[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 148 (2002), Part 12]
[House]
[Page 16122]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




              SUPPORT THE NATIONAL AMBER ALERT NETWORK ACT

  (Mr. LAMPSON asked and was given permission to address the House for 
1 minute.)
  Mr. LAMPSON. Mr. Speaker, in 1997 I established the Congressional 
Missing and Exploited Children's Caucus to provide a unified and loud 
voice for missing children advocates within Congress. The gentleman 
from Florida (Mr. Foley) and 157 other Members work with me in this 
caucus today. While the caucus works to advance child safety 
legislation, we are also initiating community, State and national 
efforts to fight against the exploitation and abduction of our 
children.
  One of those community initiatives is a successful and effective way 
to combat child abduction and it is called Amber Alert. The Amber Alert 
is named after Amber Hagerman, a 9-year-old girl who was tragically 
abducted and murdered in Arlington, Texas in 1996. The tragedy was felt 
throughout North Texas, and it led to a search for new and innovative 
community responses to help law enforcement officials find missing 
children.
  That response is the Amber Alert, and it has frequently been 
successful in recovering missing children. We have been reading about 
it in our news media in just recent weeks.
  Mr. Speaker, I urge all of our Members to take the opportunity to 
join with us to make this a successful nationwide program, to join me 
in supporting the Frost-Dunn National Amber Alert Network Act. The 
National Amber Alert Network Act is a common sense approach to the 
problem of child abduction. Child abduction is finally receiving the 
attention it deserves. Let us take this opportunity to bring 
legislation to the floor that all of America can be proud of.

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