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[Page: H11718] 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. 122) 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 the House Joint Resolution 122 is as follows:
H.J. Res. 122
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 2, 2000''.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Pursuant to House 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, this is another one of those 1-day continuing resolutions. Since the President of the United States refuses to sign more than a 1-day continuing resolution, this is something that we have to do. It is pure and simple. It is no different than what we did yesterday and the day before and the day before and the day before and the day before.
Mr. Speaker, as I have said so many times on so many of these CRs that I am basically through with presenting this continuing resolution. I will be prepared to reserve the balance of my time unless there is some reason that I need to respond to a situation that we did not anticipate.
Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 11 minutes.
Mr. Speaker, as my colleagues know, we are stuck here because the major appropriation bill that is yet to be resolved had been brought to a compromised conclusion by the conferees Sunday night; and then when the majority party leadership reviewed that compromise on Monday morning, they said ``No way baby''.
What blew up the agreement was the objection of the majority party leadership to the language in the conference report that would have, after a 10-year struggle, finally allowed, after yet one more 6-month delay, for the enforcement of a rule by OSHA to protect workers from debilitating, career ending workplace injuries caused by repetitive motion.
[Time: 10:30]
I want to review for my colleagues the history of OSHA for those of my friends on the Republican side who were not here when OSHA was created. I was. I want you to know who the sponsor of the OSHA legislation was. It was a man by the name of Bill Steiger, who was my best friend in the House, a Republican from Wisconsin. We went to college together. We were in the legislature together. We served here together. And then he, unfortunately, died at age 40.
It was always my belief that, if he had lived, he would have been the first Republican Speaker. He was a wonderful human being and a very balanced one, a strong conservative. But he was the sponsor of the OSHA legislation. He was the first employer in Washington for a fellow by the name of Dick Cheney. So that ought to give you some idea of Bill's political philosophy. I think the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. HYDE) served with him. Some of you will remember Bill.
When OSHA was adopted, the Chamber of Commerce insisted that the standards that were used by OSHA be the consensus standards which had been developed by business advisory committees and OSHA simply took those standards and enforced them as their own.
An article on the business page of ``The Washington Post'' this morning points out that ``80 percent of all current OSHA health and safety standards are the same voluntary standards U.S. businesses were using in the late 1960s reflecting a long history of business and political opposition to new OSHA standards.'' And that is the case.
The history on this floor after OSHA was established has been a 2-decade long effort on the part of the majority party to resist new protections for workers. The cotton dust standard. You fought that for 4 1/2 years and tried to have it delayed twice by legislative limitations. The methychloride standard to prevent leukemia. My brother-in-law died of leukemia and was always convinced it was workplace related. The standard to prevent that exposure in the workplace was resisted, and several times the majority tried to offer legislative language forbidding OSHA from proceeding with this standard.
The lead standard. We know what lead does to brain development. We know what it does for brain damage. The majority party tried to stop that standard. And for a decade they have been trying to stop the standard on repetitive motion injuries so that human beings do not go around with this kind of problem.
At first the actions taken by the majority party in the Committee on Appropriations in the form of an amendment by the gentleman from Texas (Mr. BONILLA) centered around denying OSHA the opportunity to even gather information about the occurrence and incidence of repetitive motion damage in the workplace.
Then after they failed to stop the gathering of information, then they switched rationales and said, ``Oh, we do not have enough information.'' And so, no matter how much information was developed by OSHA, they still said, ``Oh, we need more. We need more. Do not know enough. Do not know enough.'' And so that standard has been delayed for years and years.
Now, we finally reached, after four successive delays imposed by this House and after a promise a year and a half ago that you would impose no more delays, the majority leadership is once again trying to promote delay of both the implementation and the promulgation of the standard to protect people like the woman in this picture.
And so, what happened? We finally reached agreement after 4 hours of going word by word over language. Both sides left the room numerous times to consult their lawyers. Senator STEVENS did. The White House people in the room did. It was scrubbed by lots of lawyers who were outside the room, but it was checked repeatedly. We finally had a deal. As I said last night, it was even sealed with toasts of Merlot.
And then what happened? Well, what ``The Washington Post'' reports this morning that ``Fierce lobbying by powerful corporate groups with considerable sway among the GOP leadership helped kill a deal sealed with the Republican negotiators early Monday. Led by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the National Association of Manufacturers, the industries include groups representing trucking companies, bakeries, soft drink makers, and parcel delivery companies.''
And then it goes on to say, ``Business leaders have also bankrolled political ads over the workplace rules. In recent weeks, the National Association of Manufacturers has been running radio ads in key congressional districts.'' So on and so forth.
The article ends by quoting a 32-year-old woman, Heidi Eberhardt, who said, ``I do not know if I will ever be able to type again. I will always have to be careful with my hands. If I had had any kind of ergonomic knowledge back then, I would not be injured today.''
What we are trying to do is to prevent that from
happening to other Heidi Eberhardts in the future.
Now, in my view, there is only one reason for what happened that night. It was my position, and in that conference, I opposed the conference deal that the White House cut with the Republican majority because I felt that after all these years there should be no further delay, none whatsoever. The compromise that was cut is that it was finally agreed to allow a standard to be promulgated but it could not be enforced in any way until after July. So that, if a new President was elected who disagreed with that standard, he would have time to go through the Administrative Procedures Act and repeal it; and he could, incidentally, suspend it the day he walked into office. We feel that within 45 days, certainly within 60, he could shut it off.
I am convinced that the only reason the majority party leadership is doing this is because, if their party leader wins the White House, they want him to be able to stop that regulation without ever having to publicly stand up and oppose it.
Now, as we used to hear when there was a Republican President, we used to hear there is only one President at a time. Well, there is only one President at a time; and in my view, this President, after over 10 years of analysis and study and review, he has the right to impose a standard which was called for for the first time by a Secretary of Labor by the name of Libby Dole. She is the one who started this process, and she is the one who initially said that this was needed and crucial for the safety of people in the workplace. I would urge you to remember, that is why we are stuck here on the CR.
If the majority party leadership wants to get out of town, there is only one thing they have to do. All they have to do is take the D.C. bill, the Treasury-Post Office, and the Legislative appropriations bill and, by reference in the Labor, HHS bill, put it together, stick to the original deal on Labor, HHS, and so far as appropriations are concerned, we could be out of here in one day. That would leave only the Commerce, Justice State bill remaining.
For the life of me, I do not see how those differences are going to be bridged in this short period of time. But all other appropriations work could be done. That is what the leadership could do. All it has to do is to honor the agreement that was reached, reference those other four bills, and we could be out of here in a day and a half going back and reintroducing ourselves to our constituents.
So that is what I would hope the majority leadership would do in the interest of ending this session with some degree of comity. But I am afraid that the same principle that is operating here to prevent helping this woman in the picture is the same principle that had been operating here for months on other issues. We have been trying to get prescription drug coverage all year long. But in the end, the majority party has decided that a tax cut that primarily benefits the top 2 percent of people in this country outweighs the need for millions of Americans to have prescription drug coverage. The same principle.
Who wins in the end? Money. That is what this is about. It is about money.
Shame.
Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
Mr. Speaker, I want to say to my friend who just spoke in the well in reference to his statement that the majority party wants to get out of town, well, we would all like to get home. But I want him to know and I want everybody to know we are here for the
[Page: H11720] GPO's PDF
And these 1-day CRs, one after the other after the other after the other, use up a lot of time. We could be productive in other ways. We are not anxious to get out of town and leave the business undone. We are anxious to get out of town when the business is complete, and we are not going until we are finished and we have done it in a responsible way.
Now, the gentleman has made a substantial case about this agreement on ergonomics . I want to remind the Members what I have reminded them of before when the gentleman makes that argument. We reached an agreement. We started Sunday about 4 o'clock and we finally ended up about 1 o'clock Monday morning.
The gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. OBEY) was there and I was there, Senator STEVENS and Senator BYRD were there. Senator HARKIN was there. Jack Lew from the White House was there. We negotiated in good faith and we reached an agreement, and we have not gone back on that agreement.
Now, the agreement was to allow the new President adequate time to make a decision. We do not know for sure how it is going to go either way regardless of which Presidential candidate is elected. But that was the agreement we reached, and nobody has gone back on that agreement.
Here is where the difference is. The difference is the language that was written that was checked by the White House lawyers. I do not know that we left the room. I did not leave the room to consult with any lawyers. But we took the word of the White House that that language did what they said it did.
Now, Senator STEVENS is a lawyer. The gentleman from Illinois (Chairman PORTER), the chairman of the subcommittee, is a lawyer. We wrote the language at least eight or nine times to try to make sure that it did what the agreement said.
Now for someone to suggest that we are going back on our agreement just is not accurate. We are not trying to change the agreement with you one iota. All we are trying to do is make sure that the language that is finally written actually does what the agreement was supposed to do.
Now, what is wrong with that? That, in my opinion, is being responsible to make sure that our actions and our words are the same. Actions speak louder than words.
[Time: 10:45]
Actions speak louder than words, and action should at least be the same as the words. That is where we have the disagreement. We are trying to work it out.
Mr. Speaker, I yield 6 minutes to the distinguished gentlewoman from Connecticut (Mrs. JOHNSON).
Mrs. JOHNSON of Connecticut. Mr. Speaker, it is my hope that they will be able to work out the language to reflect the agreement that they came to so that this House could move forward. But I think it is very important, too, for the body to think carefully about what is at stake in these ergonomic regulations because this controversy does go to very fundamental principles and it is true. Those fundamental principles are part of the Presidential election going on around us. I do not believe as a Republican, and I am proud of this but I also know that there are many Democrat friends of mine who agree with me, that the Federal Government should mandate on State governments that somebody injured as a result of an ergonomics injury should get 90 percent of wage replacement and full benefits when someone working right beside them but injured by a piece of steel falling on their foot and crushing all the bones in that foot gets the State compensation under workmen's comp rules, usually about 75 percent, I believe, in Connecticut. Why would we mandate inequitable compensation rules? Why would we mandate compensation rules that depend on what kind of injury you got?
I have had ergonomic problems. I have had carpal tunnel syndrome in both my wrists, and I have had operations on both my wrists and, thank you, it worked beautifully. But why when I was home recovering should I get 90 percent of wage replacement when my friend severely injured in a fall at a construction site would get the State's rate which is always in every case at least below that 90 percent? Why would we mandate inequity on working people? Why would we do that?
Furthermore, one of the plants in my district was a research site for these ergonomic regulations , and the researchers from the government as well as the workers as well as the management found certain repetitive motion problems that they could not find a solution for. Yet under these regulations you do not even have to have a pattern of problems. You can have one single incident and then you are mandated by law to adopt an incredibly costly and burdensome administrative process and fix the problem. Now, if we have already seen problems in the research process that we do not know the answer to, why would we penalize every small business in America?
This is going to be extraordinarily costly, extraordinarily burdensome to small business. This is not only a very good example of the difference between the parties on the issue of local control and respect for State and local government but it is a very good example of the difference between the parties on the issue of small business. Small business is the engine of America's economy. It is the job creator. It is the inventor. It is our strength. Yet we would lay over it this program that would begin to suffocate it. I have to say that this President has been absolutely blind to the value of small business. He wanted to go in and inspect your home office, have the government come in and inspect your home office to be sure that you had a correct chair. He has no respect for privacy, no respect for small business, and these ergonomic regulations are about fundamental principles of the role of the Federal Government and fairness to working people in America. They are a big issue.
Ironically, this President has fought against riders on appropriations bills. Riders are legislating on appropriations bills. Often I have agreed with him on those riders and said, Let's get the riders off the appropriations bills. This is a big issue in environmental areas. This is a big issue in choice areas. But now in your areas you want riders. You not only want this rider, you want a mammoth health program that has received not one single hearing and that is going to knock the stilts out from under private sector health insurance. Mark my words. Already employers in my district are beginning to drop family coverage because now it is $7,000 a year because their kids can go into our Huskie program under CHIP. That is not a bad solution. But not even to have a hearing on whether your big expansion of CHIP to all families in all situations, what impact that is going to have on the private insurance system, how much weight that is going to transfer from the private sector to a taxpayer-funded program is grossly irresponsible.
Mr. Speaker, this is about principle. It is about the principle of local control and State responsibility in our society. It is about the principle of a sound legislative practice governing authorizing of major programs. It is about the principle that a free market depends on that allows small business to be inventive, nimble and strong. I stand firmly behind our leadership in negotiating appropriations bills and not legislating new programs and creating standards that vary and treat working people unfairly.
I would call on all of us to move forward. We should have overridden the President's veto. We should resolve the issues on HHS, and we should move forward and go back home and campaign and let this be fought out on the level that it should be fought out, on the Presidential level.
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