[Congressional Record Volume 155, Number 109 (Monday, July 20, 2009)]
[House]
[Pages H8377-H8379]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




            A CHILD IS MISSING ALERT AND RECOVERY CENTER ACT

  Mr. JOHNSON of Georgia. Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and 
pass the bill (H.R. 1933) to direct the Attorney General to make an 
annual grant to the A Child Is Missing Alert and Recovery Center to 
assist law enforcement agencies in the rapid recovery of missing 
children, and for other purposes.
  The Clerk read the title of the bill.
  The text of the bill is as follows:

                               H.R. 1933

       Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of 
     the United States of America in Congress assembled,

     SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.

       This Act may be cited as the ``A Child Is Missing Alert and 
     Recovery Center Act''.

     SEC. 2. DIRECTING THE ATTORNEY GENERAL TO MAKE ANNUAL GRANTS 
                   TO A CHILD IS MISSING ALERT AND RECOVERY CENTER 
                   TO ASSIST LAW ENFORCEMENT AGENCIES IN 
                   RECOVERING MISSING CHILDREN.

       (a) In General.--The Attorney General, acting through the 
     Administrator of the Office of Juvenile Justice and 
     Delinquency Prevention, shall annually make a grant to the A 
     Child Is Missing Alert and Recovery Center.
       (b) Specified Use of Funds for Recovery Activities, 
     Regional Centers, Education, and Information Sharing.--A 
     Child Is Missing Alert and Recovery Center shall use the 
     funds made available under this Act--
       (1) to operate and expand the A Child Is Missing Alert and 
     Recovery Center to provide services to Federal, State, and 
     local law enforcement agencies to promote the quick recovery 
     of a missing child in response to a request from such 
     agencies for assistance by utilizing rapid alert telephone 
     calls, text messaging, and satellite mapping technology;
       (2) to maintain and expand technologies and techniques to 
     ensure the highest level of performance of such services;
       (3) to establish and maintain regional centers to provide 
     both centralized and on-site training and to distribute 
     information to Federal, State, and local law enforcement 
     agency officials about how to best utilize the services 
     provided by the A Child Is Missing Alert and Recovery Center;
       (4) to share appropriate information with the National 
     Center for Missing and Exploited Children, the AMBER Alert 
     Coordinator, the Silver Alert Coordinator, and appropriate 
     Federal, State, and local law enforcement agencies; and
       (5) to assist the National Center for Missing and Exploited 
     Children, the AMBER Alert Coordinator, the Silver Alert 
     Coordinator, and appropriate Federal, State, and local law 
     enforcement agencies with education programs.

     SEC. 3. DEFINITION OF MISSING CHILD.

       For purposes of this Act, the term ``missing child'' means 
     an individual whose whereabouts are unknown to a Federal, 
     State, or local law enforcement agency.

     SEC. 4. AUTHORIZATION OF APPROPRIATIONS.

       For grants under section 2, there are authorized to be 
     appropriated to the Attorney General $5,000,000 for each 
     fiscal year from fiscal year 2010 through fiscal year 2015.

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Pursuant to the rule, the gentleman from 
Georgia (Mr. Johnson) and the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Poe) each will 
control 20 minutes.
  The Chair recognizes the gentleman from Georgia.


                             General Leave

  Mr. JOHNSON of Georgia. I ask unanimous consent that all Members

[[Page H8378]]

have 5 legislative days to revise and extend their remarks and include 
extraneous material on the bill under consideration.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Is there objection to the request of the 
gentleman from Georgia?
  There was no objection.
  Mr. JOHNSON of Georgia. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself so much time as I 
may consume.
  Mr. Speaker, H.R. 1933, the A Child is Missing Alert and Recovery 
Center Act helps address the terrifying experience of when a family 
member or friend ``goes missing.''
  Under current law, there are programs such as AMBER Alert to help 
missing children who are abducted or victims of foul play. But these 
programs do not extend to situations where a child or elderly person 
becomes missing in other, more innocent ways.
  H.R. 1933 fills this gap by authorizing money for annual grants to 
the A Child is Missing Alert and Recovery Center. This national 
nonprofit program provides assistance to local law enforcement 
throughout the country in all situations of missing persons, not only 
those involving criminal activity.
  Mr. Speaker, the center helps when a small child fails to come home 
after school or a grandmother suffering from Alzheimer's disease walks 
out of her home in the middle of the night. When the terrifying event 
of a missing person is reported to the police, the responding police 
officer can call the center, which operates 365 days a year, 24 hours a 
day.
  Based on information from the call, the center quickly prepares a 
recorded message that includes a description of the missing person, 
along with the location where the person was last seen. And within 
minutes, the center sends this recording to thousands of phones within 
a radius of the last known location.
  This activity can save lives, as well as conserve critically needed 
enforcement resources that would otherwise be spent in extended 
searches for missing persons. The bill before us today will make a 
significant contribution to the protection of children and vulnerable 
adults throughout the United States.
  I thank the sponsor of this bill, my good friend, Ron Klein of 
Florida, for his leadership on this important legislative issue.
  I urge my colleagues to support this legislation, and I reserve the 
balance of my time.
  Mr. POE of Texas. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may 
consume.
  Mr. Speaker, every 40 seconds a child goes missing in this country, 
over 2,100 every day of each year. At least 800,000 children are 
reported missing each year, and another 500,000 go missing without ever 
being reported.
  The AMBER Alert system is activated when there is evidence that a 
missing child has been abducted and the police have sufficient 
information about the abductor or the vehicle to warrant use of that 
system, the AMBER Alert system. But without evidence of an abduction, 
law enforcement cannot issue an AMBER Alert. This is where A Child is 
Missing steps in.
  A Child is Missing assists police in the first crucial hours of 
searches for missing children, elderly and the disabled. The first 6 
hours after an alert are the most crucial in finding someone who is 
missing.
  To date, more than 12 million calls have been made to the A Child is 
Missing system, resulting in over 8,000 missing person cases 
nationwide. These efforts have led to the recovery of 530 missing 
persons since the inception of this wonderful program.
  This technology is particularly useful in rural communities with 
small police forces assigned to patrol large geographic areas. These 
law enforcement agencies often lack the manpower to launch a full-scale 
search for a missing child. A Child is Missing compensates for this 
reduced manpower by notifying thousands of area residents within 
minutes that a child has gone missing in their community. The A Child 
is Missing system can launch 1,000 calls in 60 seconds to residences 
and businesses in the area where the child was last seen.
  Law enforcement officials around the country have successfully used 
this system to quickly distribute valuable information about the child 
while launching full-scale searches in a matter of minutes. Over 2,000 
of the Nation's law enforcement agencies currently use this alert 
system.
  H.R. 1933, the A Child is Missing Alert and Recovery Center Act, 
expands the availability of a system that helps locate a child as soon 
as he or she goes missing, often before the AMBER Alert can even take 
effect.
  The bill authorizes $5 million for fiscal years 2010 through 2015 for 
grants to increase the use of this alert system. This simple system can 
mean the difference between life and death for a child and give peace 
of mind to so many parents whose children go missing every day.
  Children are the greatest natural resources that we have in this 
country, and this legislation deals with the health of our kids. There 
is nothing that scares a parent or even a child more than for a child 
to be missing and fearful of not ever being recovered.
  As founder and cochair of the Victims' Rights Caucus, I would like to 
thank Mr. Klein for his leadership in this issue.
  I urge all my colleagues to support this bill, and I reserve the 
balance of my time.
  Mr. JOHNSON of Georgia. Mr. Speaker, I will reserve the balance of my 
time.
  Mr. POE of Texas. I yield to the gentlelady from Florida, the ranking 
member on the Foreign Affairs Committee (Ms. Ros-Lehtinen) as much time 
as she wishes to use.
  Ms. ROS-LEHTINEN. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Texas for 
yielding me the time.
  I congratulate our Florida colleague, Congressman Ron Klein, for the 
foresight of proposing this legislation, and I hope that our colleagues 
will join us in adopting this.
  I rise today in support of Mr. Klein's bill, H.R. 1933, A Child is 
Missing Alert and Recovery Center Act. God forbid that parents would be 
forced to suffer the horror of their child going missing or even worse, 
hear the news that their child has been abducted. As parents, that 
possibility is a fear that we have known since our children are born. 
And certainly we must do everything in our power to avoid tragedy.
  When it does strike, we must be organized, we must be coordinated, 
and we must be ready to respond. This bill does precisely that. Grants 
distributed to Federal, State and local law enforcement agencies 
through this act will aid in the recovery of so many children who are 
reported missing each and every year. Let us make sure that every 
parent is secure in the knowledge that local and national law 
enforcement agencies are prepared to coordinate an effective response 
to any missing child.
  As a brand new grandmother--just 4 days ago, our first grandchild, 
Morgan Elizabeth Lehtinen was born, I know that this is a problem and a 
shock to every parent and every new grandparent, the possibilities of 
the dangers out in the world.

                              {time}  1615

  But when we pass this bill, we will know that our law enforcement 
agencies are ready to coordinate with other State and local and Federal 
agencies to make sure that we have a rapid response and one that is 
coordinated.
  So I thank my good friend from Florida, Ron Klein, for its 
introduction. I thank the gentleman from Texas for the time.
  Mr. JOHNSON of Georgia. Mr. Speaker, may I inquire as to how many 
more speakers my colleague on the other side would present?
  Mr. POE of Texas. I know of no other speakers, other than to close.
  Mr. JOHNSON of Georgia. With that being the case, Mr. Speaker, I will 
close when my friend, Judge Poe closes.
  And by the way, before I do that, I would like to extend my humble 
congratulations to the Congresswoman for the birth of her first 
grandchild. That's great.
  Mr. POE of Texas. This legislation is important. As has been stated 
by the ranking member, Ms. Ros-Lehtinen, whose granddaughter was born, 
happened to be born on her birthday, Ms. Ros-Lehtinen's birthday.
  Most of us have kids. I have seven grandkids, and the worst thing 
that could ever happen was for one of those kids to disappear.

[[Page H8379]]

  And we're judged, as a society, not by the way we treat the rich, the 
famous, the powerful, the all important. We're judged by the way we 
treat the innocent, and that includes kids and the elderly.
  This legislation will help find those kids, the elderly, the disabled 
if they have the misfortune to disappear from home. And the amount of 
money being spent is almost nothing, considering how much money 
Congress has been spending lately, with $5 million. But that $5 million 
law enforcement can use to help find those kids.
  So I would urge the adoption of this resolution.
  I yield back the balance of my time.
  Mr. JOHNSON of Georgia. Mr. Speaker, I wholeheartedly agree with the 
comments of my good friend from Texas, Judge Poe. And he knows from 
practical experience what it means to a family when their loved one 
goes missing and then there is a positive outcome. And he's also aware 
of those situations that do not end on a positive note.
  I also have the same experience in life, but fortunately, it's not 
due to a personal experience. But I just can't imagine how traumatic it 
must be for a mother or a father to be waiting at the bus stop for 
their child to disembark, and then that child is not on that bus. I can 
imagine the horror of waking up one morning, and my dear grandmother, 
who is mentally declining, has apparently been able to open the door 
and exit. And these are things that none of us wish on anyone.
  And this bill, H.R. 1933, will hopefully add to the positive results 
that we have as we look for our missing children and our missing adults 
and the elderly.
  And so, Mr. Speaker, having emphasized that I fully support this 
bill, I will yield back the balance of my time.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The question is on the motion offered by the 
gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Johnson) that the House suspend the rules 
and pass the bill, H.R. 1933.
  The question was taken.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. In the opinion of the Chair, two-thirds 
being in the affirmative, the ayes have it.
  Mr. POE of Texas. Mr. Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.
  The yeas and nays were ordered.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Pursuant to clause 8 of rule XX and the 
Chair's prior announcement, further proceedings on this motion will be 
postponed.

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