Henry Bonilla: “Mr. Chairman, I hope Members are watching this debate and paying very close attention to what the gentleman from…”

“Mr. Chairman, I hope Members are watching this debate and paying very close attention to what the gentleman from Wisconsin [Mr. Obey] is trying to do. It is a huge amendment that affects a lot of issues that are very important to a lot of Members. Mr. Chairman, the gentleman is trying to remove legislative language that deals with striker replacement. In a situation where the President has, in my opinion, stepped way beyond the bounds of his authority by writing legislation through Executive order, we are trying to correct that. The gentleman also strikes a provision in the bill that I think is very, very dangerous, if Members do not know about it and vote for this amendment, and that is the legislative language that prevents the raiding of pension funds by the Department of Labor, a position that has gotten a lot of people exercised about a new way of spending, designed by the Secretary of Labor, by going in and raiding pension funds. The gentleman from Georgia [Mr. Norwood] has already talked about the ergonomic standards, another example of overzealous regulatory agencies trying to write regulations on an issue that the scientific community has no consensus on, yet they are trying to write regulations that would have a severe impact on jobs in this country.”