women at computer terminals, at shoe-stitching machines, wearing things like this or even worse.
Look at this picture and tell me what is different. What separates us as Members of Congress from this woman? What separates us is that when we have a repetitive motion injury, like I had for several weeks last year when I was wearing one of these, we can stop doing what we were doing until we recover. People like this woman cannot. They have to keep going until they cannot go any more.
That is the difference. The only repetitive motion injury that most Members of Congress are likely to get is to their knees from the repetitive genuflecting to the big business lobbyists who persuaded the Republican leadership to blow up the agreement on the Labor, Health, and Education bill by denying some protection to people like this.
That is a fact. That is a fact.
Mr. Speaker, I want to recite to my colleagues the history of the repetitive motion struggle that we have had. On June 29 of 1995, the House for the first time took action to prohibit OSHA from putting in place a repetitive motion injury rule that would protect workers like this. That was delay number one.
On July 27, 1995, the House Committee on Appropriations again reported language to do the same thing.
When it was finally adopted, it again said that none of the funds in the bill would be used to enforce or implement an OSHA rule protecting workers like this from repetitive motion injury. That was delay number two.
Then, on July of 1996, the Subcommittee on Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education again tried to delay action for another year. That time the House had guts enough to stand up and say no and they were defeated on the House floor. But they came back; and on July 25 of 1997, they again adopted new language which for another year delayed the implementation of the rule to protect workers like this. And they won. And so, we had delay number three that delayed yet another year.
The only difference was that that time the House said it would be the last time. This is a copy of the front page of the committee report dated July 25, 1997, which outlines the fact that yet another year's delay was being undertaken to prevent these repetitive motion injuries. But it said ``the committee will refrain from any further restrictions with regard to the development, promulgation, or issuance of an ergonomics standard following fiscal year 1998.''
And you know what? For a year the Congress abided by that. It is true that the Congress did provide additional funding to do yet an additional study by the National Academy of Sciences of the issue. But at the same time that was done, the chairman of the committee, Bob Livingston, our former colleague, in good faith signed a letter with me which indicated that even though that money was being provided that nonetheless ``we understand that OSHA intends to issue a proposed rule on ergonomics late in the summer of 1999. We are writing to make clear by funding of the NAS study it is in no way our intent to block or delay issuance by OSHA of a proposed rule on ergonomics .''
And yet this year, here is the rollcall if you want to look at it, some of the same people who were here when the Congress made the agreement not to delay this any further voted once again to genuflect to the interests of big business and forget the interests of workers and they signed on to another year delay.
Now, in conference, finally, against my wishes, the White House 2 days ago agreed to yet another 6-month delay in the implementation of the standards to protect these workers. But what we got in return for that additional 6-month delay in implementation was the right of this President to at least promulgate the rule.
Now, in my view, there is only one reason why the majority leadership blew up that agreement. Because that agreement was understood, we had an agreement to the entire bill! It was even sealed with toasts of Merlot at 1:30 in the morning. And I do not know of anything more ``sacred'' in conference than a toast of Merlot. But nonetheless, after there was an agreement, then we walk out of there and the next morning what do we get? We get ``Operation Blow Up'' by the Republican leadership because apparently the Chamber of Commerce lobbyists got to them and said, ``Boys, we do not want it.'' So they blew it up. They blew it up.
[Page: H11670] GPO's PDF
In my view, there is only one reason they did it. It is because if their candidate for President wins the election, they did not want their candidate for President to have to take the public heat that would come from reversing that rule.
The language in the compromise gives the new President, whoever he is, the right to suspend and then reverse that rule through the Administrative Procedures Act. I do not like that. But that was the deal. But they do not even want to do that on that side of the aisle. If their candidate gets elected, they are afraid to have their candidate for President have to take the public heat from repealing this rule to help these people.
[Time: 18:45]
They want him to be able to do it on the sly. That is what is at stake.
So my suggestion to our friends on the majority side of the aisle, and I am not speaking about the gentleman from Florida (Mr. YOUNG), he negotiated in good faith. My suggestion to the House leadership is, if you have the courage of your convictions, then let us do this straight and clean. Stick to the agreement that was negotiated. Each side will have to take a chance and see who is elected President, and the public will know in either case what side we are on. That is the only question that is before us tonight. Whose side are you on?
Mr. Speaker, I yield 4 minutes to the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. BONIOR), the distinguished minority whip.
Mr. BONIOR. Mr. Speaker, the front page of the Washington Post has a headline today. It says: ``Budget Deal is Torpedoed by House GOP. Move by Leadership Angers Negotiators on Both Sides.''
On the front page of the Los Angeles Times, quote, ``GOP Leaders Scuttle Deal in Budget Battle.''
Now, these and other stories tell how a team of Republican legislators was empowered by the Republican leadership to negotiate a budget agreement with congressional Democrats and the White House. And that is exactly what they did. Neither side got everything that they wanted, but the American people were well served with this agreement. The compromise would have provided one of the largest educational increases in the history of this government. And perhaps that was one of the reasons why it did not pass muster once it reached the leaders. It would have modernized and repaired 5,000 schools. It would have provided 12,000 new teachers to reduce class size. It would have created after-school programs for 850,000 new students in this country. And as we heard from the gentleman from Wisconsin, when the negotiators wrapped up their discussions at 1:30 in the morning, they toasted, they shook hands, and then not 12 hours later, the leadership on the Republican side of the aisle decided to totally repudiate the agreement that their team negotiated.
One of their reasons besides the education issue, as we heard, was the question of repetitive stress motion, which takes a terrible toll on our workers. We have been battling this issue for 14 years. Libby Dole when she was the head of the Labor Department, a Republican, put these regulations forward because she saw the need to deal with the question of repetitive illnesses that we can cure with some reasonable, sensible, rational regulations that will help people be able to hold their child when they get home from work, or open a jar of peanut butter at lunchtime, which they cannot do now as a result of these terrible musculoskeletal diseases.
Now where are we? Well, this Republican Congress, from George Bush all the way on down, have talked a very good game about bipartisanship and bringing people together. But this week the Republican leadership gave the American people a sneak preview of their bipartisanship and how it is really going to work and their passionate conservatism. It is something those of us who have worked in this Congress have seen over and over again.
Opportunities for bipartisan cooperation on prescription drug coverage, on campaign finance reform, on curbing the powers of the HMOs, and overcrowding in schools, all vetoed by the Republican leadership, either in this body or in the other body. They play this game where one body passes it, but the leaders in the other body make sure that it does not reach the President's desk. Torpedoed by men who are more committed to their partisan Republican agenda than the American agenda, Mr. Speaker.
Mr. Speaker, a Member of this House once said, ``You earn trust by saying what you mean and meaning what you say.'' That Congressman who said that was the past Republican leader, a man named Gerald Ford. Today's House Republican leaders would do well to heed his words.
Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, could I inquire of the gentleman from Florida, does he intend to yield time?
Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I have no intention of yielding at this point. If I do, before the time is expired, I would advise the gentleman in advance.
Mr. OBEY. I want to take 30 seconds, Mr. Speaker, to simply say that the gentleman from Florida was absolutely honorable in these negotiations. We disagreed vehemently on a number of these issues. But I know him to be a man of his word. I am uncomfortable that we have to say what we have to say in his presence, because if anyone blew up the deal, it was certainly not his fault.
Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 1/2 minutes to the distinguished gentlewoman from California (Ms. Pelosi).
Ms. PELOSI. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding me this time and for his leadership on this important issue.
Mr. Speaker, at the turn of the century, the last century, 100 years ago, Ida Tarbell and Upton Sinclair shocked this Nation with their accounts of dangers in the workplace to American workers. The exploitation of American workers challenged the conscience of our country.
Here we are 100 years later, and we have scientific evidence of that same kind of exploitation, that same kind of danger to American workers. Yet the Republican majority is opposing any opportunity to correct that. If you use a computer, if you drive a truck for a living, if you are in the health care industry and lift patients, if you are in the food processing industry, if you have to chop off the leg of a chicken for 8 hours a day with very little interruption and rest, there are so many occupations that are affected by this. In fact, Mr. Speaker, women who are prevalent in occupations that are mostly for women have a disproportionate share of these musculoskeletal injuries.
Every year 600,000 workers in America lose time from work because of repetitive motion, back, and other disabling injuries. These injuries are often extremely painful and disabling. Sometimes they are permanent. The gentleman from Michigan pointed out the cost to our economy of this, the cost to the personal quality of life for workers because of this. By the way, not all businesses are so unenlightened. Those who have instituted voluntary guidelines have a payback on their bottom line of greater productivity from their workers, much higher morale from their workers, and lower cost for health care for these workers.
This is not just about everybody in business, painting them all with the same brush; but it is about some that the Republican majority cannot say ``no'' to. In order not to say ``no'' to their special interest friends, they will not say ``yes'' to the Democrats who have bipartisan support for the prescription drug benefit, we have bipartisan support for the Patients' Bill of Rights, we have bipartisan support for the minimum wage bill, and now they have blown up the Labor-HHS bill, which has so much in it for education for America's children.
We do a lot of talking around here about family values. But what is more of a family value? The economic security of America's families has an impact on children and their education and the pension security and the health security of their seniors.
Mr. Speaker, I want to point out that the support for these repetitive motion injuries guidelines has bipartisan support. It has been referenced that Secretary Elizabeth Dole, Secretary of Labor Elizabeth Dole has stated, and these are her words, quote, ``By reducing repetitive motion injuries, we will increase both the safety and productivity of America's workforce.'' She
[Page: H11671] GPO's PDF
Secretary of Labor Lynn Martin said, ``OSHA agrees that ergonomic hazards are well recognized occupational hazards and OSHA's review of the available data has persuaded the agency.'' She also supported that. Chairman Livingston did, too. There is bipartisan support.
I say to our colleagues, take ``yes'' for an answer.
Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the distinguished gentleman from California (Mr. GEORGE MILLER).
(Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)
Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California. Mr. Speaker, there has been a great plea for bipartisan behavior on behalf of the Republicans and Democrats. Yet as we see the Congress respond where we have a bipartisan agreement on a Patients' Bill of Rights, to control the HMOs, to guarantee people the health care they need, on the minimum wage to make sure the hundreds and hundreds of thousands of Americans who are working at that wage will have the ability to provide for their family, on campaign finance reform, on common sense gun safety provisions, and now on workplace safety, each and every time we achieve that bipartisan agreement, we have the Republican leadership coming in and blowing up those agreements. They come in the back door, they come in the middle of the night, they come after everybody has left and they blow up these agreements. They find some way to kill it even though a bipartisan majority in the House and Senate support these measures. They blow them up.
They are our legislative terrorists. They do not play by the rules. They do not accept the will of the majority. They do not accept bipartisan agreements. They do not accept written agreements that have been entered into the record. They do not accept any of that. Because they are terrorists. They are legislative terrorists. They have made a decision. It will be their way or no way. They could have chosen to side with the American public and protect the workers, the 1,500 workers a day that are disabled because of injuries, because of repetitive motion, workers who will not be able to pick up their children at the end of the day, workers who will lose their earning capacity to provide for their families, whether or not Halloween is as nice as it could have been or whether Christmas will be as nice or whether or not they will be able to buy school supplies for their children because their hours have been diminished because of that kind of injury.
And each and every time we have reached an agreement to protect these workers in the workplace, they come in in the middle of the night and blow those agreements up. They disenfranchise Members of the House, they disenfranchise their own committee chairmen, they disenfranchise their committee members, because they apparently have the right, the supreme right to overrule any decision, any agreement that is democratically arrived at in the House or in the Senate.
The time has come for the American people to understand that these Republicans leaders could have chosen to stand with Americans against the HMOs so they could get health care, to stand with low wage earners so they could provide for their families, to stand with those workers who are threatened by this illness every day. Every day 1,500 workers. They could have stood with the public interest in campaign finance reform. But when they had a chance to choose, each and every time the Republican leadership has chosen the narrowest of special interests, the narrowest of special interests against that of the public interest of American workers, American families, and American children.
This is a sad day for this Congress. It is a sad day for the legislative process. But I guess it is a healthy day for Republican legislative terrorists.
THIS SEARCH THIS DOCUMENT THIS CR ISSUE GO TO
Next Hit Forward Next Document New CR Search
Prev Hit Back Prev Document HomePage
Hit List Best Sections Daily Digest Help
Doc Contents