James Traficant: “I would like to explain this, Mr. Chairman, because I believe the gentleman only has a partial draft. Mr. Chairman…”

“I would like to explain this, Mr. Chairman, because I believe the gentleman only has a partial draft. Mr. Chairman, there are two discussions here on the House floor occurring simultaneously. The Democrats are saying that we do not trust the intent of the legislative initiative. The Democrats are saying that the bill is not needed if we look at the law. The Republicans are saying, ``We have handled your intentions. We have no intent to screw anybody, give anybody the shaft, but we are taking care of that in the report language.'' We agree that we do not want to ship money overseas, we agree that we do not want to prohibit investments in infrastructure, we agree that we do not want to, in fact, stop with at least giving advisory opinions on some of these things. But if we, in fact, highlight one, then the myriad of others brings an evil connotation, that Darth Vader is going to come in and take away our freedom. What this amendment says is this takes the intent of the legislation that is listed in some report language and puts that general intent right into the text of the bill and clarifies it. It says, Authority of the Department of Labor with respect to investments: Nothing in this act shall be construed as prohibiting the Department of Labor from issuing advisory opinions regarding the legality of investments. If that is what I have heard the gentleman state, then this basically reinforces the intent of the report language.”