John W. Olver: “Mr. Chairman, the reason we are here today is that the President submitted a request for $6 billion for the Kosovo…”

“Mr. Chairman, the reason we are here today is that the President submitted a request for $6 billion for the Kosovo operation, which would bring us to the end of fiscal year 1999; and that was clearly an unforeseen and unforeseeable circumstance that came up because of the actions of Slobodan Milosevic. Those situations ought to be few and far between, outside the caps, without any offsets, a true emergency. The underlying bill that has come from committee more than doubles the amount from the President's request on a set of premises which are entirely different. It is operating on a premise that goes far beyond, entirely beyond the definition of 'emergency,' which had been part of the President's request, and much of it is only partly related to Kosovo. On the other hand, we have before us an amendment that has been offered by the minority ranking member, the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Obey), which responsibly but narrowly deals with the Kosovo situation and other emergencies along the way. Who can deny that we look rather foolish in this Congress, and I really am embarrassed by it, that 7 months after what had happened in Central America and 7 months after we truly knew way back in the fall that the problems on our farms were very serious, yet we passed that legislation 3 months ago.”