[Congressional Record Volume 149, Number 51 (Monday, March 31, 2003)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E619-E620]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                          PERSONAL EXPLANATION

                                 ______
                                 

                          HON. ERNIE FLETCHER

                              of kentucky

                    in the house of representatives

                         Monday, March 31, 2003

  Mr. FLETCHER. Mr. Speaker, on Thursday, March 27, 2003, despite all 
my efforts, I was

[[Page E620]]

unavoidably detained. Had I been present for rollcall vote No. 89, on 
final passage of H.R. 1104, The Child Abduction Prevention Act, I would 
have voted as follows: rollcall vote No. 89--``aye.''
  Protecting our children is a top priority of this Congress. Child 
abduction and exploitation cannot and should not be tolerated. The 
Child Abduction Prevention Act not only creates new methods for finding 
and recovering abducted children, but it also takes steps to prevent 
them from happening in the first place.
  To help recover abducted children, it establishes a national AMBER 
Alert communications network and doubles the annual grant to the 
National Center for Missing and Exploited Children to $20 million 
through 2005.
  To get tough on perpetrators and bring justice to sexual predators, 
it eliminates the statute of limitations for child abductions and sex 
crimes, denies pretrial release for child rapists or child abductors, 
requires a mandatory life sentence for twice-convicted child sex-
offenders and a minimum 20-year prison sentence for the kidnapping of a 
person under 18 by a nonfamily member. It also punishes persons who 
travel to foreign countries to engage in illicit sexual relations with 
minors and criminalizes the actions of sex tour operators.
  To provide law enforcement officers the tools they need, it 
authorizes COPS funding for a Sex Offender Apprehension Program, so 
local law enforcement may track sex offenders that violate the terms of 
their release.
  I fully support this strong measure, ``The Child Abduction Prevention 
Act,'' that will help protect America's children.




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