[Congressional Record Volume 151, Number 69 (Monday, May 23, 2005)]
[House]
[Pages H3762-H3765]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]


                            METHAMPHETAMINE

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Daniel E. Lungren of California). Under 
the Speaker's announced policy of January 4, 2005, the gentleman from 
Nebraska (Mr. Terry) is recognized for 60 minutes.


                             General Leave

  Mr. TERRY. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may 
have 5 legislative days in which to revise and extend their remarks and 
include extraneous material on the subject of my Special Order.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Is there objection to the request of the 
gentleman from Nebraska?
  There was no objection.
  Mr. TERRY. Mr. Speaker, the subject of my Special Order this hour is 
how meth is ravaging our communities in the United States. Yet in our 
budget, in our appropriations, it is called on to eliminate what are 
called Byrne grants and the HIDTA program reduced by 56 percent.
  Let us talk a little bit about what meth does. I have a picture here 
from the Des Moines Register of a 13-year-old Iowa girl, a very pretty 
little girl. Unfortunately, she became hooked on meth. This is the 
before. This is within a year later. It is kind of a grainy picture, 
but you can see a stark difference. Unfortunately, even though her 
mother tried rescuing her from this life-style, this little girl 
committed suicide. Meth is just an incredibly difficult drug to try and 
break free from.
  In my home State, Duaine Bullock, the captain of narcotics unit in 
Lincoln that the gentleman from Nebraska (Mr. Fortenberry) represents, 
gave a sobering assessment of the growing meth problem in Nebraska and 
just said pointblank, we have got a gigantic problem. He is right on 
the mark. According to Nebraska Attorney General John Bruning, 60 
percent of the inmates in Nebraska jails have a problem with meth. The 
number of people in Nebraska jails for possessing, selling, or 
manufacturing meth has more than doubled since 1999.
  When we talk about this fight against meth in our communities, the 
front line of this war, of our war on meth and drugs, the fastest 
growing drug in the Nation, meth has produced a wider and more 
extensive array of problems than any other narcotic we have ever faced 
before. It is no longer just a rural or Midwestern issue. The Byrne 
grants that I mentioned casually goes directly to our front line 
warriors, our local police and our sheriff. It is those folks that are 
going to know where the drugs are located, which houses perhaps in a 
certain community have meth labs or will see some of the 
characteristics within that family unit or that home that can lead them 
to the conclusion that perhaps a meth lab is in operation there.
  And so it makes no sense to me, Mr. Speaker, that we have a proposal 
in front of Congress to completely eliminate the Byrne/JAG grants which 
are the dollars that go to local police departments to help them become 
prepared and enter into task forces all the way up to the Federal 
level. What we are seeing is a system of centralization of our war on 
drugs away from our front line warriors to the Nation's capital. While 
I certainly can maybe not respect, but at least understand, why a drug 
czar, a department, would want to consolidate its own power, I think is 
doing it against the best interests of this Nation.
  Mr. Speaker, I would like to introduce another gentleman from 
Nebraska (Mr. Osborne). Frankly, he has been on the front lines 
bringing this issue to the attention of just about anyone that will 
listen over the last 3 years. It is my pleasure to introduce my friend 
and colleague from the Third District of Nebraska.
  Mr. OSBORNE. I certainly thank the gentleman for yielding. Obviously, 
I have the worst affliction that a politician can have. I have 
laryngitis. I am playing hurt tonight. This is an all-Nebraska deal, it 
looks like. I really appreciate the gentleman from Nebraska (Mr. Terry) 
organizing this. This is a very important issue. Probably half the 
States at the present time have a serious meth problem, but the ones 
that do not have it are going to have it. We think the whole country 
needs to be aware.
  I would just like to provide a little background here. 
Methamphetamines first came into prominence during World War II. Quite 
often the Japanese kamikaze pilots were given meth. It gets you in such 
a euphoric state that you will take off in an airplane with not enough 
gas to return and think you are still going to make it somehow.
  It obviously has a powerful pull. It is the most highly addictive 
drug that is known to man. In many cases, one exposure to 
methamphetamine renders the victim permanently addicted. Sometimes 
people take methamphetamine without even knowing what it is they are 
getting into. It provides a high that will last from 6 to 8 hours. It 
dumps a huge amount of dopamine which makes you feel good and, of 
course, eventually the next time it takes a little bit more and a 
little bit more and so on. It provides increased energy. Many working 
mothers, people working two jobs, will eventually get drawn into meth, 
truck drivers that want to stay out on the road for 48 to 72 hours. 
Some people on meth will stay awake for a week, sometimes even 2 weeks.
  It does provide some energy. It also will provide the ability to lose 
weight, which is very attractive. On top of that, it is relatively 
cheap. In any place where you have a problem with cocaine or with 
heroin, meth will fix the problem, because it is cheaper, it is more 
powerful and almost without exception when meth comes in, the other 
things begin to decrease but the meth problem is so much worse that 
obviously the community is much worse off.
  Whatever goes up must come down. I guess that is a law of physics, 
and so the accompanying emotions to meth abuse are anxiety, depression, 
hallucinations. Sometimes it is psychotic behavior. Violent behavior is 
often a side effect. Most meth addicts have what is known as crank 
bugs. They have the feeling that there is something crawling under 
their skin, and so they try to pick them out. We could have shown you 
some very graphic pictures tonight of people who have tremendous 
lesions on their skin. Maybe the gentleman from Nebraska (Mr. Terry) 
has some of those.
  Methamphetamine abuse always causes brain damage. Every time it 
destroys brain cells. A young person, maybe 18, 19 years old, who has 
been on meth for a year, will have a brain scan that will look almost 
identical to an 80-year-old Alzheimer's patient. You cannot distinguish 
the two. There are so many brain lesions, so much damage to the brain. 
It is very common, obviously, in rural areas because if you are going 
to manufacture methamphetamine, the odor is very distinct and so people 
seek out abandoned farmsteads. Sometimes they have mobile labs where 
they make it in the back of a van or something like that, but they 
usually like to stay out away from people.

                              {time}  2200

  The ingredients in methamphetamine are somewhat startling and a 
little bit bizarre. Pseudophedrine is, of course, the one ingredient 
that they have to have. In addition, oftentimes they use lithium 
batteries, drain cleaner, starter fluid, anhydrous ammonia, and iodine. 
So it is a tremendously toxic brew that is developed; and as a result, 
it costs about $5,000 or $6,000 to clean up a meth lab. It is very 
expensive. In some parts of the central United States, I believe Iowa 
had about 1,500 meth labs year; Missouri, around 2,000. So that is 
about $10 million just to clean up the meth labs alone. And, of course, 
most of those funds come from the Byrne grants and the HIDTA grants 
that we were talking about.
  If we think about the cost of methamphetamine abuse, in our area most 
of the child abuse, most of the child neglect, most of the infant 
death, young people death, foster care are caused by methamphetamine 
today. So it is a very difficult situation and very costly.
  The gentleman from Nebraska (Mr. Terry) has already mentioned the 
Federal prison cells and the jail cells. So the last comment I will 
have today is simply this, that we are not saving money by cutting the 
Byrne grants. We are not saving money by cutting HIDTA because the 
average meth addict in Nebraska commits 60 crimes a year. So if we have 
10 meth addicts in a community, that is 600 crimes.
  The line of first defense is those law enforcement officers that the 
gentleman from Nebraska (Mr. Terry)

[[Page H3763]]

showed. And these are the people who rely almost exclusively on the 
Byrne grants and on the HIDTA grants, the HIDTA grants are high-
intensity drug traffic grants, and we have a huge amount of 
methamphetamine coming up from the southwest part of the United States 
and Mexico, going across Nebraska on Interstate 80. And the only way to 
intercept that and the only way to handle those drugs is with HIDTA. So 
we would urge Congress, other Members in this body, to support our 
efforts to restore those funds.
  And I would again like to thank the gentleman from Nebraska (Mr. 
Terry) and the gentleman from Nebraska (Mr. Fortenberry), who will 
speak shortly, for their efforts in this regard. We have approached the 
Speaker. We have talked to the appropriators, and we are making every 
effort that we can.
  I thank the gentleman for yielding to me.
  Mr. TERRY. Mr. Speaker, I do appreciate the gentleman's time in 
playing hurt. I am sure there have been times when he was coaching that 
he encouraged people with sore throats to get out and take one for the 
team; so I appreciate that.
  The gentleman from Nebraska (Mr. Osborne) raised several good points 
that I will take some time on. He talked about some of the rather toxic 
ingredients. In fact, where I live in Valley, Nebraska, at least for 
the next day or two before we moved, the Saturday night before last 
there was a meth bust just about a half mile outside of town, and it 
was rather interesting in driving by and seeing the number of fire 
trucks and Hazmat units that are there. And what people do not 
understand, although the gentleman from Nebraska (Mr. Osborne) outlined 
the recipe in some of the ingredients, including bleach and anhydrous 
pneumonia and other ingredients, it is highly toxic but it is also 
highly flammable, which is why it is incredible to me that during some 
of these meth police busts they raid these homes and there are toddlers 
in these homes.
  So it has an impact not only on our police departments but our fire 
departments who have to coordinate these drug busts where they find 
these labs. And as the gentleman from Nebraska (Mr. Osborne) also 
mentioned, we can find them just about anywhere. In fact, in a very 
affluent area of west Omaha just a few months ago, they made a drug 
bust of a mobile lab literally in the trunk of a car at a department 
store. So there are people that will build them in any place they can.
  As I introduce the gentleman from Lincoln, Nebraska, I want to 
explain to anyone who is listening here tonight when we talk about the 
HIDTA grant, it is an acronym for high-intensity drug trafficking area. 
That is the grant that comes to local police departments to train them 
in how to handle a situation. Obviously, as we talked about the very 
volatile toxic explosive nature of a meth lab, since it is the local 
police departments that are on the front line that will be reading that 
particular house, that will be making the arrest, they want to make 
should that they understand the totality of the circumstances they are 
engaging in and how to protect themselves.
  Also, as the gentleman from Nebraska (Mr. Osborne) pointed out, it is 
such an intense high under meth that these folks literally do not know 
or understand what they are doing, and they have a high propensity for 
violence. But yet sometimes they look completely normal for that 
particular instance that a policeman could be walking by. So they have 
to be trained in the subtleties of what to look for to see or determine 
if someone is under the influence of meth and in understanding that 
even though that person may appear calm for that particular instant in 
time that that person becoming violent is just inherent to the nature 
of the drug. So they have to train them how to handle that violent 
situation with a person under the influence.
  Also, part of the HIDTA grant trains them how to work with other law 
enforcement agencies. In fact, HIDTA is set up into territories where 
they can literally have agencies across jurisdictions, whether it is 
Douglas County and Lancaster County official working together or our 
local police departments or even into Iowa, the gentleman from Iowa's 
(Mr. King) district, who wanted to be with us here tonight but, like 
our colleague from the third district, is suffering from the same 
ailment. So it allows them to learn how to put the task forces together 
and share each other's talents and resources.
  With that, so he can get on with his evening, let me introduce the 
gentleman from the First District of Nebraska in his first year here 
but nonetheless is jumping right into the issues that are affecting the 
people of Nebraska the most and the deepest. So I appreciate his 
instantly getting involved in the meth issue of Nebraska.

  Therefore, I yield to the gentleman from the First District of 
Nebraska (Mr. Fortenberry).
  Mr. FORTENBERRY. Mr. Speaker, I thank the honorable gentleman from 
the second district for bringing attention to the severity of this 
problem in our State and throughout many parts of America as well.
  Mr. Speaker, let me tell the Members when I am at home with local law 
enforcement, I ask a simple question: What is going on, sheriff? And 
nearly every time the answer is the same, a single word, ``meth.'' And 
methamphetamine, commonly known as meth, as we have discussed, is a 
potent and highly addictive stimulant; and it is taking a terrible 
human toll across rural America. In fact, my hometown sheriff, Terry 
Wagner, recently recounted a story about a boy who had been addicted to 
meth for 9 years, and it is this prolonged exposure to these toxic 
chemicals that has caused such severe brain damage that it has given 
this young man an irreversibly wasted brain of an advanced Alzheimer's 
patient.
  In Butler County, Sheriff Mark Heckler estimated that 90 percent of 
the prisoners he sees in jail have been involved with meth either as 
dealers or users or cookers.
  Mr. TERRY. Mr. Speaker, reclaiming my time, I had read from our State 
Attorney General Jon Bruning, who is doing a fantastic job in that 
position, that it is 60 percent. But I did too have a local law 
enforcement officer that suggested it is higher than that, at least 
when we add the totality. He said, first of all, there are many of the 
folks in our State prison that are there because they are involved with 
meth; that they are dealing, cooking, distributing; or that they 
committed a crime while high on meth or, getting up to about that 90 
percent figure, they are out burglarizing, robbing, plundering to get 
money to buy the drug. So many of our local officers feel that it is as 
high as 90 percent, whether it is directly related to the distribution 
or cooking of meth or just that they are so hooked that they are out 
robbing money to get it.
  Mr. FORTENBERRY. Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?
  Mr. TERRY. I yield to the gentleman from Nebraska.
  Mr. FORTENBERRY. Mr. Speaker, their ramifications are certainly 
widespread. Butler County, as I just mentioned, is a serene place, a 
farming community, a wonderful place to raise a family. And yet this 
shocking statistic of 90 percent is very real and disturbing. The 
sheriff also reported the same problem that the gentleman from Nebraska 
(Mr. Osborne) mentioned, that he finds small portable labs for 
production even in the back of cars. So meth is a particular threat to 
our rural communities, partly because it can be cooked in this way from 
small batches from readily available ingredients such as chemicals 
commonly used in fertilizer and cold medicines, as has been mentioned.
  Something else to mention, though, is that concocting meth is itself 
a toxic activity, and it requires a combination of deadly chemicals at 
high temperatures. Hazardous fumes are produced, and poisonous fires 
and explosions are common, as the gentleman is aware. Toxic waste is 
invariably dumped, which spoils the environment and requires dangerous 
and costly clean-up, another adverse impact of this problem.
  Let me tell the Members, as well, that in 2000 Nebraska law 
enforcement discovered 38 labs. In 2004 they dismantled over 300, and 
one search for a missing person in a wooded area actually turned up 15 
meth labs in a 3-square mile area. And, of course, many go 
undiscovered.
  I would like to add a few comments about what can potentially be done 
about the tide of meth sweeping the

[[Page H3764]]

country, and I think there are three approaches that do deserve our 
attention. First, State efforts to control the spread by controlling 
the access to its component chemicals, I believe, should be applauded, 
and smart controls on the sale of cold medicines are also a reasonable 
idea that may be considered at the Federal level. Second, and the 
gentleman has mentioned this additionally, the antidrug task force has 
maximized the effectiveness of law enforcement, particularly with 
overlapping jurisdictions. And I believe lawmakers, as he does, in 
Washington must listen to those who are on the front lines in the 
battle against meth and give them the tools they need to protect our 
communities this week, this month, this year.
  Third, we must also recognize the national scope of the meth problem. 
It is estimated that 85 percent of the meth in Nebraska comes from 
large out-of-state labs in Arizona, California, and Mexico. These 
superlabs do not get their chemicals from the local drug store, but 
depend on multi-state and multi-national suppliers. This is why we also 
need a focused and multi-national, a coordinated national, strategy to 
stamp out meth. And I believe it is the job of the Federal Government 
to keep meth and its chemical precursors from crossing State borders. 
Existing regulations on the sale of meth chemicals should be enforced; 
and the development, again, of alternative compounds in cold medicines 
could also be determined and encouraged.
  Mr. Speaker, finally, let me add that meth is clearly addictive and 
deadly; and I urge all to avoid it. There is no future in meth.
  And again I want to thank the gentleman from the Second District of 
Nebraska for his willingness to spend this evening discussing this very 
difficult issue for our State, but a difficult issue as well for many 
other areas that are facing this widespread problem.
  Mr. TERRY. Mr. Speaker, reclaiming my time, I thank the gentleman for 
his efforts in this.
  I too have a police and sheriff task force like he has put together; 
and it is amazing, just 2 years ago when we met, asking what the most 
significant issue was facing them on a daily basis or what some of the 
trends are. They said, well, definitely meth. But we are not 
necessarily seeing it in the inner city of Omaha, the gangs there that 
are still running the traditional drugs of cocaine, crack, and 
marijuana.

                              {time}  2215

  Mostly what we are seeing is they were telling me 2 years ago is that 
the meth is more of a rural issue, but it is starting to come in 
through the suburbs and they are seeing a great deal of the problems as 
we had just mentioned, the crime that is associated with the addiction, 
whether it is crimes committed while high or crimes committed to get 
high.
  When I met with them probably about 9 or 10 months ago again I asked 
the same question. They said the drugs the gangs are running are almost 
exclusively meth now. They are coming from two different directions. We 
still have the rural issue, where some of the ingredients are so 
readily available and you can go to your corner drugstore and get the 
pseudoephedrine out of Sudafed and other materials to make it, but the 
gentleman mentioned that that is incredibly important in our fight 
here.
  Meth has become basically a war on two fronts. You have got the labs 
that are being operated by individuals, because they are so easy to put 
together, the ingredients are very accessible, although in Nebraska our 
State legislature, fortunately, is dealing with it, and probably by the 
end of this week we will have Sudafed behind the counter. It is too bad 
we have to do that to our local retailers. But that is one border.
  Traditionally what we have tried to fight is the pop-up labs, 
particularly in rural areas, or mobile labs. But now you have the super 
labs in Mexico that are running the drugs up, and it is the same 
pattern we have seen with cocaine others. It comes from Central America 
into L.A. and Phoenix and the other gang headquarters and through their 
distribution schemes throughout the rest of the United States. That is 
where we are seeing it come into Nebraska now, and that is why it is 
becoming an inner-city drug as well. Now it has just infiltrated every 
part of our community in the last few years.
  The gentleman mentioned something else, the brain damage that is 
caused from this. You begin that deterioration of the brain cells, as 
the gentleman from Nebraska (Mr. Osborne) mentioned, with the dopamine, 
the rush that gets you. It is such an intense rush of that chemical 
that it literally fries the synapses and cannot be restored. You are 
literally frying your brain. Those cannot be absorbed.
  The first area that goes is your ability to make decisions. That is 
the first part of the brain that is affected by meth. That is why we 
see an incredible tolerance to the drug. You start craving it and 
craving it. The Catholic Charities in Nebraska, when I toured them 
about 3 years ago, it was all alcohol and some cocaine. Now it is 
almost exclusively, 90 to 95 percent, meth cases that come in there 
now. They told me when I toured a few months ago they cannot cure them. 
Even those that have only smoked or ingested or injected or however 
they used it a few times, it has done enough damage to the decision-
making part of your brain that you cannot reason; you cannot say this 
is bad for me, so I am going to quit. You just lost that ability. So 
you have a drug that forces you, I should not say forces you, but you 
have lost that ability to say ``no'' to it anymore.
  This is what happens. This poor little girl was 13-years-old. The 
gentleman has a daughter that is only a couple years younger than her 
and I have a son a couple years younger. I think of the gentleman's 
daughter and my son as just little kids, but yet they are being exposed 
to this.
  Mr. Speaker, getting back to cutting the Byrne grants and HIDTA, this 
statistic shows how our local law enforcement officers working in task 
forces with the Federal agencies have been able every year from 1999 to 
2003 to steadily discover and demolish a vast number of meth labs. But, 
as you see here, even though this is not full reporting, it is going to 
be pretty close, in 2004 a slight drop.
  I think the slight drop can be accounted for in two ways: Number one, 
I would say that the Byrne funding was working and helping our local 
law enforcement find those labs, but also then as I mentioned with the 
gentleman from Nebraska (Mr. Fortenberry), we are seeing now this has 
become in drug trade like cocaine, where it is imported through Mexico 
into the major cities and then distributed through the gang 
distribution system.
  Now, let me get to a couple of final points here. In the White 
House's fiscal 2006 budget that was delivered this year, it requested 
to eliminate the Byrne Justice Assistance Grants Program, which 
provided $634 million to law enforcement agencies nationwide, including 
almost $2.2 million for Nebraska.
  The Nebraska State Patrol estimates that nine of eleven State 
antidrug task forces that were created with this Byrne grant funding 
would have to be dismantled. The White House's budget also recommends 
reducing the HIDTA program by 56 percent. Again, those are the multi-
State and local drug trafficking meth training programs. For Nebraska, 
ours is located in the Kansas City region.
  The Byrne and the HIDTA programs are the primary tools through which 
the Federal Government integrates State and local law enforcement into 
the national drug control strategy. Tom Constantine, a former head of 
the Drug Enforcement Agency, recently testified to Congress that he 
could not recall a single case during his tenure that did not begin as 
a referral from State and local law enforcement, including many through 
Byrne and HIDTA task forces. So when we talk about the centralization, 
pulling the power from the local enforcement agencies to the Federal 
Government, you are talking about really emasculating our drug 
enforcement policy. Tom Constantine said every one of their referrals 
started at the local level.
  There is a clear link between drugs and violence that I think we have 
covered fully here tonight, and these Byrne grants are providing cities 
and counties with the resources that are necessary to share the 
information and dismantle regional drug distribution rings. And before 
Byrne and HIDTA, by the way, when our local police members were out on 
their own, they did

[[Page H3765]]

not have the power to work with the Federal agencies and task forces to 
take the meth and trace it back to their origination and be able to 
dismantle these incredible drug rings.
  Mr. Speaker, I would like to conclude this tonight with a couple of 
somewhat lengthy, but I will read fast, the works of some of our local 
police officers.
  I will start with Police Chief Melvin Griggs in Gering, Nebraska. He 
said: ``I am the police chief of a city of 8,000 people. We are 
bordered by a town of 13,000. In 1989, the increase in the cocaine drug 
traffic prompted us to start a drug task force. The wealth of the 
people dealing allowed them to purchase property, semi-trucks and 
farms. They were becoming very powerful. They were also starting to 
challenge each other for control of the drug trade.
  ``One family we put away caused a drop of all criminal activity by 33 
percent. Within a year, people were already starting to fill the void. 
But before they could reach the power base, we were always able to stop 
them because of the task force.
  ``Meth replaced cocaine. I have lived in this area for 60 years. We 
did not have murders, and now we have several every year. Our drug task 
force also helps investigate violent crime. We have seven agents highly 
trained. They have been able to solve most of these crimes. If we had 
ever been able to increase the task force, they may have been able to 
stop some of them. Yet the task force has remained the same.
  ``It has taken years to develop this team, to develop the cooperation 
and expertise. Taking away the funding to keep it going will defeat the 
progress in a matter of months. The dealers will again gain strength, 
and by the time our leaders realize the mistake they have made by 
taking these funds, many communities will have developed catastrophic 
results. Then the leaders will return the funds. It will take years to 
develop the level of response we now have, and we may never get it, as 
the problem may have well become beyond our reach.
  ``I have talked to other police chiefs, and we are not the only 
community facing this problem. Maybe we have not been vocal enough. We 
have seen this every day, it is in all of our newspapers, it is on CNN. 
It is hard for us to believe that anyone cannot understand this 
problem. It is hard for us to believe that they really plan on a 
significant reduction in funding. It is hard for us to believe that 
whoever wrote this article on task forces being ineffective has any 
idea what a task force does. I hope reason prevails. Reducing this 
funding is a serious mistake.''
  Another Nebraska police chief, Stephen Sunday of David City, heads up 
a 12 county, 28 agency multi-jurisdictional drug task force funded with 
Byrne dollars. He told me, again it is a rather lengthy quote, ``Those 
grant dollars are the only, and I mean only way the task force was able 
to form as a group. In South-Central Nebraska there are nothing but 
small, rural law enforcement agencies that cannot afford to deal with 
drug investigations to the degree that we are able to do with Federal 
grant funding.
  ``Our primary goal is to investigate the individuals who are dealing 
drugs in our communities. The drug of choice is meth, and I am here to 
tell you that meth is a killer, a killer of families, of lives and of 
health. Health costs for dealing with meth users is terrific. Families 
cannot afford it.
  ``The drug task forces are the only effective means of going after 
the drug dealers. On our own, we cannot handle it. The first problem is 
that most of the drug dealers in rural Nebraska know all of the law 
enforcement officers by name and know that we are spread thin. Working 
with undercover investigators, our task force is able to get next to 
the drug dealers, but it takes money to have your own separate, 
dedicated drug investigators.
  ``By banding together with the Federal Government through Federal 
dollar grants we can fight the drug dealers. The task forces share 
intelligence information, which did not happen prior to the creation of 
Nebraska's drug task forces.
  ``The intelligence information is so important to us that if the drug 
task forces are shut down due to lack of Federal funding, then we will 
be in serious trouble. If the drug dealers find out that the government 
is cutting off grant funding and as a result the task forces fold up 
and go away, they will be holding a big party to rejoice at this news. 
If Federal funding is taken away, the drug task forces in the State of 
Nebraska will fold up shop and disappear.
  ``We cannot fund the task forces by ourself. If Congress wants to 
hear an angry outcry from rural America, take away our task force 
funding. See what happens. Our Federal elected officials will be eaten 
alive by the voters. If Congress wants to be progressive and deal with 
illegal drugs, give us back our funding.
  ``The Federal Government needs to take care of issues at home more 
than anywhere else. Public safety needs need to be a high priority. If 
the drug task force is shut down from a lack of Federal funding, the 
illegal drug problem in rural America will get out of control and you 
will pay dearly in ruined lives. Don't take away Federal funding that 
was coming from the Byrne grant dollars.''
  As the gentleman from Nebraska (Mr. Osborne) mentioned in his talk a 
few days ago myself, the gentleman from Nebraska (Mr. Osborne), the 
gentleman from California (Mr. Calvert), the gentleman from Indiana 
(Mr. Souder) and the gentleman from North Carolina (Mr. Coble) met with 
the Speaker to express our frustration with any proposed cuts to Byrne 
grants and HIDTA funding. The Speaker was completely knowledgeable and 
empathetic with this and promised to help us work with it. So I really 
appreciate that the leadership in the House of Representatives shares 
the concern that the speakers did tonight during this special order, as 
well as the gentleman from California (Mr. Calvert), the gentleman from 
Indiana (Mr. Souder), the gentleman from North Carolina (Mr. Coble) and 
the gentleman from Iowa (Mr. King), who could not be here tonight.

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