John Doolittle: “Executive Order 13-166 issued by President Clinton is unwise, illegal and unconstitutional; and I urge the Bush…”

“Executive Order 13-166 issued by President Clinton is unwise, illegal and unconstitutional; and I urge the Bush administration to rescind it forthwith. We would be doing them a favor to avoid all of their complex review by simply adopting the Istook amendment. We cannot possibly impose on counties and cities and local jurisdictions, States, and indeed on the Federal agencies the policy inherent in this executive order which on its face is unreasonable. There are 6,800 languages in the world today, many of these present in the United States. Even the U.N. only has six official languages; and here in the absence of congressional action, we already have the Federal agencies setting forth the requirements of this executive order and beginning to implement them. For example, regulations applying Executive Order 13-166 have already been issued by the Department of Health and Human Services, the Department of Transportation, the Department of the Treasury, the Department of Justice, the Department of Labor, the Corporation for National Community Service, General Services Administration, Consumer Products Safety Commission, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, the National Council on Disability, the National Science Foundation, and the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation. Mr. Chairman, we need to bring this to a halt now. We can do something reasonable. In the absence of this executive order, something reasonable is already set in place.”