Speech by Rep. C. W. Bill Young (R-Florida), March 29, 2000

Speech by Rep. C. W. Bill Young (R-Florida), March 29, 2000
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 professional approach to this debate. There have been strong differences, and I indicated in my opening comments that there would be, because this bill covers a lot of issues. But when this bill was presented to us from the administration, the Plan Colombia presentation to the Committee on Appropriations dealt with drug abuse and eliminating the source of those drugs.

No one suggested that we were talking about getting involved in a civil war, and no one suggested that this was going to be a major military operation. They were talking to us strictly about eliminating drugs at their source.

This is important. We have great law enforcement. Our Customs agents, our law enforcement officers, the United States Coast Guard do a really great job of interdicting the flow of these drugs from Colombia and other countries before they reach the United States. The problem is they are overwhelmed. They do not have the assets that are necessary to stop all of the narcotraffic. The drug people have unlimited sums of money. They have high technology. They have fast boats. They have unlimited numbers of airplanes, and they do not have to go by any rules.

Mr. Chairman, we have good assets, but we are limited in how many assets we have; and we have to go by a lot of rules. So it is very difficult. How great it would be to eliminate these drugs at their source, and that is what Plan Colombia is all about. It is to help the Colombian government elected by the people to eliminate the source of these drugs.

Now, we spend billions and billions of dollars here at home in programs trying to get people to stop using the drugs. But as long as the drugs are available, people still continue to use those drugs.

Mr. Chairman, how many more hundreds or thousands of our kids are going to get hooked on drugs or die from overdoses, or get shot up in a raid or a drug bust that went bad before we eliminate this terrible, terrible problem? It is essential to the future of this Nation that we eliminate the scourge that is illegal drugs and the trafficking of illegal drugs in the United States. We need to wipe out the source of these terrible drugs and we need to eliminate those killing fields where the drugs are grown.

Now about Kosovo. A previous speaker mentioned that this bill would include $5 billion to keep our troops in Kosovo. That is not accurate. The money that we provide in this bill for Kosovo has already been spent. When this administration sent American military to Kosovo, the money was committed; and the longer they are there, the more money is spent. Now, where that money came from was not from an appropriations for Kosovo, but it was money that was appropriated for operations and maintenance of our own military. So in order to pay for the Kosovo deployments, they reached into the fourth quarter O&M accounts of all of the services.

Now, if we do not replace that money, and I join with those who believe that the Kosovo experience is not going to be a positive one for the United States, and I wish we were not there; but if we do not replace this money, what happens is that our own military will have to stand down its operations, much of its training operations during the last quarter of this fiscal year, and that is rapidly approaching.

So it is important that we move this legislation through the House today and that we get it to the other body so that we can begin the negotiations in finalizing what this supplemental is really going to be. We have tried to work with and be cooperative with the administration, with the President, and with the leadership in the Congress; and I think the bill that we deliver today has done that.

Mr. Chairman, this is important. The fiscal year is running out. Half the fiscal year is basically gone. We have 13 regular appropriations bills to get to. We need to complete this bill, get it to the other body, get to conference and clear the way so that we can get about our business of the 13 regular appropriations bills.

With that, Mr. Chairman, I expect we will have some lively debate on the amendments that will be offered here very shortly. I hope that the Members will pay close attention because some of the debate will be rather critical.

As of March 30, 2000, this document was also available online at http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/z?r106:H29MR0-173: