[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 150 (2004), Part 12]
[House]
[Pages 15845-15869]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




      FOREIGN OPERATIONS, EXPORT FINANCING, AND RELATED PROGRAMS 
                        APPROPRIATIONS ACT, 2005

  The Committee resumed its sitting.
  Mr. KOLBE. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the last word.
  Mr. Chairman, I yield to the gentleman from North Carolina (Mr. 
Price).
  Mr. PRICE of North Carolina. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for 
yielding, and I rise today to engage in a colloquy with the gentleman 
from North Carolina (Mr. Burr) and with the chairman of the 
subcommittee.
  I want to first thank the gentleman from Arizona (Chairman Kolbe) for 
his work in overseeing the critical rebuilding effort in Iraq.
  A key element in our foreign policy is developing and strengthening 
local governmental institutions. It is my privilege to represent an 
organization, the Research Triangle Institute, which is helping to 
fulfill this laudable goal. I joined the gentleman from Arizona 
(Chairman Kolbe) on a Congressional delegation trip he led to Iraq in 
November, and we saw firsthand evidence of RTI's good work in Kirkuk 
and elsewhere.
  Mr. Chairman, the gentleman from North Carolina and I are coming 
together on the House floor today to discuss the important ongoing work 
which Congress supports and RTI conducts.
  USAID's Local Governance Project has supported the establishment of 
16 provincial councils and more than 700 local councils. The project 
staff of international experts in municipal government, supported by 
almost 3,000 Iraqi nationals, has worked to link local council leaders, 
citizens, and municipal service departments to improve service delivery 
to the citizens of Iraq. They have coached and trained 15 governors, 42 
deputy governors, 420 department heads and more than 380 local service 
departments.
  Working with USAID and RTI, Iraqis are building the capacity to 
deliver essential services, to develop transparent and participatory 
policy processes at the local level, and to develop civil society 
institutions that foster participation in political processes. USAID 
Administrator Andrew Natsios has remarked that local government will be 
the training ground for future national political leaders.
  Mr. Chairman, that future is now.
  Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman from Arizona (Mr. Kolbe) yield to 
the gentleman from North Carolina (Mr. Burr) for such remarks on the 
local governance projects as he might want to make?
  Mr. KOLBE. Mr. Chairman, I yield to the gentleman from North Carolina 
(Mr. Burr).
  Mr. BURR. Mr. Chairman, I appreciate the opportunity to be here, and 
I appreciate my colleague including me in this colloquy.
  Mr. Chairman, the gentleman from North Carolina is correct. This is 
an exciting and important work. With the Committee on Appropriations' 
financial and USAID's technical support, Iraqis have seized the 
opportunity to participate in government and have demonstrated an 
aptitude for local governance. They are working hard to restore 
services in their communities. They are drafting and approving 
procedures and policies to efficiently provide government services. 
They are prioritizing the needs of the people within their communities, 
and they are developing budgets to support those plans.
  The Iraqi people have discovered government that operates with the 
consent of the governed, and they are enthusiastic about it. Their 
representative officials have discovered accountability to the people, 
and they are eager to demonstrate their fidelity.
  There is still a long way to go in Iraq before the seeds of democracy 
that have been planted are fully established. We cannot be short-
sighted with respect to these kinds of activities in our foreign 
operations agenda. We must make certain that the work started by such 
programs can be sustained as a partnership not only between the United 
States and Iraq but also through our foreign operations activities 
throughout the world.
  Mr. KOLBE. Mr. Chairman, I thank both the gentlemen for their 
comments.
  For decades, the Iraqi people have labored under the brutal 
dictatorship of Saddam Hussein. In the last year, Iraqis have 
established local governments and representative councils. These 
entities represent a radical departure from past practice in which the 
central government made all of the decisions, including many that we 
believe are appropriate for the local level, such as education or 
municipal services.
  As the gentleman remarked, we face significant challenges in Iraq 
that are going to require our continuing oversight. The United States' 
assistance to Iraq is well over $21 billion thus far and is the largest 
single assistance program ever undertaken in the world.
  The effective implementation of programs like the Local Governance 
Project is critical to American efforts to bring peace to the Middle 
East and to the successful withdrawal of American troops from Iraq, and 
I appreciate the gentlemen for bringing this to our attention today.
  Mr. Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time.


          Amendment No. 11 Offered by Mr. Kennedy of Minnesota

  Mr. KENNEDY of Minnesota. Mr. Chairman, I offer an amendment.
  The CHAIRMAN. The Clerk will designate the amendment.
  The text of the amendment is as follows:

       Amendment No. 11 offered by Mr. Kennedy of Minnesota:
       In title II, in the item relating to ``millennium challenge 
     corporation'', after the aggregate dollar amount insert 
     ``(increased by $250,000,000)''.
       In title II, in the item relating to ``global hiv/aids 
     initiative'', after the aggregate dollar amount insert 
     ``(increased by $90,000,000)''.
       In title IV, in the item relating to ``contribution to the 
     international development association'', after the dollar 
     amount insert ``(reduced by $425,000,000)''.

  The CHAIRMAN. Pursuant to the order of the House of today, the 
gentleman from Minnesota (Mr. Kennedy) and a Member opposed each will 
control 10 minutes on the amendment.
  The Chair recognizes the gentleman from Minnesota (Mr. Kennedy).
  Mr. KENNEDY of Minnesota. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I 
may consume.
  I thank the distinguished chairman for his great work on foreign 
relations. I share his great concern with the fact

[[Page 15846]]

that half the people in this world live on less than $2 a day, that 
half the people in this world have not made a phone call, that one-
fifth of the people do not have safe drinking water, and that 115 
million children do not have a school to go to.
  We need to, with this crisis out there, have a razor-sharp focus on 
results, not dollars spent. We need to demand results from our aid 
programs, not try to comfort ourselves by saying that we spent some 
dollars on certain programs.
  What this amendment does is it takes $425 million out of our 
contribution for this year to the World Bank, which has a poor track 
record of delivering results. The World Bank is far too much focused on 
process, as opposed to performance. They might record how many schools 
they built, but they are not focusing on how many children we have 
really educated. They may focus on what water treatments they have 
helped fund but not on how many families are really getting clean water 
from them.
  They already do have sufficient capital to expand their programs. We 
put this money, $90 million of it, into the global AIDS initiative, 
which has a proven track record. It meets this year's commitment of our 
$15 billion plan that we have approved as a Congress. There are 
millions of orphans throughout Africa because of the AIDS epidemic. 
This is a horrible pandemic. It threatens the stability of the 
continent. It must be addressed.
  We also put $215 million into the Millennium Challenge Account. Today 
in this bill only half of the President's request is funded. This gets 
us part of the way there. The Millennium Challenge Account has criteria 
that ensure results. They make sure that the countries that we are 
investing in rule justly, that they invest in their people, that they 
pursue free enterprise, economic freedom. There is substantial evidence 
that exists that shows that countries that do this have growing 
standard of livings, that they are more likely to eat better, live 
longer, have children in school rather than working in the fields, 
speak, assemble, worship more freely. They are three times more likely 
to elect their governments democratically, and they are less likely to 
fight wars.
  It would be mistaken to say that this amendment reduced investments 
in aid. We indeed invest in a proven AIDS initiative. It is also 
mistaken to say that it is designated towards AIDS funds within IDA. 
IDA can continue their AIDS program with the capital they have already, 
and the MCA encourages health care spending. It is also mistaken to say 
that this reduces investment in Africa. The AIDS program is for Africa, 
and over half of the first 16 countries chosen for the Millennium 
Challenge Accounts were part of Sub-Saharan Africa.
  So I encourage my colleagues to vote to support putting our dollars 
where the results are, in fighting AIDS, in fighting other diseases, in 
fighting hunger and poverty.
  Mr. KOLBE. Mr. Chairman, I rise in opposition to the amendment.
  Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from New York 
(Mrs. Lowey), the distinguished ranking member of the subcommittee.
  Mrs. LOWEY. Mr. Chairman, I join the chairman in opposition to the 
amendment. Because what the amendment would do is cut $250 million from 
the International Development Association and IDA funds, loans to the 
poorest countries in the world, mostly African countries, at low rates 
of interest and long-term repayment schedules.
  IDA is the source of much of the capital that poor countries use to 
rebuild vital infrastructure and deal with the chronic problems of poor 
health and education systems. This amendment, if we had unlimited funds 
and we can do it all, it might make sense, but in light of the good 
work of the committee in trying to balance needs in all the accounts, I 
do not think we can possibly deal with cutting $250 million from IDA, 
and, therefore, I am opposed to this amendment.
  Mr. KENNEDY of Minnesota. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the 
gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Emanuel), a cosponsor of this amendment.
  Mr. EMANUEL. Mr. Chairman, I thank my colleague from Minnesota for 
yielding me this time.
  President Kennedy used to say, to govern is to choose, and we all 
would like to do a lot of things, but we do not have the resources to 
do everything.
  As we know, the World Bank is sitting on top of $119 billion in 
equity, enough to make investments in the area that they need to make 
investments.
  What we are talking about is an additional $90 million towards the 
President's own AIDS initiative. Now, he did a big signing, big 
photograph, but we have got to put the resources towards that to fight 
the scourge of AIDS across Africa and the Caribbean and $250 million 
towards the Millennium Challenge Corporation, another initiative by the 
President.
  We cannot underfund these initiatives. They would go primarily to the 
countries that would also receive funding from the World Bank, but we 
do know by now that the World Bank has the resources. It is not shallow 
on resources. It has $119 billion in equity to make the types of loans 
that they need to make.
  We know today that dealing with the health care crisis faced in 
Africa and Caribbean countries, that we would be alleviating one of the 
greatest problems for their development. That is in the area of AIDS 
and other health care. The Millennium Project and the President's AIDS 
initiative would attack those problems head on, and we cannot continue 
to underfund the President's initiative in those areas, which is what 
has happened.
  By increasing the funding on the global AIDS initiative, we are 
showing our strong commitment to fight against AIDS in Africa and the 
Caribbean nations; and in another rare moment of bipartisanship, we are 
even working to support the President's own AIDS initiative, 
underfunding the administration's promise by close to $800 million this 
year.
  Increasing funding for the Millennium Challenge Account is a good 
investment that gives impoverished families in the poorest countries 
access to health care, education and welfare. This is a policy we can 
all support over giving additional funds to the World Bank that has the 
capital that it needs now to continue to make the loans that are 
necessary for the World Bank.
  Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to support this amendment, and I 
thank the gentleman from Minnesota for his leadership.

                              {time}  1500

  Mr. KOLBE. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from 
Minnesota (Ms. McCollum).
  Ms. McCOLLUM. Mr. Chairman, as a member of the Subcommittee on 
Africa, I rise in strong opposition to the Kennedy amendment cutting 
funds for the International Development Association which is helping 
the Earth's poorest countries reduce poverty.
  In 2005, a country with a gross national income per capita exceeding 
$2.45 a day is not eligible for IDA loans. Imagine the poverty and the 
misery of nations impacted by IDA loans. IDA serves 38 nations in 
Africa that are among the world's 48 poorest nations.
  This amendment is exceedingly harmful to people of the 29 African 
nations that currently receive IDA support, but are not included in the 
President's AIDS initiative. Millions of poor Africans are the losers.
  It is foolish to fight HIV by cutting IDA funding for HIV in Chad or 
cutting support for children's health in Madagascar or by cutting the 
support for building peace in war-torn Sierra Leone or cutting 
educational assistance to Malawi.
  People living in desperation and misery on $1 or $2 a day should be 
supported in this House and International Development Association, and 
we should not punish the planet's poorest people.
  The amendment's author mentioned, where is the accountability? I 
would like to point out that two nations, Turkey and Korea who were 
once recipients to this aid, are now participants in IDA. This is a 
program which does have oversight, which does help the

[[Page 15847]]

poorest of the poor in the world; and I would urge that the Members not 
support this amendment.
  Mr. KENNEDY of Minnesota. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I 
may consume.
  I would just like to respond to the distinguished ranking member and 
my distinguished fellow Member from Minnesota. This is not a debate as 
to whether we give to the poorest countries on Earth, whether we give 
to sub-Saharan Africa. In both cases IDA gives, yes, to the poorest 
countries but so does the Millennium Challenge Account. In fact, the 
Millennium Challenge Account is required to go to the 74 poorest 
countries. If you look at the 16 countries that were included in the 
initial allocation, Madagascar, one of the ones my fellow colleagues 
mentioned, is a recipient of the Millennium Challenge Account as is 
Benin and Cape Verde and Ghana and Lesotho and Mali and Mozambique and 
Senegal. So we are addressing sub-Saharan Africa. We are addressing 
AIDS. We are doing it again in a way that focuses on results, that 
focuses on making sure we are making a difference for the poorest 
people in the world.
  I do encourage my colleagues to vote for this amendment.
  Mr. Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time.
  Mr. KOLBE. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself the balance of my time.
  Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman from Minnesota (Mr. Kennedy) for 
his amendment in the sense that the support that it gives the 
Millennium Challenge Corporation, I think as he knows, I am one of his 
biggest champions. Indeed, it is our bill last year that carried the 
authorization for Millennium Challenge Corporation. But I do have to 
rise to oppose this amendment, cutting IDA to pay for addition funds 
through the Millennium Challenge Corporation and for HIV/AIDS.
  As I said at the very outset and as the gentlewoman from New York 
(Mrs. Lowey) has said, this bill is a bipartisan one which means none 
of us could get everything we wanted. Given that the subcommittee had a 
budget allocation of $1.9 billion that is below what the President 
requested for all his initiatives, we simply could not fund all of 
them. The Millennium Challenge Corporation is one that we were not able 
to fully fund. I wanted to. I would have liked to, but the dollars 
simply were not there. Already our legislation cuts the International 
Development Association which, of course, is known as IDA, by $211 
million below the President's request. And I can assure you this is 
already giving the Department of Treasury heartburn. So I feel 
compelled to resist further cuts to this funding.
  Diverting these funds into bilateral programs denies six times as 
much as the gentleman's cuts to the poorest nations. Now, I made this 
point on the Sherman amendment earlier, because other countries put up 
for every U.S. taxpayer dollar that is put up, other countries and 
donors and resources provide $6 for each of those. This means a cut of 
six times as much when we cut this money out of there.
  Mr. Chairman, I think the ranking member and the subcommittee and I 
made a difficult decision to cut the World Bank funding by $211 million 
below the request, but another $425 million would put U.S. leadership 
at risk at the bank, in addition to reducing billions of dollars of 
assistance for poor countries for Africa, Asia, and Latin America.
  As an appropriations chairman, I have a responsibility to manage many 
requests and many priorities, Presidential and congressional. And I do 
think that in this bill we have found a good balance between the 
Millennium Challenge Corporation, the HIV/AIDS accounts, and the IDA. 
And I think we have met all of those requirements. And I look forward, 
let me just say, to working with the gentleman to support the 
Millennium Challenge Corporation in the years ahead.
  I am excited about what it is going to do. We are at the very 
beginning of that, but I am very excited about the potential for the 
Millennium Challenge Corporation. I hope we can provide substantially 
more funding for it in the years ahead.
  I can also say that if our committee receives a higher allocation in 
conference, which is possible if the Senate numbers are different, I 
will certainly work my hardest to ensure that more of that goes to the 
Millennium Challenge Corporation. But for now I am compelled to oppose 
the gentleman's amendment, and I urge my colleagues to vote ``no.''
  Mr. Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time.
  The CHAIRMAN. The question is on the amendment offered by the 
gentleman from Minnesota (Mr. Kennedy).
  The question was taken; and the Chairman announced that the noes 
appeared to have it.
  Mr. KENNEDY of Minnesota. Mr. Chairman, I demand a recorded vote.
  The CHAIRMAN. Pursuant to clause 6 of rule XVIII, further proceedings 
on the amendment offered by the gentleman from Minnesota (Mr. Kennedy) 
will be postponed.
  Mr. KOLBE. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the last word. I do so for 
the purpose of entering into a colloquy with the gentleman from 
California (Mr. George Miller).
  Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California. Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman 
yield?
  Mr. KOLBE. I yield to the gentleman from California.
  Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California. I thank the gentleman very much for 
yielding.
  Mr. Chairman, the great ape populations are declining at an alarming 
rate worldwide.
  The continuing destruction of habitat, in combination with the growth 
in the commercial bushmeat trade in Africa and increased logging 
activities in Indonesia, has led scientists to suggest that the 
majority of the great ape populations will be extinct in the next 10 to 
20 years.
  To address this crisis, in May 2001, UNESCO and UNEP established the 
Great Apes Survival Project, known as GRASP.
  GRASP is uniquely placed to mobilize resources and provide a 
communication platform to bring the dramatic decline of great ape 
population to a halt.
  But, sadly, Mr. Chairman, the bill we have before us includes no 
funding for the GRASP program.
  While I recognize that assessed contributions to UNESCO are part of 
the CJS appropriations bill, voluntary contributions to UNESCO 
programs, like GRASP, are usually included in the Foreign Operations 
appropriations bill's International Organizations Account.
  For fiscal year 2004, Congress appropriated almost $1.9 million in 
voluntary contributions to UNESCO programs. It is my hope that, in the 
further deliberations of this bill, both here and in the conference, 
serious consideration can be given to the funding of GRASP programs to 
protect the great apes from total extinction.
  Could I ask my friend from Arizona, the distinguished Chair, for his 
help and cooperation on this very important issue as we move to the 
conference on this legislation.
  Mr. KOLBE. Let me say I appreciate the gentleman calling this to our 
attention, and I agree with the importance of this program. I certainly 
would be happy to work with my friend from California as the bill moves 
to conference.
  Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California. I thank the gentleman very much for 
that.


               Amendment No. 8 Offered by Mr. Blumenauer

  Mr. BLUMENAUER. Mr. Chairman, I offer an amendment.
  The CHAIRMAN. The Clerk will designate the amendment.
  The text of the amendment is as follows:

       Amendment No. 8 offered by Mr. Blumenauer:
       In title III, in the item relating to ``foreign military 
     financing program'', after the first dollar amount, insert 
     the following: ``(reduced by $20,000,000)''.
       In title IV, in the item relating to ``global environment 
     facility'', after the dollar amount, insert the following: 
     ``(increased by $13,177,734)''.

  The CHAIRMAN. Pursuant to the order of the House of today, the 
gentleman from Oregon (Mr. Blumenauer)

[[Page 15848]]

and a Member opposed each will control 5 minutes.
  The Chair recognizes the gentleman from Oregon (Mr. Blumenauer).
  Mr. BLUMENAUER. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may 
consume.
  I rise today on an amendment dealing with the Global Environment 
Facility. It is the primary financing mechanism for important 
environmental work around the world. It helps developing countries 
address environmental challenges that may impact the United States as 
well as those countries. And as the world's largest donor to the 
institution, our country plays a critical leadership role.
  The projects of the GEF fall into four major categories, conserving 
bio-diversity, expanding clean energy production and its use, cleaning 
up international waters, and protecting its fisheries, and phasing out 
ozone depleting chemicals. All critical priorities for this country and 
citizens around the world.
  Since 1991, the GEF has funded over 1,000 projects in 160 different 
countries. And it is not just the investment that the United States 
made. A key point I think that needs to be focused on here is that for 
every dollar spent by the United States the GEF leverages $15 in 
funding from other sources.
  I have a wide range of examples, but the committee is well aware of 
the good work; and I will conserve time by not going into that. But I 
do want to make the point that it is the United States as the largest 
shareholder that has a unique responsibility with this program. Two 
years ago, the Bush administration committed to increase its 
contribution to GEF for 4 years and to pay off our long-standing unpaid 
debt that was $210 million in 3 years. This agreement served as a 
catalyst for other donor governments to also increase their donations.
  Now, I appreciate and I referenced earlier on the floor the 
difficulty that this subcommittee has given the allocation that they 
were given. But that said, the subcommittee reported out a funding 
level of $107 million with no arrearage payment. The amendment that I 
am offering here today would add $13.2 million in order to at least 
fully fund the President's budget request of $120.7 million and at 
least continue the commitment towards dealing with the arrearages even 
though it would put us behind schedule.
  I appreciate this difficult situation the subcommittee is in. I am 
prepared to withdraw the amendment, but I would seek to ask either the 
Chair or the ranking member if there is some prospect that if we are 
able to work this through the process, if we might be able to continue 
meeting the commitment that the administration has made in the past to 
fund the arrearages.
  Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. KOLBE. Mr. Chairman, I rise in opposition to the amendment.
  Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the gentlewoman from New York (Mrs. 
Lowey).
  Mrs. LOWEY. Mr. Chairman, I applaud the spirit of the gentleman's 
amendment and regret that I cannot support it in this context. We have 
worked hard to bring a bill to the floor under a requirement to reduce 
the President's request by $1.9 billion. And so in order to accomplish 
this, we were forced to make, as you know, many tough choices, and 
reducing funding for the Global Environmental Facility of the World 
Bank, unfortunately, was one of them.
  I have always worked hard to get adequate funding for the GEF because 
I believe it provides a vital source of funds for environmentally sound 
lending. The bill does provide $107.5 million for the GEF, which is the 
amount of our annual contribution. As you know, we did not include the 
additional $13 million requested for arrears and that is reflected in 
the funding levels of other banks as well.
  It would be my hope that we could find a way to make up these arrears 
either in conference on this year's bill or next year. I know of the 
gentleman's commitment to GEF. I share that commitment. And I want to 
assure you of my intention to work towards this goal. I thank you for 
bringing this issue to the attention of my colleagues.
  Mr. KOLBE. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
  I thank the gentleman from Oregon (Mr. Blumenauer) for his dedication 
to environmental issues and raising the funding for the Global 
Environmental Facility today.
  As my colleague knows, the bill before the House today is bipartisan, 
as the gentlewoman has indicated, and of course that means that we do 
not get everything we want here. Given the priorities of the President, 
the priorities of both sides of the House, we did cut funding for the 
Global Environmental Facility by $13 million from the President's 
request.

                              {time}  1515

  But we did fund the entire regularly scheduled contribution of $107.5 
million to the GEF so that we do not go further into arrears.
  Just so my colleague understands that the GEF was not the one that 
was targeted specifically. The International Development Association, 
or IDA, which we just discussed in the last amendment, the concessional 
arm of the World Bank was cut $211 million from the administration's 
request.
  So I appreciate my colleague raising the issue, and I appreciate his 
withdrawing the amendment and the bipartisan spirit within which the 
gentlewoman from New York (Mrs. Lowey) and I have worked during the 
course of the year, and I thank the gentleman.
  Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. BLUMENAUER. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may 
consume.
  I appreciate both, again, the difficult situation that the 
subcommittee was facing and the comments from my friend the Chair and 
the ranking member.
  I will withdraw the amendment, Mr. Chairman. I would hope that we 
could continue to focus on trying to keep this commitment. I appreciate 
that there were a number of other areas that we simply had to shut the 
door on in terms of paying arrears where we were in arrears, but this I 
hope, if we get to the point where there are additional resources, 
bears special attention because of the global impact of these 
environmental programs, how they are targeted at some of the most 
desperately needy of countries and how this is an area, if we do not 
continue to make progress, we are going to slide back.
  But I appreciate the work that has been done and look forward to 
working with my colleagues so that hopefully we will be able to restore 
it and gain the benefit of those important investments.
  Mr. BLUMENAUER. Mr. Chairman, I ask unanimous consent to withdraw the 
amendment.
  The CHAIRMAN. Is there objection to the request of the gentleman from 
Oregon?
  There was no objection.


                  Amendment No. 17 Offered by Mr. Paul

  Mr. PAUL. Mr. Chairman, I offer an amendment.
  The CHAIRMAN. The Clerk will designate the amendment.
  The text of the amendment is as follows:

       Amendment No. 17 offered by Mr. Paul:
       Title II of the bill is amended by striking the item 
     relating to ``millennium challenge corporation''.

  The CHAIRMAN. Pursuant to the order of the House of today, the 
gentleman from Texas (Mr. Paul) and the gentleman from Arizona (Mr. 
Kolbe) each will control 10 minutes.
  The Chair recognizes the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Paul).
  Mr. PAUL. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
  Mr. Chairman, my amendment strikes the Millennium Challenge Account. 
When this program was put in place a year ago, it was originally 
thought to be a program that would replace old-fashioned foreign aid, 
but because the votes were not there, instead of a transition from one 
form of foreign aid to another, it was just added on. That is the way 
we do things here. We keep adding on in order to satisfy everybody.

[[Page 15849]]

  So the foreign aid bill now is up to nearly $20 billion, and that 
represents $1.25 billion for the Millennium Challenge Account, and it 
is a $266 million increase from 1 year ago. So we are making 
``progress'', if one is a strong supporter of such programs.
  The strongest argument of those who endorse foreign aid is a 
humanitarian argument: We are rich, they are poor, we have empathy, we 
must help, it is our moral obligation. For the most part, people go 
along with that. But I have a humanitarian argument, also. Mine is that 
it does not work and that, if we indeed care about people, we ought to 
be encouraging free markets and individual liberty, and that is when 
countries become more prosperous.
  But the idea that we can promote humanitarian programs by taking 
literally money from poor people in this country and giving it to rich, 
influential leaders in other countries and we are going to have this 
miraculous success I think is a myth. It does not work that way, and 
there are people who are not benefitted.
  Now, it may be said by those who have promoted the Millennium 
Challenge Account, that is exactly what we are trying to address. We 
want to reward countries that are moving in the direction of free 
markets. Now, that is a nice notion, but it cannot work. It is 
impossible because when we give money to a government, it is 
politicized. It becomes bureaucratic, and it has to be handed out to 
special interests.
  When Paul Applegarth, the chairman of the corporation for the 
Millennium Challenge Account was before our committee, I asked him a 
question. I said, are there any American companies that will benefit by 
this type of program? I actually was pretty shocked with his answer, 
because he was very blunt. He said, I certainly hope so. In other 
words, even our American corporations benefit from programs like this.
  So it would be nice to think that the poor people of these other 
countries are going to benefit, but I think it is a greater injury to 
the poor people of this country. My colleagues say the poor people of 
this country do not pay taxes. Well, that is incorrect, because the 
inflation tax is borne by the poor and the middle class, and that 
occurs when we spend too much money. And this is too much money spent 
the wrong way, and we do not have the authority to do it. Besides, how 
many of us ever get calls from our constituents saying please vote for 
more foreign aid? No, they are asking for more help here, and this 
distracts from it.
  When we do not have the money, we run up the debt. Then we go and we 
literally print the money to pay the bills. We create the inflation and 
the higher cost of living, and it injures the low and middle income 
people the most, and they are the ones who are losing jobs.
  So this is literally money coming out of our pockets for programs 
that could help us in this country.
  My suggestion is, since I am a moderate here in the Congress, my 
moderate approach would be when we have a program like this, whether it 
is 1.25 or the whole $20 billion, my suggestion is cut it, cut the 
whole thing. Let us say we cut the $20 billion of foreign aid. I would 
take $10 billion and put it toward the deficit, and I would join my 
colleagues on the left and say, look, let us fund some of these 
programs that are needed or are coming up short. Why are we cutting 
veterans benefits at the same time? Why do we cut the Corps of 
Engineers? Why do we not fully fund our infrastructure?
  This type of spending does not make any economic sense, and it does 
not make any moral sense.
  Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. KOLBE. Mr. Chairman, I rise in opposition to the amendment and 
claim the time in opposition.
  Because I am going to close, unless the gentlewoman from New York 
wishes to say something on this amendment, I reserve the balance of my 
time.
  Mr. PAUL. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from 
Florida (Mr. Keller).
  Mr. KELLER. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for yielding me the 
time.
  Mr. Chairman, today I rise to support the amendment and in opposition 
to the 2005 Foreign Operations appropriations bill. At a time when our 
country is facing record budget deficits, I cannot justify voting for 
the largest foreign aid bill in history. We should not give away 
billions of dollars in foreign aid in the name of friendship when 
everybody knows that friendship cannot be bought.
  Over the past four sessions of the U.N. General Assembly, 86 percent 
of the U.S. foreign aid recipients voted against the United States a 
majority of the time. Now, let me give my colleagues five specific 
examples.
  Egypt is slated to get $1.836 billion in foreign aid in this bill, 
even though they voted against us at the U.N. 86 percent of the time.
  Indonesia will get $151 million in foreign aid. They voted against us 
83 percent of the time.
  Nigeria will get $68 million in foreign aid. They voted against us at 
the U.N. 76 percent of the time.
  Kenya will get $67 million. They voted against us at the U.N. 81 
percent of the time.
  Bangladesh will get $63 million in foreign aid. They voted against us 
82 percent of the time.
  Not one of these five countries contributed any money or troops to 
the war effort or reconstruction of Iraq.
  Now, some might say, but what about the money we are giving Israel? 
Well, I fully and completely support 100 percent of the $2.58 billion 
in aid to Israel. They are, by far, our best ally in the Middle East. 
They are the only democracy in the Middle East, and they face 
increasing terrorist threats.
  But I cannot in good conscience vote for a $19.4 billion foreign aid 
bill when only a tiny portion of it goes to support our valuable ally 
Israel.
  I cannot go home to Orlando, Florida, and look waitresses and 
secretaries in the eye and tell them that we took taxpayer dollars from 
their paychecks and gave it in foreign aid to countries that do not 
even support the United States.
  I urge my colleagues to support this amendment and vote ``no'' on the 
bill.
  Mr. PAUL. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
  Let me follow up on the point I made earlier about the good 
intentions of a program like this to promote free market changes in 
certain countries, but, unfortunately, this backfires because once the 
money gets in the hands of the government we then require them to 
develop partnerships or alliances with businesses, which is exactly the 
opposite of free markets. This is closer to crony capitalism or fascism 
when we combine government money with business interests.
  At the same time, we know that our corporations will also participate 
in these programs. So the money once again leaves the people of this 
country, many times the poor, and goes to these foreign aid programs 
which subsidize certain governments, solidifying powers of certain 
politicians, which then allows fungibility of their other funds to do 
other things and then encourage business partnerships between 
government and business which is not free markets, which literally is 
undermining the move that I think is intended and that is to improve 
the conditions of other countries.
  If the conditions of a country are amenable to capitalism and 
investment, there is never a problem of a lack of investors. The fact 
that we have to do this, that means there are flaws in the system. This 
will not improve it. It actually makes it worse. Just because you have 
partnership with businesses does not mean you are moving toward free 
enterprise. That means you are moving toward a system of 
interventionism, or crony capitalism. It is not true reform.
  So a program like this actually does the reverse. It has unintended 
consequences. It makes our problems worse. And, besides, we do not have 
the right to do it. We do not have the constitutional authority to do 
it, and we certainly do not have a moral authority to undermine the 
poor people of this country by making the conditions worse here.

[[Page 15850]]

  For this reason, I strongly urge my colleagues to vote ``yes'' on 
this amendment.
  Mr. Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time.
  Mr. KOLBE. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
  I do rise in opposition to this amendment.
  I find it ironic that a few moments ago we had an amendment offered 
by the gentleman from Minnesota to take money out of IDA and put it 
into the Millennium Challenge Corporation. Now we are having an 
amendment to take everything out of the Millennium Challenge 
Corporation, which suggests to me that maybe the subcommittee is just 
in the right place here in regards to the amount of the funds that we 
have.
  I also find it ironic that the gentleman from Texas, who is a strong 
fiscal conservative, is offering this amendment. If ever there was 
anything in foreign assistance that made sense, it is the Millennium 
Challenge Corporation. I believe that it is the most dramatic departure 
from the way we have administered and provided foreign assistance since 
the Marshall Plan at the end of World War II, and I think it has a real 
opportunity to make a difference in the way that countries approach 
foreign assistance. In fact, we are already finding that to be the 
case, that countries that are not on the list of those who are eligible 
yet for consideration for the Millennium Challenge grants are saying 
what do we have to do to get on that, what kind of reforms do we have 
to undertake, and this is exactly what this Millennium Challenge 
Corporation, which we carried in our bill last year, does.
  It is different than any other foreign assistance account that we 
have. It is different for four essential reasons.
  First, the MCC will act as an incentive for countries to govern 
justly, to invest in their own people and create the right policy 
framework for economic growth. In short, it rewards good governance. No 
other development or economic assistance administered by USAID or the 
Department of State currently provides that kind of incentive.
  Second, the MCC will offer up a laser focus on economic growth and 
poverty reduction. That is unlike current development assistance 
efforts where the U.S. government and other donors try to do a little 
bit of everything.
  Third, the MCC recognizes that successful reforms have to be 
internally led. As I said a moment ago, this goes to countries where 
they have made a commitment to rooting out corruption, where they have 
openness and transparency, where they have a commitment to the rule of 
law, where they have a commitment to the protection of property rights. 
So it has to come internally in order to make this work. These are 
incentive kinds of grants, technical kinds of grants, things that will 
help the country do exactly what they need in order to have 
sustainable, long-term economic growth.
  Fourth, the Congress has given the program the flexibility to meet 
the needs of the MCC countries as presented by the countries 
themselves.

                              {time}  1530

  In other words, it offers countries the prospect of local ownership 
and accountability for their own development, and that is why I believe 
this is critically important. The MCC promises to be one of America's 
best tools to help us address poverty, and I hope we can defeat this 
amendment. I urge my colleagues to defeat the amendment.
  Mr. Chairman, I submit for the Record a copy of the letter sent to me 
by the Board of Directors of the MCC:

                             Millennium Challenge Corporation,

                                                    Arlington, VA.
     Hon. Jim Kolbe,
     Chairman, Subcommittee on Foreign Operations, Committee on 
         Appropriations, House of Representatives, Washington, DC.
       Dear Mr. Chairman: As the members of the Board of Directors 
     of the Millennium Challenge Corporation, we greatly 
     appreciate your leadership and support for the Millennium 
     Challenge Account (MCA), a key Presidential priority. The 
     President's request will accelerate growth and opportunity 
     for countries that govern justly, invest in their people and 
     encourage economic freedom.
       We are concerned, however, that the limitations on your 
     Subcommittee's appropriations allocation caused a reduction 
     in MCA levels to $1.25 billion, half of the President's $2.5 
     billion request. This level of funding may compromise the 
     Corporation's opportunity to commit to full multi-year 
     support to all countries that qualified to compete for MCA 
     assistance this year and could have an impact on the support 
     for countries that may qualify in 2005. For this reason, we 
     would strongly oppose any amendments which would impose 
     additional reductions, and will work with you to achieve the 
     necessary resources for this Presidential foreign assistance 
     initiative. Such amendments could call into question our 
     commitment to support those countries that have taken 
     responsibility for their own development through adoption of 
     sound policies.
       We look forward to working with you to assure MCA is 
     adequately funded as we proceed with our critical mission in 
     the developing world.
           Sincerely,
     Colin L. Powell,
       Chairman of the Board.
     John Snow,
       Vice Chairman of the Board.
     Robert Zoellick,
       U.S. Trade Representative.
     Paul V. Applegarth,
       CEO, Millennium Challenge Corporation.
     Andrew S. Natsios,
       Administrator, U.S. Agency of International Development.

  Mr. Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time.
  The CHAIRMAN. The question is on the amendment offered by the 
gentleman from Texas (Mr. Paul).
  The question was taken; and the Chairman announced that the noes 
appeared to have it.
  Mr. PAUL. Mr. Chairman, I demand a recorded vote.
  The CHAIRMAN. Pursuant to clause 6 of rule XVIII, further proceedings 
on the amendment offered by the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Paul) will be 
postponed.
  Mr. KOLBE. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the last word.
  Mr. Chairman, I take this time to enter into a colloquy with the 
gentlewoman from Minnesota (Ms. McCollum).
  Ms. McCOLLUM. Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?
  Mr. KOLBE. I yield to the gentlewoman from Minnesota.
  Ms. McCOLLUM. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman from Arizona, the 
subcommittee chairman, for entering into this colloquy.
  Mr. Chairman, I am seeking at least $3 million from the State 
Department's Nonproliferation Anti-terrorism Demining and Related 
Programs Account to fund demining activities in Laos.
  A persistent and deadly legacy of our country's involvement in the 
Vietnam War continues to kill and maim thousands of children, women, 
and men in the impoverished nation of Laos. I am speaking of the 
millions of unexploded cluster bombs left by a decade of bombing by the 
United States during the Vietnam War. This is a human rights tragedy 
for the people of Laos.
  From 1964 to 1973, the U.S. flew 580,000 bombing runs over Laos, one 
every 9 minutes for 10 years. More than 2 million tons of ordnance were 
dropped on Laos, double the amount dropped on the European theater 
during the entirety of World War II. As many as 30 percent of these 
bombs dropped on Laos did not explode, leaving up to 20 million 
unexploded submunitions, known as bombies, litter throughout the 
country. These American bombies may be 30 years old, but they continue 
to kill and maim children as well as farmers clearing the land for 
farming.
  In the first 5 months of 2004, 39 people died and 74 have been maimed 
by unexploded ordnance. In the 30 years since the end of the Vietnam 
War, an estimated 10,000 Laotian people, including thousands of 
children, have died. And yet while families struggle for food and 
survival, tens of thousands of acres of land cannot be put into 
agricultural production because the Earth is contaminated with this 
deadly cluster ordnance.
  In today's dollars, our Nation spent $9 million every day for 10 
years dropping millions of tons of bombs on Laos.

[[Page 15851]]

This year, fiscal year 2004, the State Department will spend only $1.4 
million helping to remove our Nation's deadly legacy.
  We have a responsibility to help to end this ongoing human rights 
tragedy. I had intended to offer an amendment to more than double the 
level of the current funding in this account for Laos. However, I 
understand the chairman of the subcommittee has agreed he will seek to 
include language in conference with the other body that sufficient 
funds be found in the Nonproliferation Anti-terrorism Demining and 
Related Programs Account or from the Bilateral Assistance programs for 
Laos in order to continue this important work in fiscal year 2005; and, 
if possible, at $3 million in order to help provide for the expeditious 
removal of the unexploded munitions from Laos.
  Mr. Chairman, does the gentleman agree he will help to include such 
language in conference with the Senate?
  Mr. KOLBE. Reclaiming my time, Mr. Chairman, the gentlewoman is 
correct in her characterization. Assuming the availability of funds, we 
will seek to include report language that, at a minimum, would continue 
the program in Laos at the fiscal year 2004 level; but, if possible, at 
a higher level of $3 million.
  Ms. McCOLLUM. Mr. Chairman, if the gentleman will continue to yield, 
I sincerely thank him for his courtesy and also for pursuing this. I 
also want to thank the ranking member, the gentlewoman from New York 
(Mrs. Lowey), for her support on this matter. I look forward to working 
with both of them to address this important issue.
  Mr. KOLBE. Mr. Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time.
  Mrs. LOWEY. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the last word.
  Mr. Chairman, I rise to support the intent of the gentlewoman's 
amendment, and I appreciate her thoughtful comments.
  The problem of unexploded ordnance in Laos is real and will be 
addressed immediately. I would strongly urge a significant portion of 
the funds already in the bill for demining be used to address this 
problem in Laos, and I want to thank the gentlewoman for bringing this 
important issue to the attention of the committee.


             Amendment Offered by Mr. Garrett of New Jersey

  Mr. GARRETT of New Jersey. Mr. Chairman, I offer an amendment.
  The CHAIRMAN. The Clerk will designate the amendment.
  The text of the amendment is as follows:

       Amendment offered by Mr. Garrett of New Jersey:
       At the end of the bill (before the short title), insert the 
     following:


   LIMITATION ON ATTENDANCE AT CONFERENCES OUTSIDE THE UNITED STATES

       Sec. __. None of the funds made available in this Act may 
     be used to send or otherwise pay for the attendance of more 
     than 50 Federal employees at any single conference occurring 
     outside the United States.

  The CHAIRMAN. Pursuant to the order of the House of today, the 
gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Garrett) and a Member opposed each will 
control 5 minutes.
  The Chair recognizes the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Garrett).
  Mr. GARRETT of New Jersey. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as 
I may consume.
  Mr. Chairman, while those on both sides of the aisle may disagree 
exactly how we got here today, I think most of us, myself included, 
would say that, as far as the Federal budget is concerned, we are 
spending too much and the deficit is too high. That is why I am 
offering an amendment that is, I think, a commonsense approach to help 
limit spending and the abuse that our constituents at home complain 
about.
  I will say this: when I go home to my town hall meetings, so many 
times constituents ask me, why in the world is Congress spending so 
much money on this or that particular program. In short, my amendment 
will limit the number of Federal employees that are able to be sent to 
international conferences to 50.
  Recently, there has been a trend in our government to send far in 
excess of the amount of staff to these international conferences, 
costing our taxpayers millions and millions of extra dollars. This 
amendment would simply put a cap on that number.
  Now, like my colleagues on the other side of the aisle on this, I 
understand the importance of staff in our daily routines. I am simply 
saying that we should send the essential staff, those necessary in 
order to get the job done. Let me just give a couple of quick examples 
here why I bring up this amendment.
  In this year, 2004, in a conference that was in Thailand for an AIDS 
conference, over 130 Federal employees of the U.S. Government were sent 
to this conference. Had my amendment been in place at that time, and 
been able to limit the amount of employees, Federal employees that went 
over there, we would have saved millions of dollars.
  To put it in the context of dollars and cents, we could have provided 
a dose of nevirapine, which is an AIDS preventive medicine which 
provides benefits to babies, to over 216,616 newborns in Africa. Over 
almost a quarter of a million dosages could have been provided had we 
had a cap on people going there.
  Another example, 2002: the U.S. sent 236 people to a conference in 
Barcelona, Spain. These employees were sent at a cost of $3.6 million. 
Again, my people at home, the constituents at home, ask why do we spend 
so much money.
  Due to the limited amount of time I have right now on this amendment, 
I cannot go into more of the examples we have seen in past experience 
as far as excessive numbers of Federal employees going overseas to 
Federal conferences. I would simply urge my colleagues on both sides of 
the aisle to support this commonsense and important amendment to make a 
limit as to the amount of people we send over.
  Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. KOLBE. Mr. Chairman, I claim the time in opposition to the 
amendment, and I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. GARRETT of New Jersey. Mr. Chairman, I have no further requests 
for time, and I yield back the balance of my time.
  Mr. KOLBE. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume; 
and I will not take 5 minutes, but just want to say that I would have 
serious concerns about this amendment. I think it is something that we 
can work with and perhaps solve in conference, but I would have severe 
heartburn about an amendment that is as arbitrary as this.
  Let us say we were, for example, to have a major conference, like the 
Camp David Accords, or what we had in the Sinai a few years ago, where 
we came very close to a settlement on the peace accords. Obviously, 
hundreds of people were involved in that. This would arbitrarily limit 
any of the funding here from being spent to send people to a conference 
of that nature.
  Mr. GARRETT of New Jersey. Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?
  Mr. KOLBE. I yield to the gentleman from New Jersey, briefly.
  Mr. GARRETT of New Jersey. Just very briefly, Mr. Chairman, I do not 
believe that the amendment would address those concerns, or the points 
the gentleman raises, and I share his concerns there. This applies to 
those that would come under this act, and that such conferences as 
those could very well conceivably be coming under the other act, like 
State Department and the like.
  Mr. KOLBE. Reclaiming my time, Mr. Chairman, I realize they could be 
coming under State Department, the White House and others that are not 
funded under this bill; but there are a number from USAID, Treasury, 
and others that would be funded and could be affected as a result of 
this. So I just have real concerns about that, and we will try to work 
that out.
  Mr. Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time.
  The CHAIRMAN. The question is on the amendment offered by the 
gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Garrett).
  The amendment was agreed to.


          Sequential Votes Postponed in Committee of the Whole

  The CHAIRMAN. Pursuant to clause 6 of rule XVIII, proceedings will 
now

[[Page 15852]]

resume on those amendments on which further proceedings were postponed, 
in the following order: amendment No. 20 offered by the gentleman from 
California (Mr. Sherman), amendment No. 13 offered by the gentleman 
from California (Mr. Lantos), amendment No. 11 offered by the gentleman 
from Minnesota (Mr. Kennedy), and amendment No. 17 offered by the 
gentleman from Texas (Mr. Paul).
  The Chair will reduce to 5 minutes the time for any electronic vote 
after the first vote in this series.

                              {time}  1545


                Amendment No. 20 Offered by Mr. Sherman

  The CHAIRMAN. The pending business is the demand for a recorded vote 
on the amendment offered by the gentleman from California (Mr. Sherman) 
on which further proceedings were postponed and on which the noes 
prevailed by voice vote.
  The Clerk will redesignate the amendment.
  The Clerk redesignated the amendment.


                             Recorded Vote

  The CHAIRMAN. A recorded vote has been demanded.
  A recorded vote was ordered.
  The vote was taken by electronic device, and there were--ayes 111, 
noes 312, not voting 10, as follows:

                             [Roll No. 380]

                               AYES--111

     Ackerman
     Andrews
     Bachus
     Barrett (SC)
     Bartlett (MD)
     Bass
     Berkley
     Bilirakis
     Bishop (NY)
     Boswell
     Brown (OH)
     Burton (IN)
     Cardoza
     Chabot
     Chandler
     Clyburn
     Coble
     Costello
     Cox
     Crowley
     Davis, Jo Ann
     Deal (GA)
     DeFazio
     DeMint
     Diaz-Balart, L.
     Diaz-Balart, M.
     Duncan
     Edwards
     Emanuel
     Engel
     English
     Feeney
     Ferguson
     Filner
     Flake
     Forbes
     Fossella
     Franks (AZ)
     Gingrey
     Goodlatte
     Gordon
     Graves
     Gutknecht
     Hall
     Hastings (FL)
     Hayes
     Hefley
     Hooley (OR)
     Hostettler
     Israel
     Jones (NC)
     Kennedy (MN)
     King (NY)
     Kucinich
     Lantos
     Lewis (KY)
     LoBiondo
     Lofgren
     Manzullo
     Markey
     Matheson
     McIntyre
     McNulty
     Meehan
     Moran (KS)
     Nadler
     Napolitano
     Norwood
     Oberstar
     Owens
     Pallone
     Paul
     Payne
     Pence
     Peterson (MN)
     Petri
     Pitts
     Platts
     Porter
     Rahall
     Ramstad
     Rodriguez
     Rohrabacher
     Ros-Lehtinen
     Rothman
     Royce
     Rush
     Ryan (OH)
     Sanchez, Linda T.
     Sensenbrenner
     Sherman
     Shimkus
     Smith (MI)
     Smith (NJ)
     Souder
     Stearns
     Stenholm
     Strickland
     Sweeney
     Tanner
     Tauzin
     Taylor (MS)
     Toomey
     Vitter
     Wamp
     Waters
     Waxman
     Weiner
     Wexler
     Woolsey
     Wu

                               NOES--312

     Abercrombie
     Aderholt
     Akin
     Alexander
     Allen
     Baca
     Baird
     Baker
     Baldwin
     Ballenger
     Barton (TX)
     Beauprez
     Becerra
     Bell
     Bereuter
     Berman
     Berry
     Biggert
     Bishop (GA)
     Bishop (UT)
     Blackburn
     Blumenauer
     Blunt
     Boehlert
     Boehner
     Bonilla
     Bonner
     Bono
     Boozman
     Boucher
     Boyd
     Bradley (NH)
     Brady (PA)
     Brady (TX)
     Brown (SC)
     Brown, Corrine
     Brown-Waite, Ginny
     Burgess
     Burns
     Burr
     Buyer
     Calvert
     Camp
     Cannon
     Cantor
     Capito
     Capps
     Capuano
     Cardin
     Carson (OK)
     Carter
     Case
     Castle
     Chocola
     Clay
     Cole
     Conyers
     Cooper
     Cramer
     Crane
     Crenshaw
     Cubin
     Culberson
     Cunningham
     Davis (AL)
     Davis (CA)
     Davis (FL)
     Davis (IL)
     Davis (TN)
     Davis, Tom
     DeGette
     Delahunt
     DeLauro
     DeLay
     Dicks
     Dingell
     Dooley (CA)
     Doolittle
     Doyle
     Dreier
     Dunn
     Ehlers
     Emerson
     Eshoo
     Etheridge
     Evans
     Everett
     Farr
     Fattah
     Foley
     Ford
     Frank (MA)
     Frelinghuysen
     Frost
     Gallegly
     Garrett (NJ)
     Gephardt
     Gerlach
     Gibbons
     Gilchrest
     Gillmor
     Gonzalez
     Goode
     Goss
     Granger
     Green (TX)
     Green (WI)
     Grijalva
     Gutierrez
     Harman
     Harris
     Hart
     Hastings (WA)
     Hayworth
     Hensarling
     Herger
     Herseth
     Hill
     Hinchey
     Hinojosa
     Hobson
     Hoeffel
     Hoekstra
     Holt
     Honda
     Houghton
     Hoyer
     Hulshof
     Hunter
     Hyde
     Inslee
     Issa
     Istook
     Jackson (IL)
     Jackson-Lee (TX)
     Jefferson
     Jenkins
     John
     Johnson (CT)
     Johnson (IL)
     Johnson, E. B.
     Johnson, Sam
     Jones (OH)
     Kanjorski
     Kaptur
     Keller
     Kelly
     Kennedy (RI)
     Kildee
     Kilpatrick
     Kind
     King (IA)
     Kingston
     Kirk
     Kleczka
     Kline
     Knollenberg
     Kolbe
     LaHood
     Lampson
     Langevin
     Larsen (WA)
     Larson (CT)
     Latham
     LaTourette
     Leach
     Lee
     Levin
     Lewis (CA)
     Lewis (GA)
     Linder
     Lipinski
     Lowey
     Lucas (KY)
     Lucas (OK)
     Lynch
     Maloney
     Marshall
     Matsui
     McCarthy (MO)
     McCarthy (NY)
     McCollum
     McCotter
     McCrery
     McDermott
     McGovern
     McHugh
     McInnis
     McKeon
     Meek (FL)
     Meeks (NY)
     Menendez
     Mica
     Michaud
     Millender-McDonald
     Miller (FL)
     Miller (MI)
     Miller (NC)
     Miller, Gary
     Miller, George
     Mollohan
     Moore
     Moran (VA)
     Murphy
     Murtha
     Musgrave
     Myrick
     Neal (MA)
     Nethercutt
     Neugebauer
     Ney
     Northup
     Nunes
     Nussle
     Obey
     Olver
     Ortiz
     Osborne
     Ose
     Otter
     Oxley
     Pascrell
     Pastor
     Pearce
     Pelosi
     Peterson (PA)
     Pickering
     Pombo
     Pomeroy
     Portman
     Price (NC)
     Pryce (OH)
     Putnam
     Radanovich
     Rangel
     Regula
     Rehberg
     Renzi
     Reyes
     Reynolds
     Rogers (AL)
     Rogers (KY)
     Rogers (MI)
     Ross
     Roybal-Allard
     Ruppersberger
     Ryan (WI)
     Ryun (KS)
     Sabo
     Sanchez, Loretta
     Sanders
     Sandlin
     Saxton
     Schakowsky
     Schiff
     Schrock
     Scott (GA)
     Scott (VA)
     Serrano
     Sessions
     Shadegg
     Shaw
     Shays
     Sherwood
     Shuster
     Simmons
     Simpson
     Skelton
     Slaughter
     Smith (TX)
     Smith (WA)
     Snyder
     Solis
     Spratt
     Stark
     Stupak
     Sullivan
     Tancredo
     Tauscher
     Taylor (NC)
     Terry
     Thomas
     Thompson (CA)
     Thompson (MS)
     Thornberry
     Tiahrt
     Tiberi
     Tierney
     Towns
     Turner (OH)
     Turner (TX)
     Udall (CO)
     Udall (NM)
     Upton
     Van Hollen
     Velazquez
     Visclosky
     Walden (OR)
     Walsh
     Watson
     Watt
     Weldon (FL)
     Weldon (PA)
     Weller
     Whitfield
     Wicker
     Wilson (NM)
     Wilson (SC)
     Wolf
     Wynn
     Young (AK)
     Young (FL)

                             NOT VOTING--10

     Carson (IN)
     Collins
     Cummings
     Deutsch
     Doggett
     Greenwood
     Holden
     Isakson
     Majette
     Quinn

                              {time}  1611

  Messrs. CANTOR, BERRY, CARTER, HOEFFEL, MICHAUD, ALEXANDER, and Ms. 
SLAUGHTER changed their vote from ``aye'' to ``no.''
  Messrs. LEWIS of Kentucky, VITTER, LANTOS, DeMINT, BARRETT of South 
Carolina, LINCOLN DIAZ-BALART of Florida, MARIO DIAZ-BALART of Florida, 
HOSTETTLER, COX, LoBIONDO, MORAN of Kansas, COSTELLO, FERGUSON, BISHOP 
of New York, GINGREY, PAYNE, OWENS, FOSSELLA, Mrs. JO ANN DAVIS of 
Virginia, and Ms. WOOLSEY changed their vote from ``no'' to ``aye.''
  So the amendment was rejected.
  The result of the vote was announced as above recorded.


                 Amendment No. 13 Offered by Mr. Lantos

  The CHAIRMAN. The pending business is the demand for a recorded vote 
on the amendment offered by the gentleman from California (Mr. Lantos) 
on which further proceedings were postponed and on which the noes 
prevailed by voice vote.
  The Clerk will redesignate the amendment.
  The Clerk redesignated the amendment.


                             Recorded Vote

  The CHAIRMAN. A recorded vote has been demanded.
  A recorded vote was ordered.
  The CHAIRMAN. This will be a 5-minute vote.
  The vote was taken by electronic device, and there were--ayes 131, 
noes 287, not voting 15, as follows:

                             [Roll No. 381]

                               AYES--131

     Abercrombie
     Ackerman
     Bachus
     Barrett (SC)
     Beauprez
     Becerra
     Berkley
     Bishop (NY)
     Blumenauer
     Boswell
     Brown (OH)
     Burns
     Burr
     Burton (IN)
     Camp
     Cannon
     Cantor
     Cardin
     Cardoza
     Chabot
     Chandler
     Chocola
     Coble
     Cooper
     Crane
     Crowley
     Davis (AL)
     Davis (TN)
     Deal (GA)
     DeFazio
     Delahunt
     DeLay
     Diaz-Balart, L.
     Diaz-Balart, M.
     Edwards
     Emanuel
     Engel
     Evans
     Everett
     Farr
     Feeney
     Ferguson
     Filner
     Flake
     Fossella
     Frank (MA)
     Frost
     Gingrey
     Goode
     Gordon
     Green (TX)
     Grijalva
     Gutierrez
     Hall
     Hastings (FL)
     Hayes
     Hayworth
     Hoeffel
     Honda
     Hooley (OR)
     Hyde
     Israel
     Jackson-Lee (TX)
     Kennedy (RI)
     Kildee
     Kind
     King (IA)
     King (NY)
     Langevin
     Lantos
     Leach
     LoBiondo
     Lynch
     Markey
     Matheson
     McCarthy (MO)
     McCarthy (NY)
     McCollum
     McNulty
     Meehan
     Moran (KS)
     Murphy
     Musgrave
     Nadler
     Napolitano
     Neal (MA)
     Northup
     Norwood
     Oberstar

[[Page 15853]]


     Otter
     Pallone
     Payne
     Pence
     Peterson (MN)
     Pickering
     Porter
     Pryce (OH)
     Ramstad
     Renzi
     Reynolds
     Rogers (AL)
     Ros-Lehtinen
     Ross
     Royce
     Ryan (WI)
     Sanchez, Linda T.
     Saxton
     Schrock
     Scott (VA)
     Sensenbrenner
     Sherman
     Shuster
     Simpson
     Smith (MI)
     Smith (NJ)
     Souder
     Stearns
     Stupak
     Sullivan
     Sweeney
     Tiahrt
     Tiberi
     Tierney
     Towns
     Udall (NM)
     Waters
     Waxman
     Weiner
     Weller
     Woolsey
     Wu

                               NOES--287

     Aderholt
     Akin
     Alexander
     Allen
     Andrews
     Baca
     Baird
     Baker
     Baldwin
     Ballenger
     Bartlett (MD)
     Barton (TX)
     Bass
     Bell
     Bereuter
     Berman
     Berry
     Biggert
     Bilirakis
     Bishop (GA)
     Bishop (UT)
     Blackburn
     Blunt
     Boehlert
     Boehner
     Bonilla
     Bonner
     Bono
     Boozman
     Boucher
     Boyd
     Bradley (NH)
     Brady (PA)
     Brady (TX)
     Brown (SC)
     Brown, Corrine
     Brown-Waite, Ginny
     Burgess
     Calvert
     Capito
     Capps
     Capuano
     Carson (OK)
     Carter
     Case
     Castle
     Clay
     Clyburn
     Cole
     Costello
     Cox
     Cramer
     Crenshaw
     Cubin
     Culberson
     Cummings
     Cunningham
     Davis (CA)
     Davis (FL)
     Davis (IL)
     Davis, Jo Ann
     Davis, Tom
     DeGette
     DeLauro
     DeMint
     Dicks
     Dingell
     Dooley (CA)
     Doolittle
     Doyle
     Dreier
     Duncan
     Dunn
     Ehlers
     Emerson
     English
     Eshoo
     Etheridge
     Fattah
     Foley
     Forbes
     Ford
     Franks (AZ)
     Frelinghuysen
     Gallegly
     Garrett (NJ)
     Gephardt
     Gerlach
     Gibbons
     Gilchrest
     Gillmor
     Gonzalez
     Goodlatte
     Goss
     Granger
     Graves
     Green (WI)
     Gutknecht
     Harman
     Harris
     Hart
     Hastings (WA)
     Hefley
     Hensarling
     Herger
     Herseth
     Hill
     Hinchey
     Hinojosa
     Hobson
     Hoekstra
     Holt
     Hostettler
     Houghton
     Hoyer
     Hulshof
     Hunter
     Inslee
     Issa
     Istook
     Jackson (IL)
     Jefferson
     Jenkins
     John
     Johnson (CT)
     Johnson (IL)
     Johnson, E. B.
     Johnson, Sam
     Jones (OH)
     Kanjorski
     Kaptur
     Kelly
     Kennedy (MN)
     Kilpatrick
     Kingston
     Kirk
     Kleczka
     Kline
     Knollenberg
     Kolbe
     Kucinich
     LaHood
     Lampson
     Larsen (WA)
     Larson (CT)
     Latham
     LaTourette
     Lee
     Levin
     Lewis (CA)
     Lewis (GA)
     Lewis (KY)
     Linder
     Lipinski
     Lofgren
     Lowey
     Lucas (KY)
     Lucas (OK)
     Maloney
     Manzullo
     Marshall
     Matsui
     McCotter
     McCrery
     McDermott
     McGovern
     McHugh
     McInnis
     McIntyre
     McKeon
     Meek (FL)
     Meeks (NY)
     Menendez
     Mica
     Michaud
     Millender-McDonald
     Miller (FL)
     Miller (MI)
     Miller (NC)
     Miller, Gary
     Miller, George
     Mollohan
     Moore
     Moran (VA)
     Murtha
     Myrick
     Nethercutt
     Neugebauer
     Ney
     Nunes
     Nussle
     Obey
     Olver
     Ortiz
     Osborne
     Ose
     Owens
     Oxley
     Pascrell
     Pastor
     Paul
     Pearce
     Pelosi
     Petri
     Pitts
     Platts
     Pombo
     Pomeroy
     Portman
     Price (NC)
     Putnam
     Radanovich
     Rahall
     Rangel
     Regula
     Rehberg
     Reyes
     Rodriguez
     Rogers (KY)
     Rogers (MI)
     Rohrabacher
     Rothman
     Roybal-Allard
     Ruppersberger
     Rush
     Ryan (OH)
     Ryun (KS)
     Sabo
     Sanchez, Loretta
     Sanders
     Sandlin
     Schakowsky
     Schiff
     Scott (GA)
     Serrano
     Sessions
     Shadegg
     Shaw
     Shays
     Sherwood
     Shimkus
     Simmons
     Skelton
     Slaughter
     Smith (TX)
     Smith (WA)
     Snyder
     Solis
     Spratt
     Stark
     Strickland
     Tancredo
     Tanner
     Tauscher
     Tauzin
     Taylor (MS)
     Taylor (NC)
     Terry
     Thomas
     Thompson (CA)
     Thompson (MS)
     Thornberry
     Toomey
     Turner (OH)
     Turner (TX)
     Udall (CO)
     Upton
     Van Hollen
     Velazquez
     Visclosky
     Vitter
     Walden (OR)
     Walsh
     Wamp
     Watson
     Watt
     Weldon (FL)
     Weldon (PA)
     Wexler
     Whitfield
     Wicker
     Wilson (NM)
     Wilson (SC)
     Wolf
     Wynn
     Young (AK)
     Young (FL)

                             NOT VOTING--15

     Buyer
     Carson (IN)
     Collins
     Conyers
     Deutsch
     Doggett
     Greenwood
     Holden
     Isakson
     Jones (NC)
     Keller
     Majette
     Peterson (PA)
     Quinn
     Stenholm

                              {time}  1619

  Mr. TIAHRT changed his vote from ``no'' to ``aye.''
  Mr. SHAYS and Mr. UDALL of Colorado changed their vote from ``aye'' 
to ``no.''
  So the amendment was rejected.
  The result of the vote was announced as above recorded.


          Amendment No. 11 Offered by Mr. Kennedy of Minnesota

  The CHAIRMAN. The pending business is the demand for a recorded vote 
on the amendment offered by the gentleman from Minnesota (Mr. Kennedy) 
on which further proceedings were postponed and on which the noes 
prevailed by voice vote.
  The Clerk will redesignate the amendment.
  The Clerk redesignated the amendment.


                             Recorded Vote

  The CHAIRMAN. A recorded vote has been demanded.
  A recorded vote was ordered.
  The CHAIRMAN. This will be a 5-minute vote.
  The vote was taken by electronic device, and there were--ayes 133, 
noes 288, not voting 12, as follows:

                             [Roll No. 382]

                               AYES--133

     Abercrombie
     Ackerman
     Akin
     Andrews
     Bachus
     Bartlett (MD)
     Bass
     Becerra
     Berkley
     Berry
     Bilirakis
     Bishop (NY)
     Boehner
     Bradley (NH)
     Burns
     Burr
     Burton (IN)
     Cantor
     Capito
     Cardoza
     Chabot
     Chandler
     Chocola
     Clay
     Coble
     Cox
     Crane
     Cubin
     Cummings
     Deal (GA)
     DeFazio
     Delahunt
     DeMint
     Diaz-Balart, L.
     Diaz-Balart, M.
     Doolittle
     Emanuel
     Emerson
     Engel
     English
     Feeney
     Ferguson
     Filner
     Flake
     Fossella
     Franks (AZ)
     Gallegly
     Garrett (NJ)
     Gibbons
     Gingrey
     Goode
     Goodlatte
     Green (TX)
     Green (WI)
     Gutierrez
     Gutknecht
     Harris
     Hart
     Hayworth
     Hensarling
     Hostettler
     Hulshof
     Inslee
     Israel
     Kennedy (MN)
     Kind
     King (NY)
     Kline
     Kucinich
     Larson (CT)
     LaTourette
     LoBiondo
     Lofgren
     Manzullo
     McCarthy (NY)
     McCotter
     McInnis
     McIntyre
     McNulty
     Mica
     Moore
     Myrick
     Nadler
     Nethercutt
     Neugebauer
     Northup
     Norwood
     Pallone
     Paul
     Pence
     Pickering
     Pitts
     Platts
     Pombo
     Porter
     Ramstad
     Rogers (MI)
     Rohrabacher
     Ros-Lehtinen
     Rothman
     Royce
     Rush
     Ryan (OH)
     Ryan (WI)
     Sanders
     Schrock
     Sensenbrenner
     Sessions
     Shadegg
     Sherman
     Shimkus
     Shuster
     Simmons
     Simpson
     Snyder
     Souder
     Stearns
     Strickland
     Sullivan
     Tancredo
     Tauzin
     Terry
     Thornberry
     Toomey
     Turner (TX)
     Udall (NM)
     Walden (OR)
     Watt
     Weiner
     Weldon (FL)
     Weller
     Woolsey
     Wu

                               NOES--288

     Aderholt
     Alexander
     Allen
     Baca
     Baird
     Baker
     Baldwin
     Ballenger
     Barrett (SC)
     Barton (TX)
     Beauprez
     Bell
     Bereuter
     Berman
     Biggert
     Bishop (GA)
     Bishop (UT)
     Blackburn
     Blumenauer
     Blunt
     Boehlert
     Bonilla
     Bonner
     Bono
     Boozman
     Boswell
     Boucher
     Boyd
     Brady (PA)
     Brady (TX)
     Brown (OH)
     Brown (SC)
     Brown, Corrine
     Brown-Waite, Ginny
     Burgess
     Buyer
     Calvert
     Camp
     Cannon
     Capps
     Capuano
     Cardin
     Carson (OK)
     Carter
     Case
     Castle
     Clyburn
     Cole
     Conyers
     Cooper
     Costello
     Cramer
     Crenshaw
     Crowley
     Culberson
     Cunningham
     Davis (AL)
     Davis (CA)
     Davis (FL)
     Davis (IL)
     Davis (TN)
     Davis, Jo Ann
     Davis, Tom
     DeGette
     DeLauro
     DeLay
     Dicks
     Dingell
     Dooley (CA)
     Doyle
     Dreier
     Duncan
     Dunn
     Edwards
     Ehlers
     Eshoo
     Etheridge
     Evans
     Everett
     Farr
     Fattah
     Foley
     Forbes
     Ford
     Frank (MA)
     Frelinghuysen
     Frost
     Gephardt
     Gerlach
     Gilchrest
     Gillmor
     Gonzalez
     Gordon
     Goss
     Granger
     Graves
     Grijalva
     Hall
     Harman
     Hastings (FL)
     Hastings (WA)
     Hayes
     Hefley
     Herger
     Herseth
     Hill
     Hinchey
     Hinojosa
     Hobson
     Hoeffel
     Hoekstra
     Holt
     Honda
     Hooley (OR)
     Houghton
     Hoyer
     Hunter
     Hyde
     Issa
     Istook
     Jackson (IL)
     Jackson-Lee (TX)
     Jefferson
     Jenkins
     John
     Johnson (CT)
     Johnson (IL)
     Johnson, E. B.
     Johnson, Sam
     Jones (NC)
     Jones (OH)
     Kanjorski
     Kaptur
     Keller
     Kelly
     Kennedy (RI)
     Kildee
     Kilpatrick
     King (IA)
     Kingston
     Kirk
     Kleczka
     Knollenberg
     Kolbe
     LaHood
     Lampson
     Langevin
     Lantos
     Larsen (WA)
     Latham
     Leach
     Lee
     Levin
     Lewis (CA)
     Lewis (GA)
     Lewis (KY)
     Linder
     Lipinski
     Lowey
     Lucas (KY)
     Lucas (OK)
     Lynch
     Maloney
     Markey
     Marshall
     Matheson
     Matsui
     McCarthy (MO)
     McCollum
     McCrery
     McDermott
     McGovern
     McHugh
     McKeon
     Meehan
     Meek (FL)
     Meeks (NY)
     Menendez
     Michaud
     Millender-McDonald
     Miller (FL)
     Miller (MI)
     Miller (NC)
     Miller, Gary
     Miller, George
     Mollohan
     Moran (KS)
     Moran (VA)
     Murphy
     Murtha
     Musgrave
     Napolitano
     Neal (MA)
     Ney
     Nunes
     Nussle
     Oberstar
     Obey
     Olver
     Ortiz
     Osborne
     Ose
     Otter
     Owens
     Oxley
     Pascrell
     Pastor
     Payne
     Pearce
     Pelosi
     Peterson (MN)
     Petri
     Pomeroy
     Portman
     Price (NC)
     Pryce (OH)

[[Page 15854]]


     Putnam
     Radanovich
     Rahall
     Rangel
     Regula
     Rehberg
     Renzi
     Reyes
     Reynolds
     Rodriguez
     Rogers (AL)
     Rogers (KY)
     Ross
     Roybal-Allard
     Ruppersberger
     Ryun (KS)
     Sabo
     Sanchez, Linda T.
     Sanchez, Loretta
     Sandlin
     Saxton
     Schakowsky
     Schiff
     Scott (GA)
     Scott (VA)
     Serrano
     Shaw
     Shays
     Sherwood
     Skelton
     Slaughter
     Smith (MI)
     Smith (NJ)
     Smith (TX)
     Smith (WA)
     Solis
     Spratt
     Stark
     Stupak
     Sweeney
     Tanner
     Tauscher
     Taylor (MS)
     Taylor (NC)
     Thomas
     Thompson (CA)
     Thompson (MS)
     Tiahrt
     Tiberi
     Tierney
     Towns
     Turner (OH)
     Udall (CO)
     Upton
     Van Hollen
     Velazquez
     Visclosky
     Vitter
     Walsh
     Wamp
     Watson
     Waxman
     Weldon (PA)
     Wexler
     Whitfield
     Wicker
     Wilson (NM)
     Wilson (SC)
     Wolf
     Wynn
     Young (AK)
     Young (FL)

                             NOT VOTING--12

     Carson (IN)
     Collins
     Deutsch
     Doggett
     Greenwood
     Holden
     Isakson
     Majette
     Peterson (PA)
     Quinn
     Stenholm
     Waters

                              {time}  1627

  Mr. ROSS changed his vote from ``aye'' to ``no.''
  So the amendment was rejected.
  The result of the vote was announced as above recorded.


                  Amendment No. 17 Offered by Mr. Paul

  The CHAIRMAN. The pending business is the demand for a recorded vote 
on the amendment offered by the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Paul) on 
which further proceedings were postponed and on which the noes 
prevailed by voice vote.
  The Clerk will redesignate the amendment.
  The Clerk redesignated the amendment.


                             Recorded Vote

  The CHAIRMAN. A recorded vote has been demanded.
  A recorded vote was ordered.
  The CHAIRMAN. This will be a 5-minute vote.
  The vote was taken by electronic device, and there were--ayes 41, 
noes 379, not voting 13, as follows:

                             [Roll No. 383]

                                AYES--41

     Bartlett (MD)
     Burgess
     Chabot
     Coble
     Cox
     Davis, Jo Ann
     Duncan
     Everett
     Feeney
     Flake
     Franks (AZ)
     Garrett (NJ)
     Gibbons
     Goode
     Goodlatte
     Graves
     Hayes
     Hefley
     Hostettler
     Jones (NC)
     Keller
     King (IA)
     Kingston
     Kucinich
     McInnis
     Miller (FL)
     Miller, Gary
     Moran (KS)
     Musgrave
     Otter
     Paul
     Peterson (MN)
     Pombo
     Rahall
     Royce
     Shuster
     Smith (MI)
     Tancredo
     Taylor (MS)
     Toomey
     Wamp

                               NOES--379

     Abercrombie
     Ackerman
     Aderholt
     Akin
     Alexander
     Allen
     Andrews
     Baca
     Bachus
     Baird
     Baker
     Baldwin
     Ballenger
     Barrett (SC)
     Barton (TX)
     Bass
     Beauprez
     Becerra
     Bell
     Bereuter
     Berkley
     Berman
     Berry
     Biggert
     Bilirakis
     Bishop (GA)
     Bishop (NY)
     Bishop (UT)
     Blackburn
     Blumenauer
     Blunt
     Boehlert
     Boehner
     Bonilla
     Bonner
     Bono
     Boozman
     Boswell
     Boucher
     Boyd
     Bradley (NH)
     Brady (PA)
     Brady (TX)
     Brown (OH)
     Brown (SC)
     Brown, Corrine
     Brown-Waite, Ginny
     Burns
     Burr
     Burton (IN)
     Buyer
     Calvert
     Camp
     Cannon
     Cantor
     Capito
     Capps
     Capuano
     Cardin
     Cardoza
     Carson (OK)
     Carter
     Case
     Castle
     Chandler
     Chocola
     Clay
     Clyburn
     Cole
     Conyers
     Cooper
     Costello
     Cramer
     Crane
     Crenshaw
     Crowley
     Cubin
     Culberson
     Cummings
     Cunningham
     Davis (AL)
     Davis (CA)
     Davis (FL)
     Davis (IL)
     Davis (TN)
     Davis, Tom
     Deal (GA)
     DeFazio
     DeGette
     Delahunt
     DeLauro
     DeLay
     DeMint
     Diaz-Balart, L.
     Diaz-Balart, M.
     Dicks
     Dingell
     Dooley (CA)
     Doolittle
     Doyle
     Dreier
     Dunn
     Edwards
     Ehlers
     Emanuel
     Emerson
     Engel
     English
     Eshoo
     Etheridge
     Evans
     Farr
     Fattah
     Ferguson
     Filner
     Foley
     Forbes
     Ford
     Fossella
     Frank (MA)
     Frelinghuysen
     Frost
     Gallegly
     Gephardt
     Gerlach
     Gilchrest
     Gillmor
     Gingrey
     Gonzalez
     Gordon
     Goss
     Granger
     Green (TX)
     Green (WI)
     Grijalva
     Gutierrez
     Gutknecht
     Hall
     Harman
     Harris
     Hart
     Hastings (FL)
     Hastings (WA)
     Hayworth
     Hensarling
     Herger
     Herseth
     Hill
     Hinchey
     Hinojosa
     Hobson
     Hoeffel
     Hoekstra
     Holt
     Honda
     Hooley (OR)
     Houghton
     Hoyer
     Hulshof
     Hunter
     Hyde
     Inslee
     Israel
     Issa
     Jackson (IL)
     Jackson-Lee (TX)
     Jefferson
     Jenkins
     John
     Johnson (CT)
     Johnson (IL)
     Johnson, E. B.
     Johnson, Sam
     Jones (OH)
     Kanjorski
     Kaptur
     Kelly
     Kennedy (MN)
     Kennedy (RI)
     Kildee
     Kilpatrick
     Kind
     King (NY)
     Kirk
     Kleczka
     Kline
     Knollenberg
     Kolbe
     LaHood
     Lampson
     Langevin
     Larsen (WA)
     Larson (CT)
     Latham
     LaTourette
     Leach
     Lee
     Levin
     Lewis (CA)
     Lewis (GA)
     Lewis (KY)
     Linder
     Lipinski
     LoBiondo
     Lofgren
     Lowey
     Lucas (KY)
     Lucas (OK)
     Lynch
     Maloney
     Manzullo
     Markey
     Marshall
     Matheson
     Matsui
     McCarthy (MO)
     McCarthy (NY)
     McCollum
     McCotter
     McCrery
     McDermott
     McGovern
     McHugh
     McIntyre
     McKeon
     McNulty
     Meehan
     Meek (FL)
     Meeks (NY)
     Menendez
     Mica
     Michaud
     Millender-McDonald
     Miller (MI)
     Miller (NC)
     Miller, George
     Mollohan
     Moore
     Moran (VA)
     Murphy
     Murtha
     Myrick
     Nadler
     Napolitano
     Neal (MA)
     Nethercutt
     Neugebauer
     Ney
     Northup
     Norwood
     Nunes
     Nussle
     Oberstar
     Obey
     Olver
     Ortiz
     Osborne
     Ose
     Owens
     Oxley
     Pallone
     Pascrell
     Pastor
     Payne
     Pearce
     Pelosi
     Pence
     Petri
     Pickering
     Pitts
     Platts
     Pomeroy
     Porter
     Portman
     Price (NC)
     Pryce (OH)
     Putnam
     Radanovich
     Ramstad
     Rangel
     Regula
     Rehberg
     Renzi
     Reyes
     Reynolds
     Rodriguez
     Rogers (AL)
     Rogers (KY)
     Rogers (MI)
     Rohrabacher
     Ros-Lehtinen
     Ross
     Rothman
     Roybal-Allard
     Ruppersberger
     Rush
     Ryan (OH)
     Ryan (WI)
     Ryun (KS)
     Sabo
     Sanchez, Linda T.
     Sanchez, Loretta
     Sanders
     Sandlin
     Saxton
     Schakowsky
     Schiff
     Schrock
     Scott (GA)
     Scott (VA)
     Sensenbrenner
     Serrano
     Sessions
     Shadegg
     Shaw
     Shays
     Sherman
     Sherwood
     Shimkus
     Simmons
     Simpson
     Skelton
     Slaughter
     Smith (NJ)
     Smith (TX)
     Smith (WA)
     Snyder
     Solis
     Souder
     Spratt
     Stark
     Stearns
     Strickland
     Stupak
     Sullivan
     Sweeney
     Tanner
     Tauscher
     Tauzin
     Taylor (NC)
     Terry
     Thomas
     Thompson (CA)
     Thompson (MS)
     Thornberry
     Tiahrt
     Tiberi
     Tierney
     Towns
     Turner (OH)
     Turner (TX)
     Udall (CO)
     Udall (NM)
     Upton
     Van Hollen
     Velazquez
     Visclosky
     Vitter
     Walden (OR)
     Walsh
     Waters
     Watson
     Watt
     Waxman
     Weiner
     Weldon (FL)
     Weldon (PA)
     Weller
     Wexler
     Whitfield
     Wicker
     Wilson (NM)
     Wilson (SC)
     Wolf
     Woolsey
     Wu
     Wynn
     Young (AK)
     Young (FL)

                             NOT VOTING--13

     Carson (IN)
     Collins
     Deutsch
     Doggett
     Greenwood
     Holden
     Isakson
     Istook
     Lantos
     Majette
     Peterson (PA)
     Quinn
     Stenholm


                      Announcement by the Chairman

  The CHAIRMAN (during the vote). Members are advised 2 minutes remain 
in this vote.

                              {time}  1635

  Mr. BURGESS changed his vote from ``no'' to ``aye.''
  So the amendment was rejected.
  The result of the vote was announced as above recorded.


                          personal explanation

  Mr. HOLDEN. Mr. Chairman, earlier today I missed several votes so 
that I could travel back to Pennsylvania to survey damage from a 
tornado strike yesterday afternoon in my Congressional District.
  I respectfully request the Record to reflect that, had I been 
present, I would have voted:
  ``Yea'' on rollcall vote 377 on agreeing to House Resolution 615;
  ``Yea'' on rollcall vote 378 on agreeing to House Resolution 713;
  ``Yea'' on rollcall vote 379 on agreeing to House Concurrent 
Resolution 462;
  ``No'' on rollcall vote 380 on agreeing to the Sherman amendment to 
H.R. 4818;
  ``No'' on rollcall vote 381 on agreeing to the Lantos amendment to 
H.R. 4818;
  ``No'' on rollcall vote 382 on agreeing to the Kennedy (of Minnesota) 
amendment to H.R. 4818; and
  ``No'' on rollcall vote 383 on agreeing to the Paul amendment to H.R. 
4818.
  Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the last word.
  Mr. Chairman, I take this time to simply point out to the Members 
that by the calculation of the majority, a calculation with which I 
concur, that if everyone entitled to offer amendments uses the full 
time available to them under the unanimous consent agreement, we will 
finish voting sometime around 11 o'clock tonight. If Members would like 
another outcome, I would ask them to see whether or not they can assist 
us in limiting the time taken by Members on some of these amendments, 
if Members would like to get out of here before 11 o'clock.

[[Page 15855]]




               Amendment No. 12 Offered by Ms. Kilpatrick

  Ms. KILPATRICK. Mr. Chairman, I offer an amendment.
  The CHAIRMAN. The Clerk will designate the amendment.
  The text of the amendment is as follows:

       Amendment No. 12 offered by Ms. Kilpatrick:
       At the end of the bill (before the short title), insert the 
     following:


                        limitation on contracts

       Sec. __. None of the funds made available under this Act 
     may be used to fund any contract in contravention of section 
     8(d)(6) of the Small Business Act (15 U.S.C. 637(d)(6)).

  The CHAIRMAN. Pursuant to the order of the House of today, the 
gentlewoman from Michigan (Ms. Kilpatrick) and a Member opposed each 
will control 5 minutes.
  The Chair recognizes the gentlewoman from Michigan (Ms. Kilpatrick).
  Ms. KILPATRICK. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may 
consume.
  I first want to thank our chairman, the gentleman from Arizona (Mr. 
Kolbe), as well as our ranking member, the gentlewoman from New York 
(Mrs. Lowey), for working with us as we put together what we consider 
the best bill under the circumstances of our 302(b) allocation.
  The amendment before us deals with small businesses in America. 
Currently, the procedure of the Federal Government is that they work 
with small businesses to get them into the procurement process so that 
they can grow their business and hire the people of America. This 
amendment today that will be a part of the Foreign Operations bill, and 
my chairman has accepted it, and I thank him very much, and I know that 
he will protect it as it goes through the process, will allow the small 
businesses of America to also procure government contracts for the 
international assistance that we give.
  I recently met with my truck and bus owners and those who do parts on 
those buses and trucks, and what they said to me was they need 
assistance in getting some of the foreign contracts where we are buying 
trucks and buses and the like. This is an attempt to help those 
businesses and other small businesses in America who can and will 
assist as we rebuild communities around the world.
  Mr. Chairman, I yield such time as she may consume to the gentlewoman 
from New York (Ms. Velazquez), the ranking member on the Committee on 
Small Business.
  Ms. VELAZQUEZ. Mr. Chairman, I would like to take this opportunity to 
thank the gentlewoman from Michigan (Ms. Kilpatrick) and for yielding 
me this time.
  Mr. Chairman, today we are considering the $19 billion Foreign 
Operations appropriation bill. Billions of dollars of this funding will 
be spent on Federal contracts performed overseas. This amendment 
ensures that U.S. small businesses have an opportunity to compete for 
this work.
  Large contractors in the United States are currently required to 
submit subcontracting plans for work performed in the United States. 
These plans must simply identify small business goals and demonstrate 
that small companies have a reasonable opportunity to compete for these 
subcontracts. The Kilpatrick amendment merely extends this requirement 
to overseas contracts.
  I cannot overstate the important role of small businesses in our 
economy. Whether domestic projects or overseas work, our Nation's small 
businesses deserve access to Federal contract opportunities. The 
Kilpatrick amendment eliminates these double standards and gives United 
States small businesses a chance to compete.
  Mr. Chairman, this amendment, a similar amendment like this was 
included in last year's appropriation bill, only to see it stripped out 
in conference. I hope that this is not the case this year. I urge its 
adoption.
  Ms. KILPATRICK. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may 
consume.
  We do believe that the gentleman from Arizona (Chairman Kolbe) and 
the gentlewoman from New York (Mrs. Lowey) will protect the amendment. 
It is a stimulant that our small businesses need so that they can grow 
their businesses and hire more of our American citizens as well as 
refund their lost taxes from local communities around the country.
  With that, I again would like to thank the gentleman from Arizona 
(Chairman Kolbe) and the gentlewoman from New York (Mrs. Lowey).
  Mr. Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time.
  Mr. KOLBE. Mr. Chairman, I rise to claim the time in opposition, and 
I do not rise in opposition to it. I think we all support the promotion 
of small business. We certainly need to have small enterprises get a 
fair shot at getting contracts and getting every business opportunity. 
And one of the things we have been pushing through AID is to do more 
with small businesses, both here and abroad.
  The agency says that it has been essentially following the 
requirements of the proposed amendment now; and since it does simply 
restate current law, and in the interest of expediting business here in 
the House, I would accept this amendment and ask that we review it in 
conference. So I am prepared to vote right now.
  Mr. Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time.
  The CHAIRMAN. The question is on the amendment offered by the 
gentlewoman from Michigan (Ms. Kilpatrick).
  The amendment was agreed to.


                     Amendment Offered by Mr. Buyer

  Mr. BUYER. Mr. Chairman, I offer an amendment.
  The CHAIRMAN. The Clerk will designate the amendment.
  The text of the amendment is as follows:

       Amendment offered by Mr. Buyer:
       At the end of the bill (before the short title), insert the 
     following:


prohibition on use of funds to request the united nations to assess the 
               validity of elections in the united states

       Sec. __. None of the funds made available in this Act may 
     be used by any official of the United States Government to 
     request the United Nations to assess the validity of 
     elections in the United States.

  The CHAIRMAN. Pursuant to the order of the House of today, the 
gentleman from Indiana (Mr. Buyer) and a Member opposed each will 
control 10 minutes.
  Mrs. LOWEY. Mr. Chairman, I rise to claim the time in opposition.
  The CHAIRMAN. The gentlewoman will be recognized.
  The Chair recognizes the gentleman from Indiana (Mr. Buyer) for 10 
minutes.
  Mr. BUYER. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
  My amendment seeks to end any possible form of manipulation of our 
elections in November. Article I of section 4 of the Constitution 
specifies that elections, including those for Federal offices in the 
United States, will be conducted by the States and the Congress, and 
the States and the Congress can only regulate and oversee the electoral 
process in this country.
  For over 200 years this Nation has conducted elections fairly and 
impartially, ensuring that each person's vote will count. When problems 
have arisen over the years, by Constitution, authority was granted to 
Congress and the States to address them, and we have.
  Congress passed the Voting Rights Act in 1965, and we have 
subsequently amended that act over the years. Just this last Congress, 
we enacted the Help America Vote Act to strengthen the election 
process.
  Recently, nearly a dozen Members of this House have written United 
Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan requesting ``to have election 
observers to monitor the Presidential election in the United States'' 
on November 2.
  I suppose that through this letter, Members of this body were 
suggesting that we, the United States, need help, that the States 
cannot ensure the integrity of the election process and, therefore, we 
need the United Nations monitors to look over our shoulders to make 
sure we do it right in the United States.
  Now, if my colleagues can imagine on Election Day, you get up, you 
have your breakfast, you grab your coffee

[[Page 15856]]

and your Danish, and you are going to go to the voting booth. When you 
show up, you are curious because you see a white van out there that 
says the U.N. beside it and little blue helmets. The United Nations has 
arrived; we are going to ensure the integrity of the American electoral 
process.
  The United Nations has sent monitors to Haiti, Nicaragua, Angola, 
Mozambique, and now what, the United States? I do not think so.
  This request by Democratic Members to have the U.N. supervise United 
States elections is rather foolish, nonsense, and silly. If anybody 
wants to come here to learn how to conduct a proper election, let them 
come to the United States. We are happy to teach anybody the 
foundations of our Republic and democratic values.
  This amendment prohibits Federal executive officials from asking the 
United Nations to come in and have any authority of our election 
process to assess the validity of the United States Federal elections. 
The authority to ensure the integrity of the United States elections 
rests with the States and the Congress by constitutional authority, and 
this amendment merely seeks to keep it that way.
  Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mrs. LOWEY. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from 
Florida (Mr. Hastings).
  Mr. HASTINGS of Florida. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentlewoman from 
New York for yielding me this time.
  I would say to my friend, and he is my friend, that I think he is 
very wrong in offering this particular measure. We in the United States 
go all over the world telling people about free and fair elections and 
about transparency in that regard. I, along with other Members of this 
Congress, have traveled throughout the world monitoring elections on 
behalf of a variety of organizations that do not necessarily come under 
the aegis of the United Nations.
  I would say to the gentleman, I was last week elected as president of 
the Organization For Security and Cooperation in Europe. That 
organization is one of the lead organizations in the world on election 
monitoring. Members from this body under the aegis of that body have 
gone to the Ukraine, to Belarus. Soon we will be going to Kazakhstan. I 
have gone to Russia.

                              {time}  1645

  I was welcomed, when Russians awakened on that morning and had their 
Danish and their coffee, at the election polling place; and, 
surprisingly, I found that a great deal fairer in some respects than 
what I saw in my own county when you were there in 2000. I suggest that 
if one were not there for any other reason other than to observe an 
election, it would be foolhardy for us to not take into consideration 
the importance of encouraging free and fair and transparent elections, 
and what better way than to tell the world we are wide open for your 
peerage into the freest and fairest system in the world.
  Mr. Chairman, I yield back and am prepared at the appropriate time to 
yield to additional Members.
  Mr. BUYER. Mr. Chairman, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Ohio 
(Mr. Ney).
  Mr. NEY. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for yielding me this 
time.
  I rise today in strong support of the Buyer amendment. It saddens me, 
Mr. Chairman, that some members of the body seem to think that we need 
the U.N. election monitors here in the United States. I was pleased to 
work with the Members on both sides of the aisle to secure passage of 
the Help America Vote Act, which passed overwhelmingly in the previous 
Congress. That bill is being implemented today as we speak and is 
addressing many of the problems referenced in the letter to the U.N.
  Three billion dollars have already been provided and been 
appropriated pursuant to the bill, which provides for better voting 
machines, better registration systems and for more poll worker 
training. I have faith in the commissioners of the EAC Elections 
Commission to carry this out.
  Mr. Chairman, the U.N. has its hands full helping countries around 
the world that have problems far beyond anything we have experienced 
here in the U.S. For example, just a few weeks ago in Afghanistan, 
Taliban forces determined to prevent the onset of democracy in that 
country killed 16 Afghans, simply because they had voter registration 
cards.
  In India, Reuters reports that militants in Kashmir set off mines and 
fired at polling stations as voting began to elect a new parliament, 
killing at least seven people and wounding dozens.
  In Myanmar, separatist guerrillas killed four soldiers, burned 
electoral rolls and destroyed voting machines.
  In Turkey, a candidate for village headman was gunned down and others 
injured.
  Clearly, Mr. Chairman, the problems in other parts of the world far 
surpass anything we face in this country. The U.N. needs to focus its 
attention on situations like these where people cannot even register to 
vote without fear of being killed.
  Of course, one of the biggest hurdles facing the U.N. election 
monitors will be assisting and setting up the framework for democratic 
elections in Iraq.
  Mr. Chairman, I am glad the U.N. is helping other countries with 
their elections, and I hope they will continue to do so. We do not need 
them here in the United States, however.
  I thank the gentleman from Indiana for offering the amendment, and I 
strongly support its adoption.
  Mrs. LOWEY. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from 
Maryland (Mr. Cummings), the distinguished chair of the Black Caucus.
  Mr. CUMMINGS. Mr. Chairman, I heard the gentleman from Indiana (Mr. 
Buyer) say we say that we need to end possible core manipulations with 
regard to our elections. The gentleman from Indiana (Mr. Buyer) may not 
be familiar, although he visited Florida right after the 2000 
catastrophe, where so many African-American people and so many others 
were not allowed to vote, and their votes were simply not counted.
  Our last speaker talked about how the U.N. had all this work to do 
all around the world. Let me tell you something. This is a democracy in 
the United States. The way this democracy is built, it is built upon 
the individual's right to vote and to have that vote counted, and 
basically that is what did not happen in Florida and in other places.
  I would submit to you that this is not a Republican issue. This is 
not a Democratic issue. This is a red, white and blue issue. I cannot 
figure out anything that could be more important than making sure that 
every single person in your district and in my district have that right 
to vote and have that vote counted.
  I do believe that if the gentleman, the sponsor of this amendment, 
were to have one of his constituents to come and say, ``Mr. Buyer, I 
could not vote for you,'' I believe that you would tear down walls, 
build bridges, do everything you could to make sure that that person 
could vote.
  Just this weekend when I was down in Miami, there was a headline in 
the Miami Herald talking about things that Jeb Bush is doing or had 
tried to do to stop folk from being able to have their votes cast and 
counted. And so the beat goes on.
  That is why the gentleman thinks the Congressional Black Caucus likes 
coming and saying that we want monitoring? We want to make sure that 
all of our constituents have their vote.
  So it is not about manipulation. It is about integrity in this 
system. That is what it is all about. We want to make sure that another 
person is not selected but elected.
  Mr. BUYER. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
  The Miami Herald report, when they did their analysis and actually 
looked at the Civil Rights Commission, stated that in fact that report 
was overstated. They also in the Miami Herald's report analyzed and 
said there was no widespread evidence of what the gentleman just said 
in the well.
  In fact, the evidence points just the opposite, that the election in 
Florida, the officials were mostly permissive, not obstructionists when 
unregistered voters presented themselves; and, in

[[Page 15857]]

fact, during the 18 months of litigation that followed the election of 
2000, only two people in the State of Florida testified that they were 
not able to vote.
  Now, of the 176,000 votes that were discarded ballots in the State of 
Florida, there were 65,000 that were undervotes, meaning people who 
went to vote, but they did not vote in the Presidential column. They 
voted for maybe State rep or State senator or for sheriff, but they did 
not vote for President. Then there were 111,000 that were overvotes.
  Yes, when I was in Florida, yes, I saw thousands of ballots whereby 
people actually in the Presidential column, for one reason or another, 
decided that they would forget the one person, one vote. What they 
actually did was vote for three, four, five, six, seven people in the 
Presidential column. So, by their own hand, they spoiled their very own 
ballots.
  Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mrs. LOWEY. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from 
Maryland (Mr. Hoyer), our distinguished leader.
  Mr. HOYER. Mr. Chairman, when President Bush was campaigning for 
office, he said that if we were humble and treated our allies and other 
nations with respect, that they would relate well to us.
  I chaired the Helsinki Commission of this Congress from 1985 to 1995 
and have served as the ranking member until this past year when I 
became the whip. I will tell my friend from Indiana, I went to country 
after country after country and said to them, you need to accept 
election monitors, because you need to ensure that the world is 
confident that your elections are honest and aboveboard.
  I will tell my friend from Indiana that I believe America's elections 
will be aboveboard, but our Nation, I tell my friend from Indiana, 
ought to be too big, too confident, too proud to say to somebody, you 
cannot come to the United States and see for yourself. Because if we 
ask of others that they accept monitors, are we too proud, too 
arrogant, too self-satisfied to say to the world, but you cannot come 
to America, the freest, most open, most democratic land on the face of 
the earth?
  I say to my friend from Indiana, I hope my colleagues reject this 
amendment, not because as some here will assert there is wrongdoing in 
America but because America ought to be proud to invite all of the 
world to come to America and see how democracy works.
  Do we make mistakes? We do. But are we proud of our democracy? We 
are.
  Come to America. See us act. See our democracy. Be proud.
  Mr. BUYER. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 20 seconds, and I would just 
say to the gentleman, please do not mischaracterize the amendment. I 
agree with you. We welcome people to come to this country to observe. 
What this amendment says, we do not believe that the United Nations 
should be here to assess the validity of the United States election 
process as monitors.
  Mr. Chairman, I yield such time as he may consume to the gentleman 
from Arizona (Mr. Kolbe).
  Mr. KOLBE. Mr. Chairman, I will not even take the 60 seconds. It 
seems to me there is a lot of misconceptions about this amendment here. 
Yes, we do welcome observers to our elections. We welcome people coming 
into this country. We have thousands of them come in every year. We 
invite them to come. They come under various plans, journalists, 
politicians, all kinds of people, who look at elections at the local 
level, at the State level, at the national level at our conventions. I 
have hosted those people in my district on election day, on primary 
day, on general election day. We should want those people to come here.
  What we are talking about is whether we have people come here that 
have some kind of official capacity to determine the validity of our 
elections. We have a uniquely, unlike most other countries which have 
national elections, a National Elections Supervisory Board. Ours are so 
scattered. Every State has the responsibility for determining the 
elections.
  So it would not be possible or not be wise to do that, and that is 
why this amendment is a very simple amendment that makes sense. Yes, 
come and observe, but you are not going to be here to determine the 
validity of the elections.
  Mrs. LOWEY. Mr. Chairman, I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentlewoman 
from Texas (Ms. Eddie Bernice Johnson).
  Ms. EDDIE BERNICE JOHNSON of Texas. Mr. Chairman, let me first 
acknowledge the work that the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Hoyer) and 
the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Ney) did on the election reform bill the 
last session. I was there every day attempting to help make it pass, 
but it has not been implemented. Forty-one States have asked to 
implement it in 2006; and then 27, including some of those, have asked 
to get a waiver. So we have not improved.
  We had observers in Florida in November of 2002 requested by the 
Secretary of State. They came from Russia, Bosnia, Switzerland, United 
Kingdom and somewhere else; and we go all over the world observing 
elections. Why cannot we follow the same rules we insist on the world 
following? We write the rules. We enforce them everywhere but here. We 
want a fair election that is transparent, and we have not experienced 
it the last 4 years.
  We are tired of making sure we vote and the votes do not get counted 
or getting intimidated to keep from voting. If we cannot do that as a 
democracy, we have no democracy. This is the very foundation of a 
democracy.
  The first amendment right to freedom of speech, that is an expression 
of who they want in office, and they did not get the last one that was 
elected.
  Mr. BUYER. Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from 
Georgia (Mr. Kingston).
  Mr. KINGSTON. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for yielding me 
this time and wanted to stand in support of the Buyer amendment and say 
also I support this for two reasons.
  Number one, I am very uncomfortable with the U.N., regardless of what 
their intentions could be. It is a political body. They are very, very 
anti-American and I think very ineffective. Just look at their record 
on human rights, their record on peace around the world, the records on 
democracy. The U.N. would not be who you want to come in and straighten 
out a problem.
  Secondly, let us go under the assumption there was a problem and what 
did we do about it. One thing to remember, and I went down to Florida. 
Twenty-five of the counties in Florida that had the highest percentage 
of vote spoilage, or they were accused of it, how many were controlled 
by a Republican? Zero. All of the 25 had Democrat chief election 
officials.
  Now, as a Republican who was asked to go down there and monitor the 
recount, I was expecting the worst. I went in there, as I know the 
gentleman from Florida (Mr. Hastings) did, and we sat in kind of 
bleachers and watched Theresa LePore and Judge Burton, two of the 
Democrats. Ironically, I forget the Republican's name. And they would 
hold the ballots up and look at the chads.
  I expected the worst, but I want to say to my Democrat friends, they 
did the right thing. They were looking it in the eye. They were 
resisting all the political pressure from the outside. They were 
running Palm Beach and Broward and Dade County the way it should be 
run, on a local level. The Democrats were doing it, and the Democrats I 
think were doing a doggone good job. I went back and told my friends, 
you know what, that process is fair.
  Key point being is we handled the problem, we handled it locally. We 
do not need a lot of outsiders from the U.N. to come in.
  Mrs. LOWEY. Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the gentlewoman from 
California (Ms. Watson).

                              {time}  1700

  Ms. WATSON. We need observing. I observed the election in 2000 from 
Micronesia. I was ashamed. I was embarrassed because I had to go out 
and interpret what had happened. I did not find those elections to be 
free or fair. The spaghetti ballot, the hanging chad,

[[Page 15858]]

and the Supreme Court's decision, cutting off the counting of votes, so 
the person who had the largest number of votes did not win. And so we 
need the world to see how our elections are run because Florida 
cheated, and we are not going to allow it to cheat again.
  The CHAIRMAN. The gentleman from Indiana (Mr. Buyer) has 45 seconds 
remaining. The gentlewoman from New York (Mrs. Lowey) has 1\1/2\ 
minutes remaining.
  Mr. BUYER. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
  I would say to the gentlewoman who spoke, who used the word 
``cheating,'' I hope she would choose another word because she is 
definitely impugning the integrity of a lot of her Democratic 
colleagues in the State of Florida who supervised the election.
  Number two, I think I must infer from that sense of outrage I am 
hearing from the other side that you are just as concerned about the 
systemic design to disenfranchise the absentee military vote, which I 
hope you are just as outraged about. But what this amendment is about 
is we welcome America to observe the integrity of our electoral 
process. We do not ask, though, for the United Nations to come as 
monitors at our polling stations in this country. That is what this 
amendment is about.
  Mr. Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time.
  Mrs. LOWEY. Mr. Chairman, I yield 30 seconds to the gentlewoman from 
New York (Mrs. Maloney).
  Mrs. MALONEY. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentlewoman for yielding me 
time and for her leadership on so many issues.
  What in the world are we worried about? If we have nothing to hide, 
then we should not have any concern whatsoever. Yet, today's New York 
Times in their article on the front page cites ``election troubles 
already descending on Florida.''
  I truly expect that our elections will be well maintained and done in 
an honest and fair way, but no American should be ashamed or scared to 
have our democratic system observed and monitored by an international 
agency if voters are truly not being dis-
enfranchised in the United States.
  We have all served as monitors elsewhere. Why not have the same 
standard in our own country?

                [From the New York Times, July 15, 2004]

            Election Troubles Already Descending on Florida

                          (By Abby Goodnough)

       Miami, July 14.--Three years after Gov. Jeb Bush announced 
     a new voting system that he called ``a model for the rest of 
     the nation,'' Florida is grappling with some of the same 
     problems that threw the 2000 presidential election into 
     chaos, as well as new ones that critics say could cause even 
     more confusion this November.
       The touch-screen voting machines intended to cure many of 
     the ills of 2000 have raised a host of other concerns here 
     just four months before the election. A new state rule 
     excludes the machines from manual recounts, and the integrity 
     of the machines was questioned after a problem was discovered 
     in the audit process of some of them. Voting rights groups 
     filed a lawsuit last week challenging the recount ban, and a 
     Democratic congressman has also sued to request a printed 
     record of every touch-screen vote.
       The controversy over the new equipment is just one of 
     Florida's challenges, which also include confirming which 
     voters are ineligible, training poll workers on new policies 
     and processing a flood of new registrations.
       State officials announced on Saturday that they would throw 
     out a controversial list used to remove felons from the 
     voting rolls, acknowledging that Hispanic felons were absent 
     from the list. Secretary of State Glenda E. Hood, appointed 
     by Governor Bush last year, had earlier dismissed concerns 
     from lawmakers and advocacy groups about the list of 48,000 
     suspected felons, which the state made public only after a 
     judge's order.
       The United States Civil Rights Commission, which issued a 
     scathing report on the last election here in 2001, will 
     examine problems with the list of felons in a hearing 
     Thursday in Washington.
       ``The most important thing is to really show the voters 
     that there are reasons to have confidence in these systems,'' 
     said Bobbie Brinegar, president of the League of Women Voters 
     of Miami-Dade County. ``But the mantra has been `trust us.' 
     And that is not good enough.''
       Jacob DiPietro, a spokesman for Governor Bush, said the 
     governor was ``taking full responsibility'' for the problem 
     with the list, adding: ``His No. 1 priority is to have a 
     seamless election and an election where people have 
     confidence that their vote will be counted.''
       The state, whose 36-day recount after the 2000 election 
     stunned and divided the nation, is expected to be a major 
     battleground again this year, with President Bush (the 
     governor's brother) and Senator John Kerry, his probable 
     Democratic opponent, fighting fiercely for its 27 electoral 
     votes. Mr. Bush won Florida by 537 votes last time, but 
     thousands of votes were discarded because of voter error on 
     poorly designed ballots and other problems.
       The Republican-led Legislature quickly passed an overhaul 
     of the voting system in 2001, banning the punch-card ballots 
     that caused so much trouble in 2000, giving counties money 
     for new voting equipment and setting recount guidelines. It 
     adopted two-thirds of the recommendations from a bipartisan 
     task force that Governor Bush appointed after the 2000 
     election, but stayed away from some of the more contentious 
     issues.
       Most notably, lawmakers passed over recommendations to make 
     the positions of county elections supervisors nonpartisan and 
     to review the state's policy of permanently stripping felons 
     of voting rights. The package that the Legislature adopted 
     has played a role in the new turmoil. Tucked into the law was 
     a provision keeping registration records secret. A state 
     judge struck it down on July 2, opening the way for a close 
     examination of the list of suspected felons to purge from the 
     rolls.
       Newspapers then reported that the list had a simple but 
     glaring flaw: it guaranteed that no Hispanics, who tend to 
     vote Republican here, would be purged, while thousands of 
     blacks, who tend to vote Democratic, might be purged. 
     Governor Bush moved quickly to drop it, but he was too late 
     to avoid accusations from Democratic lawmakers and groups. 
     The critics have denounced the effort to keep the list 
     secret, the touch-screen problems and other troubles as 
     purposeful efforts by Florida's Republican leadership to give 
     President Bush an advantage here.
       Unlike her predecessor Katherine Harris, who was co-
     chairwoman of President Bush's 2000 campaign in Florida even 
     as she oversaw elections, Ms. Hood has publicly stayed away 
     from politics. But critics say that Ms. Hood, a Republican 
     and former Orlando mayor whom Governor Bush appointed, has 
     sown doubt by dismissing criticism of the electoral system 
     and by not answering questions sufficiently.
       The abrupt resignation of Ed Kast, the state's director of 
     elections, last month--he said he wanted to pursue other 
     interests--only deepened public distrust, said Sandy Wayland, 
     a member of the Miami-Dade Elections Reform Coalition.
       While previous secretaries of state were elected, Ms. Hood 
     was the first appointed by the governor, the result of a 2003 
     change in the State Constitution. She reports to Governor 
     Bush, who is therefore more directly responsible for her 
     office's successes and failures.
       ``She is dealing with some really sophisticated, aggressive 
     partisans,'' said Lance deHaven-Smith, a political science 
     professor at Florida State University, speaking of the Jeb 
     Bush administration. ``She has been a good soldier, getting 
     up and saying, `Everything is fine, not to worry.' And come 
     to find out, some of the problems that people feared were 
     actually there.''
       The coalition asked Ms. Hood's office last month to allow 
     an independent review of the touch-screen machines now used 
     by 15 of 67 counties, including Miami-Dade, Broward and Palm 
     Beach. The office said that only counties were authorized to 
     seek such audits, and told reporters that the request was an 
     effort to undermine voter confidence.
       Through a public-records request, the coalition obtained e-
     mail messages and other documents from Miami-Date election 
     officials who referred to a flaw in the touch-screen 
     equipment's ability to audit elections results, a backup way 
     of recording votes. The e-mail messages date back as far as 
     June 2003.
       Constance Kaplan, the Miami-Dade County elections 
     supervisor, publicly acknowledged the problem this spring. 
     This month, the company that makes the machines, Elections 
     Systems and Software, provided software to correct the flaw, 
     which the county and state say will not affect the machines' 
     accuracy.
       ``It is important to note that the anomaly was rare, and 
     all votes were counted as the anomaly did not affect the vote 
     itself but rather the audit after,'' Ms. Hood's office wrote 
     in a statement Tuesday.
       Nicole de Lara, Ms. Hood's communications director, said 
     that Ms. Kaplan's office had ``unfortunately'' not alerted 
     Ms. Hood to the problem, and that she first learned of it 
     from an article in The Daily Business Review in late May. 
     Some critics suspect that Mr. Kast's resignation was related 
     to the malfunction, but Mr. Kast said in an interview it was 
     not.
       Ms. Wayland is among many here who contend that counties 
     like Miami-Dade and Broward adopted touch-screen technology 
     too soon, swayed by aggressive lobbyists. The 52 counties 
     that do not use touch-screen equipment use optional-scan 
     machines,

[[Page 15859]]

     which produce records that can be manually recounted.
       A recent analysis by The Sun-Sentinel found that touch-
     screen machines in South Florida failed to record votes eight 
     times more often than optical-scan machines in the March 
     presidential primary.
       Nonetheless, Ms. de Lara said touch-screen machines were 
     wholly reliable for tabulating votes. She added that they 
     would never require a recount because under State law the 
     only reason for a manual recount is ``voter intent'' when a 
     voter makes too many or too few choices. Touch-screen 
     machines do not allow people to vote for more than one 
     candidate, she said. And if people do not choose any 
     candidate for a given office, that is their prerogative, she 
     said.
       The rule says no manual recounts will be conducted when 
     votes are cast by touch-screen machine.
       The election reform coalition and other groups have also 
     expressed concerns about a new policy on provisional ballots, 
     used by Floridians if poll workers cannot verify their 
     registration on the spot. The Legislature decided that 
     provisional ballots cast outside a voter's home precinct can 
     be thrown out, which voting-rights groups call unfair.
       Florida is one of several States where people are 
     questioning touch-screen technology. California's Secretary 
     of State, Kevin Shelley, has prohibited the use of machines 
     from Diebold Election Systems in four counties for the 
     November election, and has ordered that touch-screen systems 
     bought after July 1, 2005, produce a paper record that is 
     verifiable by the voter.
       ``There's no question in my mind that ultimately there will 
     be paper trails in every county in Florida,'' said 
     Representative Robert Wexler, a Florida Democrat whose suits 
     challenging paperless voting systems are on appeal. ``The 
     only question is when.''

  Mrs. LOWEY. Mr. Chairman, I yield 30 seconds to the gentlewoman from 
Texas (Ms. Jackson-Lee).
  Ms. JACKSON-LEE of Texas. Mr. Speaker, for those of us who were here 
in this House on January 6, 2001, to challenge the election, this is, I 
guess, a matter of urgency. Monitoring elections is not punishment, it 
only helps our democracy. This is not a punishment. This is to say to 
all of the people, thousands who did not have their vote counted in 
2000, that we care and this country is a democracy. Sweet land of 
liberty, that is what we know America to be. And no one should be 
ashamed or afraid, including the United States military, to have 
international monitors. All of us will demand that all votes are 
counted, civilians and the military. None of us should be afraid to 
have our election system scrutinized. Again, it is not a punishment, it 
is only to provide for a consistent, fair election. It is for the 
protection of the democracy that we believe in.
  The CHAIRMAN. The gentlewoman from New York (Mrs. Lowey) has 30 
seconds remaining.
  Mrs. LOWEY. Mr. Chairman, I yield 30 seconds to the gentlewoman from 
Florida (Ms. Corrine Brown).
  Ms. CORRINE BROWN of Florida. Mr. Chairman, I want to turn in a copy 
of the Certified Vote Organization. Over 1,700 people, that is 
technologists, lawyers, political scientists, says that the technology 
that we are using in the upcoming election is flawed.
  I come from Florida * * * No, we are not going to get over it. And we 
want verification from the world.
  Mr. BUYER. Mr. Chairman, I ask the gentlewoman's words be taken down. 
She said that ``you stole an election.''
  The CHAIRMAN. All Members will suspend.
  The gentleman from Indiana (Mr. Buyer) asked that the gentlewoman's 
words be taken down.
  The Clerk will report the words.
  In the meantime, all Members will cease from conversation. The 
gentlewoman will be seated.

                              {time}  1715

  The CHAIRMAN. The Clerk will report the words objected to.
  The Clerk read as follows:

       I come from Florida where you and others participated in 
     what I call the United States coup d'etat. We need to make 
     sure that it does not happen again. Over and over again, 
     after the election, when you stole the election, you came 
     back here and said get over it.

  The CHAIRMAN. The Committee will rise.
  Accordingly, the Committee rose; and the Speaker pro tempore (Mr. 
Ose) having assumed the chair, Mr. Thornberry, Chairman of the 
Committee of the Whole House on the State of the Union, reported that 
that Committee, had under consideration the bill (H.R. 4818) making 
appropriations for foreign operations, export financing, and related 
programs for the fiscal year ending September 30, 2005, and for other 
purposes, when certain words used in debate were objected to and on 
request were taken down and read at the Clerk's desk, and he herewith 
reported the same to the House.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Clerk will report the words objected to.
  The Clerk read as follows:

       I come from Florida where you and others participated in 
     what I call the United States coup d'etat. We need to make 
     sure that it does not happen again. Over and over again, 
     after the election, when you stole the election, you came 
     back here and said get over it.

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. As stated by the Chair in response to a 
parliamentary inquiry on February 27, 1985, Members should not accuse 
other Members of committing a crime, such as ``stealing'' an election. 
By accusing an identifiable Member of stealing an election, the 
gentlewoman's words are not in order.
  Ms. CORRINE BROWN of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I appeal the ruling of the 
chair. I ask unanimous consent to clarify my words.
  Mr. BUYER. I object.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Objection is heard.

                              {time}  1730

  Ms. CORRINE BROWN of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I appeal the ruling of the 
Chair.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Ose). The question is: Shall the 
decision of the Chair stand as the judgment of the House?


                  Motion to Table Offered by Mr. Buyer

  Mr. BUYER. Mr. Speaker, I move to lay the appeal on the table.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The question is on the motion offered by the 
gentleman from Indiana (Mr. Buyer) to lay on the table the appeal of 
the ruling of the Chair.
  The question was taken; and the Speaker pro tempore announced that 
the ayes appeared to have it.


                             Recorded Vote

  Ms. CORRINE BROWN of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I demand a recorded vote.
  A recorded vote was ordered.
  The vote was taken by electronic device, and there were--ayes 219, 
noes 187, not voting 28, as follows:

                             [Roll No. 384]

                               AYES--219

     Aderholt
     Akin
     Bachus
     Baker
     Ballenger
     Barrett (SC)
     Bartlett (MD)
     Barton (TX)
     Bass
     Beauprez
     Bereuter
     Biggert
     Bilirakis
     Bishop (UT)
     Blackburn
     Blunt
     Boehlert
     Boehner
     Bonilla
     Bonner
     Bono
     Boozman
     Bradley (NH)
     Brady (TX)
     Brown (SC)
     Brown-Waite, Ginny
     Burgess
     Burns
     Burr
     Burton (IN)
     Buyer
     Calvert
     Camp
     Cannon
     Cantor
     Capito
     Carter
     Castle
     Chabot
     Chocola
     Coble
     Cole
     Cox
     Crane
     Crenshaw
     Cubin
     Culberson
     Cunningham
     Davis, Jo Ann
     Davis, Tom
     Deal (GA)
     DeLay
     Diaz-Balart, L.
     Diaz-Balart, M.
     Doolittle
     Dreier
     Duncan
     Dunn
     Ehlers
     Emerson
     English
     Everett
     Feeney
     Ferguson
     Flake
     Foley
     Forbes
     Fossella
     Franks (AZ)
     Frelinghuysen
     Gallegly
     Garrett (NJ)
     Gerlach
     Gibbons
     Gilchrest
     Gillmor
     Gingrey
     Goode
     Goodlatte
     Goss
     Granger
     Graves
     Green (WI)
     Gutknecht
     Hall
     Harris
     Hart
     Hastert
     Hastings (WA)
     Hayworth
     Hefley
     Hensarling
     Herger
     Hobson
     Hoekstra
     Hostettler
     Hulshof
     Hunter
     Hyde
     Issa
     Istook
     Jenkins
     Johnson (CT)
     Johnson (IL)
     Johnson, Sam
     Jones (NC)
     Keller
     Kelly
     Kennedy (MN)
     King (IA)
     King (NY)
     Kingston
     Kirk
     Kline
     Knollenberg
     Kolbe
     LaHood
     Latham
     LaTourette
     Leach
     Lewis (CA)
     Lewis (KY)
     Linder
     LoBiondo
     Lucas (OK)
     Manzullo
     McCotter
     McCrery
     McHugh
     McKeon
     Mica
     Miller (FL)
     Miller (MI)
     Miller, Gary
     Moran (KS)
     Murphy
     Musgrave
     Myrick
     Nethercutt
     Neugebauer
     Ney
     Northup
     Norwood
     Nunes
     Nussle
     Osborne
     Ose
     Otter
     Oxley
     Pearce
     Pence
     Peterson (PA)
     Petri
     Pickering
     Pitts
     Platts
     Pombo
     Porter
     Portman
     Pryce (OH)
     Putnam
     Radanovich
     Ramstad
     Regula
     Rehberg
     Renzi
     Reynolds
     Rogers (AL)
     Rogers (KY)
     Rogers (MI)
     Rohrabacher
     Ros-Lehtinen
     Royce

[[Page 15860]]


     Ryan (WI)
     Ryun (KS)
     Saxton
     Schrock
     Sensenbrenner
     Sessions
     Shadegg
     Shaw
     Shays
     Sherwood
     Shimkus
     Shuster
     Simmons
     Simpson
     Smith (MI)
     Smith (NJ)
     Smith (TX)
     Souder
     Stearns
     Sullivan
     Sweeney
     Tancredo
     Tauzin
     Taylor (NC)
     Terry
     Thomas
     Thornberry
     Tiahrt
     Tiberi
     Toomey
     Turner (OH)
     Upton
     Vitter
     Walden (OR)
     Walsh
     Wamp
     Weldon (FL)
     Weldon (PA)
     Weller
     Whitfield
     Wicker
     Wilson (NM)
     Wilson (SC)
     Wolf
     Young (AK)
     Young (FL)

                               NOES--187

     Abercrombie
     Ackerman
     Allen
     Andrews
     Baca
     Baird
     Baldwin
     Becerra
     Berkley
     Berman
     Berry
     Bishop (GA)
     Bishop (NY)
     Blumenauer
     Boswell
     Boyd
     Brady (PA)
     Brown, Corrine
     Capps
     Capuano
     Cardin
     Cardoza
     Carson (OK)
     Case
     Chandler
     Clay
     Clyburn
     Conyers
     Cooper
     Costello
     Cramer
     Crowley
     Cummings
     Davis (AL)
     Davis (CA)
     Davis (FL)
     Davis (IL)
     DeFazio
     DeGette
     Delahunt
     DeLauro
     Dicks
     Dingell
     Doyle
     Edwards
     Emanuel
     Engel
     Eshoo
     Etheridge
     Evans
     Farr
     Fattah
     Filner
     Frank (MA)
     Frost
     Gonzalez
     Gordon
     Green (TX)
     Grijalva
     Gutierrez
     Harman
     Hastings (FL)
     Herseth
     Hill
     Hinchey
     Hinojosa
     Hoeffel
     Holden
     Holt
     Honda
     Hooley (OR)
     Hoyer
     Inslee
     Israel
     Jackson (IL)
     Jackson-Lee (TX)
     Jefferson
     John
     Johnson, E. B.
     Jones (OH)
     Kanjorski
     Kaptur
     Kennedy (RI)
     Kildee
     Kilpatrick
     Kleczka
     Kucinich
     Lampson
     Langevin
     Lantos
     Larsen (WA)
     Larson (CT)
     Lee
     Levin
     Lewis (GA)
     Lipinski
     Lofgren
     Lowey
     Lucas (KY)
     Lynch
     Maloney
     Markey
     Marshall
     Matheson
     Matsui
     McCarthy (NY)
     McCollum
     McDermott
     McGovern
     McIntyre
     McNulty
     Meehan
     Meek (FL)
     Menendez
     Michaud
     Millender-McDonald
     Miller (NC)
     Miller, George
     Mollohan
     Moore
     Moran (VA)
     Murtha
     Nadler
     Napolitano
     Neal (MA)
     Oberstar
     Obey
     Olver
     Ortiz
     Owens
     Pallone
     Pascrell
     Pastor
     Payne
     Pelosi
     Pomeroy
     Price (NC)
     Rahall
     Rangel
     Reyes
     Rodriguez
     Ross
     Rothman
     Ruppersberger
     Rush
     Ryan (OH)
     Sabo
     Sanchez, Linda T.
     Sanchez, Loretta
     Sanders
     Sandlin
     Schakowsky
     Schiff
     Scott (GA)
     Scott (VA)
     Serrano
     Sherman
     Skelton
     Slaughter
     Smith (WA)
     Snyder
     Solis
     Spratt
     Stark
     Strickland
     Stupak
     Tanner
     Tauscher
     Taylor (MS)
     Thompson (CA)
     Thompson (MS)
     Tierney
     Towns
     Turner (TX)
     Udall (CO)
     Udall (NM)
     Van Hollen
     Velazquez
     Visclosky
     Waters
     Watson
     Watt
     Weiner
     Wexler
     Woolsey
     Wu
     Wynn

                             NOT VOTING--28

     Alexander
     Bell
     Boucher
     Brown (OH)
     Carson (IN)
     Collins
     Davis (TN)
     DeMint
     Deutsch
     Doggett
     Dooley (CA)
     Ford
     Gephardt
     Greenwood
     Hayes
     Houghton
     Isakson
     Kind
     Majette
     McCarthy (MO)
     McInnis
     Meeks (NY)
     Paul
     Peterson (MN)
     Quinn
     Roybal-Allard
     Stenholm
     Waxman

                              {time}  1814

  Mr. BISHOP of New York and Mr. LIPINSKI changed their vote from 
``aye'' to ``no.''
  Messrs. PICKERING, LEWIS of California, THOMAS, and BURR changed 
their vote from ``no'' to ``aye.''
  So the motion to table was agreed to.
  The result of the vote was announced as above recorded.
  Ms. McCARTHY of Missouri. Mr. Speaker, during rollcall vote No. 384, 
tabling the appeal of the ruling of the Chair, I was unavoidably 
detained. Had I been present, I would have voted ``no''.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Ose). Without objection, the words are 
stricken from the Record.
  There was no objection.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Without objection, the gentlewoman may 
proceed in order this day.
  There was no objection.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Committee will resume its sitting.
  Accordingly, the House resolved itself into the Committee of the 
Whole House on the State of the Union for the further consideration of 
the bill, H.R. 4818, with Mr. Thornberry in the chair.
  The Clerk read the title of the bill.
  The CHAIRMAN. When the Committee of the Whole rose earlier today, all 
time for debate on the amendment offered by the gentleman from Indiana 
(Mr. Buyer) had expired.
  The question is on the amendment offered by the gentleman from 
Indiana (Mr. Buyer).
  The question was taken; and the Chairman announced that the ayes 
appeared to have it.
  Mr. BUYER. Mr. Chairman, I demand a recorded vote.
  The CHAIRMAN. Pursuant to clause 6 of rule XVIII, further proceedings 
on the amendment offered by the gentleman from Indiana (Mr. Buyer) will 
be postponed.


                  Amendment No. 9 Offered by Mr. Farr

  Mr. FARR. Mr. Chairman, I offer an amendment.
  The CHAIRMAN. The Clerk will designate the amendment.
  The text of the amendment is as follows:

       Amendment No. 9 offered by Mr. Farr:
       At the end (before the short title), add the following:
       


              united states military personnel in colombia

       Sec. __. None of the funds made available in this Act may 
     be made available for the assignment of any United States 
     military personnel for temporary or permanent duty in 
     Colombia if that assignment would cause the number of United 
     States military personnel so assigned to exceed 550.

  The CHAIRMAN. Pursuant to the order of the House of today, the 
gentleman from California (Mr. Farr) and a Member opposed each will 
control 20 minutes.
  The gentleman from California (Mr. Farr) is recognized for 20 
minutes.
  Mr. FARR of California. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I 
may consume.
  Mr. Chairman, I want to thank the gentleman from Arizona (Chairman 
Kolbe) and the ranking member, the gentlewoman from New York (Mrs. 
Lowey), for the opportunity to debate an important topic on foreign aid 
to Colombia under the Plan Colombia.
  The amendment that I am going to offer today would cap the military 
personnel in Colombia. The gentleman from Arizona (Chairman Kolbe) 
knows how much Colombia means to me as a former Peace Corps volunteer 
in that country, and I would like to debate this issue with my 
colleagues here on the floor.
  In the original Plan Colombia, Congress placed caps on the number of 
personnel that would be allowed in Colombia, U.S. military personnel 
and U.S. civilian personnel. Those caps were put in place to prevent 
the growth of the U.S. military commitment in Colombia. I became very 
concerned when I heard the administration had asked Congress to 
increase the manpower caps in Colombia to 800 U.S. military personnel 
and 600 contractors.
  It has been pointed out to Congress just last week by General Richard 
Cody, who told the House Committee on Armed Services that the recent 
troop deployments in Iraq have taken a toll on U.S. readiness to deploy 
elsewhere and even to replace troops currently deployed in U.S.-led 
military combat in Iraq and in Afghanistan. To quote General Cody, ``We 
are stretched thin with our active and reserve component forces right 
now. Absolutely.'' Yet the administration wants to double the number of 
troops allowed under the manpower caps from 400 to 800.
  Even General Hill of SOUTHCOM recently said before the Committee on 
Government Reform that rebuilding the social and economic system is 
needed in order to solve the problems in Colombia.
  But today the administration has been calling Members' offices to ask 
them to oppose the Farr-Schakowsky-McGovern amendment, because the 
administration is dead set on working to expand the military aid, not 
the economic aid to Colombia.
  After 5 years of spending almost $4 billion on Plan Colombia, is it 
not time that we reassess our policy? The Committee on Armed Services 
did that. The gentleman from Mississippi (Mr. Taylor) is to be 
commended for his work on the Committee on Armed Services, because he 
was able to get a reasonable ceiling on U.S. personnel in Colombia. He 
got bipartisan support and amended the defense bill to do just that. I 
am asking the same in the foreign ops bill.
  Mr. Chairman, I yield 3 minutes to the gentlewoman from Illinois (Ms. 
Schakowsky)

[[Page 15861]]


  Ms. SCHAKOWSKY. Mr. Chairman, I rise in strong support of the Farr-
Schakowsky-McGovern amendment. This amendment simply puts the House on 
record in support of language that the House has already agreed to as 
part of the defense authorization bill, and it is consistent with the 
Committee on Appropriation's report language on troop levels in 
Colombia.
  The amendment allows for funds to support an increase in the number 
of U.S. military personnel in Colombia but continues the practice of 
this Congress to limit that number. The amendment allows for the 
current cap of 400 U.S. military personnel allowed in Colombia to be 
raised by 150, for a total of 550.
  Mr. Speaker, when Plan Colombia was first presented during the 106th 
Congress, we were told it was strictly for the purpose of 
counternarcotics. In order to ensure that would be the case, the House 
placed strict prohibitions on funds being used for purposes other than 
counternarcotics.
  Since enactment of Plan Colombia, the policy has changed. Now, as 
many of us have warned, the Bush administration is seeking to increase 
military involvement by the United States in Colombia. The 
administration wants to double the number of U.S. soldiers that are 
permitted to be deployed to Colombia.
  This House placed caps on the number of U.S. troops in Colombia for a 
reason, and we should stick to the caps. We have provided $3 billion to 
Colombia over the last several years. This bill seeks to provide over 
$700 million for the Andean Region, including Colombia, and now we are 
being asked to commit more of our Nation's sons and daughters to the 
violence in Colombia.
  Make no mistake, this is no longer a counternarcotics mission, and it 
is not a fight against terrorism that has anything to do with 9/11. It 
is a war, and sending more troops to Colombia means risking the lives 
of more Americans.
  My colleagues on the other side of this argument seem to see no limit 
to what is an acceptable cap on U.S. investment in Colombia in terms of 
dollars and lives. As justification, they seem comfortable to toss 
around terms like the ``war on drugs'' and ``fighting terrorism'' 
without really discussing what that means and what the implications are 
for our country.
  Despite our investments in Colombia so far, there have been no 
improvements in the overall problem of drug consumption in this 
country, and there has been no reduction in the violence in Colombia.
  I have seen firsthand what a beautiful country Colombia is. I have 
met people from all sectors of Colombian society and traveled 
throughout Colombia. It is a wonderful nation but one in the midst of a 
civil war.
  I believe what the Colombian people want and need from the United 
States is support to help improve the lives of its people. Sending 
troops will not accomplish that goal. If we allow the administration to 
double the number of U.S. troops in Colombia this year, what will next 
year's request look like?
  We have heard from numerous military and civilian experts about the 
strains being placed on our Armed Forces as a result of the military 
conflict in Afghanistan and Iraq and additional homeland security 
needs. Instead of sending another 400 of our service personnel to 
Colombia, we should look for ways to ease the burden on our forces.
  Vote to affirm the House-passed defense authorization and in support 
of the Committee on Appropriations. Support the Farr-Schakowsky-
McGovern amendment.
  Mr. KOLBE. Mr. Chairman, I rise in opposition to the amendment.
  The CHAIRMAN. The gentleman from Arizona (Mr. Kolbe) is recognized 
for 20 minutes.
  Mr. KOLBE. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
  Mr. Chairman, I do rise in opposition to this amendment, which would 
limit the number of U.S. military and contractor personnel in Colombia. 
While I certainly can and would debate this on policy grounds, let me 
instead debate it on process, which I think is just as important here. 
This is an issue, and Members ought to know this, being currently 
decided in conference by the House and Senate Committee on Armed 
Services.
  Permanent law limits the number of U.S. military and contractor 
personnel in Colombia to 400 each. That was enacted in the fiscal year 
2002 foreign operations appropriations bill. The House Committee on 
Armed Services in their 2005 defense authorization bill included an 
increase in the number of military personnel to 500 and left the cap of 
400 on contractor personnel. The Senate included in their bill an 
increase in military personnel to 800 and contractor personnel to 600, 
as the administration requested. Then on the floor of the other body, 
an amendment to limit these increases failed by a 40 to 58 vote.
  This Committee was consulted by the administration on the personnel 
cap increase, and the House leadership decided that the authorizers 
would take the lead, which I think is appropriate.
  The number of personnel in Colombia ought to be an issue of 
authorization. We provide the funds, but they should decide how many 
personnel may be in that country.
  While my colleague may say this will allow the United States to get 
more deeply involved in Colombia, if one looks at the appropriation 
levels, that is not true. The Andean Counterdrug Initiative is 
streamlined from last year's $731 million.
  So a vote in favor of this amendment would put this subcommittee 
right in the middle of the conference negotiations between the Armed 
Services Committees. I do not think we should be in that position.
  Let me say a word on policy. Until recently, the agencies involved 
were able to work comfortably within the ceilings. The increased pace 
of implementation for all the programs we support being undertaken by 
the Uribe Administration offers an opportunity for real progress. The 
current cap levels have recently come to hurt management efficiency and 
planning and prevent full implementation of programs.
  The average number of U.S. military and U.S. civilian contractors has 
grown as programs have been fully implemented or as new programs have 
started, such as the anti-kidnapping program started with the 
supplemental funds we appropriated last year.
  During 2003, the number of U.S. military varied from 128 to 396; that 
of civilian contractors from 246 to 400. Requirements in our bill 
requiring human rights vetting and the prohibition on combat will be 
maintained.
  Let me just say, in conclusion, that we have had some significant 
achievements in our efforts to eradicate coca in Colombia. Cultivation 
has been reduced by 21 percent in the last year on top of 15 percent in 
the year 2002. We have reduced potential production of cocaine by over 
20 percent. The number of communities that have voluntarily and 
manually eradicated cocaine is over 8,000 hectares in the year 2003.
  So these are some of the reasons, but we will hear more in a little 
bit, why we ought to not support this amendment. I urge my colleagues 
not to do so.
  Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. FARR. Mr. Chairman, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from 
Michigan (Mr. Stupak).
  Mr. STUPAK. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for yielding me time.
  I support the Farr amendment and would like to take this opportunity 
to raise another equally important and related issue.
  Colombia is a nation that has been embroiled in a 40-year civil war. 
Despite this fact, as Members of Congress we must seriously question 
Colombia's commitment to winning that fight. I say this because, 
currently, Colombian law excludes from their military draft individuals 
who are high school graduates. In other words, if you graduate from 
high school in Colombia, you do not have to serve in their military.
  Colombia is sending its least fortunate citizens off to fight its 
civil war, but it is unwilling to require the sons and daughters of the 
elite to fight. If the elite, educated Colombians will not send their 
sons and daughters to fight in their own civil war, why should

[[Page 15862]]

American troops be sent to Colombia in their place?
  Every year we hear that this issue is being addressed by the 
Colombian government, but over and over again, fact remains, it has not 
been corrected, and every year we get an increase for more and more 
U.S. troops to fight in that civil war.
  The Bush administration is willing to involve more U.S. men and women 
in Colombia's civil war, while the elite of Colombia society is 
protected from military service. This administration now wants to 
increase the troops to 800 people, exposing more of our young men and 
women to harm.
  Colombia needs to reform its conscription laws to make military 
service universal and fair. It needs to change its laws to do away with 
the existing discriminatory practices and create a universal military 
service obligation without distinction for economic, social or 
education conditions.
  The Bush administration wants an open policy to send as many military 
troops and contractors to fight in Colombia's 40 year civil war, while 
Colombia's elite has exempted itself from military service. We should 
not be involved in Colombia's civil war at all.
  At a time when our military is already stretched thin in Iraq and 
Afghanistan, the Bush administration should not be sending yet more 
American troops overseas to fight in a war that well-off Colombians 
seem unwilling to fight for. I ask and urge our Members to support the 
Farr amendment and limit the U.S. involvement in this unjust civil war 
in Colombia.
  Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Mr. Chairman, I yield 3 minutes to the very 
distinguished gentleman from California (Mr. Ose).
  Mr. OSE. Mr. Chairman, I rise in opposition to the amendment.
  It is interesting, the United States does a lot of things around the 
world. Some things we do very well, some things we do so-so, and some 
things we do not do very well. But it seems to me, curiously, that in a 
political body our history is that those things we do very well, we end 
up saying, ``Well, let's stop doing it.'' Those things we do so-so, we 
just kind of hold back. And those things we do very poorly, we end up 
saying, ``Let's throw more money at it.''

                              {time}  1830

  Well, I would share with the folks of this body that what we are 
doing in Colombia under Plan Colombia and have been doing under Plan 
Colombia for the last few years is working. We are helping a democracy 
in the Western Hemisphere get on its feet and protect its institutions 
with a minimum of investment.
  Yes, we have spent $3 billion or $4 billion. Yes, we are going up 
incrementally, a very little bit, to 800 military personnel or as many 
as 600 civilian contractors under what is being discussed in the 
conference committee. But the net result, I say to my colleagues, is 
very positive. Let me just share a little with my colleagues.
  Colombia, which has been a home for significant disruption in civil 
society over the past decade, let alone the 40 years that the gentleman 
from Michigan (Mr. Stupak) reported, homicides this year are down 16 
percent from last year in the first 4 months of the year. Massacre 
events have dropped from 34 in the first 4 months of last year to 20 
this year. Kidnappings have dropped from 820 to 447. Highway robberies 
have dropped from 445 to 336. Vehicle thefts have dropped from 4,859 to 
3,489.
  Mr. Chairman, the assistance we are giving our friends in Colombia is 
working. We are helping them protect their institutions and their civil 
society from encroachment by criminals and terrorists. It is absolutely 
important that we finish this job, that we help our friends protect 
their democratic institutions and come join us in the Western 
Hemisphere as a fully functioning democracy.
  Now, I would just add that our efforts are not limited to law 
enforcement or military. We are also down in the despeje, helping the 
folks who used to do coca production learn other crops and 
alternatives. We are in there with the justice training, helping their 
justice system set up courts that function so that people have due 
process, so that we have fair trials. We are in there with USAID 
helping folks rebuild their country.
  Now is not the time to pull the plug. Now is the time to pay 
attention to the effectiveness that we have clearly implemented in 
Colombia under Plan Colombia and move incrementally to improve their 
prospects.
  Mr. FARR. Mr. Chairman, I yield 4\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from 
Massachusetts (Mr. McGovern).
  Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Chairman, I rise in support of the Farr-Schakowsky-
McGovern amendment.
  Mr. Chairman, this is an amendment about America, about us, and about 
the pressures placed on our uniformed men and women serving in the 
Armed Forces. In effect, this amendment matches what the House has 
already approved in the Defense authorization bill. In this sense, it 
is a conforming amendment. Everyone in this House knows that America's 
troops are stretched dangerously thin. Every day, there is a story in 
one of the major papers about the stresses facing American troops as 
more are deployed to Iraq, Afghanistan, and elsewhere around the world. 
We are diverting troops from South Korea to Iraq, and we are placing 
burdens on our Guard and Reservists just to give some small amount of 
relief to our regular military units before they are redeployed into 
combat once again.
  Faced with these tremendous strains, the administration has come 
forward and asked Congress to double the number of troops in Colombia, 
offering no more compelling a rationale than Colombia needs more of our 
men and women for their civil war.
  The Farr amendment, like the Taylor provision in the Defense 
authorization bill, offers a prudent alternative: provide a modest 
increase of 150 more troops, give the U.S. military in Colombia a bit 
more flexibility and relief, retain the private contractor cap at 400, 
and evaluate our global military situation over the next 12 months.
  I do not want any Member of this House to be fooled. This latest bid 
to raise the military troop cap will not be the last. The 
administration has assured Congress repeatedly that no increase to the 
troop cap would be necessary; yet, now their story has changed. Will it 
change again in another year or two? Let us refresh our memories on 
what the administration has told Congress about the current troop cap.
  On April 4, 2001, General Peter Pace, commander of the U.S. Southern 
Command said, ``That troop cap, sir, is well within the limits that I 
need to do the job that I have been given, and I support it.''
  On October 4, 2002, Brigadier General Galen Jackman, J-3 Chief of 
Operations at the U.S. Southern Command testified, ``We have a 400-
person military cap in Colombia. We do not envision that that is going 
to change. Typically, we have maybe a couple of hundred people in the 
country at any given time.''
  On March 7, 2003, Mark Grossman, the Under Secretary of State for 
Political Affairs stated, ``There are caps on the number of people who 
can be in Colombia at any one time, and there is no one who is 
advocating the breaking of those caps.''
  And on August 19, 2003, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld 
declared, ``I think it would be unlikely to be anything that would 
break that cap.''
  Mr. Chairman, when Plan Colombia was first launched and American 
troops first sent down to Colombia, Congress was told we were only 
going to fight the drug trade. Then we were asked to commit our troops 
to fight not only a drug war, but to join the campaign in a 
counterterrorist, a counterinsurgency civil war. Now we are being asked 
to double the number of our soldiers, boots on the ground in Colombia. 
There is a term for what is happening in Colombia. It is called 
``mission creep.''
  Mr. Chairman, Congress was right 4 years ago to impose military 
personnel caps in Colombia. It was a smart and prudent safeguard 
against any rapid escalation of U.S. involvement in Colombia's internal 
armed conflict. We did the right thing then. The Farr-

[[Page 15863]]

Schakowsky-McGovern amendment is the right thing to do now.
  I urge my colleagues to support this amendment on U.S. troop caps in 
Colombia.
  Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Mr. Chairman, may I inquire as to the time 
remaining on both sides?
  The CHAIRMAN. The gentleman from Florida has 13\1/2\ minutes 
remaining; the gentleman from California (Mr. Farr) has 7 minutes 
remaining.
  Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Mr. Chairman, I yield 5 minutes to the 
distinguished gentleman from Indiana (Mr. Souder).
  Mr. SOUDER. Mr. Chairman, I do not believe this is mission creep, 
this is more like Mission Success. But I want to say first before I get 
into it, and I appreciate that the gentleman from California has agreed 
to withdraw his amendment, as I have tremendous respect for the 
gentleman from California who has truly been committed to Colombia, who 
was in the Peace Corps in Colombia, and has worked through many of 
these problems. And the gentleman from Massachusetts has shown, through 
his personal visits to Colombia in a repeated way and in different 
areas that he is truly and deeply concerned, as is the gentlewoman from 
Illinois.
  I think it is important that even when we have deep differences of 
philosophy on how to approach narcotics, how to approach things like 
sending our troops overseas, that we treat each other with respect here 
in this body and it is very important, even in these most contentious 
times, that we try to do that here; and we all need to work towards 
that. But we do have some disagreements.
  First, the reason I say that I believe it is Mission Success is that 
one way we measure this is whether we have succeeded in reducing the 
massacres which have gone down this year compared to last year by 41 
percent, massacre victims by 55 percent, kid-
nappings by 46 percent, executive kidnappings by 60 percent, illegal 
roadblocks by 66 percent, roadblock kidnappings by 61 percent, bank 
robberies by 66 percent; in addition to the statistics we are getting 
on cocaine and heroin seizures which are substantially up, but which 
often, as we all know are fungible, because it seems like we always 
discover more but, in fact, at this point, we cannot even find in 
organized areas big plots of heroin, which has been a growing problem. 
They have moved it into higher altitudes; and, quite frankly, we did 
not understand how hard it was going to be to continue to make the 
reductions. Similar in coca. They have reconfigured. We are making 
progress. We believe we are at a critical tipping point.
  We have an administration in Colombia that has finally understood a 
basic point, not only about the DMZ, but about going after, in a 
repeated way, the coca growers.
  I am a strong supporter, as the gentleman from California knows, of 
alternative development. We have met down in Colombia with leaders 
there and understand unless we can rebuild their justice system, it is 
the oldest democracy in South America, but unless we can rebuild that 
justice system, we have deep problems, and we have worked to try to 
make sure funding goes both ways.
  But, quite frankly, nobody will run for office if they think they are 
going to be assassinated. Businessmen are fleeing the country if they 
think they are going to be kidnapped. I went in Nelson Mandela Village 
with many of the displaced people, and they do not want to go home 
because, first, the FARC comes through and terrorizes them, then the 
paramilitaries come through and terrorize them; often the kidnappings, 
and what they need is some order.
  We have an administration under President Uribe who is giving the 
order. And, to my view, and I think to most observers, this is the 
model for Iraq. By the way, we are not asking for 800; we are saying a 
cap, and that way we do not have to come back. The number there of 
advisors varies. These are not fighters, soldiers in the sense of them 
shooting bullets like in Afghanistan and Iraq. These are advisors. In 
my opinion, this is where we want to be in Iraq, this is where we want 
to be in Afghanistan, where we are arguing how many advisors we have 
there.
  But the people on the ground in Colombia who are fighting and dying 
are Colombians, not Americans. And they are fighting, by the way, over 
something that is our drug habit and Western Europe's drug habit. They 
did not have, and I heard them all the time here, a civil war. They 
have at different points in time, like many countries, had people who 
are displaced landowners or people who felt land distribution was 
unfair, which it generally is in South America, and had a civil war; 
but this is now a narcotics war with only a small pocket.
  The total support for the FARC is less than the drug lords, 
terrorists, dealers, and other terrorists groups in the United States. 
We would not like it if Colombia referred to us as having a civil war 
because we have drug dealers in our country or we have terrorists in 
our country. The group that tried to negotiate the peace, and many of 
them have come out, may have at one time been there for altruistic, 
civil war motives; but this is a classic terrorism war at this point, 
and Uribe is going after it. He, as much as anybody. And we can see it 
in Medellin; we can see it in Putumayo and in other areas working for 
alternative development.
  I believe this lifting of the cap which may be only 450, may be 500, 
hopefully will eliminate the need to come in, if there are times when 
we need a few more, of advisors to train the Colombians and to use the 
model where they are really turning the progress. Quite frankly, if we 
do not reach a tipping point, we have a problem, and we need to work 
together, that after these people start to move back into their 
villages, after they start to rebuild their communities, we absolutely 
have an obligation to help with the financial alternative development, 
to help them rebuild those institutions.
  I appreciate the gentleman from Arizona (Chairman Kolbe) and the 
gentleman from Florida (Chairman Young) working in this bill to allow, 
one group that I worked with was Kid Save where we have many of these 
older kids who are orphaned or who have been abandoned, and this bill 
now allows some money to be able through AID to help those kids in 
adoption in the United States and in Colombia; and that is the type of 
thing we need to be working towards. But to achieve that, we have to 
have order.
  Mr. FARR. Mr. Chairman, I yield 3\1/2\ minutes to the ranking member 
of the committee, the gentlewoman from New York (Mrs. Lowey).
  Mrs. LOWEY. Mr. Chairman, I rise in support of the Farr amendment.
  As part of the fiscal year 2001 supplemental for Plan Colombia, 
Congress limited U.S. military and contractor presence in Colombia to 
800 people. That bill, which first established our support for Plan 
Colombia, also strictly limited our assistance to Colombia for 
antinarcotic purposes.
  As many of my colleagues may remember, that decision was made because 
Members were concerned that our involvement would increase as time went 
by and that the United States would expand the scope of its involvement 
from an antinarcotics campaign to an anti-insurgency campaign.
  As the involvement of the Colombian terrorist organizations and drug 
trafficking increased, Congress approved an expansion of the authority 
governing our involvement in Colombia. Essentially, we allowed our 
resources and manpower to be used more broadly to pursue terrorist 
organizations involved in drug trafficking. The overall U.S. manpower 
caps remained in place, but were adjusted to allow 400 military and 400 
contractor personnel, and this was done at the request of the 
administration in the 2002 Foreign Operations bill. The expanded 
authority was approved with those manpower limitations in mind; but 
this year, the administration has requested an expansion of our 
manpower cap to 800 military and 600 contractor personnel.
  The House-passed Defense authorization bill partially grants this 
request, increasing the manpower cap to 500, while the Senate version 
of the bill grants the entire request to allow 800

[[Page 15864]]

military and 600 contractors. Today, the House should send a clear 
signal to the conferees in that bill by voting to limit our military 
presence to 550.
  Our Armed Forces, and especially the Army and Special Forces, are 
stretched to the breaking point with our commitments in Iraq and 
Afghanistan.

                              {time}  1845

  It will take years for us to recover. While an increase of 400 may 
not seem large, I view this as a manifestation of a long-term plan to 
ramp up U.S. involvement in Colombia. Who knows what expansion will be 
sought next year?
  The request to increase manpower is clearly intended to expand U.S. 
troop involvement in the Colombian's war against the FARC, that war 
that has been under way for 20 years. Solving Colombia's problems will 
not be accomplished with a few hundred additional U.S. soldiers. There 
must be a comprehensive effort that includes a plan for reintegration 
of former combatants back into Colombian society.
  I respect the view of others. I certainly understand their point of 
view. I have always supported assistance for Colombia in the context of 
a plan that I thought made sense. The U.S. is now spending close to $1 
billion a year in Colombia, including ever-increasing amounts found in 
the DOD appropriations bill. I do not support this manpower increase, 
because I believe it continues to expand U.S. involvement, and a 
violent political struggle will only lead to an ever-increasing 
commitment of U.S. manpower.
  The amendment grants a modest increase in military manpower, reflects 
the House position as contained in the House defense authorization 
bill, and it is the soundest policy, in my judgment.
  I urge my colleagues to support the Farr amendment.
  Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Mr. Chairman, I yield 4 minutes to the 
gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Weller).
  Mr. WELLER. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for the opportunity 
to speak, and I rise today in opposition to the amendment offered by 
the gentleman from California (Mr. Farr) to put a cap on U.S. military 
and contract personnel assistance assigned to our friend, the Republic 
of Colombia.
  Mr. Chairman, this is a bad amendment. It ties the hands of the 
President, our Commander in Chief, from making military and 
counterterrorism decisions. Specifically, this bill makes no exceptions 
to the cap, greatly limiting Presidential action. This can be a serious 
problem, should the President, Republican or Democrat, ever need to 
deploy U.S. personnel to safeguard American citizens or security, since 
the amendment would force all U.S. assistance under foreign operations 
to be cut off. This would mean that development programs, 
counternarcotics initiatives and U.S. security could be severely 
damaged under this amendment.
  The increased pace of implementation for programs we support being 
undertaken by the Uribe administration in Colombia offers an 
opportunity for real progress towards our goals, but current cap levels 
hurt our efficiency, prevent full implementation of our programs.
  Draft legislation to raise the military cap to 800 and the civilian 
cap to 600 was included in the fiscal year 2005 DOD authorization bill, 
as it was recognized it is necessary to increase the cap to ensure 
continued success in Colombia.
  I think it is important to recognize that the Republic of Colombia is 
Latin America's oldest long-standing democracy, and it is important to 
recognize that Plan Colombia is working.
  Let us take a closer look at the success in Colombia in fighting 
drugs in partnership with our friend, President Uribe. Coca cultivation 
has declined by 21 percent in Colombia and over 33 percent in the last 
2 years. The Colombia coca crop has been reduced to 127,000 hectares 
from 169,000 hectares 2 years ago. Potential production has been 
reduced by 20 percent for export quality cocaine, and potential pure 
heroin production has been reduced by 10 percent just this past year in 
2003.
  Ladies and gentlemen, the elected government of Colombia is restoring 
basic protections to every Colombian community, because Plan Colombia 
is working. Police presence has been extended in all 158 municipalities 
in Colombia that had no police before, and 87 Colombian citizens have 
been extradited to the United States on narcotics-related charges. A 
government presence in all of Colombia's 1,098 municipalities has been 
established for the first time in the country's history.
  Again, Plan Colombia is working, and Plan Colombia is a key component 
of our fight against terrorism.
  We must also remember the strong link between terrorism and drug 
trafficking. The funds from drug sales are often funding worldwide 
terrorist activities. Specifically in Colombia, desertions among 
narcotrafficking terrorist groups are up 80 percent, and child soldiers 
are increasingly being voluntarily repatriated.
  In 2003, nearly 7,000 narcoterrorists were captured. Colombia's 
murder rate has dropped by 20 percent. Terrorist incidents have dropped 
by 49 percent. Terrorism cases in Colombia were down 48 percent in 
2003; and in a July, 2003, poll, 65 percent of Colombians say they felt 
more secure in July of 2003 than they did one year before in July of 
2002, which happened to be one month before President Uribe took 
office.
  Again, Plan Colombia is working.
  Finally, on the human rights front, kidnappings are down by 26 
percent in 2003. Homicides reached their lowest level since 1987. Of 
2,500 human rights allegations in Colombia over the past year, there 
have been no allegations of human right abuses filed against U.S.-
trained units and only 2 percent against the Colombian military, 
compared with 40 or 50 percent just 7 years ago.
  Again, Plan Colombia is working. Our partnership with President Uribe 
is working. It is strong. The eradication of narcotics and regional 
security is a priority. I urge a ``no'' vote on this amendment.
  Mr. FARR. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 2\1/2\ minutes at this time.
  I want to respond to the gentleman from Illinois and the gentleman 
from Indiana. They say that Plan Colombia is working, and it is working 
under the existing caps. My point is that, as a person who lived in 
that country and worked in the economic development and the community 
development as a Peace Corps volunteer, is that I believe that Colombia 
has the capacity with our help to win this war on terrorism, to win 
this war on drugs, and it is the obscene amount of money that drug 
cartels dumped into the country that is doing it.
  But you are not going to win that by putting all of the emphasis on 
the military side, and that is where the mission creep is. We have the 
most amount of money being spent on the military than we ever have, and 
we are winning the war. Now we need to spend money on the civilian 
side, on the economic side.
  You cannot win this war. What you have to do is win the peace, and 
the peace will not be won until the investment is in Colombians to do 
the job for themselves.
  My job in the Peace Corps was to work myself out of a job, and I 
think what we have lost track of here or lost sight of is that we are 
not really emphasizing how do we get these countries to do the job 
themselves. How do we get the contractors that are being paid American 
dollars, how do we get military that is our military to work themselves 
out of a job? Until we answer that and see that we are moving in that 
direction, I think we are asking the wrong question and we are quoting 
the wrong facts here.
  Yes, it is moving in the right direction. In fact, we would argue 
that, because of the way it is moving, there ought to be a greater 
emphasis, not a less emphasis, on local economic development, on 
fighting the war on poverty. There is only 20 percent of the budget 
that now goes to the economic side of it. That is the least amount of 
money since the war in Colombia, the Plan Colombia began. So the 
mission creep is on the military side, and I think the mission creep 
ought to be on the other side, on the economic side. Until we win the 
war on poverty, we will not win the peace, and until we

[[Page 15865]]

win the peace, we will not have a stable country.
  Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. KOLBE. Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from 
Indiana (Mr. Souder).
  Mr. SOUDER. Mr. Chairman, I basically agree with the gentleman from 
California that I am disappointed that as we need more dollars, if we 
do, for some military operations that they would come out of the 
domestic side. Long term, you are absolutely right. We have to win the 
hearts of the people, but, as the gentleman knows, we have two 
variables that have complicated the final kind of push over the top.
  One, they moved the heroin up higher on the mountains; and it 
requires a different military capability with the helicopters and 
different training. And, secondly, they moved east, into the country, 
into the jungles, farther from our air bases; and we need the 
capability, at least at certain periods of time, to increase the number 
of advisers to address those two things.
  But, long term, if we are not moving in the direction you are 
talking, we will never win this war and we will not accomplish it. But 
there are times when you have to have different strategies, and I 
believe that is essential at this point in time.
  Mr. FARR. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
  In conclusion, I would ask for unanimous consent that, at the end of 
this, we withdraw the amendment to keep this dialogue going. I think we 
can focus on really trying to do the right thing in Colombia, and I do 
not think that there is any difference on either side of the aisle that 
we want the Colombians to be able to have the capacity to govern 
themselves in a peaceful fashion.
  They certainly, of all the countries that we are involved in, have a 
better infrastructure, a longer-running democracy, more communities 
established all over the country, have well-educated people, but they 
also have a massive amount of poverty. The biggest problem with the 
drug war is it has displaced millions of people who just do not have an 
adequate place to live or a job or the social services or the health 
services and educational services that are necessary.
  That is my concern, that if we are putting more emphasis essentially 
into the military, we are going to have less emphasis, because there is 
only so much money you can spend on what I think is so essential, to 
having a lasting peace in Colombia. And that is, we have got to provide 
for the infrastructure, the social, economic infrastructure of all of 
the people that have been displaced, and we are moving away from that, 
from the ability to have alternative crops.
  Remember, the crops that are growing and are being destroyed are way 
out in the boonies in the middle of the jungles. You are not going to 
reestablish a market crop in the jungles. You are going to have to 
reestablish a market crop in the areas.
  And, remember, Colombia has been one of the leading agricultural 
countries in the world. We have all been drinking its coffee forever, 
and the quality of that coffee is the highest there is. We could do 
more by paying more for Colombian coffee, would be the best help in 
economic aid to that country of anything that I can imagine.
  But I would like to make sure that, as we go into conference on this 
bill and into the defense bill, that we keep in mind that the war in 
Colombia is not going to be won by mission creep of the military. It is 
going to be won when we start tipping the scale, as the gentleman from 
Indiana said, to put more emphasis in the peace effort and less in the 
war effort.
  Mr. PITTS. Mr. Chairman, I rise in support of the Farr amendment.
  I am concerned about the use of U.S. funds in Colombia.
  In particular, I am deeply concerned about four public statements by 
the President of Colombia in which he accused domestic and 
international human rights organizations of supporting armed groups and 
of being allied with terrorists.
  These statements are not only unhelpful but are also deeply 
disturbing. Human rights organizations are working to assist with 
humanitarian aid and building civil society in local communities in 
Colombia that have been torn apart by the terrible violence.
  The President's verbal assaults on human rights organizations do 
absolutely nothing to help the Colombian people or to help bring an end 
to the violence--instead his comments may cause a reverse in a recent 
trend of a decrease in politically motivated violence.
  Despite the fact that the above violence has decreased, there are 
some areas of Colombia in which local communities continue to be 
victims of terrible violence and suffering.
  For example, security in the special security areas, such as Arauca, 
has deteriorated under the current President.
  According to Evangelical and Catholic church leaders, there have been 
dozens of cases in which pastors, priests, and lay leaders have been 
targeted by armed actors of the left and the right for refusing to take 
up arms. According to these reports, 37 Protestant pastors were killed 
in the first 6 weeks of 2003 and four Catholic clerics were 
assassinated in 2003. Most of these cases were in the State of Arauca.
  The numbers of politically motivated murders have not changed for the 
better--in 2003, over 3,000 civilians were killed for political motives 
and at least 600 ``disappeared.''
  Around 2,200 people were kidnapped, more than half by armed 
opposition groups and army-backed paramilitaries. Armed opposition 
groups such as the FARC and ELN were responsible for repeated and 
serious breaches of international humanitarian law, including hostage 
taking and the abduction and massacres. They carried out attacks using 
disproportionate and indiscriminate weapons that resulted in the death 
of numerous civilians.
  The government and security forces increased their attempts to 
undermine the legitimacy of human rights defenders, peace activists and 
trade unionists. This coincided with paramilitary threats and attacks 
against human rights organizations. The attacks on these groups made it 
nearly impossible for many to continue documenting and reporting on 
human rights abuses by all armed actors--if the human rights 
organizations cannot do their work, the violations are largely under-
reported.
  Despite the declared cease-fire, para-
militaries were still responsible for massacres, targeted killings, 
``disappearances'' torture, kidnappings and threats. They were 
allegedly responsible for the killing or ``disappearance'' of at least 
1,300 people in 2003, over 70 of all attributable, non-combat, 
politically related killings and ``disappearances.''
  Even the United Nations has noted an increase in complaints of 
serious human rights violations which directly involve the security 
forces themselves.
  I would urge President Uribe to cease his senseless attacks on human 
rights organizations that simply hurt those who are helping the people 
of Colombia--instead he should vigorously pursue those who commit 
horrifying atrocities and terrorize communities across the country.
  I urge my colleagues to support this amendment.
  Mr. TOM DAVIS of Virginia. Mr. Chairman, as we consider the Foreign 
Operations Appropriations bill today, it is important to reaffirm our 
commitment to our counternarcotics efforts in Colombia, to the people 
of Colombia, and to American citizens. I led three congressional 
delegations to Colombia last year and can say first hand that our 
significant investment, after years of effort, is beginning to see 
returns on the time, money, and resources spent in Colombia. Together 
with the strong commitment of President Alvaro Uribe and historic 
levels of support from the Colombian people, U.S. involvement is 
beginning to hit narcoterrorists where it hurts.
  This year, the Administration is seeking a modest increase in the 
number of U.S. support personnel in Colombia. The existing caps on the 
number of U.S. civilian and military personnel contractors allowed in 
Colombia at any given time are proving too restrictive and in some 
cases, the ceilings, have prevented full implementation of already 
funded programs and hurt management efficiency.
  An increase in the military and civilian contractor support provided 
to the Government of Colombia during the next two years is essential to 
maintain the current progress being made by our programs in Colombia. 
There are also new programs developed since the ceilings were 
established, such as the anti-kidnapping initiative and the training of 
prosecutors and judicial police in preparation for the 
constitutionally-mandated transition to an accusatorial criminal 
justice system with oral trials, as well as the re-started Air Bridge 
Denial program that need to be fully supported by personnel.

[[Page 15866]]

  Last month, several senior Administration officials, including 
Assistant Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere Affairs, Roger 
Noriega, Assistant Secretary of Defense for Special Operations and Low-
Intensity Conflict, Thomas O'Connell, Commander of U.S. Southern 
Command, General James Hill, and Assistant Secretary of State for 
Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs, Robert 
Charles testified before the Government Reform Committee and conveyed 
the need to reexamine military and civilian personnel caps if we are to 
continue in the right direction.
  Accordingly, there is draft language included in the 2005 Defense 
Authorization bill that raises the number of military personnel 
permitted to 800 and the number of permitted civilian contractors to 
600. The Administration's request to increase the number of troops and 
contractors deployable is critical to the continued success of U.S. 
policy in Colombia and to help President Uribe prosecute a unified 
campaign against terrorism and drug traffickers. Mr. Chairman, I 
strongly support this request and urge all of my colleagues to continue 
their support of our unified campaign with Colombia to fight narcotics 
trafficking and terrorist activities.
  Mr. FARR. Mr. Chairman, I ask unanimous consent to withdraw the 
amendment.
  The CHAIRMAN. Is there objection to the request of the gentleman from 
California?
  There was no objection.
  Mrs. LOWEY. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the last word.
  Mr. Chairman, I yield to the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. 
Menendez).
  Mr. MENENDEZ. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentlewoman for yielding.
  I appreciate the opportunity. I am concerned, and I had an amendment 
that I originally drafted to restore development assistance and child 
survival and health money for Latin America to fiscal year 2004 levels. 
I will not be offering that amendment, and I would appreciate this 
chance to engage with you and hopefully as well as the chairman to 
discuss the issue.
  As the ranking member on the Committee on International Relations 
Subcommittee on the Western Hemisphere and a member of the Hispanic 
Caucus, I was outraged that the President's budget proposal slashed 
development funding to Latin America by an average of 11 percent. Latin 
America is the only region in the world to be cut in both total 
economic development aid and total narcotic and military aid.
  So to make these cuts real beyond those percentages, let me just say 
that, as a result of the overall cuts to Latin America, the President's 
proposed budget cut the child survival and health funding in Guatemala 
by almost 15 percent at a time when Guatemala's malnutrition rate for 
children is extremely high, one of the highest in the world.
  As for the new Millennium Challenge Account, it does little for the 
over 40 percent of Latin Americans living in poverty who live in all of 
the Latin American countries; and, in fact, only three of those 
countries will actually benefit from MCA funding this fiscal year.
  And the region is at a critical moment. Over just the past year, two 
democratically elected leaders were removed from office. The region is 
threatened by mob rule, from the lynching of a mayor in Peru to the 
ousting of a democratically elected president in Bolivia. These 
incidents only highlight the destabilizing impact of poverty, hunger 
and economic disenfranchisement.
  Democracy means little if you cannot feed your family, your children, 
cannot get an education and you feel disenfranchised from your 
government. And in that regard, I think we are losing the battle for 
the hearts and minds of Latin American's democracy in that respect, 
losing the battle for the hearts and minds of Latin Americans, and that 
is why I asked the distinguished ranking member of this committee 
whether the gentlewoman can offer us any hope that we are going to get 
some relief from those cuts.
  Mr. KOLBE. Mr. Chairman, will the gentlewoman yield?
  Mrs. LOWEY. I yield to the gentleman from Arizona.

                              {time}  1900

  Mr. KOLBE. I thank the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Menendez) for 
raising what I think is a very important point. Like he is, I am 
perplexed; I am disappointed with the administration's budget request 
for Latin America. I do not think it reflects the priorities or the 
national interests of the United States.
  The gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Menendez) summarized some of the 
statistics; but for all of the Western Hemisphere, the development 
assistance, the child survival and health accounts were cut by 10\1/2\ 
percent in this year's request. And Central American countries received 
an even more disproportionate share of those cuts, a decrease of 17.8 
percent.
  Central American countries are our strong allies. They have become 
increasingly democratic. They are conducting fair and safe elections 
while electing governments that I believe history will view as turning 
points in these nations' future. But they do face daunting problems of 
poverty and corruption.
  In countries such as Guatemala, El Salvador and Nicaragua, we are 
witnessing governments that are doing their best to tackle these 
problems head on. And we have of course recently negotiated a trade 
agreement with them that is going to require a lot of technical 
assistance for them to implement that. Add to these issues the need to 
get economic growth generated in Central America to provide a decent 
standard of living for their people, people are looking northwards for 
employment if not given any opportunities in their own country. Under 
those circumstances, I think Americans would support increasing 
assistance to these countries.
  We do have in our report language that accompanies our bill before 
the House today language that directs the administration to restore the 
funding levels to last year's levels. I would prefer to see an increase 
and hope that we can see that sometime in the near future. I will push 
this issue further as we enter conference negotiations with the Senate, 
and I thank my colleague for raising this important issue. I thank the 
gentlewoman for yielding.
  Mrs. LOWEY. I thank the chairman and I want to assure my good friend, 
the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Menendez), that I share the 
gentleman's commitment to working with you to increase the dollars for 
Latin America because we realize how critical this is.
  The committee's recommendation to increase both the Child Survival 
and Development Assistance accounts by a combined total of $328 million 
above the President's request was in large part meant to restore cuts 
made to Latin American countries. In addition, the committee report as 
cited by the chairman contains specific directive language mandating 
that the Agency For International Development restore cuts made to 
Central American countries when the FY 2005 operating plans are 
developed.
  Mr. KOLBE. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the last word.
  Mr. Chairman, I yield to the gentlewoman from New York (Mrs. Lowey).
  Mrs. LOWEY. Frankly, it is unclear to me why the administration would 
choose to reduce our commitment to our closest neighbors at a time when 
overall foreign aid is increasing. Additional funding would enable 
vital education, maternal and infant health, and democracy and 
agricultural programs to be restored.
  It is my hope that the administration's fiscal year 2006 request will 
reflect the clear interests of Congress at a robust level of funding 
for Latin America, as evidenced by the gentleman's amendment.
  I want to conclude by saying, I share our chairman's deep commitment 
to Latin America. We thank the gentleman for his comments on this 
issue, and we assure the gentleman that we are going to work together 
to make sure that Latin America gets the assistance that it rightly 
deserves.
  Mr. MENENDEZ. Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?
  Mr. KOLBE. I yield to the gentleman from New Jersey.
  Mr. MENENDEZ. I thank the distinguished gentleman both for yielding 
as

[[Page 15867]]

 well as for his work and commitment to the hemisphere. And I want to 
thank the ranking Democrat as well for her response to our concerns. I 
certainly hope and certainly agree with the chairman's comments that we 
want to see this funding increase in the future, because when we take 
in the consequences of inflation, the 2004 level is not enough. It is 
actually a decrease. And it should be a floor, not a ceiling; but we 
certainly need a floor to start with so we can build upon it. I 
appreciate the efforts in the report language.
  I would just close by saying I hope that the chairman and the ranking 
member who have put some pretty strong report language in here, that 
the USAID understands that the committee and many Members here are 
serious, and that it will be followed, and that we will see these 
monies going for Latin America. Otherwise, next year we intend to 
pursue vigorously with the Hispanic Caucus and interested Members on 
both sides of the aisle the funding that is necessary for one of the 
most important parts of the world in terms of U.S. national interest on 
a variety of issues.
  I want to thank the distinguished chairman for his engagement, his 
support and the ranking Democrat as well.
  Mr. KOLBE. I thank the gentleman with his comments. I am confident 
with his support and that of other Members of this body, we will get 
the attention of the administration on this issue.


                     Amendment Offered by Mr. Otter

  Mr. OTTER. Mr. Chairman, I offer an amendment.
  The CHAIRMAN. The Clerk will designate the amendment.
  The text of the amendment is as follows:

       Amendment offered by Mr. Otter:
       At the end of the bill, before the short title, insert the 
     following:


limitation on assistance for palistinian authority and the palistinian 
                                 people

       Sec. __. Notwithstanding any other provision of law--
       (1) of the total amount of funds that are available in this 
     Act for assistance for the Palestinian Authority (or any 
     other Palestinian entity) or for the Palestinian people, not 
     more than 25 percent of such amount may be obligated and 
     expended during each quarter of fiscal year 2005; and
       (2) none of the funds made available in this Act may be 
     made available for assistance for the Palestinian Authority 
     (or any other Palestinian entity) or for the Palestinian 
     people during any quarter of fiscal year 2005 unless the 
     Secretary of State determines that the Palestinian Authority 
     has not provided support for acts of international terrorism 
     during the 3-month period preceding the first day of that 
     quarter.

  The CHAIRMAN. Pursuant to the order of the House of today, the 
gentleman from Idaho (Mr. Otter) and a Member opposed each will control 
5 minutes.
  Mr. KOLBE. Mr. Chairman, I reserve a point of order on the amendment.
  The CHAIRMAN. A point of order is reserved.
  The Chair recognizes the gentleman from Idaho (Mr. Otter).
  Mr. OTTER. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
  Mr. Chairman, I rise to address what I believe to be a fatal flaw in 
the way we administer our foreign aid.
  We cannot truly be effective either domestically or in our role on 
the world stage when our foreign policy forces us to support our 
friends while at the same time indiscriminately doling out money to our 
and their enemies.
  All the efforts we put into promoting peace and cooperation is 
meaningless without requiring accountability from the recipients of our 
assistance. U.S. foreign aid should be based upon a recipient's 
demonstrated willingness to support our ideals and our aspirations for 
their region. When we provide aid to a country, we should be able to 
expect a marked change in that country's behavior in keeping with our 
goals.
  Let me give a specific example of what I am talking about here. When 
they were much younger, I gave my children a monthly allowance. Unlike 
gifts of money or money that they earned themselves, this allowance 
came with some strings attached. It came with an understanding that I 
could expect certain behavior from them. On occasion they would forget 
about our bargain, and their behavior would not reflect the 
expectations that we had established. But when they did not receive 
their allowance, the next month they were quick to fix the problem so 
that we could peacefully live together.
  Foreign aid is like an allowance which the United States is not 
obligated to offer and which should not come without certain strings 
attached. And yet we continue to treat it as if we are required to hand 
out money to nations and people who actively oppose the principles that 
we try to advance.
  Today we have a golden opportunity to change the way we address the 
issues on foreign aid.
  As part of his road map to peace, President Bush recommended giving 
foreign aid to the Palestine Authority for the first time in almost a 
decade. In light of that request, we should act now to infuse any aid 
with common sense and accountability so that we can advance the 
realistic goals that the President has set for the Middle East.
  In a nutshell, Mr. Chairman, this amendment would simply require that 
any aid that we give to Palestine would only be given every quarter. In 
other words, it would be broken up into four payments over a year's 
period. And only 25 percent would be given in any one quarter. So 
January, February and March, at the end of March, the Palestine's would 
receive some aid. At the end of June, the Palestinians would receive 
some aid. At the end of September, same and just before Christmas once 
again.
  The reason I approach it this way is because then the Secretary of 
State would be required to verify that in the previous quarter there 
had been no acts of terrorism, no human bombs that had ventured into 
Israel or had ventured into some other area, that the Palestinians had 
indeed not engaged in any acts of terrorism anywhere in the world.
  And so every quarter, once every 3 months, once that is verified by 
the Secretary of State, then the Palestinians would receive some money. 
More like an allowance instead of alimony, that we treat it today as 
though we owed it to folks. Such a commonsense approach to 
accountability is the first step to reforming our foreign policy. It 
will provide, I believe, a powerful incentive for the recipients of 
this money in order to promote the kind of democracy and the kinds of 
values that we have in hopes for them.
  The President is working to achieve a lasting peace in this region, 
realistically and in good faith, and I applaud his efforts. But if we 
are to see a change in the Middle East, our approach to foreign aid 
must change as well. What better time than now to implement a policy 
based upon behavior and responsibility, with the expectations that we 
offer at the same time that we offer the money.
  I encourage you to take advantage of this opportunity to assist in 
the peace process by making sure that our assistance carries with it 
the same weight as our principles would.
  Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. KOLBE. Mr. Chairman, I rise in opposition to the amendment. I 
yield myself such time as I may consume.
  Mr. Chairman, I agree completely with the sentiments expressed by the 
gentleman from Idaho (Mr. Otter). We certainly should not tolerate 
support for terrorism by any organization, that includes the 
Palestinian Authority. Indeed, the bill that is before you prohibits 
funds for the Authority, prohibits all funds for the Palestinian 
Authority, and includes a number of provisions affecting West Bank Gaza 
programs that would prohibit funds for any group or individual that 
supports terrorism.
  This year the gentlewoman from New York (Mrs. Lowey) and I strengthen 
the prohibition on funding for terrorist groups by banning funding 
through the West Bank/Gaza program for any individual, any individual 
or group that advocates terrorism. The new provision also requires an 
immediate cut-off of funds if any group currently receiving funds 
advocates or engages in terrorist activities.
  On the other hand, it is important to continue the West Bank/Gaza 
programs

[[Page 15868]]

because they provide important humanitarian and infrastructure 
assistance for the Palestinian people. It is important to stress that 
all of the funds in this program are provided through nongovernmental 
organizations or through American contractors, or in some cases, 
Israeli contractors for water and sewer infrastructure programs. Not 
one cent goes to the Palestinian Authority.
  I appreciate the concerns that the gentleman has expressed. They are 
the concerns of this subcommittee, and they are, I can assure the 
gentleman, expressed in the bill here. I understand the gentleman is 
prepared to withdraw his amendment.
  Mr. OTTER. Mr. Chairman, how much time is remaining?
  The CHAIRMAN. The gentleman from Idaho (Mr. Otter) has 30 seconds 
remaining.
  Mr. OTTER. Mr. Chairman, I yield 30 seconds to the gentleman from New 
York (Mr. Weiner).
  Mr. WEINER. Mr. Chairman, I will try to take less than that if 
possible.
  I rise in support of the Otter amendment. The question should be 
should we have any aid going to the West Bank and Gaza. That should be 
the question. Is it buying us pro-American values? No. Is it buying us 
less violence? No. Is it buying us a more transparent government? No. 
Is it buying us more democracy? No.
  And to make matters worse those receiving the aid are refusing now to 
sign a declaration saying that the money will not go to terrorists. 
There is no reason in my eyes that we should be providing any aid at 
all.
  Mr. OTTER. Mr. Chairman, I ask unanimous consent to withdraw my 
amendment.
  The CHAIRMAN. Is there objection to the request of the gentleman from 
Idaho?
  There was no objection.
  Mr. KOLBE. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the last word.
  Mr. Chairman, I yield to the gentleman from California (Mr. 
Rohrabacher).
  Mr. ROHRABACHER. Mr. Chairman, the distinguished chairman and I have 
discussed the case of the Berhane family, U.S. citizens who had their 
private businesses confiscated by the former Ethiopian government. 
While this occurred in 1977, the current government has not shown good 
faith in resolving this longstanding injustice. In 1999, the matter was 
nearly settled when the current Ethiopian government summarily deported 
Mr. Berhane to Eritrea.
  Despite lip service since, the Ethiopian government has not settled 
this matter. It should have been resolved years ago. Additionally, as 
the distinguished chairman knows, the Overseas Private Investment 
Corporation has made a finding in support of the Berhane family claim 
and will not do business in Ethiopia until this issue has been settled. 
The CEO of the Millennium Challenge Corporation, Paul Applegarth, has 
indicated that the MCC may follow suit.
  Mr. Chairman, Ethiopia is eligible for more than $60 million of 
funding in this bill in its present form. The government of Ethiopia 
should understand that any government that refuses to deal with the 
legitimate claims of American citizens is jeopardizing its eligibility 
for assistance funded by the U.S. taxpayers.
  Mr. Chairman, I suggest that until these legitimate property claims 
are dealt with fairly by the Ethiopian government that the economic 
assistance funds in this bill for Ethiopia in the ESF account should be 
reprogrammed to the Child Survival and Health Programs Fund, 
specifically to the account of the ``communities severely affected by 
HIV/AIDS, including children displaced or orphaned by AIDS.''

                              {time}  1915

  Mr. KOLBE. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for his comments. I 
have to say that I find that these are very troubling charges, but we 
have only been recently informed of the issue. I intend to ask the 
State Department for further information regarding the situation, and I 
can assure the gentleman from California (Mr. Rohrabacher) that I will 
give it serious consideration.
  The way Ethiopia deals with this issue will weigh heavily in the 
decisions we make in terms of policy and levels of assistance. So I 
appreciate the gentleman bringing this to our attention, and I will ask 
my staff to work with the gentleman to move towards a resolution.
  Mr. ROHRABACHER. I thank the gentleman very much.


                    Amendment Offered by Mr. Sanders

  Mr. SANDERS. Mr. Chairman, I offer an amendment.
  The CHAIRMAN. The Clerk will designate the amendment.
  The text of the amendment is as follows:

       Amendment offered by Mr. Sanders:
       At the end of the bill (before the short title), insert the 
     following:


  limitation on provision by export-import bank of credit to entities 
                        reincorporating overseas

       Sec. __. None of the funds made available in this Act may 
     be used by the Export-Import Bank of the United States to 
     approve an application for a master guarantee and political 
     risk supplement where the applicant's charter or articles of 
     incorporation show that the entity is incorporated or 
     chartered in Bermuda, Barbados, the Cayman Islands, Antigua, 
     or Panama.

  The CHAIRMAN. Pursuant to the order of the House of today, the 
gentleman from Vermont (Mr. Sanders) and the gentleman from Arizona 
(Mr. Kolbe) each will control 20 minutes.
  The Chair recognizes the gentleman from Vermont (Mr. Sanders).
  Mr. SANDERS. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 6 minutes.
  Mr. Chairman, this tripartisan amendment has widespread support 
across the ideological spectrum, from Democrats and Republicans, from 
progressives, conservatives to moderates. It is being cosponsored today 
by the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Paul), the gentlewoman from Ohio (Ms. 
Kaptur), the gentleman from California (Mr. Rohrabacher), the gentleman 
from Mississippi (Mr. Taylor), the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Kucinich), 
the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Lipinski) and the gentlewoman from 
Connecticut (Ms. DeLauro). It also enjoys the support of the AFL-CIO, 
the Teamsters, Taxpayers for Common Sense, Citizen Works and other 
national organizations.
  Mr. Chairman, in a very profound way this amendment deals with the 
issue of patriotism, love of country and respect for the American 
people. At a time when our country is at war and young Americans are 
dying almost every day, at a time when our country has a $7 trillion 
national debt and when veterans are unable to get the health care that 
they need, this amendment asks a very simple question: Should the 
middle class of this country, people who work hard, love their country 
and pay their fair share of taxes, be asked to provide billions in loan 
guarantees to corporate expatriates, U.S. companies who set up phony 
headquarters abroad in order to avoid paying U.S. taxes? That is what 
this amendment is all about.
  Mr. Chairman, enough is enough. The American people are growing sick 
and tired of large corporations throwing American workers out on the 
streets as they move to China, to India and to other low-wage 
countries; and they are equally outraged by companies who come begging 
to Washington for corporate welfare and taxpayer dollars while they 
move to tax-haven countries in order to avoid their tax obligations 
here.
  Oh, they do not want to pay taxes in America, not them. That is for 
the suckers of this country. That is what they say, but they sure do 
want the taxpayers to help them out with corporate welfare. That is 
okay.
  This amendment will begin the process of putting an end to that 
absurdity. I fully concede that this amendment is not going to solve 
this problem completely, no question about that, but its passage will 
be a shot across the bow to every corporation in America who thinks 
that they will be able to continue to rip off the taxpayers of this 
country with impunity. It will, in fact, make some companies think 
twice before they run to Bermuda or to Panama or to the Cayman Islands 
in order to avoid paying American taxes.

[[Page 15869]]

  Specifically, Mr. Chairman, this amendment would prohibit the Export-
Import Bank from approving subsidized loan guarantees to corporate 
expatriates, companies who were formerly located in the United States 
but who have set up paper headquarters abroad in tax-haven countries in 
order to avoid paying taxes here.
  Mr. Chairman, what every Member of Congress should know is that five 
out of the top 23 largest recipients of Export-Import Bank assistance 
since 2003 are corporate expatriates that have set up sham headquarters 
and post office boxes in places like Bermuda, Barbados and the Cayman 
Islands for the sole purpose of avoiding U.S. taxes.
  Mr. Chairman, it is bad enough corporate expatriates are abandoning 
this country to dodge taxes, but it is unconscionable that these 
companies then turn around and seek U.S. taxpayer assistance through 
the U.S. Export-Import Bank, forcing middle-class families to pick up 
the tab. Companies that dodge U.S. taxes should not be rewarded with 
taxpayer subsidies through the Export-Import Bank.
  Mr. Chairman, we are talking about substantial dollars here. Let me 
give my colleagues some examples of what I am talking about.
  Tyco International, everybody will remember Tyco International, one 
of the poster children for corporate greed, saved $400 million in U.S. 
taxes by reincorporating in Bermuda in 1997. What was the response of 
the Export-Import Bank to this deliberate attempt to avoid paying their 
fair share of taxes? What did they do when Tyco moved to Bermuda? Well, 
they gave Tyco $115 million in assistance since 1998. That is absurd.
  In 2002, Ingersoll-Rand saved up to $60 million in U.S. taxes by 
reincorporating in Bermuda. Since 2002, this tax-dodging company 
received over $370 million in subsidized loans, loan guarantees and 
other financial assistance from the Export-Import Bank.
  In 2002, Nabors Industry saved $10 million in taxes by 
reincorporating in Bermuda. Since that year, it has received over $300 
million in taxpayer-backed financial assistance through the Export-
Import Bank.
  Mr. Chairman, the time is now to say enough is enough. If 
corporations want to move to Bermuda and disown the United States, that 
is their right, but they do not have a right to then come back to the 
taxpayers of this country and ask the United States Congress and the 
Export-Import Bank to give them substantial sums of money.
  Mr. Chairman, I reserve the remainder of my time.
  Mr. KOLBE. Mr. Chairman, since I believe I will be the only one 
speaking here, I reserve my time.
  Mr. SANDERS. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from 
California (Mr. Rohrabacher).
  Mr. ROHRABACHER. Mr. Chairman, I rise in support of this amendment.
  Let me note that many of the companies that leave, and this is where 
I have a disagreement with the gentleman from Vermont (Mr. Sanders), 
many of the companies that do leave our country leave because of high 
taxes, which I consider to be levels of taxation that are too high and 
levels of regulation that are too high in the United States of America.
  We may have a fundamental disagreement on how high taxes should be 
and regulations should be on business, but where I do agree with the 
gentleman from Vermont (Mr. Sanders) is that businessmen have to make a 
decision. They are a part of the American family, and we have got to 
make a decision if we are going to stay part of the American family 
based on the rules and regulations that we are judged by and have to 
live by because we are part of the process.
  If an American company does decide that taxes and regulation are too 
high and decide to change their status so they are no longer being 
treated and taxed or regulated as a domestic company, they should not 
expect then to receive the benefits of a company that is an American 
company. This makes all the common sense in the world.
  I think it is a travesty, as the gentleman from Vermont (Mr. Sanders) 
has pointed out, there are some companies that have decided to leave 
this country and, thus, officially, in order not to pay the same tax 
load, then expect to receive and have received the benefit of such 
subsidies we are talking about tonight. This makes all the common sense 
in the world.
  I would hope, however, that we would, number one, pass the Sanders 
amendment to make sure that companies that leave do not receive this 
subsidy, but, at the same time, I would hope that we pay close 
attention to our taxation and regulation policies that make it 
profitable or make the businessmen who are making these decisions feel 
it is profitable for them to leave this country.
  We should want businesses to come here and do business because it is 
profitable, our taxes and regulations make it profitable for them to be 
here, create jobs, et cetera. In the meantime, let us not do the 
travesty of giving people subsidies who are not paying into the system 
and have gone overseas and changed their status in order to escape 
their tax obligation.
  The CHAIRMAN. The Committee will rise informally.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Simpson) assumed the Chair.

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