difficulties. The U.S. contributes to the ESAF Subsidy Account, but not to the Loan Account, which is the basis for financing the principal amounts of ESAF loans. In 1994 the Administration committed to an additional $100 million for an enlarged and expanded ESAF. It was anticipated that this new amount would be disbursed over a 15 year period, with outlays to begin in FY 1997, to accommodate the projected needs for subsidy finance. Only $25 million of the $100 million has been authorized and appropriated. Holocaust Related Issues In the past 14 months, the Banking Committee has been looking into what is commonly called “Nazi Gold" - issues of restitution of assets extorted or plundered from Holocaust victims during the Nazi era. So far the Committee has held three comprehensive hearings and taken testimony from more than 50 witnesses from seven countries and three continents. The Committee's concern about these matters arose from reports that Swiss banks held - and were refusing to return - millions of dollars in dormant accounts that rightfully belonged to Holocaust victims or their heirs. Most of these accounts had been opened by Jewish families in Germany and elsewhere in Europe who wanted to shield their savings from the Nazis. Swiss bank secrecy laws were designed for just that purpose. After the war, Swiss banks used these secrecy statutes to turn away legitimate claimants - several of whom told their stories to the Committee - by demanding details and documents (e.g. the account's number, address of the branch in which it was located, a death certificate) that were usually impossible to produce if the original owner had died in a concentration camp. Asked about all this by Committee members, the chairman of the Swiss Bankers Association solemnly pledged that Swiss banks would search their records and return "every red centime" of money in their vaults to the rightful owners or turn it over to charity if the owners were no longer alive and there were no heirs. Within a few months, the banks published lists of dormant accounts owned by foreigners featuring many Jewish names - including that of the mother of the U.S. Ambassador to Switzerland, Madeleine Kunin. In a second hearing in June 1997, the Committee examined an inter-agency report produced under the direction of Undersecretary of State Stuart Eizenstat, which concluded, among other things, that Switzerland's cooperation with Hitler's Germany in the late stages of the war was not necessary to the preservation of its sovereignty and, in fact, prolonged the conflict. The Committee also heard the perspective on World War II of historians from Argentina, Britain, Portugal, Spain and Sweden, as well as Switzerland. The Committee has also examined issues related to the restitution of art works and insurance policies. Hitler systematically plundered museums and private collections, causing the largest displacement of art objects in history. After the war, the Western Allies painstakingly gathered tons of looted pieces and returned them to the countries from which they had been taken. (Soviet forces hauled some of the displaced art back home as war booty, where it remains to this day.) But thousands of these treasures are still unaccounted for and some have probably found their way to the U.S. In a rare joint appearance, the directors of four of the country's, and the world's, greatest museums - the Metropolitan Museum and the Museum of Modern Art of New York, Art Institute of Chicago, and National Gallery of Washington - pledged to the Committee that they would re-examine their collections and return any tainted art object to its rightful owner. With regard to insurance, several claimants told the Committee that European insurance companies had refused to honor policies purchased by relatives who died in the Holocaust. State insurance commissioners briefed Members on their efforts to redress this injustice, and three Senators and two Representatives, appearing as witnesses, presented possible legislative approaches to compel the companies to live up to their moral and legal obligations without further delay. The Committee is monitoring the progress of all these efforts. The Committee was also instrumental in providing $25 million to a special international fund for Holocaust victims and $5 million, to be administered by the Holocaust Museum, for the study of Holocaust-related archival material. The $30 million sum is not new money, but a reallocation of existing State Department appropriations. The Holocaust Victims Redress Act was devised by Chairman Leach and introduced jointly with Chairman Gilman of the International Relations Committee. In the Senate, the measure was sponsored by Senator Alfonse D'Amato. In addition to providing funds, the Act urges all countries to facilitate the restitution of artworks to those who have a rightful claim to them. The Committee soon plans to introduce a bill to create and fund a commission for the study of Holocaust restitution issues in the U.S. The Commission would examine the postwar treatment of Holocaust victims' assets, chiefly bank and trust accounts, deposited in the U.S. during the Nazi era. Half of the Commission's appointed members would be named by the President. The other half would be named by the House and Senate leadership. The Commission would conclude its work by the end of 2000. The bill would include an authorization for an appropriation of $6.5 million. Committee on Banking and Financial Services Minority Views on the Administration's HUD budget request for FY 1999 Although the budget request for fiscal year 1999 falls short of what is really necessary to meet affordable housing and community development needs, Committee Democrats applaud the Administration's HUD budget for the next fiscal year. The request reflects generally good choices and funding levels to meet affordable housing and community development goals. While we are strongly supportive of the fact that the budget provides an additional $1.8 billion in funds, we would argue for an even higher overall budget for this critical federal responsibility. Within the constraints of this budget, however, we believe the Administration has made a wise choice in funding priorities -- creating jobs and economic opportunity; and increasing housing and homeownership availability. Job Creation Committee Democrats are pleased that the Administration continues to recognize that increased federal investment in economic development efforts is imperative to increasing job growth and job training programs. Our Nation's cities are increasingly more vulnerable to attracting and maintaining jobs in communities with high concentrations of unemployment and poverty. In those cases, federal funds are often the only resource available to incentivize private investment; consequently, we support the Administration's effort to target public and private capital into those communities through the Economic Development Initiative - Community Development Fund. - The Administration's budget recognizes that investing federal dollars in the smaller, more targeted EDI-CDF program is meaningless unless there is substantial federal investment in the core, community development program the CDBG program. Not only does the budget increase the funding request for the CDBG program by $51 million, it excludes set-asides from the CDBG account. Committee Democrats concur with the priority the Administration has given the CDBG program and its further recognition of the federal government's role in expanding job growth and increasing private investment across America. Other economic development programs funded by the Administration, such as the Brownsfields, Youthbuild and the Economic Development-Supportive Services programs, garner widespread support amongst Committee Democrats, especially if the programs are not funded out of the CDBG account. Investing in the clean-up of Brownsfields -- former industrial sites with low to moderate contamination -- will result in the creation of numerous construction jobs in the short-term and countless benefits in the long-term. Providing for the Youthbuild program, in turn, will not create numerous jobs but will positively impact numerous communities. The program which trains disadvantaged teens in the construction trades is strongly supported by Committee Democrats as is the Supportive Services program Expanding affordable housing opportunities The second priority of the Administration - to expand affordable housing opportunities -- is critical if the federal government is to meet its obligations to its most vulnerable citizens. Meeting the priority means providing sufficient funding for the core programs administered by the Department -- public housing, section 8 incremental assistance, HOME, CDBG, FHA single and multifamily housing programs, homeless assistance programs and housing for the elderly and the disabled. Incremental Section 8 assistance. We endorse the Administration's recognition of the unending and ever-growing need to assist low-income renters. The budget request includes 100,000 new section 8 certificates, including certificates for moving families from welfare to work, the elderly and disabled, and homeless individuals and families. The Committee Democrats agree that section 8 should, when appropriate, creatively link housing assistance to welfare reform. Section 8 is a proper tool to assist public housing tenants in moving closer to their place of work. Likewise, using section 8 vouchers to aid unemployed, public housing tenants in moving closer to thriving job centers may be the catalyst to their finding work. If the Administration promotes these and other similar efforts that reward and encourage tenants trying to find work, we applaud their efforts. The Administration's budget request also targets 8,800 incremental section 8 vouchers for the disabled and elderly. We have long supported efforts to provide 50,000 incremental vouchers for the disabled annually; however, we would support such an effort to provide vouchers targeted to the elderly as long as the section 202 elderly housing production program was fully funded as well. This year, however, the funding request for the section 202 program has fallen far short of last year's appropriated level. We are seriously concerned that the Administration's proposed approach could lead to the elimination of all assistance for the construction of appropriate housing for our elderly citizens. We have long held that the elderly need stable, long-term, affordable housing where they have access to services and the camaraderie of other elderly tenants. Section 8, however, will leave the elderly at the whim of fluctuating housing markets, leaving them in some cases unable to access housing, and dispersed throughout a geographic region, without access to services. In order to avoid that result we need to maintain the current 202 program and continue producing housing for the elderly. On the other hand, in the event that section 8 assistance works for the elderly in some markets, we are not opposed to providing them incremental assistance. Public housing. We continue to have concerns that the operating expenses of public housing authorities are not fully provided for in the HUD budget. The budget request includes $2.8 billion for public housing operating expenses that even if combined with $113 million in anticipated carry-over funds from fiscal year 1998 will fall $266 million short of what HUD 47-223 98-2 |