Online NewsHour: The Commerce Committee -- September 27, 1996

THE COMMERCE COMMITTEE

September 27, 1996

Future Congress Forum

Outside Links

Visit the Commerce Committee's site on the World Wide Web
Read the Commerce Committee's broad legislative jurisdiction.

NewsHour Coverage of Commerce Committee Issues

Feb. 8, 1996
The signing of the Telecommunications Act of 1996 ushers in a new era in communications.

June 13, 1996
The Commerce Committee investigates Secretary of Energy Hazel O'Leary's travel habits.

Dec. 22, 1996
In the only veto override of the Clinton administration, the Securities Litigation Reform Act made it harder for investors to sue companies for fraud.

March 18, 1996
The NewsHour examines efforts to reform the Product Liability laws.

Aug. 21, 1996
Although the bill was known as the Kennedy-Kassebaum, the Commerce Committee also worked on the health care portability act.

Commerce is also responsible for overseeing aspects of both the Medicare and Medicaid system.

MacNeil/Lehrer Productions and PBS are making broadcast history this year with its unique evening of congressional debates Sunday, September 29. Mark your calendars for PBS DEBATE NIGHT: "The Future Congress," featuring a live national congressional leadership debate from Colonial Williamsburg at 9 pm ET and local congressional candidate debates before and afterwards at 75 participating PBS stations. While everybody is intensely focused on who will be the President to lead us into the 21st century, the election of Congress will be just as important this year. PBS DEBATE NIGHT is your chance to examine the visions presented by the country's emerging political leadership and to think about the issues involved in this fall's House and Senate races.
In addition to presenting a factual context for the Williamsburg Debate, the Online NewsHour will host a series of Online Leadership Forums. These forums will give you the opportunity to ask the chairs and ranking members of seven of the top Congressional committees what they would do in the next Congress if they were chair. Ask these Representatives and Senators what went right and wrong in the 104th Congress and how things may change in the 105th.
Get beyond the horse race of how many seats may change hands and into the real substance of what a Democratic House would mean for the Commerce Committee or what the Republicans plan to do in the Senate Committee on the Environment and Public Works.
Our first forum focused on the House Committee on Commerce. The Committee has one of the broadest jurisdiction of any in Congress. They are responsible for interstate commerce as well as large parts of Medicare/Medicaid systems. They also oversee the stock market, energy producers, medical research, and consumer protections.
Thomas Bliley, Republican from Richmond, VA, became chair of the Committee on Commerce in 1995. Since taking control of the Committee, he has worked to end public monopolies such as local telephone service and to reduce lawsuits. John Dingell, Democrat from Michigan, served as chairman of the Commerce Committee until the 104th Congress.
Our Forum asked? How has the 104th Congress gone? What did the Commerce Committee do well or not so well? What issues should the committee address in the next Congress? What will Chairman Bliley do if he continues to run Commerce? What would Rep. Dingell do if he and the Democrats were to take control of the House of Representatives?

A question from Sue Petrillo of Cherry Hill, NJ
What were the strengths and weaknesses of the 104th Congress? And what would you like to see happen in the 105th?
Congressman Bliley responds
The greatest strength of the 104th Congress was its vibrant desire for change - removal of unnecessary federal regulations, reduction of wasteful spending, and elimination of unnecessary federal intrusion into our lives.
Legislatively, I believe the 104th Congress will be remembered as one of the most productive since the New Deal, and many (if not most) of those accomplishments began right here in the Commerce Committee.
In Telecommunications, we broke more than 14 years of special-interest gridlock, enacting the most sweeping reform of the nation's Communications laws since Marconi was alive. The Telecommunications Act of 1996 breaks up bigger monopolies than Teddy Roosevelt and cuts more federal red tape than Ronald Reagan. Besides making possible exciting new advances in satellite, broadcast, and online computer services, this single measure will be the biggest job creation bill in a decade, creating thousands of new American jobs in fields that, today, we cannot even imagine.
On the environmental front, with the Food Quality Protection Act and the Safe Drinking Water Act Amendments of 1996, we gave Americans peace-of-mind about the purity of the water we drink and the foods we eat. Enactment of both measures, by this Republican Congress, saved Bill Clinton from being the first American President since Johnson not to have a major environmental initiative to his name.
In the Food Quality Protection Act, we enacted tough, common-sense protections against chemical contamination of our foods, while continuing to allow our farmers and growers to provide the safest, cheapest and most abundant food supply in the world. The measure modernizes and improves federal food safety standards for the first time in 38 years, and contains special, enhanced protections for infants, children, and women susceptible to breast cancer.
Similarly, the Safe Drinking Water Act enhances the safety of the water we drink by focusing regulatory efforts on those contaminants that pose the greatest risk to human health, and by giving the States and local water systems the financial and technical resources they need to got the job done. The legislation provides for faster public notification of water violations, establishes the first-ever $7.6 billion revolving loan fund to help States and local governments comply with federal water standards, and contains funding for research into the health effects and treatment of arsenic, radon and cryptosporidium. Cryptosporidium is a potentially-deadly virus that has been linked with 400,000 cases of illness and upwards of 100 deaths in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.
In health care, our Committee gave American workers something they've been promised for more than 30 years - the right to keep their health insurance when they change or lose jobs, regardless of a "pre-existing" medical condition.
In the securities and financial areas, the Commerce Committee delivered the first legislative defeat for the trial lawyers' lobby in a generation, with passage - over the President's Veto - of the Securities Litigation Reform Act. The measure protects American companies, especially small, emerging high-growth companies in the high-tech sector, from the ravages of a handful of "Securities Class Action Plaintiffs' Lawyers," whose harassment suits against these companies previously cost the American economy more than $1 billion a year.
Moreover, I'm hopeful that our Committee will be able to chalk up yet another legislative victory in the closing days of this Session, with passage of the first overhaul of the nation's securities laws since the Great Depression. Our "Capital Markets" bill will make it easier for companies to raise the funds they need to create new jobs, and will roll back excessive federal fees on investors by approximately $1.7 billion over the next 12 years.
There were other accomplishments as well, of course, most of which you have probably never heard about. For instance, we reauthorized the Ryan White AIDS Program. We began an innovative new program for the recycling of batteries. And these are just a few examples.
In terms of weaknesses, I will admit that at times, in our eagerness to deliver the change we promised, we made mistakes. After all, this was the first time our Party had come to power in the House in more than 40 years. But we learned from those mistakes. We learned to work with our Democrat colleagues, and with the Administration, to deliver scores of bipartisan legislative accomplishments, of which we - and the nation - can be justly proud.
As for the 105th Congress, I would personally like to see our Committee build upon our progress. For instance, I would like to do in the electric utility industry and in satellite communications what we accomplished this year in local telephone service - break up the monopolies, opening the market to competition so we can give consumers more choices, lower rates and better service.
I believe, too, that our work in health care is not done. For instance, it still takes 12-15 years, and more than $350 million, to get the average new drug from the laboratory to the first American patient who needs it. The time for approval of new medical devices has more than doubled, just since the Bush Administration. Clearly, we need to develop better ways to streamline the process by which safe and effective new drugs and medical devices are approved for use by the American people.
Congressman Dingell responds
The 104th Congress is unfortunately going to be remembered most for being the Congress that couldn't pass a budget and then shut down.the government - twice. Its major strengths are actually its major failures: the failed attempts to cut Medicare, gut the Clean Water Act, repeal quality standards for nursing homes, slash funding for education and safe and drug-free schools, and more. In the 105th Congress I would like to see us concentrate on the very basic matters of most intense concern to working families and to get away from ideological crusades.

A question from Phil Havers of San Diego, CA
I wanted to get the reactions of the two congressmen about the likelihood of a Democratic takeover of the House. Do they think it is possible? What would a Democratic House mean for your Committee and government in general?
Congressman Bliley responds
While all things, especially in politics, are possible, it is highly unlikely that the people will return the Democrats to power in the House of Representatives.
Folks remember the scandals and inaction that led them, in 1994, to elect the first Republican Congress in 40 years - the thousands of bounced checks by Congressmen at the House Bank, the drug dealing at the House Post Office, the looting of the House Office Supply Service by senior Democrat Committee Chairmen, and the special interest dollars that caused years of inaction on critical issues.
What would a return to power by the Democrats mean on this Committee? With all due respect to my friend Chairman John Dingell, it would mean the return of one of the most liberal Members of Congress to the Chairmanship of the Committee with the widest jurisdiction in Congress and the greatest impact on the U.S. economy.
While I opposed Hillary Clinton's proposed takeover of the health care industry, John Dingell had considered its enactment a legacy: even before Bill and Hillary Clinton came to Washington, session after session, he introduced a "National Health Care" bill in Congress, the same one his own father had sponsored before him. Returning the Republicans to Congress means you'll continue to choose your own Doctors, your own hospitals -- instead of having a Government bureaucrat do it for you.
Where I have stood up for American workers against the power and influence of the trial lawyers' lobby, John Dingell told The Washington Post he wants to "reexamine" our Securities Litigation Reform legislation, and opposes capping awards in civil damage cases. Returning the Republicans to Congress means tough, common-sense restrictions on trial lawyers.
Most importantly, though, our Committee has the principal jurisdiction on health care, environmental regulations, energy, securities, and telecommunications. I doubt the American people will want someone at the helm whose rating by the AFL-CIO is 100, but whom the Chamber of Commerce gives just 17.
Congressman Dingell responds
I learned long ago that I was a better legislator than prophet, and I prefer to leave predictions in the hands of others. Is a Democratic majority in the House a possibility? According to the most recent polls, it is. But we're still five weeks from the election, and the only poll that counts is the one taken on election day in November.
Even if there is a change in control, it's not likely to result in a Congress with a large Democratic margin. I would hope that we would be able to conduct our business in the Commerce Committee in the same bipartisan manner as we had before the 104th Congress. We always had a healthy working relationship with our Republican Members, and that showed itself in the large majorities we compiled in favor of legislation we wrote, from the Clean Air Act to telecommunications reform. Legislation we wrote would routinely pass the House with 400 or so votes.
We're going to have to address several issues no matter who is in charge in the next Congress. We need to reform the Superfund law governing toxic waste cleanups. We need to make some hard choices to assure the future solvency of Medicare. I'd like to see some reforms of the Food and Drug Administration. Where we differ will be in our approach to these issues. For instance, my view is that polluters should pay for the cleanup of toxic waste dumps they created. In the 104th Congress, the Republican majority actually proposed rebates for polluters. Instead of observing the principle that the polluter should pay, they wanted to pay the polluter.
As far as the implications for government in general, I would also expect that we continue working on the issues addressed successfully during these first four years of the Clinton Administration. Thanks to the budget passed in 1993, the deficit has been reduced by 60 percent. The Congress hasn't passed a budget at all in the last two years. We would also focus on what we could do to help working families, in the areas of education, health care, and job training.

A question from Joanne Willet of Watertown, NY
I know one of the big reforms the 104th Congress passed was to drop the number of staff that committees had to use. Has that reform hurt your ability to work through the legislation that you passed these past two years? Congressman Dingell, would you increase the staff if you were to become chairman next year?
Congressman Bliley responds
Not at all. Not only have we reduced our budget by one-third, as all Committees have, but we trimmed an additional $1 million a year from the Commerce Committee's budget by careful and prudent planning.
With less than two-thirds the resources, however, we have enacted more - and more significant - legislation than our counterparts did. The Telecommunications Act of 1996, for instance, had been deadlocked in the Democrat-controlled Congress for more than 14 years. Safe Drinking Water reform had been delayed as well. Food Safety, with its provisions modernizing the outdated "Delaney Clause" has been bottled up by the Democrats for as long as I've been in Washington -- 15 years at least. And Product Liability reform, long overdue, never got to the House floor under the Democrats.
Congressman Dingell responds
Let me answer the second question first. I'm not making any plans beyond election day. Our ability to work through legislation has most definitely been compromised these last two years, but that's due to a variety of reasons. The Republican leadership - and by that I mean Newt Gingrich's leadership in the Capitol, and not the Committee leadership - set up a centralized command structure. Early on they decided to foreclose participation by the minority party. Perhaps even worse, they chose to ignore the expertise of people within their own Republican Party. The Republican leadership wouldn't allow able Committee chairs like my friend Tom Bliley to make their own judgments on complex and substantive matters. It's impossible to become an instant expert on Superfund or Medicare or the Clean Air Act. That's why we have Committees in the first place, to divide the labor.
One of the few successes in the 104th Congress was the telecommunications reform bill. That was a success because 1) it was fully bipartisan; 2) experts at the relevant committee on telecommunications, such as Tom Bliley, Jack Fields, Mike Oxley, and Ed Markey were permitted to draft it; 3) the process was conducted openly; and 4) we had passed a very similar bill on a bipartisan basis, in the previous Congress (it died in the Senate). No one was locked out of the room, and diktats were not issued from above.

A question from Joseph A. McDonald of Burlington, VT
The Republicans have said they want to downsize government and possibly eliminate some agencies. Some have said that the Commerce Department should be on the short list of such an initiative, with important functions merged into other agencies.
Given that the public wants a lean government and that the "era of big government is over", what would your recommendation be as far as the future of the Commerce Department and why?
Congressman Bliley responds

I was elected to bring the Washington bureaucracy back down to size, get the budget back into line, and let American families keep more of the money we work so hard to earn.
If we're to do that, we must ask ourselves the same question about every federal agency and department: If we weren't funding this already, would we start? In other words, is this agency, this department, a worthwhile expenditure of hard-earned taxpayer dollars?
In the case of the Commerce Department, the answers would doubtless be, "No."
It is Fibber McGee's closet: every agency, every department, that otherwise would not have a home within the federal government, everything from the National Weather Bureau to the Census Bureau to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
Doubtless there are some important functions within the Commerce Department, some that are indispensable. The question is, do we need a Cabinet-level Department to do them? The answer to that question is, "No."
But it won't do for us to just change the name on the sign outside, from Department of Commerce, say, to "Department of Science." Rather, we should look at each function within the Department of Commerce, and either merge it with an appropriate Department elsewhere, consolidate it, or eliminate it altogether where appropriate.
That's exactly what I tried to accomplish in 1995, with the only proposal that would have eliminated the Commerce Department leaving a net reduction of individual Departments and Agencies in its wake.
I'll try again in 1997, you can be sure.
Congressman Dingell responds
There ought to be two tests as to whether a government agency should be allowed to continue;
One, does it perform vital or useful functions?
Two, will its elimination save money?
In the case of the Commerce Department, the answer to the first question is yes, and to second, no. I asked businesses in my home state of Michigan whether or not the Commerce Department's programs were providing any help. I received more than 200 letters in return, many of them from small businesses, praising the Department's business assistance and export functions. Quite a few said that they could never have cracked foreign markets without the help of Commerce. We should also remember that much of Commerce's budget involves important research into oceanic and atmospheric conditions, as well as the Patent and Trademark office and Census Bureau, that need to continue no matter where we put the organizational box. Commerce also includes the bureau that forecasts our weather. At one point, a freshman Republican Member of Commerce was asked how we would know whether hurricanes or tornadoes were about to hit if we did away with the weather bureau. He replied that we could just watch the Weather Channel - which, of course, depends on the National Weather Service for its own information.
As far as saving money, virtually every study, including one from the Congressional Budget Office, concluded that Republican plans to eliminate Commerce would actually cost money once the lines of command and organizational charts were shuffled around. Ironically, they proposed to abolish one old department but then create seven new agencies.
That's not to say that Commerce, or any other department cannot be intelligently pruned. But as a proponent of streamlined government and an opponent of unnecessary federal spending, could not support these plans to eliminate the Commerce Department.

A question from Michelle Miller of York, PA
Dear Sirs,
The Commerce Committee has a lot of responsibility in the area of health care. I have heard about the Kennedy-Kassebaum bill that would allow people to carry coverage after they loose or leave a job, but what about those who cannot afford health insurance? Are you planning on doing anything in your committee to protect the millions who aren't covered?
Congressman Bliley responds
You've identified a critical problem that concerns all Americans - the problem of how best to provide health care to those who can't afford it. It is a problem we addressed this year, in ways far more sweeping than the news media has told you. In fact, the General Accounting Office estimates that our legislation will insure 25 million additional Americans.
Many of the uninsured are self-employed individuals, who until now have been treated unfairly in their payment of health insurance premiums by the Tax Code. While employees don't have to pay taxes on the value of premiums paid by insurers, self-employed individuals still cannot deduct the full cost of the premiums they pay, out of pocket. While we weren't able to enact 100 percent deductibility for these self-employed folks, as I would have liked, we did achieve 80 percent deductibility.
Many others among the ranks of the uninsured work in small companies that were unable to take advantage of the lower premiums that bigger companies in larger insurance pools enjoy. Our Committee produced legislation that prohibits insurance carriers, health maintenance organizations, and other entities issuing health coverage from denying coverage to the employees in small businesses, those with between 2 and 50 employees.
Still others among the uninsured are those whose medical conditions have caused their employer, or their insurance company, to drop them from coverage. We've prohibited employers from doing so, and, so long as you pay your premiums, we've required that insurers cover you, regardless of your health status.
Congressman Dingell responds
The short answer to your question is yes, we need to do more in the area of health care.
Kennedy-Kassebaum is a good bill but it's only the first step. Most people are just now realizing that the new law does nothing about the price of health insurance. If you change jobs, you can keep your insurance, but there are few limits on what they can charge. And we need to go further toward helping the 37 million Americans without any insurance. Those much-ballyhooed Medical Savings Accounts aren't the answer for people who can't afford insurance to begin with. If you don't have much money to begin with, you're not helped by being allowed to put aside $3,000 in a tax-free account for medical care.

A question from Fred Swanson of Chicago, IL
There seems to be a lot of interest in deregulating all sorts of industries, such as telecommunications and now public utilities. In a general sense what should the role of the federal government be, in each of your opinions, in regulating business?
Congressman Bliley responds
I am a believer in free markets, and an opponent of both monopolies and unduly burdensome government regulation of the marketplace. As a general rule, I believe the federal government's regulation of businesses should be of minimal extent, limited in both scope and degree, and restricted to those areas where the States are unable to act.
We acted on that view, for instance, with the Telecommunications Act, which I believe to be the most de-regulatory, pro-competitive, and anti-monopoly bill in history -- legislation that will, for the first time, give consumers a choice of local telephone and cable providers. The result, I'm confident, will be lower rates, better service, and increased options for the consumer.
I hope to accomplish the same objectives in electricity and satellite communications next Session, restructuring the international satellite treaty organizations to break up monopolies, and giving consumers the power to choose their electric utility providers. 'Power to Choose' alone will save the average American household $216 a year, and free up as much as 25 percent of currently unused electric capacity - all without adding a single new generator or transmission wire.
Congressman Dingell responds
It's important to remember that not all regulations are created to accomplish the same purposes. For instance, antitrust regulations are designed to ensure that there is fair competition in the market. Environmental regulations are designed to protect human health. Food and drug regulations are designed to see that safe and effective food, drugs and medical devices are available to the public.
In general, we have two ways of imposing discipline and accountability in the market. The first and most preferable way is competition. But where competition fails, or where monopolies exist, we have to turn to regulation.
One good example is cable television. Cable television was an unregulated monopoly until passage of a cable regulation bill in 1992, and the telecommunications reform bill of 1996. The first bill set limits on the behavior of cable companies until they had real competition, at which point they would be deregulated. The telecommunications reform legislation we passed this year essentially lets everyone in the telecommunications sector into everyone else's line of business. Local phone companies will be allowed to compete with long distance, satellite will be able to compete with cable, cable will be able to compete with phone companies, and so on.
Let me make one other general observation. We should never let deregulation become a cover for relaxing our standards for protection of public health and the environment, or for permitting all manner of fraud and misbehavior.
Finally - and not in response to any question - it's been a privilege to be part of this online forum. Thanks for your questions, and good luck to all of you.

Additional Comments
Fred Lieser of Glen Allen, Virginia
The 1995 Medicare reform bill
Within the Medicare Reform bill of 1995, there was legislation to strike down laws that had prohibited health care providers form collecting more than what medicare paid. Since this also affected the HMO's who cover over 63% of the american public; This would have increased out of pocket expenses for a lot of people since both Medicare and the HMOs really pay only 20%- 30% of the actual bill. Are there anymore unpleasant surprises coming if the republicans maintain control of congress? For an example of what I mean- MCV-VCU in Richmond will bill the cost of an MRI at $1200. Trigon through its HMO will pay (with the patients copay) $325. The revisions I alluded to would have allowed the hospital to collect the rest- $875.
Randall Brink of Madison, WI

NAFTA
Blue collar wages are either stagnant or falling (depending on who you ask and which sets of numbers you use), at the same time unemployment is low. The trade deficit is at an all time high. Whenever a union attempts to bargain a wage increase "foreign competition" is the excuse most employers cite for not being able to grant wage increases. Many economists say that NAFTA aggravates this situation, by putting downward pressure on wages. What does the commerce dept. plan to do to help reduce the deficit, and halt the decline in the wages of american factory workers?
Michael Several of Los Angeles, CA
Expansion of Medicare and Medicaid
The Commerce Committee should not only give lip service to protecting Medicare, but they should also protect the benefits. I shall be retiring soon, and I have great anxiety over the prospect of a repeat effort by Congress to slash benefits in order to grant an unfair, regressive tax plan.

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