[Congressional Record Volume 152, Number 47 (Wednesday, April 26, 2006)]
[House]
[Pages H1824-H1829]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                       30-SOMETHING WORKING GROUP

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of 
January 4, 2005, the gentlewoman from Florida (Ms. Wasserman Schultz) 
is recognized for 60 minutes as the designee of the minority leader.
  Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. Madam Speaker, Members of the House, it is a 
pleasure to be here tonight as the 30-something Working Group takes the 
floor each night to talk about our concerns, both as it relates to our 
generation and our generation's perspective, and also as it relates to 
the issues that are important to America.
  I can tell you that our thanks goes out to our minority leader, Ms. 
Pelosi and Mr. Hoyer. We have been given the privilege to come to the 
floor and talk about the concerns of all Americans. And, boy, Mr. Ryan, 
who I am pleased that you have joined me once again tonight, we have 
been spending quite a bit of time together in the last 14 months since 
I joined you in the United States Congress, and it has truly been an 
honor and a pleasure.
  There is sure a lot to talk about. We are facing so many different 
crises, so many different crises of the confidence of Americans, that 
it is hard to know where to begin sometimes when we take the floor each 
night. But I know that the thing that is most on the minds of at least 
the constituents that I represent, and I am certain the ones that you 
do, because no matter where we go now, particularly in the last 2 weeks 
when we were home, gas prices and the energy crisis, because there is 
no other term you can apply to it, that we are in right now is foremost 
on the minds of Americans. It is virtually impossible for many 
Americans to be able to afford to get themselves around their 
communities. Even when they have mass transit, we are literally stuck 
in the present. We are stuck in neutral, and it is time to shift into 
overdrive when it comes to looking towards the future and pursuing 
alternative energy sources.

[[Page H1825]]

  I mean, when is there going to be some leadership on the Republican 
side of the aisle here? When is there going to be, instead of political 
scrambling at the last minute, which is what we have seen in the last 
several days when now we know they have reached the point of no return 
in terms of being forced to respond to what is going on with gas 
prices, when are we going to see some leadership step up? When are we 
going to see some backbone?
  It is just astonishing to me that I guess our Republican colleagues 
are willing to ignore the concerns of their constituents, ignore the 
plight that they are facing. You can't turn on the news anywhere in 
this country and not see a reporter sticking a microphone in one of our 
constituents' faces and saying, you know, how are you able to afford to 
fill up your tank? It is mind-boggling.
  I yield to the gentleman.
  Mr. RYAN of Ohio. So many of our constituents rely on travel to make 
a living. And I was talking to a gentleman last night who worked for a 
lab, who was doing a lot of traveling between the labs. And he is 
charging 30, 40 bucks a day, and that is just the cost of doing 
business. And trucking, you know, people in the trucking industry are 
having a difficult time. But average people, as you said, just trying 
to make a living and get to work, are having a difficult time.
  I think this comes down to a couple of different issues, Madam 
Speaker. This comes down to leadership. And this comes down to, again, 
and I hate to say it, but the secretive way in which this 
administration and this Congress do business.

                              {time}  1945

  And the leadership, the President, here we are talking about 
alternative energies. How long have we been talking about figuring out 
how we are going to find alternative energy sources and what we are 
going to do and everything else? But yet this Republican majority has 
not been able to come up with any kind of vision. And the really 
terrible part was when the President was here for the State of the 
Union and he said we are going to come up with an alternative energy 
program that will cut in half by 2025.
  Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. To end the addiction to oil
  Mr. RYAN of Ohio. To end our addiction to oil by 2025, if we get 
around to it, and it will only be in half. And there is not the urgency 
that I think our constituents are feeling right now. Let us do 
something. You have the ability as President, especially after 9/11. He 
could have marshaled our country and put us in another direction to say 
we want to reduce our dependency on foreign oil, we want to reduce the 
cost of gas, and we want to move in another direction. He could have 
done that because we were all ready to do whatever he wanted us to do. 
We would have walked to work. We would have rode bikes. We would have 
done whatever the President asked us to do. But he did not challenge us 
to do anything.
  Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. And you sort of scratch your head and wonder 
who is it that he is listening to? Who is it that he is hearing? 
Because it is certainly not the average American.
  I am a mini van mom, as you heard me say here on this floor. I drive 
a mini van and I am schlepping my kids all over the place, soccer and 
baseball and dance class and all that stuff, and let me tell you it is 
no less than $50 to fill up my minivan every single time I need to fill 
up. And fuel economy is one thing and one could argue, okay, Debbie, 
you should drive a smaller car, you should do what you can, take some 
ownership and some accountability and try to consume less gas. But when 
you have three kids, I have twin almost 7-year-olds and a 2\1/2\-year-
old. There is only so small a vehicle that you can drive with all the 
stuff and getting your kids around and having to carpool and throw 
other kids in the car with you. I mean some of the external advice is 
just not doable. So when you need to drive a vehicle of a certain size, 
out of necessity, it is going to cost you $50.
  Mr. RYAN of Ohio. I have a Pontiac Vibe. You could not handle your 
kids in the little Vibe because I barely fit in the thing myself. I 
have to sit in the back seat and drive from the back seat so my legs 
fit all right. But, yes, exactly. It is that kind of lack of 
compassion, lack of understanding of what average people go through, a 
total disconnect; kind of like when the Vice President said a few years 
ago, conservation, that is a good personal virtue to have, but as a 
Nation it is not really a good policy. Wait a minute. It is not maybe 
the be-all, end-all, but it is a piece of this puzzle that we need to 
put together to figure out how we are going to do this.
  And I think it is important for us to share not only the costs that 
you have there, and I will let you show that, but then I want to talk a 
little bit about back to 2001 when this whole thing was concocted and 
all this was happening. So go ahead.
  Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. Absolutely. Let us do that. Because the thing 
that astonished me was that only yesterday did the President make a 
statement about doing something. And believe me, that statement was 
only a token statement. He laid out some four-point plan where he is 
going to try to hold suddenly the oil companies accountable. Holding 
them accountable? I mean, give me a break. It is a little late in the 
game now that we are 6 months from an election. Is that not convenient? 
Is that not nice?
  I will tell you I have only been here about 14 months and I am less 
senior than you. You have been here for at least a couple of years 
before me. During the time that you have been here, that I have been 
here, where has the outrage been? Where has the outrage been?
  We are only going back to 2002, but in 2002 the summer gas prices, 
the average price of a gallon of gas was $1.39. You could hear a pin 
drop, it was so quiet, the reaction from the administration. Okay. No 
outrage from $1.39 a gallon. Then $1.57 a gallon, a third more, just a 
summer later. No end in sight. No proposal. No initiative to ease the 
burden and head this problem off at the pass. A summer later, 2004, 
$1.90. Now we are approaching almost $2, almost, but one-and-a-half 
times the cost from the summer before that. No end in sight. No 
proposal to stem the tide. No proposal to urge the oil companies to 
diversify or pursue alternative energy sources.
  Go to 2005, last summer. Now, last summer was when you really knew 
that the pressure began to rise. I mean, the boiling point was reached 
last summer. Last summer was when I really thought okay, there is no 
way that they can ignore this anymore; yet ignore they did. They 
reached $2.37 a gallon as the average price of a gallon of gas. And 
simultaneously last year, in my first year in Congress, two energy 
bills, two energy bills passed that gave 16 billion, with a ``b'', 
dollars away to the oil companies.
  What we talked about last night I will reiterate again: The United 
States Government owns the areas in which we allow the oil companies to 
drill. Whether it is the drilling rights that we grant them in the 
gulf, in bodies of water, or on land, we own them. And they are 
supposed to pay us royalties and make tax payments to us in exchange 
for their being able to drill there. Those two bills that we passed 
last year, Mr. Ryan, forgave those taxes, essentially gave the oil 
companies those rights for free. And we have a chart that we will put 
up. Hopefully we will be able to get access to it. It is stuck in an 
office, but we will get that chart up here in the hour after next. 
Record profits, both individual quarterly profits that the oil 
companies made and historical record profits. We are giving tax breaks 
to companies that are making record profits and providing no relief, no 
assistance, no urgency to the American people who are struggling to get 
themselves to their jobs, to get their kids to school? Where is the 
outrage? It is just of the oil companies, for the oil companies, by the 
oil companies. That is the kind of policy that is made here.
  And before I yield to you, to add insult to injury, on top of that 
legislation, forgiving the taxes, if you recall, one of those energy 
bills was one of the bills that the Republican leadership held open the 
vote for 40 minutes, twisting the arms of our Republican colleagues who 
knew that bill was the wrong thing to do, who knew we should be doing 
something about an energy policy, who had their arms wrenched behind 
their backs. And we watched our vote board that hangs above us, that 
lights up above us, the Christmas lights, red to green, green to red, 
all

[[Page H1826]]

over the map for 40 minutes until they got their way. Forty minutes. 
The rubber-stamp Republican Congress did the bidding of their 
leadership and the bidding of the President and the bidding of the 
oilmen in the White House. It is disgusting.
  Mr. RYAN of Ohio. When the average person hears that their tax 
dollars that they work hard to make and they send the Republican 
Congress down here to spend on Medicare and defense and all the other 
things, when they hear that $16 billion of that went to subsidize the 
oil companies when they have the highest profits that they have ever 
had, that is the outrage. And I think the American people are outraged. 
The Republican bobble-head Congress here who will say yes to whatever 
President Bush wants, I do not feel the outrage yet from them. And I 
think this is what our friend, former Speaker Newt Gingrich, said about 
the Republican Congress, that they are seen by the country as being in 
charge of a government that cannot function. This is what is happening 
here. When you have the leader of the Republican revolution that has 
turned into a devolution saying the government just cannot function, 
they do not know how to run the government, you are facing it every day 
at the pumps, Madam Speaker, and the American people are facing this 
every single day at the pumps.

  I want to talk just for a second, because I thought it was 
interesting that the President said with great enthusiasm that he wants 
to hold the oil companies accountable. So, Madam Speaker, I have a 
suggestion. Now, let me share some information with our colleagues 
here. We have heard a lot about this too. When they were trying to 
decide what they were going to do for the energy bills years ago in 
2001, the Vice President was having meetings that no one knew about, 
and he was having them with the oil executives, which should not 
surprise anybody, figuring out that the President and the Vice 
President both came out of the oil industry. So what has recently 
happened is that a White House document came out that showed that 
executives, and this is a third-party validator, this is the 
Washingtonpost.com, a great newspaper here in town. The White House 
document shows that executives from big oil companies met with the Vice 
President's energy task force in 2001, something long suspected by 
environmentalists but denied as recently as last week by industry 
officials.
  Now, here is what the document says, just so we can get into it. 
Because this sounds just like Katrina, this sounds just like the war, 
this sounds just like the Medicare bill, this sounds just like every 
piece of legislation that has come out of this Congress that the 
President has pushed. It has been done under a cloud of deceit, Madam 
Speaker, misleading statements to not only the United States Congress 
and Members of the United States Congress, but to the American people, 
Mr. Delahunt. But to the American people.
  And let me share, as recently as just last week, this document that 
came from the White House, obtained by the Washington Post, shows that 
officials from ExxonMobil, Conoco before its merger with Phillips, 
Shell Oil Company, and BP America, Incorporated, met in the White House 
complex with Cheney's aides who were developing a national energy 
policy, part of which became law. So you would think, well, the Vice 
President's staff is meeting with BP Oil executives.
  Last week in a joint hearing of the Senate Energy and Commerce 
Committee, the CEO of ExxonMobil, Chevron, and ConcocoPhillips said 
their firms did not participate, Mr. Delahunt, in the 2001 task force. 
We have got somebody telling us a falsehood, someone misleading us.
  So if the President wants to hold the oil companies accountable, let 
me recommend, Madam Speaker, that people can be fined or imprisoned for 
up to 5 years for making ``any materially false, fictitious, or 
fraudulent statement or representation to Congress.'' So everyone 
denied they had anything to do with this meeting in front of a Senate 
panel of the Energy and Commerce Committee, and they were there, and we 
have got all these gas prices and we are wondering about price gouging 
and everything else, Madam Speaker, and the oil companies are saying, 
well, we are not price gouging. Well, you know what? Maybe we just do 
not believe you, because you have a track record here of misleading 
statements, secrecy. And it hurts me to say that people in Youngstown, 
Ohio are forced to foot the bill here.
  Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. I yield to Mr. Delahunt.
  Mr. DELAHUNT. Well, I can assure you, Mr. Ryan and Ms. Wasserman 
Schultz, there will not be any oversight. There will be no 
investigation because this Congress simply will not do it.
  If there is one theme that has characterized the 6 years of this 
administration and the 6 years of control of the House of 
Representatives and the United States Senate by the Republican Party, 
it is a lack of transparency, is secrecy, is a refusal to be held 
accountable. And much of the responsibility comes right here to this 
institution.
  Now, let me just divert for one moment and cite the example of 
accountability and oversight in the case of the war in Iraq.

                              {time}  2000

  Both the decisionmaking process that led us to intervene militarily 
in Iraq and what has happened since the so-called major combat phase 
was announced.
  Mr. RYAN of Ohio. ``Mission accomplished.''
  Mr. DELAHUNT. It was announced by President Bush as he flew in and 
landed on that aircraft carrier saying the mission was accomplished.
  I happened to be the senior Democrat on a subcommittee of the 
International Relations Committee, that in that particular capacity I, 
along with other Members, Democratic Members, have requested again and 
again and again an opportunity to ask some questions about the whole 
array of issues, the fraud and the corruption that has absolutely gone 
wild. It is the Wild West. Everybody that has come back from Iraq that 
has been in a position to observe and witness the corruption by 
contractors, by Iraqis, by Americans, by other foreign nationals says 
it is unlike anything we have ever seen.
  Well, you know how many hearings we have had? Let me rephrase that. 
Something unusual happened today, more than 3 years after the end of 
the so-called combat phase. The House International Relations Committee 
had a hearing on Iraq, and witnesses from the administration actually 
appeared and testified. I am not even going to comment on that hearing, 
but I would commend Members from both sides of the aisle to go and to 
read the transcript in the Congressional Record, because we had an 
opportunity to ask some questions. Clearly, clearly, at least on the 
Democratic side, no one was satisfied with the answers, but we had the 
opportunity.
  Madam Speaker, this is 3 years after March and May of 2003; 3 years 
later.
  Now, an effort was made by some of our colleagues saying, well, we 
have had hearings. Well, we have had hearings, but I don't know where 
we had them, because we certainly haven't had them in a room that the 
American people can observe what the answers were.
  Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. If the gentleman would yield for 1 second, 
there is a little bit of irony here. Today is April 26, 2006, and we 
are about 6 months from the election. Isn't it interesting that today, 
suddenly 6 months before the election, as the heat is intensifying, and 
elections get closer, and the concern increases on the part of our 
Republican colleagues about the likelihood of their losing quite a few 
seats as a result of their not doing what they should have been doing, 
it becomes more and more of a likelihood and a reality that hearings 
are beginning to be held, the President is rolling out plans to address 
the energy crisis and gas prices?
  You know, the American people are a little bit smarter than that. 
They get it. They get when scrambling is going on, when people are 
trying to, hmmm, I guess the best way to put it is to save their 
tuchases. That is a Yiddish term, for those of you that don't know what 
it means.
  Mr. DELAHUNT. I think we know what it means.
  Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. Thank you.
  Mr. DELAHUNT. But the reality of it is it isn't even the issues 
themselves, because they stonewalled on the 9/11

[[Page H1827]]

Commission until public pressure compelled them to agree to have an 
independent commission; they would not release the e-mails and other 
documents in terms of both before Katrina landed on the Gulf States and 
afterwards from the White House, and they refused to do an independent 
commission there; and in Iraq we have had no hearings until today.
  I thought it was interesting that, like I said, some of the 
Republican Members said, well, we have had hearings. Well, the 
subcommittee that has jurisdiction, of course, is the Middle East 
Subcommittee, and the ranking member Mr. Ackerman went through his own 
records and looked all through the year 2003 to see how many hearings 
even peripherally might have been related to Iraq. None. None.
  In 2004, in all of 2004, that particular subcommittee had one hearing 
related to Iraq, but it was about the United States and the Iraqi 
marshlands, an environmental response.
  In June of 2005, the next year, there was a hearing on Iraq's 
transition to democracy. Nothing about all of the other obvious issues 
that were begging out to be addressed; the competence of the civilian 
leadership and the role of Secretary Rumsfeld and the disagreements 
with the military that have performed so well in terms of their service 
in Iraq.
  Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. I was just going to suggest that you put some 
of the comments from the generals up on the easel.
  Mr. DELAHUNT. Do you know what? We really do have some heroes in this 
country, people who will speak out and tell the truth and who are not 
afraid of laying it on the line. If I could indulge you, Mr. Ryan, and 
you, Ms. Wasserman Schultz, I think we have got to recognize what these 
nonpoliticians, who were leaders in Iraq, the men and women who served 
this country, had to say about the competence of Secretary Rumsfeld and 
the civilian leadership in the Department of Defense. If you would 
indulge me.

  Back in March of this year, Major General Paul Eaton, who was 
responsible, by the way, for the training of the Iraqi security forces, 
had this to say in reference to the Defense Secretary. Now, these are 
his words; not my words, but his words. ``He has shown himself 
incompetent strategically, operationally and tactically, and is far 
more than anyone responsible for what has happened to our important 
mission in Iraq. Mr. Rumsfeld must step down.''
  That was a Marine general, highly decorated, well-respected and 
regarded by his colleagues and peers, Paul Eaton.
  Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. While you are putting up the other very 
damning commentary from the myriad of generals that have called for 
either Secretary Rumsfeld's resignation or for the President to ask for 
that resignation, I think it is important to point out that in the face 
of that unprecedented pressure and unprecedented nonpolitical 
motivation, because certainly the motives of retired generals could not 
be questioned, the status quo is being preserved, a steadfast, benign 
status quo, and that is just yet another example of the bobblehead, 
rubber-stamp Republicans.
  Mr. DELAHUNT. Not a single hearing. I would think, Madam Speaker, if 
there was a genuine desire on the part of this House to examine in 
depth the truth of what is happening in Iraq and in the real world, we 
would have those generals, Madam Speaker, come before the appropriate 
committees of this House and inquire of them why they make these 
statements, such as the statement last Thursday by retired Army General 
John Batiste, again Defense Secretary Don Rumsfeld. Again, I am quoting 
this American hero.
  ``We went to war with a flawed plan that didn't account for the hard 
work to build the peace after we took down the regime. We also served 
under a Secretary of Defense who didn't understand leadership, who was 
abusive, who was arrogant, who didn't build a strong team.''
  Now, you know, Ms. Wasserman Schultz, that the Defense Secretary has 
come here on the floor of this House, Madam Speaker, in this well, and 
behind closed doors has briefed us, but we never hear from those 
generals. We never hear from the generals, Madam Speaker.
  Why? Why can't we have a hearing and invite Paul Eaton, a former 
general in the United States Marine Corps, and Retired Army General 
John Batiste? Why can't we do that? Is that asking too much, Madam 
Speaker? Is that asking too much, to let the American people hear for 
themselves? If there is an answer to that, will someone please give it 
to me? We haven't had the exercise of any oversight on Iraq ever. Ever.
  Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. You know what else I noticed in the last 14 
months since I have been here in my experience is that we haven't had a 
single Republican come to the defense of these generals or agree, step 
forward and agree with them. My belief in terms of our role here as 
public servants is that sometimes you can't be afraid to stand alone. 
You have to be willing to stand up for the courage of your convictions, 
even when no one is behind you, because you are the one that has to 
wake up and look at yourself in the mirror in the morning and know you 
have done the right thing, and you are only with yourself at the end of 
the day when you put your head on that pillow.
  What I have noticed is not a single colleague of ours on the 
Republican side of the aisle has stepped forward and said, yes, it is 
time for Secretary Rumsfeld to resign; it is time for some fresh blood, 
for some new ideas, for some acknowledgment that it is not going in the 
right direction.
  Why? Because this is what we have on the other side of the aisle in 
this Chamber. We have bobblehead Republicans. We have people who just 
shake their head up and down and up and down and are willing to just 
rubber-stamp whatever it is that they are asked to support, or oppose, 
for that matter. It is astonishing.
  Mr. DELAHUNT. But don't we owe it to the American people, Madam 
Speaker, to hear directly in the United States Congress at a full 
committee hearing from General Paul Eaton, from Army Major General John 
Batiste, and also from Marine Lieutenant General Gregory Newbold? Again 
speaking about the leadership of Donald Rumsfeld, these are his words. 
``My sincere view is that the commitment of our forces to this fight 
was done with a casualness and swagger that are the special province of 
those who never had to execute these missions or bury the results.''

                              {time}  2015

  Those are very, very powerful words. This is a very tragic and 
special moment in American history, Madam Speaker. We are at war. We 
have lost thousands of men and women in this war. The American 
taxpayers have spent hundreds of billions of dollars in this war.
  And, Madam Speaker, why can't we hear from those generals in a public 
forum? Why? Well, I am not going to reach a conclusion as to what the 
answer is.
  Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. I know the answer. For the same reason that 
there has been no accountability, for nothing that Congress should have 
been exercising its role of oversight of this administration. Where 
were the independent hearings as far as Katrina? Where were the 
hearings for the culture of corruption? Where is the Ethics Committee 
and its total lack of operation in investigating case after case of 
Members on the other side of the aisle who have violated and been 
accused of violating the public trust? Where has the outrage been?
  The answer is the same, Mr. Delahunt. They do not care, on the 
Republican side of the aisle, to exercise Congress' oversight role. 
They have ceded, willingly, the legislative branch's oversight role, 
ceded the authority to the executive branch.
  And you know, I have been a legislator for 13 years, it is almost 14 
years now. It is the thing that I believe we should most jealously 
guard, our oversight role, the system of checks and balances, our 
ability to hold the administration, the executive branch, accountable, 
even when it is our own administration.
  I mean, there certainly was not any hesitation on the part of this 
Republican Congress to hold the administration accountable and have 
plenty of hearings from the most minute and unimportant to the 
significant when there was a Democratic President. But

[[Page H1828]]

oh, no, as soon as there is a Republican President, we do not need to 
ask him any questions, we are just going to let them do whatever they 
want.
  Why? Because they are perfectly happy to be a rubber-stamp Republican 
Congress. I think the American people are sick and tired of not having 
people here that serve in the Congress that they send here to stand up 
and do the right thing, express outrage, understand what they are going 
through.
  I mean, I do not know how some of the constituents, the citizens in 
America, are tolerating their Member that they have elected staying 
silent on all of these important issues. I do not get it.
  Mr. DELAHUNT. You know, I think it is important to understand that in 
a democracy, if we are going to enjoy the full measures of citizenship, 
that those in power, those elected representatives of the people have 
to act in a transparent way and have to exercise that responsibility to 
hold accountable all those representatives of government transparency.
  I mean, we can have disagreements, and we can do it in a very 
respectful fashion. But if we do not have the information, if we do not 
have the facts, if we never hear the truth, then we are doing a 
disservice to the American people, because we are denying them the 
opportunity to enjoy the full measure of being an American citizen.
  Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. Well, you know, it is getting ready to happen 
again tomorrow. We are going to watch them deliberately squander yet 
another opportunity.
  Do you remember several months ago when the Jack Abramoff scandal 
broke, and he was exposed, and indicted and arrested, and decided to 
plead guilty and began implicating people who he worked with and who he 
collaborated with? There were calls from the Republican leadership that 
they were going to do something about this, make the process more 
transparent, restore ethics to undergird the American public's 
confidence in this system.
  And that was all supposed to culminate in tomorrow's legislation that 
we will hear in this body, what the Republican version of lobbying and 
ethics reform is, Mr. Delahunt.
  We are all about third-party validators in the 30-something Working 
Group. I have third-party validators just initially to compare 
Republican proposals on lobbying reform with the proposals that are 
coming out of the United States Senate, from the Republican leadership 
there versus the proposals coming out of the Republican House.
  And this was on the front page of USA Today just a couple of days 
ago, on April 24, just on Monday, the two proposals coming out of the 
two Republican-led Chambers. Look at the differences, Mr. Delahunt, 
that we have here.
  This is the difference between the lobbying legislation the Senate 
and the House of Representatives, the gift limits that are proposed in 
the legislation coming from the Senate.
  And, again, this is right off the front page of USA Today. The Senate 
version of the bill would say that Members could receive no gifts from 
lobbyists to Members or their aides. None. A ban.
  The House version of the bill tomorrow, we would have no change from 
the $50 limit that is current law. That is transparency? That is a 
restoration of America's confidence that Members are up here doing the 
job that they were elected to do? Status quo. That is the reform that 
we are going to consider tomorrow.
  The lobbying ban. Right now, former Members have a 1-year ban before 
they can come and represent clients in front of Congress and contact 
their former colleagues and advocate on behalf of those clients. The 
Senate would double that time to 2 years, at least, so that there would 
be some distance between the time of service that a Member was here and 
the people that they served with.
  And so the idea behind a 2-year ban, Mr. Delahunt, is that at least 
some of the issues that that Member was voting on, that the Members 
that they were working with, that there is some distance between that 
time, and that way hopefully you are not going to have undue influence 
occur. The Senate doubled that to 2 years.
  In the House, again this is off the front page of USA Today, there 
would be no change. The current 1-year time limit would still remain in 
place.
  Let us look at congressional travel. Travel sponsored by lobbyists, 
again off the front page, in that same graph on the front page of USA 
Today. The Senate legislation that deals with travel by Members 
sponsored by lobbyists would say that they have to have preapproval in 
order for a Senator to travel with lobbyists, on a lobbyist-sponsored 
trip. The Senate legislation said that that would have to be 
preapproved by their Ethics Committee.
  You know, interesting proposal. There are several ways you can do it. 
We will go one step further in our proposal, which we will go through 
in a second. But the House version, this is funny; it is so sad that it 
is funny. The House proposal tomorrow that we are considering on travel 
says suspend travel until December 15.
  What are they hoping, that we get past the election and people will 
forget? Or maybe we get past the election and it will not matter 
anymore and they can just go back to taking trips to Scotland and 
playing golf when they are supposed to be doing the people's business?
  I am not sure who they are trying to kid. It is just truly 
unbelievable, Mr. Delahunt. Their nerve is amazing. So I just wanted to 
outline that is the difference between the Republican proposals.
  Now, I want to just take a minute and go through what the Democrats 
would do. You know we hear so much that, you know, all the Democrats do 
is criticize and, you know, we do not have a plan for this, that, or 
the other thing, which of course we spend each night here trying to 
outline the plans that we do have, and debunk that oft-repeated myth, 
which is truly mythological, because we have numerous plans which we 
will continue to outline.
  But let us look at the House Democrats' lobbying and ethics reform 
proposal, where we would truly crack down and get tough on the culture 
of corruption and cronyism that exists here. It is called the Honest 
Leadership and Open Government Act. If that is what we are considering 
tomorrow, which I truly wish we were, then the gift limits that 
Democrats proposed would be a ban on gifts including meals, tickets, 
entertainment, travel from lobbyists and nongovernmental organizations 
that retain or employ lobbyists. Because, you know, what we could 
debate, we could have a legitimate debate, I think, Mr. Delahunt, on 
whether or not particularly nongovernmental organizations should be 
able to sponsor Member travel, those educational trips that I have 
taken in the time I have been here, once or twice, that are truly 
helpful.
  But, you know, unfortunately, you know that old expression where they 
talk about the one bad apple spoils it for the whole bunch. In order to 
restore Americans' confidence in their government, a change like we are 
proposing, just a total ban would do that. You got to go that far. But 
that is not what we are considering tomorrow. We are considering just 
holding off on travel until December 15, squeezing our eyes shut and 
hoping the problem goes away.
  A lobbying ban. We House Democrats would propose, do propose, a 2-
year ban for former lawmakers, executive branch officials and senior 
staff, that they could not represent clients and contact former 
colleagues for 2 years. It would eliminate floor and gym privileges for 
former Members who are now lobbyists.
  It would require Members and senior staff to disclose outside job 
negotiations, because the K Street Project, the infamous K Street 
Project where you have the revolving door of negotiations going on, 
while staff, while Republican staff are still here working for the 
public, negotiating lucrative private deals to leave here and then, you 
know, within a year, representing clients and lobbying their former 
colleagues.
  And the pressure that the K Street Project applies for those private 
firms to hire those Republican staffers, we would end that practice in 
the Honest Leadership and Open Government Act.
  And finally, these are just highlights. Actually this proposal is far 
more comprehensive than what is outlined here. Travel sponsored by 
lobbyists. We would prohibit lobbyists from planning or participating 
in congressional travel.

[[Page H1829]]

  It would require Members to pay the full charter cost when using 
corporate jets for official travel and to disclose relevant costs in 
the Congressional Record. Literally, the piece of the legislation we 
are going to consider tomorrow, the only change, is corporate travel; 
in other words, when a Member is using the private plane provided by a 
lobbyist. Sometimes, you know, a Member needs to get somewhere quicker 
than commercial travel allows them to. The proposal tomorrow only 
prohibits the lobbyists from traveling with the Member on the plane.
  They can still do it exactly as they do it now, but they cannot go 
with the Member. That is the accountability that is provided for in 
this bill. It is a joke.
  You know the American people are not going to buy it. You know, the 
finger in the dike for the next 6 months and hoping that that gets them 
through. I mean, I am hopeful that that does not work. It appears that 
the American people finally get it and that they will be behind us in 
moving this country in a new direction. Sorry I took so long. That has 
been growing inside me.
  Mr. DELAHUNT. Thank you for that exposition. I just want to return to 
the original theme. We are connecting the dots, because I think really 
what is required is an openness that heretofore has been missing. And I 
honestly believe that the dreadfully low polling numbers for the 
institution would be changed dramatically.

                              {time}  2030

  In other words, rather than 23 percent of the American people 
approving the performance of Congress, 23 percent as opposed to two-
thirds of the American people disapproving of the performance of 
Congress, can only change with transparency and aggressive oversight.
  By aggressive oversight, we don't simply mean partisanship and 
partisan attacks. We mean putting it all out on the table, letting men 
like these three generals and many others. I think of the former AID 
director, the Agency for International Development, who is currently at 
Georgetown University doing a professorship, who recently made a 
statement saying that the reconstruction effort in Iraq is plagued by 
incompetence and turf battles within the administration. It would be 
healthy.
  It would be healthy for us, for the institution, because you said 
something earlier about the confidence of the American people. If we 
are going to change those poll numbers, we have to come together, 
assume our responsibilities and become aggressive about holding the 
executive branch accountable, holding ourselves accountable, as you 
just pointed out, and reviewing the performance of the judiciary.
  We could debate about it, but let the American people hear directly, 
without the filter of partisanship, whether it be Democratic or 
Republican. Let them hear directly as to the observations of those that 
are involved in whatever the issue is.
  I mean, I would suggest that in the aftermath of the passage of the 
so-called prescription drug benefit program, that aggressive oversight 
would have entailed bringing before the appropriate committee of 
Congress those who are involved in hiding from the United States House 
of Representatives and the U.S. Senate what the estimates were in the 
administration of the cost of that particular plan.
  We should have all been outraged. We should have demanded to hear 
from the participants, but we didn't. We failed, I would suggest. And 
know what we have today? We have the lowest rating, I believe, since I 
have been here, by the American people, according to a poll that I just 
saw before coming over here, of the performance of the United States 
Congress. We are a democracy. We have got to become institutionalist 
once more.
  We have got to defend the prerogative of the Congress, whoever is in 
the White House.
  I will tell you what I have learned, Ms. Wasserman Schultz, is that 
when one party controls all of the levers of power in a democracy, 
accountability just disappears. I am not saying that is peculiar to 
Republicans. Maybe it is innate just in human nature. We don't want to 
embarrass our President, if he is of the same party, but we have got to 
restore a sense of pride in the institution. That is not happening here 
today.
  One hearing, one legitimate hearing on Iraq in 3 years? Meanwhile, 
thousands of military personnel have died, and we are spending close to 
$1 trillion already, and more in the pipeline. It is not right. That is 
why the American people are losing confidence in the U.S. Congress.
  Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. There are lots of reasons, Mr. Delahunt, some 
of the ones you outlined, but many more reasons why the American people 
are losing confidence in our ability to make sure that we respond to 
their concerns. Here are some key facts that I pulled together that 
just might explain why people are so frustrated, aside from the major 
issues that we have been outlining here tonight.
  Just for example, median income, median family income has dropped 
every year of the Bush administration. Median wages have dropped 6 
percent from 2000 to 2004 according to the Federal Reserve Board. A 
typical middle-class family, and this is the 30-something Working 
Group, and we just want to provide some highlights of the things that 
this generation is struggling to deal with, the typical middle-class 
family is working longer than in 2001 just to pay the bills.
  Health care costs have skyrocketed, with a typical family paying $632 
more for health insurance, compared with 2000. The number of Americans 
without health insurance has increased by 6 million, while the number 
living in poverty has increased by 4.5 million since 2000. Gas prices 
are 62 percent higher than in 2001. Housing is the least affordable it 
has been in 14 years.
  In my community alone, and I know your community is expensive as 
well, the average price of a house in south Florida is more than 
$300,000. Now how is a young couple, just starting out, who wants to 
reach the ability to buy their first home, going to afford that?
  Come on, I am not that far from having bought my first home with my 
husband. Trust me, if the prices were like that in south Florida when 
we first started out, there is no way. We would be living in a shack, 
which many people in America are continuing to struggle to even be able 
to afford.
  College tuition. Let us continue down the path of what young people 
are struggling with. College tuition has gone up about 40 percent, even 
if you take inflation into account, according to the college board in 
2005. The number of employees in an employer-sponsored retirement plan 
dropped by more than 2.7 million from 2000 to 2004. That is 
Congressional Research Service, our objective Congressional Research 
Service that cited that statistic.
  About 3.7 million employees have lost employer-provided health 
insurance since 2000. The median household debt has climbed 34 percent, 
to $55,300, from 2000 to 2004. The typical student graduates from 
college with about $17,500 in debt. While wages and salaries are at a 
record low as a share of national income, corporate profits are at a 
60-year high.
  Finally, the last statistic that I was able to pull together, just to 
outline what the average working family is struggling through, Mr. 
Delahunt, is that the number of U.S. billionaires reached a record of 
793, which is up 15 percent from last year. It is no wonder that the 
American people are fed up with us and fed up with the lack of outrage, 
with the lack of leadership, and that the polling numbers, when you 
rate the Congress, are just hitting rock bottom.
  Mr. Delahunt, I have really enjoyed the opportunity to spend some 
time here with you tonight. The last couple of minutes we will pull up 
our 30-something Working Group Web site, which we encourage the Members 
and anybody who is interested in getting the charts that we have 
outlined here tonight. They can access that on www.housedemocrats.gov/
30something.
  Madam Speaker, with that, we want to thank the Democratic leader for 
the opportunity to speak to our Members tonight, and we yield back the 
balance of our time.

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