[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 150 (2004), Part 14]
[Senate]
[Pages 19237-19238]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                     FOREIGN OPERATIONS AMENDMENTS

  Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, for the advice of my colleagues, I have 
been notified that the majority leader wishes to go soon to the Foreign 
Operations appropriations bill. The floor manager for the majority will 
be Senator McConnell of Kentucky. I will floor manage for the 
Democratic side. Obviously, it will be up to the distinguished majority 
leader when the bill will actually be laid down. I just wanted to 
notify colleagues, I have been informed we are about to go to it. I 
would hope as most of the issues on it have been worked out on a 
bipartisan fashion that we could move quickly. I know Senators may have 
amendments, but if we do soon go on this bill and allow Members to 
bring forward their amendments on this side, I would urge them to let 
us know what, if any, there are so we could seek time agreements once 
the bill is laid down.
  I see the distinguished senior Senator from Ohio on the floor.
  I wanted to make the observation that once the leader turns to this 
bill, I would hope Members, certainly on our side of the aisle--I would 
use the privilege of having been here 30 years to urge Members of the 
other side of the aisle--would speak to the appropriate leaders if they 
have amendments and see if there are things that can be worked out 
without a rollcall or can be worked out with a time agreement.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Ohio.
  Mr. DeWINE. Mr. President, as my friend and colleague Senator Leahy 
has just said, in a few minutes we will be moving to the Foreign 
Operations bill. I thought I would take a few minutes in anticipation 
of that to talk a little bit about that bill.
  Let me begin by thanking Chairman McConnell and Ranking Member Leahy 
for their great work. In a very tight budgeting year, they did a 
remarkable, bipartisan job. I also personally thank their staff, Paul 
Grove, Tim Rieser, and Mark Lippert. Their tireless efforts are greatly 
appreciated.
  The staff has done a fabulous job, as have the two Senators. They 
have a great team.
  I want to highlight several items. I know my colleagues will be 
outlining the bill in detail, but I want to talk about several things 
that I am particularly grateful that they were able to include in this 
bill, and I think they deserve our thanks.
  First, this bill provides lifesaving humanitarian assistance to the 
Darfur region of Sudan. With the support of Chairman McConnell and 
Ranking Member Leahy, we were able to add $150 million in emergency 
humanitarian relief.
  I also want to recognize specific language that we were able to 
secure in the bill relating to child survival in HIV/AIDS. 
Specifically, I again thank the chairman and Senator Leahy for their 
inclusion of language addressing the continued need for mother-to-child 
transmission programs, as well as the importance of AIDS pediatric 
treatment.
  In addition, I am pleased the bill includes specific language about 
how to protect the transfer of land and property rights to AIDS 
orphans. These are individuals who cannot be forgotten, and making sure 
that we protect their rights is so very important.
  The bill also has an additional $15 million for the child survival 
primary causes line item. Also, the bill includes the provision of 
Senators Durbin and Brownback that increases funding to the Global Fund 
by $150 million, with half of that money dedicated to the treatment and 
prevention of malaria, a disease that kills over a million people a 
year, at least 700,000 of them African children. I commend both of my 
colleagues for that, and I commend, again, Senator Leahy and Senator 
McConnell for their help on that amendment.
  Finally, I thank the chairman and ranking member and their staffs for 
the tremendous attention they have paid to Haiti. Because of their 
support, the Senate bill provides over $82.5 million, excluding any 
assistance for food. That represents a 230-percent increase over the 
administration's original request. As my colleagues know, our 
assistance to Haiti is critical in helping our neighbor, a nation less 
than 800 miles from our shores, get back on its feet.
  The committee included much needed report language in the bill 
outlining key priorities that should form the basis of our U.S. 
assistance strategy in Haiti and provides a reporting requirement to 
ensure that this strategy is developed in a multiyear, long-term 
fashion. Haiti's needs are immense. We simply cannot afford to turn our 
backs.
  Mr. President, the commitment of the chairman and the ranking member 
to Haiti is clear. The committee's commitment to Haiti is clear and 
made more so by the support of the amendment we are offering today, a 
resolution calling for increased international assistance to Haiti. I 
know my colleague will talk about that shortly.
  Specifically, the resolution focuses on two principal deficiencies we 
are facing in Haiti--funding and security, which are challenges that 
have been even further exacerbated these past few days. Haiti has been 
hard hit, as we have all read, by Tropical Storm Jeanne. The death toll 
so far is estimated at over a thousand. But, frankly, we believe that 
figure is going to climb as more bodies are found.
  At least 1,200 to 1,300 Haitians are missing, presumably washed out 
to sea or buried in thick heavy mud.
  On a personal note, I spoke this morning to my friend, Father Tom 
Hagan, from the organization Hands Together. Father Tom lives in Haiti 
and has lived there for many years. I talked to him on a cell phone 
this morning. He was back in Port-au-Prince. Yesterday, he traveled 
north to the city of Gonaives, and he also passed through the village 
of Brunette. He described for me on the phone the devastation he saw. 
What he told me was just unbelievable, shocking, absolutely tragic.
  As father Tom moved up north and approached Gonaives, that village, 
about a mile outside of the city, was covered in water--2, 3, 4 feet of 
water. He said it was a huge lake, that in some places the water was up 
to the windows of his truck. He had a terrible time, frankly, getting 
up there.
  I have a couple of photographs from Gonaives I want to show my 
colleagues. This picture was an AP photo taken in Gonaives. The second 
aerial photo was taken, again, in the city of Gonaives.
  As Father Tom said, in the city most of the houses have been 
destroyed. The mud huts and concrete shacks crumbled, leaving standing 
only the houses made of stone. Anyone who has traveled in Haiti knows 
that most of the

[[Page 19238]]

houses are made of mud--mud huts. Very few are made of stone. Very few 
are really made of anything substantial.
  Father Tom told me the stench was overwhelming. Dead bodies were 
littering the roads and floating in the putrid standing water that 
remains. Dead animals abound and disease, of course, will soon be 
rampant.
  Father Tom told me people were wandering about aimlessly in a state 
of confusion and desperation. He said that you can literally see the 
fear on people's faces. Mothers could be seen holding dead babies in 
their arms and walking around. Other mothers were carrying their young 
children above their heads, trying helplessly to keep them out of the 
flood water.
  Father Tom said that even the animals seemed confused and didn't know 
where to go. Thousands of people have been displaced, with no food, no 
good water, and no shelter. Father Tom told me that the U.N. troops 
were visible on the ground, but even their compound is underwater. He 
saw aid workers from the Pan American Development Foundation. He saw 
some of their trucks and saw that they were trying to get aid to the 
people. Some of the trucks did get through to Gonaives, but others were 
turned over and stuck in the mud.
  The village of Brunette, which lies very near Gonaives, has also 
become a lake. In January, 2003, Senator Durbin, Senator Nelson, 
Senator Nelson's wife Grace, and my wife Fran, and I all traveled to 
Brunette. We visited the village and met with village leaders and 
schoolchildren. This is a picture of Brunette, the village we visited 
on that day. This was one of Father Tom's water development projects. 
As I said, we met with the village leaders and schoolchildren. It was a 
very happy day.
  Senator Durbin and Senator Nelson will recall that the bumpy ride we 
took, going up from Port-au-Prince, was 50 miles or so. It took about 4 
hours to get up there because it was such a rough road. We did get 
there and saw this village. These are some of the pictures that we took 
on that day. The village that you see here is now gone, according to 
Father Tom. It is a lake, totally covered. You cannot see anything. All 
you can see there is water. It looks like a total lake. Father Tom 
assumes that the people just went to higher ground. That is the life 
these people are going to have to try to go back to and try to put 
together.
  I ask my colleagues to try to imagine this village we see in this 
picture completely submerged in water, completely covered in fetid, 
disease-ridden floodwater. Father Tom said you can no longer see the 
houses above the water. All you can see is part of a cistern from the 
water project we visited that day.
  Clearly, the people of Haiti need our help, now more than ever. This 
bill today is taking a number of steps that will aid the Haitian 
people. I congratulate Senator McConnell and Senator Leahy, the 
chairman and ranking member, for their great work.
  With this recent disaster, the needs of the people of Haiti--food, 
water, and medicine--will even be greater.
  I thank all my colleagues who have been so supportive of the efforts 
to help bring Haiti back to its feet. I ask them today for their 
continued support. I ask everyone for their prayers as well. This is a 
very difficult situation that the people of Haiti face today. The 
situation Father Tom described is clearly one that necessitates the 
United States and the international community to become even more 
involved, to get food in there, to get good water in there, and then be 
involved in helping to rebuild, in helping these people put their lives 
back together.

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