[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 151 (2005), Part 21]
[Issue]
[Pages 27931-28182]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]
[[Page 27931]]
VOLUME 151--PART 21
SENATE--Tuesday, December 13, 2005
The Senate met at 11 a.m. and was called to order by the Honorable
Wayne Allard, a Senator from the State of Colorado.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Today's prayer will be offered by our guest
Chaplain, Dr. Richard Foth.
______
prayer
The guest Chaplain offered the following prayer:
Shall we pray.
Almighty God, creator of heaven and Earth, creator of each of us, we
thank You for this day. This is the day You have made, and we ``will
rejoice and be glad in it.''
As our Senators conduct the business of the Nation, pressing to
determine critical issues before year's end, we pray for them a baptism
of patience and clear seeing. Give them the strength to press on the
issues and the capacity to give and receive personal grace in the heat
of battle.
In the confluence of political pressures and seasonal celebrations of
good will, we pause to recognize our need of You, Lord. We are grateful
for Your sovereignty in the world and Your designed place in our lives.
You are indeed, Immanuel, ``God with us.''
In Your Holy Name we pray. Amen.
____________________
PLEDGE OF ALLEGIANCE
The Honorable Wayne Allard led the Pledge of Allegiance, as follows:
I pledge allegiance to the Flag of the United States of
America, and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation
under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.
____________________
APPOINTMENT OF ACTING PRESIDENT PRO TEMPORE
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will please read a communication to
the Senate from the President pro tempore (Mr. Stevens).
The legislative clerk read the following letter:
U.S. Senate,
President pro tempore,
Washington, DC, December 13, 2005.
To the Senate:
Under the provisions of rule I, paragraph 3, of the
Standing Rules of the Senate, I hereby appoint the Honorable
Wayne Allard, a Senator from the State of Colorado, to
perform the duties of the Chair.
Ted Stevens,
President pro tempore.
Mr. ALLARD thereupon assumed the chair as Acting President pro
tempore.
____________________
RESERVATION OF LEADER TIME
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Under the previous order, the
leadership time is reserved.
____________________
MORNING BUSINESS
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Under the previous order, there
will be a period for the transaction of morning business.
____________________
RECOGNITION OF THE MAJORITY LEADER
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The majority leader is recognized.
____________________
SCHEDULE
Mr. FRIST. Mr. President, today, after a period of morning business,
the Senate will debate the Bahrain Free Trade Agreement under a 60-
minute time agreement reached last night. Later today, we will also
begin debate on the motions to instruct conferees with respect to the
deficit reduction bill. We hope to have a unanimous consent agreement
ready which will lock in those motions for debate and votes. We are
still trying to determine exactly when those stacked votes will occur,
and I will announce that shortly as we get closer to an agreement.
Members should adjust their schedules to accommodate a lengthy week and
possible weekend session so that we may complete our business and then
go home for the holidays.
____________________
IRAQI DEMOCRACY
Mr. FRIST. Mr. President, I wish to comment just very briefly on what
is going on over the course of this week in Iraq, as it focuses on
Iraqi democracy and the process that has begun in this country today
and will continue through Thursday when the elections are carried out
in Iraq.
Earlier this morning, I had the opportunity to talk at the White
House in a meeting by teleconference with our Ambassador to Iraq, in
Iraq, and General George Casey about the remarkable progress going on
in that country today as they updated us with the plans for the
elections, what is underway, and looking back to the tremendous
progress that has been made over the last several months and the truly
remarkable progress that has been made in the elections in January and
October and now the preparations made for the elections this week.
On Thursday, the Iraqi people began what is a historic process for
choosing their first fully constitutional parliament since the fall of
Saddam, culminating in this nationwide vote on Thursday, December 15.
In our briefings this morning, it was pointed out that the elections
are Thursday and many of us will be watching to see how large a turnout
there will be, recognizing that 10 million people turned out for the
last elections in October.
Our briefers also pointed out the fact that we have to moderate our
expectations a little bit in terms of the overall timing because of the
sequence of the events with the elections on Thursday and then a
preliminary certification of the elections about a week later and then
a final certification in early January, around January 6 or 7. The
government itself becomes a product of that parliament, and that will
not be finalized until April of next year, but the process has begun,
and the votes, even among Iraqis in this country right now, are
beginning today.
The country, as we think back just 2\1/2\ years ago, that was ruled
by tyranny and despotism is, with the help of
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American and coalition forces, transforming itself into a hopeful and
democratic society. That hope is being felt by the Iraqi people as they
move forward, rebuilding and renewing their country.
In yesterday's widely reported new polling data, the Iraqis believe
their lives are going well, with nearly two-thirds expecting that
things will improve in the months and years ahead. Average household
incomes have skyrocketed by 60 percent in the last 20 months, and
Iraqis are quickly joining the swift current of modernity with cell
phones and the Internet, cars, washing machines, and satellite dishes.
Even ABC News, which commissioned the poll, rates the Iraqi mood at ``a
remarkable level of optimism.''
In Thursday's elections, we will also have marked yet another
milestone in their transition from dictatorship to democracy. Just in
the past year, we have witnessed a series of truly extraordinary
events. Last January, 8.5 million Iraqis defied the terrorists and
marched to the polls. Who will ever forget the remarkable picture of
Iraqis proudly displaying their purple-stained finger, citing that
freedom, that ability to vote. They showed the world their readiness
and eagerness to participate in a new system of government.
Throughout the summer, Iraq's leaders worked through the painful
give-and-take process of drafting the nation's permanent constitution.
Even though much of Iraq's Sunni Arab population boycotted the January
elections, Iraq's elected officials worked hard to reach out and
include the Sunni Arab representatives in the constitution-drafting
process. They understood the importance of including leaders from all
of Iraq's ethnic and religious communities in such a historic endeavor.
As we saw by summer's end, their patience, compromise, and inclusion
paid off. The draft they produced established the framework for a
stable and democratic Iraq at the heart of the Middle East. Their new
constitution safeguards individual minority rights, guarantees the
protection of human rights, and creates a system of government based on
the rule of law and the will of the Iraqi people.
In October, the Iraqi people turned out again, in overwhelming
numbers, to ratify their permanent constitution. More than 10 million
Iraqis across religious and ethnic lines went to the polls to
demonstrate their growing desire to have their voice heard in a
democratic political process.
Most of the increase in voter turnout came in Sunni areas of the
country.
As the political process continues to unfold, Iraq's Sunni Arabs are
coming to recognize the importance of taking part in that democratic
process.
Only through peaceful politics can the Sunni Arab community in Iraq
ensure that its rights are secured, its interests protected, and its
people represented at the national, provincial, and local levels.
Even though many Sunnis voted against Iraq's permanent constitution,
the trend line of increased political participation among the Sunni
population is heading up.
This morning, we were briefed directly from Iraq. The number of
polling stations in the Sunni parts of the country are increasing
dramatically day by day, much surpassing expectations.
More than 300 political parties and coalitions have registered for
this week's elections. Candidates are campaigning, and the Iraqi people
are again showing their willingness to defy terrorist threats and
participate--and participate actively--in the political process.
As President Bush articulated in his speech yesterday in
Philadelphia, Iraq is that central front in the war on terror.
Their move to democracy is essential to our shared victory over
terrorism.
It is not going to be easy.
We face an enemy who targets innocent civilians with bombings and
beheadings--an enemy who despises freedom, that fears democracy. They
will bend every effort to derail Iraq's continued progress until they
are ultimately defeated.
But I am confident the Iraqi people will succeed and that together we
will prevail over the terrorist enemy.
Time and time again, the Iraqi people have shown their friends and
their enemies that they are steadfast in their determination to secure
a bright, peaceful, and prosperous future for their children and for
their grandchildren.
They will do so again on Thursday, this Thursday, December 15.
I applaud President Bush for his unwavering commitment to freedom and
liberty for the Iraqi people. I applaud the Iraqi people for their
unwavering courage to secure their democratic future.
The United States will continue to stand behind them as they work to
become a peaceful, a united, a stable, and a secure and more prosperous
nation, a full member of the international community and a full partner
in the global war on terrorism.
I yield the floor.
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from Idaho is
recognized.
Mr. CRAIG. Mr. President, may I inquire as to the state of the
Senate? Are we in morning business?
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. We are in morning business.
Mr. CRAIG. I thank the Chair. I will speak as in morning business.
____________________
CONTINUED DUMPING AND SUBSIDY OFFSET ACT
Mr. CRAIG. Mr. President, the leader, in opening the Senate this
morning, said we would come to the floor later today to begin to debate
motions to instruct the conferees on the budget resolution conference
that is now underway and being negotiated between the House and the
Senate.
Of course, that is critical to our going home--the process to
finalize the work of the Congress this year. So for the next few
moments, I wish to speak about two issues that are in that conference
that will be a part of the debate this afternoon on the instruction of
conferees.
The first one is what we call the Byrd amendment, also known as the
Continued Dumping and Subsidy Offset Act.
To set the record straight, it is important to say that so people
understand when I reference the Byrd amendment I am not talking about
the Byrd rule as it relates to what can and cannot be inside the budget
resolution but is, in fact, what Senator Byrd, I, and joined by others
some time ago know as the Continued Dumping and Subsidy Offset Act.
As many Senators are aware, this amendment, the Byrd amendment, has
had tremendous support in this body. In fact, in 2003, 70 Senators
notified the President of our strong support for this provision.
Further, just recently, 25 Republican Senators notified the majority
leader of our strong opposition to any repeal of the Byrd amendment in
the Deficit Reduction Act. I firmly believe those 25 Senators stand
firm in their opposition to any repeal. A provision such as the
Continued Dumping and Subsidy Offset Act that has so much support has
no place whatsoever in the budget resolution or what we call the
Deficit Reduction Act. However, some in this body are calling the Byrd
amendment ``corporate welfare.'' If people in this country call a
provision that protects U.S. companies and manufacturers from
intentional and illegal foreign dumping and in subsidies, so be it. You
can call it anything you want, but that is the reality of the existing
law. When foreign companies continue to dump and get subsidies even
after an order goes into effect, the U.S. industry gets absolutely no
benefit from that measure. The only way we can level the playing field
in those instances is to prevent those duties to be distributed to the
very American companies that are injured by those flagrant and illegal
practices.
Some in this body would like to repeal the Byrd amendment because it
has been estimated to result in $3.2 billion in cost savings.
I have to tell you this estimate, in my opinion, is pure fabrication.
This year, for example, the Congressional Budget Office estimated
that this act's provisions would come to $800 million in fiscal year
2005. In reality, however, the figure was $226 million. CBO's estimate
was off by a factor of
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three. That tells me that the 5-year estimate for 2006-2010 is grossly
overestimated. Therefore, if we include repeal of the Byrd amendment to
inflate budget-deficit reduction numbers, we are clearly not getting
those cost savings, while at the same time injuring U.S. companies that
are committed to preserving and growing manufacturing jobs in this
country.
Finally, some have argued we must repeal the act because it is in
violation of the WTO.
First, I believe this shows how far the WTO has overstepped their
guidelines in placing obligations on our country we have never agreed
to.
Second, there is nothing in any WTO agreement that specifies how
countries must spend their dumping duty proceeds. If we must do
anything with respect to WTO, we ought to tell Ambassador Portman, as
the Senate has done many times in the past, to negotiate a specific
agreement permitting duty distribution in the Doha Round. This is not
the time to repeal this provision while our negotiators are still at
the negotiating table.
I strongly urge my colleagues and the leadership to remove the repeal
of the Byrd amendment from the Deficit Reduction Act. This is simply
not the time nor the place for such an action.
Further, I urge my colleagues to fall in line and support a motion to
instruct conferees to remove this repeal. Failure to do so will send a
message to our injured U.S. companies and manufacturers that Congress
is wearing rose-colored glasses and fails to see or act upon the evils
of illegal dumping and foreign subsidies.
____________________
MILK INCOME LOSS CONTRACT
Mr. CRAIG. Mr. President, in speaking to conferees this afternoon in
relation to the deficit reduction or the budget reconciliation process,
this is an issue that, frankly, most Senators probably have not heard
all that much about.
Everyone agrees that the reconciliation act, or Deficit Reduction
Act, is an attempt by Congress to rein in spending and to build the
appropriate budget in this climate. This legislation makes tough cuts
in important programs in all areas of Government.
While nearly all programs are taking their lumps--if you will,
sucking it up a bit--Congress is, ironically, considering increasing
spending in a bill whose sole purpose is to decrease spending.
The Senate's version of the Budget Reconciliation Act, or Deficit
Reduction Act, includes a provision renewing the Milk Income Loss
Contract Program, also known as the MILC Program, which currently
expired in September of this year.
The CBO has scored this renewal in costs to the taxpayers of $1
billion over a 2-year period. In other words, half a billion a year.
This deserves much more attention than it got in the Senate. The MILC
Dairy Price Support Program was included in the 2000 farm bill to
create a permanent direct payment program to the dairy producers.
During the farm bill debate, USDA warned that the new program would run
counter to the old dairy price support program in place since the
1940s.
Analysis by the USDA in August of 2002 concluded that the MILC
Program would cause overproduction, thereby lowering farm prices to
producers, forcing the government to purchase the excess until prices
stabilized. However, Congress ignored the USDA warning and authorized
the program to last until September of 2005, enough time to see dairy
producers through the tough times back in 2002.
Now, after over $2 billion in taxpayer-funded programs, some in the
Congress have easily forgotten about the agreement to sunset a program.
When we sunset a program it is the intent of Congress to conclude it.
Let me give some examples of how distorted it has become if the
program is in support and in relation to production in our country.
Idaho dairy production is now 4th in the Nation and one of the top
economic drivers in the economy of my State. During the 2003-2005
period, Idaho received $39 million in MILC payments, enough to be
ranked 12th in total payments received in the program, yet they are
fourth in production in the Nation.
In comparison, California received $149 million over the same time,
is ranked fifth in total payments and, of course, California is the No.
1 milk producer in the Nation.
There seems to be no relationship. I guess some hands are just too
sticky to let money pass just because the law is 3 years old and ready
to expire.
My point is this: It is important to understand just what this
program does and what the $1 billion for one program means in the
overall picture. It has become market distorted. It provides little to
no parity to all producers. It encourages inefficient overproduction in
milk and it sends the exact opposite signal to our trade negotiators
trying to sell the rest of the world on the idea that the United States
is willing to cut domestic subsidies and amber box payments.
Regarding the WTO negotiations, our United States Trade
Representative and USDA Secretary and many others are currently
attempting to negotiate in the latest Doha Round getting started in
Hong Kong as we speak. It is clearly important we send a message. It is
also important when we sunset a program after having found out it is
market distorting, we ought to do just that, instead of pump it up
again while we are asking all other programs that are federally
expended to reduce their overall expenditures, to reduce the budget
deficit and to bring this budget under control.
I hope our conferees, as they negotiate the budget deficit reduction
act, or the budget resolution, would decide not to fund the MILC
Program, adhere to the sunset provision provided and allow a program to
die as this program effectively did by the sunset in September of this
year.
Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to have printed for the Record
articles in opposition to the MILC Program and also an article from the
Wall Street Journal.
There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in
the Record, as follows:
December 1, 2005.
Dear Representative: On behalf of the hundreds of thousands
of senior citizens we support across America, I urge you to
make every effort to be sure that MILC, the now defunct dairy
farmer giveaway program is not resurrected through inclusion
in Reconciliation, or any other measure. Costing roughly $1
billion (actual outlays could again top $2 billion), a new
MILC program, once more propping up inefficient dairy
farmers, should have no place in a budget that cuts spending
on Medicare, Medicaid, and other key senior programs like
LIHEAP. Outdated dairy farmer welfare has no business in what
should be a free-market. MILC, and similar government
intrusions into the dairy marketplace, cause instability and
price spikes. If extended, MILC will once again (as the USDA
admits) work in conflict with the federal milk price support
system. Worst of all, the oldest and the poorest among us
will suffer mightily to pay for the MILC giveaway to a select
few dairy farmers.
It would truly be outrageous to create a new MILC program,
or worse to have one included in reconciliation just to win
passage! Just look at what that nearly $1 billion in MILC
giveaway money will buy:
Medicare--The House proposal would cut $5 billion in
Medicare funding over five years. The almost $1 billion being
proposed for the MILC boondoggle could restore Medicare
funding and help provide better health care to some 140,000
elderly Americans.
Medicaid--The House proposal cuts Medicaid spending by
$11.4 billion, compared with $4.3 billion in Senate cuts.
That $1 billion MILC giveaway could be better used to give
over 248,000 of the poorest Americans access to health care
through Medicaid.
Low Income Heating Assistance Program or LIHEAP--Through
LIHEAP, that wasted $1 billion in MILC money could help some
2,680,965 people cope with sky-rocketing heating bills. It
could be their only chance to stay warm this winter.
Student Loans--At a time when student loan programs are
being slashed ($14.3 billion in the Senate and $8.8 billion
in the House), $1 billion in special interest MILC funding
could help our grandchildren attend college at a time when
college costs are rising faster than inflation. The House
cuts will cost each student up to $5,800 more in interest and
fees over the life of their loans.
Food Stamps--Adding the $1 billion in MILC money to this
important program that helps feed needy seniors would fully
restore the $800 million in Food Stamp funding cut by the
House.
We believe the wasteful, expensive MILC program should be
left to rest in peace, thus
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helping to keep needed senior health care and nutrition
programs fully funded. As one recent Wall Street Journal
Editorial, Milking the Taxpayer notes, the USDA identifies no
less than a half-dozen support programs for dairy farmers. We
urge you to oppose the same tired old politics of vote
trading and ever more pork barrel largesse for just a handful
of dairy farmers on the dole. Instead, we urge you to stand
up for all of the seniors, the poor, the needy, the students,
and the veterans who will have less, just to fund MILC. As
the Journal Editorial says so well, ``Taxpayers have been
MILCed enough by this particular boondoggle.''
Please do the responsible thing for all Americans by
working to put an end to MILC once and for all. Rewarding
inefficiency should never be the function of any government
program, even when there are surplus funds to spend. Now,
when important health care and nutrition programs are being
cut or cancelled, MILC should not be allowed to rear its head
again.
Sincerely,
Michelle Plasari,
President, RetireSafe.
Jim Martin,
President, 60 Plus Association.
____
[From the Wall Street Journal, Nov. 14, 2005]
Milking the Taxpayer
It is a sign of just how unmoored from fiscal
responsibility the current Congress has become that in the
midst of a loud struggle over mostly symbolic budget cuts,
the party in power is having trouble even letting dead
programs stay dead.
One such program is the Milk Income Loss Contract program--
MILC for short, cleverly enough--which passed its sell-by
date at the end of September and expired. The House budget
bill does not include its revival. But the Senate version
reauthorizes MILC, and in 2004 the President promised
Wisconsin voters that he would fight for its extension, so
its fate lies with the House-Senate conference that will
reconcile the two massive budget bills.
MILC was one product of the 2002 farm-subsidy bill, and
even by farm-subsidy standards it is perverse. At the time
the program was voted into law, Congress asked the Department
of Agriculture to study the effects of the various
government-support programs on the dairy business. The USDA
duly issued its report in August, and for a technical
document the report was unequivocal that ``there is a basic
incompatibility'' between MILC and other pre-existing dairy
subsidy programs. (The USDA report identifies no fewer than a
half-dozen support programs for dairy farmers.)
The conflict is this. One of the oldest programs is the
milk price-support program, which dates to the Depression-era
Agricultural Adjustment Act. Under that program, the
government steps in and buys milk when the price falls below
a certain level. If that support price is set low enough, it
provides some income security to farmers while allowing the
market to clear and production to fall to the point where
prices can rise again.
Here's where MILC pours in and clouds the picture. MILC
makes direct payments to farmers based on their production
whenever the milk price falls below a certain level. What's
more, MILC kicks in at a much higher level than the price-
support program. The effect of this is that production is
encouraged by MILC even as prices are falling, which drives
the price down toward the support level and prevents the
shakeout that the price-support program is intended to allow.
The Agriculture Department found that MILC does in fact
artificially depress the price of milk by encouraging
overproduction, which is just what you'd expect. Then,
through the price-support mechanism, the government winds up
buying the milk that MILC encouraged the farmers to produce.
Thus, in the Ag Department's dry bureaucratese: ``The price
support program and the MILC program provide an example of
problems that can be caused by conflicting policy outcomes.''
In short, MILC distorts the market and conflicts directly
with other pre-existing subsidy programs. It has also cost
close to $2 billion since its inception, nearly twice the $1
billion originally budgeted for it. Letting it expire should
have been a no-brainer, not least because dairy farmers still
enjoy numerous other forms of government handouts. It was
kept alive in the Senate through the exertions of Vermont
Democrat Pat Leahy, who isn't known for helping the GOP
agenda. With no GOP Senators in either Vermont or Wisconsin,
Republicans don't even have a political motive for keeping
this subsidy alive.
Two billion dollars over three years may be a drop in the
fiscal milk-bucket, but Republican lawmakers used to insist
on sunsetting government programs for a reason. Taxpayers
have been MILCed enough by this particular boondoggle.
____________________
MORNING BUSINESS
Mr. CRAIG. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent there now be a
period of morning business with Senators permitted to speak up to 10
minutes each.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. CHAMBLISS). Without objection, it is so
ordered.
Mr. CRAIG. Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. SUNUNU. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for
the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. SUNUNU. Mr. President, I ask permission to speak in morning
business.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator is recognized for 10 minutes.
____________________
PATRIOT ACT REAUTHORIZATION
Mr. SUNUNU. Mr. President, today I come to the floor to speak about
the pending reauthorization, extension of the PATRIOT Act, the
legislation passed in the wake of the September 11 attacks. This debate
is fraught with emotion because we were all outraged at what happened
on September 11. Everyone in America and around the world shares a
desire to address the threat of global terrorism, to give law
enforcement appropriate powers to pursue those terrorists. But we want
to make sure in doing so we pass legislation that is in keeping with
the principles on which our country was founded--principles of
individual liberty and freedom.
Ultimately, this debate about renewing, extending the PATRIOT Act is
about police powers, the power that the people, through their elected
representatives, give to government, give to agents of government.
Whether it is at the State, local, or Federal level, we give certain
police powers to government to conduct searches. We give the government
power to detain individuals. We give the government power to serve
subpoenas, to confiscate records. We do it because we think ultimately
it is in the public interest to do so. But just as the Framers
recognized, we need to provide a balance, to balance these very
forceful, very powerful tools with personal freedom, civil liberty.
So as a result, we require the government, or government agents, to
show cause before they conduct a search. We set standards for evidence
in a courtroom. They need to meet certain standards of evidence to
conduct a search, certain standards of evidence to detain an individual
or a suspect. And, of course, we have the principle of due process,
trial by jury, and the ability to have an appeal heard in a court of
law.
Some people may say: We know that. These are fundamental. These are
basic to our system of justice. But it is important that we are
reminded of these basic principles if we are going to get the
reauthorization and the extension of the PATRIOT Act correct.
This is not a new set of issues. These are the very issues
contemplated by the Framers. In many respects, these police powers are
issues that alarmed the Framers--and I say alarmed because they were so
concerned about the powers of Government and the powers of the State
that they wrote specific protections into the Constitution. The fourth
amendment, protecting from unreasonable search and seizure,
specifically addresses the threshold of probable cause, that the
Government shall show probable cause before it conducts search and
seizure of personal property.
The fifth amendment protects us from self-incrimination. We have all
seen enough Perry Mason to understand what it means to invoke one's
rights under the fifth amendment. It speaks specifically about due
process and the right to an open, fair due process when one is being
prosecuted, whether it is for a criminal act or whether we are
prosecuting one of these powers of search and seizure, a power of the
State to issue a search warrant.
The sixth amendment speaks specifically about a right to a trial and
what it means to have one's case heard before a jury or in a court of
law. All of these amendments and others, but
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these three in particular, speak directly to balancing the rights of
individuals and the liberty of individuals with the powers of the
State.
The Framers were, quite frankly, very distrustful of Government and
the power of the Federal Government. I try to be a little less
pessimistic in my work in the Senate, but I must be frank with my
colleagues in stating that on this issue, on the PATRIOT Act, I have
begun this debate more from a position of mistrust and concern about
the work that had been done in preparation for this reauthorization and
the position taken by the administration. I will speak to that in a
moment, but it is important to note that on the Senate side we had
bipartisan agreement and on the Senate side we had terrific leadership
by Senator Specter on these issues. He understands this balance
probably as well as anyone in the Senate. I do not fault his work as a
chairman and certainly not the work of the Senate as a whole, given
that we had incorporated a number of protections in our legislation.
The Justice Department began this process well over a year ago,
taking the position that we should make all the provisions of the
PATRIOT Act permanent and we should not make any changes, we did not
need to make any changes. This is legislation that was passed just 6
weeks after September 11. I would not say it was passed in haste, but
it was passed during a very difficult and emotional time in our
country's history. We had sunsets on 16 provisions in the PATRIOT Act
for just that reason. We knew there was a lot of uncertainty as to how
this war on terrorism would progress, what tools law enforcement really
did need to pursue legitimate terrorist suspects, what we needed to do
to get our hands around financial records or other financial
transactions that might lead investigators to uncover terrorist cells
in America or around the world.
Anyone who understands the legislative process knows that was not a
perfect bill, no matter how hard people worked on it. To suggest that
when it came time for reauthorization there would be no need for
changes I believe suggests a lack of understanding of the process of
Congress, the legislative process, and how things get put together on
Capitol Hill, or lack of understanding about the substance in the bill,
not understanding all the provisions in the bill and how they did in
some cases unnecessarily infringe on civil liberties, or perhaps an
arrogance that leadership, those who were responsible for providing
leadership within the Justice Department, knew they were not abusing
any of the provisions in the law so no changes needed to be made. I
will speak to that argument shortly, but I think it is very
unfortunate.
So when one has this kind of legislation, as sweeping in scope as
this is, and suggests when it comes time to deal with these sunset
provisions that no changes need to be made, I think shows a lack of
substantive reflection on the balance between the police powers of the
State I spoke about and civil liberties on the other hand.
Two years ago, I joined with a number of my colleagues in introducing
the SAFE Act: Senators Durbin, Salazar, and Feingold on the Democratic
side, Senators Craig, Murkowski, and myself on the Republican side. We
spoke specifically to a few provisions in the PATRIOT Act where we
thought we could do a better job of protecting civil liberties.
The 215 section that allows the subpoena of business or library
records, the national security letter provision--the national security
letter is a sweeping order issued without the approval of a judge that
gives investigators access to financial data, to medical data, or to
other transaction records; the roving wiretap provision that is
necessary because we have new communication technologies that are more
mobile than ever but where we still need to do a good job of specifying
who the target is of that roving wiretap; delayed search warrants--
again, sometimes there is going to be a need for conducting a search
warrant before notifying a target so that the investigation is not
jeopardized. But we should have specific provisions written in the law
for notifying that target after a certain period of time. As it was
written, there was no period specified for notification.
Of course, the idea of sunsets is important to civil liberties
anytime one is dealing with law enforcement legislation, because a
sunset calls on Congress to come back, look at how a law was used, look
at how it was implemented, how it affected civil liberties, and make
appropriate changes.
I ask unanimous consent to speak for an additional 10 minutes.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Vermont.
Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, I have no objection. I add to that consent
that I would then follow the distinguished Senator from New Hampshire
on the same subject.
Mr. SUNUNU. I so modify my request.
Mr. ALEXANDER. Reserving the right to object, I ask unanimous consent
to follow the distinguished Senator from Vermont.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. SUNUNU. We introduced the SAFE Act to deal with very specific
areas where we thought the PATRIOT Act needed to be improved to better
protect civil liberties. Some would argue that with the PATRIOT Act, as
it has been rewritten, the conference agreement, that there were only a
few areas now where there is a disagreement and so we ought to accept
it as it is. I make a broad argument, though, that simply because we
are conducting shortcuts on civil liberties in only a few areas is
simply not an effective argument. I think where civil liberties are
concerned, as I illustrated with the Framers' concerns, we ought to do
everything in our power to make sure proper protection is provided.
A few key points about the weaknesses that remain in the PATRIOT Act,
and with these weaknesses I will not be able to support the final
conference report. I certainly will not support moving forward with the
conference report, in part because I think these are substantive
problems but also because they are problems that should be easily
addressed in a reworked conference agreement. The first deals with the
business and libraries provision, section 215. In section 215 we have
established a very broad standard, too broad a standard, for
investigators to get access to sensitive records--whether it is at a
business or a library; it makes no difference. The standard is that the
records simply be shown as relevant to an investigation. That does not
sound inappropriate, but as a legal standard that means records could
be subpoenaed that have no direct connection to a particular suspect.
As a result, the records of many innocent Americans, or the burden
placed on businesses to continually produce records under this
provision is going to be far too onerous.
There is also associated with this provision, this business records
subpoena power, a permanent automatic gag order that prevents you from
discussing the fact that this order has been issued to you as an
individual or your business, and there is no judicial review of that
gag order. I think this is a fundamental flaw in this conference
report, the idea that you have been served with a permanent gag order
to restrict your free speech, to restrict you from talking about that
gag order, and it is permanent and you have no ability to appeal it in
a court of law.
I would argue that taking your case, your appeal before a judge is
fundamental to our system of justice in the United States of America. I
would further argue that it in no way undermines law enforcement's
ability to conduct an investigation to give the business or the
individual the opportunity to appeal that gag order in a court of law.
The argument that it might cost a little bit extra is ridiculous in the
face of the need to protect individual civil liberties.
The system of judicial review for these section 215 subpoenas simply
is not acceptable. Similarly, the system of judicial review on national
security letters fails to meet the important test
[[Page 27936]]
of balancing individual civil liberties. There is a very low threshold
for getting a national security letter. It is not approved by a judge.
The threshold is merely a ``showing of relevance,'' once again not a
direct connection to a suspect, which is very problematic. Moreover,
the threshold for overturning the gag order--again a restriction on the
ability to even discuss the national security letter--is that you must
show bad faith on the part of the Federal Government. That is virtually
impossible. No individual, no business served with a national security
letter will effectively be able to show bad faith on the part of the
Federal Government, and therefore they will never have a national
security letter or its accompanying gag order overturned.
To have meaningful judicial review you have to have a meaningful
standard, a reasonable standard of showing in that court of law. I
think it is fair to say, if we look around the world at different
governments' attempts to eviscerate the power of due process, this is
one way to do it--to have judicial review, to ``let people have their
case in a court of law,'' but set the standard of evidence or the
standard for overturning an egregious decision so high that the
government always wins. That is simply not acceptable where American
civil liberties are concerned.
Finally, let me turn to a few of the arguments posed or made to
individuals, such as Senator Leahy or Senator Feingold or me, who have
brought forward these objections. One argument is what I would describe
as a very broad argument, that we need to extend the PATRIOT Act, we
need to fight terrorism, we need to make sure we don't undermine the
ability of law enforcement in their work to deal with terrorist
threats. I agree. Senator Leahy--I will take the opportunity to speak
for my colleague from Vermont. He agrees we need to do all of these
things. But that is not a substantive argument for not making these
changes he and I support. We are all for fighting terrorism. We are all
for extending the PATRIOT Act. I do not oppose the idea of subpoenaing
business records or even library records or the idea of a national
security letter. What I oppose is having such a powerful government
force in place without countervailing protections for civil liberties.
A second argument is one I mentioned earlier: for the Justice
Department to say we have not abused any provisions in the current
PATRIOT Act so just extend them all as written. It doesn't matter to me
whether it is a Democratic administration or Republican administration,
the argument that you have not abused a poorly written law is no
argument at all for extending and making permanent that poorly written
law. If it does not protect civil liberties, we should modify it. We
should make sure the protections are there so that no matter who holds
the reins of power, in the executive or the legislative or the judicial
branches of Government, those freedoms continue to be protected.
A third argument is if we do not move forward, if this bill fails to
get a cloture vote this week and it goes back to conference, it will
only get worse. Let me get this straight. If you vote against a bill
that doesn't adequately protect civil liberties, we are going to take
it back to conference and compromise civil liberties even further? I
think that is an outrageous argument to make. I think there are some
people who are making it, or who have made it, who do not intend it to
be taken that way. But I think it is only fair that it be taken that
way. That is an inappropriate threat. If the attitude of the conferees
is they will further restrict civil liberties if they do not get this
poorly written bill passed, then perhaps no law is better.
I do not believe that. I think there ought to be a willingness to
make improvements. Again, there are no specific reasons for how these
changes that I have described--judicial review of a 215 gag order, a
better threshold for overturning an NSL there is no substantive
argument that I have heard for how these would undermine law
enforcement's ability to pursue terrorists. These arguments simply do
not hold up.
Benjamin Franklin, 200 years ago, observed that:
Those who would give up Essential Liberty to purchase a
little Temporary Safety deserve neither Liberty nor Safety.
Those words are as true today as they were over 200 years ago. There
is no reason to compromise the right to due process, the right to a
judicial review, to fair and reasonable standards of evidence, in the
pursuit of our security and the pursuit of terrorists wherever they may
be around the world. I think making these changes is reasonable. They
are fair.
I have joined with Senator Leahy in introducing a 3-month extension
of the existing PATRIOT Act to ensure that we have plenty of time, in a
reasonable and thoughtful way, to make very modest changes that would
go a long way toward ensuring this is a better bill, that it is a bill
that we can be proud of, and a bill that will protect civil liberties.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Under the previous order, the Senator from
Vermont is recognized.
Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, first, if I might, I wish to compliment my
colleague and neighbor from across the Connecticut River, Senator
Sununu of New Hampshire. He has laid out very clearly and eloquently
the reasons we should not be rushed into a bad bill. It is not because
any of us here have any love of terrorists. Of course none of us do; no
Americans do.
On a September morning 4 years ago, nearly 3,000 lives, American
lives, were lost--not in a foreign nation but on our own soil. Our
lives as Americans changed in an instant. There is not a person within
this Chamber who does not remember exactly where he or she was when
they heard the news of the attacks of 9/11. In the aftermath of those
attacks, Congress moved swiftly to pass antiterterrorism legislation.
We moved as a Congress, as a Senate, as a House--not as Republicans or
as Democrats, but as Americans, united in our efforts. The fires were
still smoldering at Ground Zero in New York City when the USA PATRIOT
Act became law on October 30, 2001, just 6 weeks after the attacks.
I know how hard we worked. I was chairman of the Senate Judiciary
Committee at the time. Many of us here in the Senate today worked
together in that spirit of bipartisan unity. We resolved to craft a
bill that would make us safer as a nation.
Freedom and security are always in tension in our society, especially
so in those somber weeks after the attacks. We tried our best to strike
the right balance between freedom and security.
The Senator from New Hampshire quoted Benjamin Franklin. As one reads
the history of the founding of this Nation and what the Founders went
through, his quote stands out so much. Benjamin Franklin, like the
other Founders, knew that had our new country not worked, had the
Revolution not worked, most of them would have been hanged for trying
to break away from our mother country. When he spoke of a people who
would give up their liberties for security deserving neither, he knew
of what he spoke. And he set a key idea for the fledgling democracy of
America, and it is one that I like to think through the generations we
have strengthened. During my years in the Senate, I have done
everything possible to strengthen that balance to maintain our
liberties because if we do not maintain our liberties, at the best we
have a false security. It is not a real security.
One of the fruits of the bipartisanship of the PATRIOT Act, in trying
to work out this balance, was the sunset provisions. Those key
provisions set an expiration date of December 31, 2005, on certain
Government powers that had great potential to affect the civil
liberties of the American people. We are just weeks away from that date
now.
Some may wonder how these sunset provisions worked their way into the
PATRIOT Act. They were put there by the Republican leader of the House,
Dick Armey of Texas, and myself. We have entirely different political
philosophies, but we agreed on one thing: If you are giving great
powers to our Government, you want to make sure
[[Page 27937]]
there are some strings attached. It makes no difference whether it is a
Republican administration or a Democratic administration, you want to
make sure there are strings attached. Leader Armey and I insisted on
these sunsets to ensure that Congress would revisit the PATRIOT Act
within a few years and consider refinements to protect the rights and
liberties of all Americans more effectively, and we prevailed on that
point.
Sadly, the administration and some in the leadership in the House and
Senate have squandered key opportunities to improve the PATRIOT Act.
The House-Senate conference report filed last week by Republican
lawmakers falls short of what the American people expect and deserve
from us. The bipartisan Senate bill, which the Senate Judiciary
Committee and then the Senate adopted unanimously, struck a better
balance.
If I might, I wish to compliment the chairman of the Senate Judiciary
Committee, Senator Arlen Specter, the senior Senator from Pennsylvania,
and those Republicans and Democrats in this body who worked with him,
as I did, to put together a fair and balanced bill which was able to go
through our committee, which is sometimes heavily divided on issues.
Instead, it went through the Judiciary Committee unanimously and passed
the Senate unanimously. We worked together on that because we
understand that the reauthorization of the PATRIOT Act has to have the
confidence of the American people.
Think for a moment. Governments can limit the rights of the people in
their countries really in only two ways: they can do it by force of
arms, by oppression and repression, as we have seen with totalitarian
governments, or, if they have done it right, they can do it with the
consent of the governed.
As we are limiting some of these rights, as we are giving greater
powers to our Government, we want to do it in a way where the American
people--all of the nearly 300 million people in this great country--
would have confidence in what we have done, because we do not enforce
our laws in this country by force of arms, by dictatorship; we do it
with the consent of the governed.
I believe what we passed in the Senate and in the Senate Judiciary
Committee would have the confidence of the American people. But now we
have pushed forward and changed that to flawed legislation which will
not have that confidence and respect of the American people. The
Congress should not rush ahead to enact flawed legislation to meet a
deadline that is within our power to extend. We owe it to the American
people to get this right. America can do better than this flawed
legislation.
The way forward to a sensible, workable, bipartisan bill is clear. It
is very clear, as Senator Sununu said on the floor earlier this morning
and as I have suggested. Yesterday, Senator Sununu and I introduced a
bill to extend the sunset for the expiring PATRIOT Act powers until
March 31, 2006. Give us until March 31 to get this right, give us until
March 31 to have a bill that would have not only the respect of the
American people but especially the confidence of the American people.
Our laws work if we have confidence in them, and they fail if we do not
have confidence in them.
In offering this bill, Senator Sununu and I have been joined by
Senators Craig, Rockefeller, Murkowski, Kennedy, Hagel, Levin, Durbin,
Stabenow, Salazar, and others. It is a bipartisan effort to extend this
deadline. A deadline which Congress imposed to ensure oversight and
accountability should not now become a barrier to achieving bipartisan
compromise and the best bill we can forge together.
This is a vital debate. It should be. These are vital issues to all
Americans. If a brief extension is needed to produce a better bill that
would better serve all of our citizen then by all means, let us give
ourselves that time. We want to give tools to prosecutors. I spent 8
years of my life as a prosecutor. Some of the finest people on my staff
are former prosecutors. We know the needs, especially in the electronic
age. But we can do better, and America can do better if given the time.
I thank Senator Sununu and all of our cosponsors in coming together
in a bipartisan way to advance what is a commonsense solution.
I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record some recent
editorials on this matter.
There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in
the Record, as follows:
[From the Washington Post, Dec. 12, 2005]
A Better Patriot Act
The conference report on the USA Patriot Act
reauthorization bill contains one major improvement over the
previous version and a few minor ones. The new bill contains
strong ``sunset'' provisions, under which the three most
controversial provisions would lapse again after four years,
not the seven of the earlier draft. This is no small win for
civil liberties. The sunset provisions in the original
Patriot Act have given Congress leverage over the past few
years to extract information from an administration not known
for openness concerning its use of the powers Congress gave
it. Insisting that the administration justify itself again
relatively soon ensures that Congress will be able to adjust
and refine the law as need be.
Yet the conference report remains far from perfect. A
bipartisan group of senators is still objecting that it does
too little to protect civil liberties, and they are
threatening a filibuster, though it is not clear whether they
have the votes to sustain one. Some of the changes they are
seeking are reasonable and constructive. While the bill does
not contain the worst excesses of the House version, which
was larded with irrelevant and often terrible policy changes,
it still has a fair number of extraneous sections. Some are
silly, some ugly.
What makes all this so frustrating is that a consensus bill
was surely possible. Indeed, it happened. The Senate version
of the bill passed on a unanimous vote, representing broad
agreement to grant government authorities the powers they
legitimately need while ensuring accountability in their
use--and it didn't contain a raft of irrelevant laws
unrelated to intelligence. The members balking at the current
bill would do a service if they forced a cleaner, more
accountable Patriot Act reauthorization.
Debate over the conference report has focused on a narrow
array of civil liberties issues, all quite technical. The
rhetoric from civil libertarians makes the stakes here seem
greater than they really are. The differences between the
various proposals are not huge in practical terms. They are,
however, significant. The conference report contains weaker
controls on secret warrants for business records in national
security cases than the Senate bill did. It also does too
little to get a handle on the use of national security
letters--a form of administrative subpoena that the FBI uses
in national security cases to obtain records of certain
business transactions. These problems are not unsolvable, and
it's hard to believe the government is today getting much
data through uses of these powers that would be forbidden
were they written more accountably.
What's more, sift through the bill and you'll find
provisions dealing with tobacco smuggling, establishing civil
immunity for folks who donate firefighting equipment to fire
departments, establishing new crimes--some punishable by
death--related to marine navigation, creating a new national
security division in the Justice Department, letting Secret
Service forensics experts help out in finding missing kids,
combating methamphetamine abuse and making life more
miserable for people challenging state convictions in federal
court. None of this, needless to say, has much to do with
protecting America from al Qaeda.
The Patriot Act cannot be allowed to lapse at year's end,
and the current bill is much improved over earlier versions.
But it could still be a lot better. Precisely because the
administration cannot afford to let its powers expire,
further improvement should still be possible.
____
[From the Fresno Bee, Dec. 12, 2005]
Take the Time
Fresno, CA.--Barring an unlikely successful filibuster, the
USA Patriot Act is likely to be renewed this week, mostly in
the form it was given in 2001. That's when Congress, in the
wake of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, rushed to give law
enforcement broader powers of investigation. That's still
justified up to a point. Law enforcement and intelligence
agencies should not be hamstrung, for instance, by a now-
lapsed ban on sharing information.
But it's risky to give blanket authority to government
agencies to bypass the courts, as this law partly does. It's
too tempting to look into every nook and cranny just to be
sure there isn't something amiss there.
After lengthy debate behind closed doors, a House-Senate
conference committee agreed on compromise language that
congressional negotiators say will include more protection
for individuals. But if that's true, why do six senators--
three Democrats and three Republicans--still oppose the
measure? (One of
[[Page 27938]]
them--Democrat Russ Feingold of Wisconsin, the only senator
to vote against the original law--is threatening to
filibuster the revised version on the Senate floor.)
The principal objection of these lawmakers, and those of us
who cherish individual liberty, is that the law sets too low
a threshold for justifying the need to examine private
records, including medical, financial and employment. And
they are not persuaded--nor are we--that requiring
authorities to show that their investigation has some
relevance to an anti-terror investigation is enough.
These secret searches should be limited to specific
individuals and not be so broad as to allow ``fishing
expeditions.''
Supporters of the revised law say action is necessary now
because 16 provisions of the original act are set to expire
Dec. 31. That's true. But there's a way to avoid undue haste
without tying the hands of law enforcement: Adopt a proposal
by Sen. Patrick Leahy, ranking Democrat on the Judiciary
Committee, to extend the law for three months, allowing time
for public debate on a law that could be used as much to harm
individuals as to catch terrorists.
The compromise bill would make all but two of the 16
expiring provisions permanent. The other two are to be
extended for only four years, rather than the 10 years sought
by House Republicans. That's small comfort to those whose
privacy will be at risk in the meantime.
House Judiciary Chairman James Sensenbrenner, a proponent
of quick action, claims it's needed to aid law enforcement in
detecting terrorists before they strike. But that sense of
urgency extends only so far. Former members of the 9/11
Commission have just scorched Congress and the White House
for failing to protect the country in many ways, including
the misallocation of resources to states or localities based
on political clout instead of risk.
Americans would be no less safe if Congress were to
postpone a final vote and allow time for an open and honest
debate.
____
[From the Kansas City Star, Dec. 12, 2005]
More Time Needed To Forge Better Bill
Kansas City, MO.--A shaken Congress passed the Patriot Act
with almost no debate in the wake of the 2001 terrorist
attacks.
Since then politicians across the spectrum have joined
librarians, city councils and other groups in raising alarms
about the law's intrusions on the privacy of American
citizens.
With the act set to expire Dec. 31, lawmakers are
scrambling to reach a compromise that would allow most of the
provisions to be renewed permanently. Time is short, but it's
essential for Congress to give Americans a better balance
between national security and civil liberty.
The House and Senate this week will consider a compromise
agreement reached by negotiators. The package makes a good-
faith attempt to address some of the problems. But it
continues to give law enforcement agencies too much leeway to
search people's homes and examine their records without first
obtaining permission from judges.
Provisions in the proposed law instruct judges to presume
federal agents' requests for records are valid, unless the
targeted people can prove the government acted in bad faith.
That places citizens at a serious disadvantage. Judicial
oversight doesn't mean much if the judges merely serve as
rubber stamps for law enforcement agents.
The compromise also does little to curb the burgeoning use
of ``national security letters,'' which the FBI uses to make
sweeping requests for records from libraries, telephone
companies and Internet providers.
Former Attorney General John Ashcroft used to sneer and
scoff at librarians who raised concerns about these requests,
implying they were rare. But The Washington Post has reported
that the FBI issues 30,000 such letters a year.
Senators from both political parties are raising valid
concerns about the proposed new law. Democratic Sen. Patrick
Leahy proposed renewing the existing act for 90 days to give
lawmakers more time to write a better bill.
Leahy's idea has merit. National security and individual
freedoms are too important to be compromised in haste.
____
[From the Morning Call, Dec. 12, 2005]
The War on Terrorism
Allentown, PA.--An unusual coalition of conservatives and
liberals, along with the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the
American Civil Liberties Union, merits attention. It's rare
for groups so far apart along the usual political spectrum to
agree on something. But they are united in their concern that
a compromise reached by Senate and House negotiators Thursday
won't sufficiently protect Americans' civil liberties. They
have reason for concern.
Sen. Arlen Specter, the Republican chairman of the Senate
Judiciary Committee, said the compromise legislation is ``not
a perfect bill, but a good bill.'' House and Senate
negotiators came up with a plan to permanently extend 14 of
16 provisions set to expire at the end of the year. Of
particular note: When a law enforcement agent seeks access to
records, by order of a secret court established under the
Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, the agent must provide
a ``statement of fact'' proving it is relevant to an anti-
terrorism investigation.
But the coalition's concerns about fishing expeditions got
a boost last week when a bipartisan group of six senators
issued a statement critical of the compromise: Republican
Sens. Larry E. Craig of Idaho, John E. Sununu of New
Hampshire and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, and Democratic
Senators Russell D. Feingold of Wisconsin, Richard J. Durbin
of Illinois and Ken Salazar of Colorado.
The primary concern is that restrictions in the Patriot Act
haven't gone far enough since its passage in the wake of 9/11
to prevent government officials from going on so-called
``fishing expeditions.'' The Washington Post reported in
October that the FBI used provisions of the act regarding
records-gathering to annually issue more than 30,000
specialized subpoenas, or national security letters, seeking
information from businesses.
The letters don't require the government to demonstrate a
link between the information being sought and a suspected
terrorist. They only attest that the records sought are
relevant to a terror investigation. This provision of the
Patriot Act must be tightened before the anticipated House
and Senate votes this week.
Or, if such an agreement cannot be reached, both chambers
should take the advice of Sen. Patrick J. Leahy of Vermont.
The ranking Democrat on the Judiciary Committee, who didn't
agree to the compromise, has proposed a three-month extension
of the Patriot Act, past its year-end expiration date.
Sen. Feingold, the only senator to vote against the
original legislation in 2001, has threatened to filibuster
the bill extending Patriot Act provisions because it lacks
sufficient safeguards to protect constitutional freedoms.
Sixty votes would be required to block a vote on final Senate
passage.
A three-month extension is preferable, however, to a bitter
partisan battle on the Senate floor.
____
[From the Times Union, Dec. 12, 2005]
True Patriots
Albany, NY.--There's scant comfort in the compromise
reached by House-Senate conferees late last week on renewing
the USA Patriot Act. While it is welcome news that House
negotiators failed in their attempt to have the most
controversial provisions of this law extended for seven
years, rather than four, as the Senate insisted upon, and
which is now part of the compromise, there is no
justification to put basic civil liberties at risk for even
four minutes, let alone four years.
Fortunately, a bipartisan group of six senators is vowing
to filibuster the accord, which is scheduled to be voted upon
this week. They are the true patriots. Their demands are
hardly burdensome. To the contrary, they want any final
legislation to include checks and balances against possible
abuse of power by government agencies acting under the
surveillance powers of the Patriot Act. That means some
monitoring of, say, FBI demands for reading, financial and
other personal information on American citizens. Former Rep.
Bob Barr of Georgia, who now heads a group called Patriots to
Restore Checks and Balances, sums up the issue this way:
``Lawmakers could have easily fixed these controversial
record search provisions by simply adopting the Senate-passed
amendment to Section 215, requiring the government to show a
connection between records sought and a suspected foreign
terrorist, and by applying a similar requirement to the NSL
(National Security Letters) powers. The decision of some
lawmakers to rush this flawed Patriot Act legislation to a
vote may allow them to leave a little earlier for the
holidays this year, but it will also leave the civil
liberties of their constituents in jeopardy for years to
come.''
Supporters of the compromise argue that it does offer
safeguards against government abuses by requiring some
judicial overview. But a close reading of these oversight
requirements shows that investigators would have no trouble
meeting the loose standards for initiating searches.
No one, least of all Mr. Barr, is suggesting that the
government shouldn't be able to track down suspected
terrorists. But the broad surveillance powers granted under
the Patriot Act open the way for possible abuses, such as
collecting information on law-abiding Americans without
notifying them or allowing them the opportunity to challenge
the searches.
Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., who refused to sign the
compromise, suggests a reasonable solution: Rather than rush
the vote, extend the current act for three months and use the
extra time to forge a better bill. ``We owe it to the
American people to get this right,'' Sen. Leahy says. It's a
debt that should not be taken lightly.
____
[From the Sacramento Bee, Dec. 11, 2005]
Patriot Act Renewal: Take Time to Do It Right
Sacramento, CA.--Barring an unlikely successful filibuster,
the USA Patriot Act is
[[Page 27939]]
likely to be renewed this week, mostly in the form it was
given in 2001. That's when Congress, in the wake of the 9/11
terrorist attacks, rushed to give law enforcement broader
powers of investigation. That's still justified up to a
point. Law enforcement and intelligence agencies should not
be hamstrung, for instance, by a now-lapsed ban on sharing
information.
But it's always risky to give blanket authority to
government agencies to bypass the courts, as this law partly
does. It's too tempting to look into every nook and cranny
just to be sure there isn't something amiss there.
After lengthy debate behind closed doors, a House-Senate
conference committee agreed on compromise language that
congressional negotiators say will include more protection
for individuals. But if that's true, why do six senators--
three Democrats and three Republicans--still oppose the
measure? (One of them--Democrat Russ Feingold of Wisconsin,
the only senator to vote against the original law--is
threatening to filibuster the revised version on the Senate
floor.)
The principal objection of these lawmakers, and of civil
libertarians, is that the law sets too low a threshold for
justifying the need to examine private records, including
medical, financial and employment. And they are not
persuaded--nor are we--that requiring authorities to show
that their investigation has some relevance to an anti-terror
investigation is enough. Instead, these secret searches
should be limited to specific individuals and not be so broad
as to allow ``fishing expeditions.'' That has happened before
and almost surely will again.
Supporters of the revised law, mainly House Republicans and
the White House, say action is necessary now because 16
provisions of the original act are set to expire Dec. 31.
That's true. But there's a simple way to avoid undue haste
without tying the hands of law enforcement: Adopt a proposal
by Sen. Patrick Leahy, ranking Democrat on the Judiciary
Committee, to extend the law for three months, allowing time
for public debate on a law that could be used as much to harm
individuals as to catch terrorists.
The compromise bill would make all but two of the 16
expiring provisions permanent. The other two are to be
extended for only four years, rather than the 10 years sought
by House Republicans. That's small comfort to those whose
privacy will be at risk in the meantime.
House Judiciary Committee Chairman James Sensenbrenner, a
proponent of quick action, claims that's needed to aid law
enforcement agencies ``in the detection, disruption and
dismantling of terrorist cells before they strike.'' Yet such
a sense of urgency seems to extend only so far on Capitol
Hill. Former members of the 9/11 Commission have just
scorched both Congress and the White House for failing to
protect the country in a variety of ways, including the
misallocation of resources to states or localities based less
on risk than on political clout.
Americans would be no less safe if Congress were to
postpone a final vote and allow time for an open and honest
debate.
____
[From the Brattleboro Reformer, Dec. 10, 2005]
Repealing Patriotism
Brattleboro, VT.--At some future date, when sanity perhaps
returns to our nation, historians will look back at the
Patriot Act and put it in the same category as other assaults
on our civil liberties, such as John Adams' Alien and
Sedition Act, Abraham Lincoln's suspension of habeas corpus
during the Civil War or Franklin Roosevelt's internment of
Japanese-Americans during World War II.
On Oct. 26, 2001, President Bush signed the Uniting and
Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required
to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism (USA PATRIOT) Act. The
House of Representatives passed this grab bag of police-state
tactics by a 357-66 vote with almost no debate.
Wisconsin Democrat Russ Feingold was the only senator to
vote no. At the time, Feingold called the Patriot Act a
``truly breathtaking expansion of police power.''
A fearful Congress was stampeded into approving, almost
sight unseen, one of the broadest assaults on civil liberties
in our nation's history. Despite assorted court challenges,
the expansion of police power continues--an expansion which
has done little to capture the masterminds of the Sept. 11
attacks or to prevent future attacks. But this expansion has
done much to undermine our hard-won Constitutional rights.
What has happened to our legal rights since then? Here's a
refresher:
You've lost your freedom of association. The federal
government can now monitor the doings of religious and
political organizations, even if there's no reason to suspect
that illegal activity is going on.
You've lost your freedom from unreasonable searches. The
federal government may search and seize your papers and
effects without probable cause and without a court warrant.
It can also question librarians and booksellers about your
reading habits, and threaten them with jail if they reveal to
anyone that you're being investigated.
You've lost your right to a speedy and public trial. The
federal government can now jail you indefinitely without you
being charged with a crime and can do so without holding a
trial and without allowing you to confront your accusers.
This is what you can expect if you are deemed to be a
``terrorist'' or are deemed to be ``assisting a terrorist
group.'' The definition of ``terrorist'' and ``terrorist
group'' is purely up to the government, of course.
You've lost your right to legal representation.
Conversations between attorneys and clients can now be
monitored in federal prisons. That is, if you're fortunate
enough to have an attorney. The federal government now has
the right to deny you legal representation too.
In short, the federal government can arrest virtually
anyone it deems to be a danger to national security, even
without a formal criminal charge, and jail them indefinitely.
It can deny you a lawyer or even a trial, public or secret.
And all of this can happen without your family or friends and
relatives ever knowing what happened.
This is what the so-called war on terrorism has done to our
Constitutional rights. This is why the current debate in
Congress over extending the provisions of the Patriot Act is
important.
To keep the Patriot Act as it is means more secrecy, more
disinformation and more repression. It is quite frankly, un-
American. It is behavior straight out of a totalitarian
state; tactics not worthy of the world's greatest democracy.
The average American thinks he or she is safe. But history
has shown us that when a regime has absolute power, it's only
a matter of time before anyone and everyone is subject to
official intimidation and attack.
Security and ``fighting terrorism'' are not suitable
pretexts for destroying more than two centuries of American
jurisprudence. The rule of law as enshrined in the
Constitution is supposed to still mean something in America.
It's time to demand that Congress and the Bush
administration respect our civil liberties. There shouldn't
be a discussion to modify or extend the Patriot Act.
Instead, Congress should be working to repeal it.
Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, I thank the distinguished Senator from
Tennessee for his willingness to allow me to go forward at this time. I
know he has been sitting here patiently. I thank him, and I yield the
remainder of time.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Under the previous order, the Senator from
Tennessee is recognized for 10 minutes.
Mr. ALEXANDER. Thank you, Mr. President.
____________________
IMMIGRATION
Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, the majority leader has said that after
the first of the year we would turn our attention to immigration, and
well we should. Some estimates show that 10 to 20 million people living
in the United States may be here illegally. Whatever one may think
about immigration, one has to start with the idea that our Nation is
based on a few principles, and one of the most important of those
principles is the rule of law. This is a problem we need to address and
the American people have a right to demand we address. The buck stops
here. This is not something Governors can deal with or school districts
can deal with. It stops here.
Not long ago in Nashville I gave a speech in which I attempted to say
I believe there are three parts to a comprehensive solution to
immigration, the kind of comprehensive solution President Bush has
talked about. Part No. 1 is border security. I had no more said the
words ``border security'' than the whole room rose and began to
applaud; they were not interested in the rest of the story. I would
like to say a word today about the rest of the story, what our
immigration debate needs to include in addition to border security.
Let me turn to a lesson we are learning from across the ocean, from
Great Britain and France. Last month, the British Government instituted
a citizenship test that immigrants to Britain must pass before becoming
British citizens. When he announced a number of related measures
regarding British citizenship last August, Prime Minister Tony Blair
said:
People who want to be British citizens should share our
values and our way of life.
These new rules were spurred by the terrorist attack in London last
July in which four young men, three of whom were British-born children
of Pakistani immigrants and the fourth who was a Jamaican immigrant,
bombed the London subway system. In addition to taking new security
precautions, the British Government recognized the need to
[[Page 27940]]
ensure that immigrants to their country, and especially those who
become citizens, integrate into British society and demonstrate loyalty
to their newly adopted homeland.
France is similarly facing a period of self-examination on
integrating immigrants and the children of immigrants following the 2-
week violent civil unrest that spread across many of France's poor
suburbs last month. That violence resulted in 126 policemen being
injured, 9,000 cars burned, and $250 million in damages, according to
the French Government.
Like their British neighbors across the English Channel, the French
are trying to figure out how to integrate this dissatisfied
population--the children of Muslim immigrants--into French society.
According to the French Ambassador:
[T]hese teenagers feel alienated and discriminated against
both socially and economically. They don't want to assert
their differences. They want to be considered 100-percent
French.
We should learn a lesson from our friends across the ocean. As we in
the Senate begin to debate our immigration policy next month in the
Senate, we would be wise to consider their quandary. Too often
discussions on immigration reform begin and end with securing our
borders. Securing our borders is step No. 1, but there are two
additional, essential steps to any comprehensive solution to our
immigration problems.
Step No. 2, once we have secured our borders, is to create a lawful
status for those whom we welcome to work here and those we welcome to
study here. We should remember who we are. This is a nation of
immigrants. President Franklin D. Roosevelt began one of his addresses,
``My fellow immigrants.'' Once we secure the borders, once we deal with
the rule of law problem, we need then to remember step No. 2, which is
that we have millions of people whom we welcome to work here in all
aspects of our society. They need a legal status that respects our rule
of law. We welcome the 572,000 foreign students who come here to study.
We hope many of them stay here. They are helping to create a higher
standard of living for us. If they go home they become ambassadors for
American values. Recently, Dr. Steven Chu, an American who was the
cowinner of the 1997 Nobel prize in physics, pointed out to me that 60
percent of Americans who have won the Nobel Prize in physics are
immigrants or the children of immigrants.
That is a second point--a lawful status for workers, and a lawful
status for students and researchers, whom we want to come here. We want
them here because their being here helps raise our standard of living.
The third part that is essential to comprehensive immigration reform
is an examination of how we help new immigrants to this country become
American.
In short, we need to have a discussion about fulfilling the promise
to the national motto that is right above the head of the Presiding
Officer: E pluribus unum; from many, one. How do we do that? We do that
by reminding ourselves that while we have all of this magnificent
diversity in this country, that is not our greatest accomplishment. Our
greater accomplishment is that we have turned that magnificent
diversity into one nation; that while we are proud of where we came
from, we are prouder of where we are. We are united by principles, not
race. We are united by a common language, English, and by our history
of constantly struggling to reach high ideals which our Founders set
for us as a nation.
We welcome new immigrants to join in that struggle toward becoming
Americans. We have an advantage, therefore, over our European friends.
We have been doing this through our whole history. We are unique in our
world in our attitude toward welcoming others. We are different because
under our Constitution, becoming an American can have nothing to do
with ancestry. America is an idea, not a race.
One can see that in the various naturalization ceremonies which occur
in courthouses all around this country, as new citizens raise their
hands and take an oath that George Washington first administered to his
officers at Valley Forge when he declared that he had no allegiance or
obedience to King George III, and he renounced, refused, and abjured
any allegiance or obedience to him, and swore he would support,
maintain, and defend the United States. That is what George Washington
and his officers said. That is the standard for every American citizen
who comes to this country.
Once we secure our borders, once we establish a lawful status for
workers and for students we welcome here, then we should set about
helping prospective citizens become American.
Senator Cornyn and I have introduced a bill that we hope will be
included as part of comprehensive immigration reform legislation. Our
bill, the Strengthening American Citizenship Act, would do the
following: provide $500 grants for English courses; allow prospective
citizens who become fluent in English to apply for citizenship 1 year
early; provides for grants to organizations for courses in American
history and civics, and authorize the creation of a foundation to
assist in those efforts; codify the oath of allegiance that George
Washington gave to his officers and took himself, and which is
substantially administered to every new citizen today; direct the
Department of Homeland Security to carry out a strategy to highlight
the moving ceremonies in which immigrants become American citizens; and
establish an award to recognize the contributions of new citizens to
our great Nation.
Real immigration reform must encompass all three important steps:
First, securing our borders. Second, a legal status for guest workers
and guest students. Third, I hope I have reminded us of the importance
today of remembering that motto we see when we are here in the Senate
chamber that indispensable to immigration reform is helping prospective
citizens become American.
____________________
HIGHER EDUCATION
Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to have printed
in the Record a statement I made to the Secretary of Education's
Commission on the Future of Higher Education on December 9, 2005, in
Nashville.
There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in
the Record, as follows:
A National Dialogue: The Secretary of Education's Commission on the
Future of Higher Education
Thank you for the time you are giving to this Commission's
work, and thank you for inviting me to testify.
I've seen higher education from many sides, so I'm
sometimes asked, ``What's harder: being governor of a state,
a member of a president's cabinet, or president of a
university?''
My answer is: ``Obviously, you've never been president of a
university, or you wouldn't ask such a question.''
I have six suggestions for recommendations you might make.
First, I hope you will urge the Administration that
appointed you to make the National Academies' ``Augustine
Report'' a focus of the President's State of the Union
address in January and of his remaining three years in
office.
This 20-point, $10 billion a year report is the National
Academies' answer to the following question that Senator Pete
Domenici, Senator Jeff Bingaman and I posed to them in May:
``What are the ten top actions, in priority order, that
federal policy makers could take to enhance the science and
technology enterprise so the United States can successfully
compete, prosper and be secure in the global community of the
21st century?'' The report was written by a distinguished
panel of business, government, and university leaders headed
by Norm Augustine, former CEO of Lockheed Martin.
As 2005 ends, we Americans--who constitute just five
percent of the world's population--will once again produce
nearly thirty percent of the world's wealth.
Most of this good fortune comes from the American advantage
in brainpower: an educated workforce, and our science and
technology. More Americans go to college than in any country.
Our universities are the world's best, attracting more than
500,000 of the brightest foreign students. No country has
national research laboratories to match ours. Americans have
won the most Nobel Prizes in science, and have registered the
most patents. We have invented the internet,
[[Page 27941]]
the automobile and the computer chip, television and
electricity. From such advances have come a steady flow of
the world's best paying jobs.
As one scientist has said, we don't have science and
technology because we're rich. We're rich because we have
science and technology.
Yet I am worried that America may be losing its brainpower
advantage. Most Americans who travel to China, India,
Finland, Singapore and Ireland come home saying, ``Watch
out.''
The Augustine panel found I am right to be worried:
Last year, China trained 500,000 engineers, India 200,000,
while the U.S. trained 70,000.
For the cost of one chemist or engineer in the U.S., a
company can hire five chemists in China or 11 engineers in
India.
China is spending billions to recruit the best Chinese
scientists from American universities to return home to build
up Chinese universities.
They also found signs that we are not keeping up:
U.S. 12th graders performed below the international average
of 21 leading countries on tests of general knowledge in
math.
In 2003, only three American companies ranked among the top
10 recipients of new U.S. patents.
Of 120 new chemical plants being built around the word with
price tags of $1 billion or more, one is in the U.S. and 50
are in China.
Among the Augustine Report's twenty recommendations were:
Recruit 10,000 new science and math teachers with four year
scholarships and train 250,000 current teachers in summer
institutes.
Triple the number of students who take Advanced Placement
math and science exams.
Increase federal funding for basic research in the physical
sciences by 10 percent a year for seven years.
Provide 30,000 scholarships and graduate fellowships for
scientists.
Give foreign students who earn a PhD in science,
engineering and computing a ``green card'' so they can live
and work here.
Give American companies a bigger research and development
tax credit so they will keep their good jobs here instead of
moving them offshore.
Some may wince at the $10 billion a year price tag. I
believe that the cost is low. America's brainpower advantage
has not come on the cheap. This year, one-third of state and
local budgets go to fund education. Over fifty percent of
American students have a federal grant or loan to help pay
for college. The Federal government spends nearly $30 billion
per year this year on research at universities, and another
$34 billion to fund 36 national research laboratories.
Just this year, Congress has authorized $75 billion to
fight the war in Iraq, $71 billion for hurricane recovery,
$13 billion in increased Medicaid spending and $352 billion
to finance the national debt. If we fail to invest the funds
necessary to keep our brainpower advantage, we'll not have an
economy capable of producing enough money to pay the bills
for war, Social Security, hurricanes, Medicaid, and debt.
Aside from the war on terror, there is no greater challenge
than maintaining our brainpower advantage so we can keep our
good paying jobs. That is the surest way to keep America on
top.
Second, I suggest that you recommend that Presidents of the
United States appoint a lead advisor to coordinate all of the
federal government responsibilities for higher education.
My greatest regret as U.S. Education Secretary was that I
did not volunteer to be that lead person. Secretary
Spellings, with the appointment of this commission, has
assumed at least some of that responsibility. But the
authority of the Secretary of Education over higher education
is somewhat like the authority of the U.S. Senate Majority
leader or a university president: overestimated. Almost every
agency of the federal government has something to do with
higher education, tens of billions of taxpayer dollars are
invested every year and someone should be looking at all of
this in a coordinated way.
Third, I urge you to join me on the bandwagon for
deregulation of higher education.
The greatest threat to the quality of American higher
education is not underfunding, it is overregulation. The key
to the quality of our higher education system is that it is
not a system. It is a marketplace of 6,000 autonomous
institutions. Yet, thanks largely to the last two rounds of
the federal Higher Education Act, each one of our 6,000
higher education institutions that accepts students with
federal grants and loans must wade through over 7,000
regulations and notices. The President of Stanford has said
that seven cents of every tuition dollar is spent on
compliance with governmental regulations.
Fourth, I urge the Congress to overhaul the Medicaid
program and free states from outdated federal court consent
decrees so that states may properly fund colleges and
universities.
You have two charts before you that tell the story.
Nationally, during the five year period from 2000 to 2004,
state spending for Medicaid was up 36 percent, while state
spending for higher education was up only 6.8 percent. As one
result, tuition was up 38 percent.
The story in Tennessee was worse. Medicaid spending was up
71 percent, while higher education was up only 10.5 percent,
and tuition was up 43 percent.
By the way, during this same four year period, federal
spending for higher education was up 71 percent.
When I left the governor's office in 1987, Tennessee was
spending 51 cents of each state tax dollar on education and
16 cents on health care, mainly Medicaid. Today it is 40
cents on education and 26 cents on health care, mainly
Medicaid.
To give governors and legislatures the proper authority to
allocate resources, Congress should give states more
authority over Medicaid standards and more ability to
terminate outdated federal court consent decrees that remove
decision-making authority from elected officials.
Fifth, I hope you will put a spotlight on the greatest
disappointment in higher education today: Colleges of
Education.
``At a time when America's schools face a critical demand
for effective principals and superintendents, the majority of
programs that prepare school leaders range in quality from
inadequate to poor.'' Those are not my words, but those of a
new report by Arthur Levine, the President of Teachers
College, Columbia University. Or ask Richard Light, the
Harvard professor, who is working with university presidents
trying to find and inspire a new generation of leaders for
our colleges of education. Sometimes colleges of education
are even roadblocks to the very reforms they ought to be
championing. In 1983, when I asked colleges of education to
help me find a fair way to pay teachers more for teaching
well (which not one state was doing at the time), they said
it couldn't be done. So we invented our own system for
thousands of teachers, with virtually no help from the very
people who are in business to figure out such things. And
still today, despite the good work of Governor Hunt and
others, the lack of differential pay is the major obstacle to
quality teaching.
Finally, I hope you will put a spotlight on the greatest
threat to broader public support and funding for higher
education: the growing political one-sidedness which has
infected most campuses, and an absence of true diversity of
opinion.
To describe this phenomenon, allow me to borrow some words
from the past which may sound familiar to your chairman,
Charles Miller, who was once Chairman of the Board of regents
of the University of Texas: ``systematic, persistent and
continuous attempts by a politically dominant group to impose
its social and educational views on the university.'' This
was what the American Association of University Professors
(AAUP) called it in its censure of Texas Governor Pappy
O'Daniel's Board of Regents when the Board fired University
of Texas President Homer Rainey in the 1940's. This is
reported in Willie Morris' book, North Toward Home. Then the
AAUP was talking about one-sidedness imposed by the right,
instead of by the left--but political one-sidedness is
political one-sidedness, no matter from what direction it
comes.
There is more to this charge of one-sidedness than the
academic community would like to admit. How many conservative
speakers are invited to deliver commencement addresses? How
many colleges require courses in U.S. history? How many even
teach Western Civilization? How many bright, young faculty
members are encouraged to earn dissertations in the failures
of bilingual education, or on the virtues of vouchers or
charter schools?
I am not surprised that most faculties express liberal
views, vote Democratic and that most faculty members resist
authority. That is the nature of most university communities.
But I am disappointed when true diversity of thought is
discouraged in the name of a preferred brand of diversity.
This one-sidedness is not good for students. It is not good
for the pursuit of truth. And it undermines broad public
support for higher education. The solution to this political
rigidity lies not in Washington, D.C., but in the hands of
trustees, deans and faculty members themselves.
Last year Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison of Texas invited
former Brazilian President Fernando Henrique Cardoso to join
a small group of U.S. Senators in the Majority Leader's
office for a discussion. Dr. Cardoso was completing a
residency at the Library of Congress.
``What memory of the United States will you take back to
your country?'' Senator Hutchison asked Dr. Cardoso.
``The American university,'' he replied immediately. ``The
uniqueness, strength and autonomy of the American university.
There is nothing like it in the world.''
I salute Secretary Spellings and this Commission for
undertaking to preserve and improve higher education,
America's secret weapon for its future success. In coming to
your conclusions, I hope that you will urge the President to
adopt the Augustine Report and to designate a lead advisor
for higher education, that you will jump on the bandwagon to
deregulate higher education and
[[Page 27942]]
preserve its autonomy, that you will urge Congress to
overhaul Medicaid and federal court consent decrees so states
can properly fund higher education, and that you will urge
trustees to revamp Colleges of Education and ensure a campus
environment that honors true diversity of opinion.
Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, Secretary Spellings has appointed this
commission to look at the future of higher education. Other than the
war against terror, keeping our brain power advantage so we can create
new jobs here in the United States and keep our jobs from going to
China, India, Finland, and Ireland, is the biggest challenge we face as
a nation.
I made a statement before the Commission on the Future of Higher
Education that it adopt the recommendations of the National Academies'
``Augustine Report'' and urge the President to make it a focus of his
State of the Union Address. The report recommends 20 steps to keep that
brain power advantage, and was written by a distinguished panel of
business, government, and university leaders headed by Norm Augustine,
former CEO of Lockheed Martin.
I also urged the commission to make certain that we deregulate higher
education; to make certain that the President appoints an adviser to
coordinate all of the Federal Government's responsibilities for higher
education; to urge Congress to overhaul Medicaid so States may properly
fund higher education; to put a spotlight on the greatest
disappointment in higher education today, our colleges of education;
and, finally, to put a spotlight on the greatest threat to broader
public support for funding of higher education, the growing political
one-sidedness which has infected most campuses in an absence of true
diversity of opinion.
I salute Secretary Spellings and her distinguished commission. I look
forward to their recommendations. There could not be a more important
subject to our country's future for them to consider than how do we
take this remarkable system of higher education that we built in this
country--the best in the world--and strengthen it so it can play a
pivotal role in helping Americans keep good-paying jobs in the United
States.
Thank you, Mr. President.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Delaware.
____________________
TANF PROGRAM
Mr. CARPER. Mr. President, I rise today to urge our colleagues in the
Senate to instruct the conferees to the budget reconciliation bill to
reject the House provisions dealing with the Temporary Assistance for
Needy Families, TANF, Program.
Like several of our colleagues, I have a long history of working to
improve our Nation's welfare policies to, first of all, make them more
effective for States, but also more effective for families.
When I was privileged to serve as Governor of the State of Delaware,
I also served, at the same time, as cochairman of the National
Governors Association's Welfare Reform Task Force, along with then-
Governor John Engler, and played a lead role in helping to craft
welfare reform legislation for Delaware and for our Nation.
As Senator, I have pushed, for the past 3 years, for welfare
reauthorization legislation that emphasizes work while also providing
help to welfare participants with respect to childcare and educational
opportunities.
Because of my extensive involvement with welfare reform for more than
a dozen years and my belief that the program can work for both States
and families, I am troubled that the House of Representatives has
chosen to include its welfare reauthorization bill in the budget
reconciliation package. Doing so gives the Senate no opportunity to
debate the needed changes in this important program.
The TANF provisions included by the House would reauthorize and make
significant policy changes to our Nation's welfare program. Those
changes include far more stringent work requirements than under current
law while failing to provide sufficient childcare funding or other work
supports to help participants meet those new requirements. The House
bill would dramatically increase requirements on States without giving
them additional resources. And the House language would make it more
difficult for TANF recipients to make the successful leap from welfare
to work.
The budget reconciliation process is not the right place to
reauthorize our country's welfare program. Instead, we should take the
opportunity to reauthorize welfare through the regular legislative
process, using the bipartisan bill reported out of the Senate Finance
Committee as our guide.
Earlier this year, you may recall, the Senate Finance Committee
reported out a welfare reform bill--it is called the Personal
Responsibility and Individual Development for Everyone Act, lovingly
known as the PRIDE Act--on a bipartisan basis. This legislation would
make commonsense changes and reauthorize the welfare reform program for
the next 5 years. The measure would also provide long overdue stability
to States and beneficiaries who have been waiting since 2002 for us to
provide long-term reauthorization, a path forward.
I would like to commend this afternoon Chairman Grassley and Ranking
Member Baucus, their Finance Committee colleagues, and their staff for
their hard work in crafting the bipartisan PRIDE Act. That legislation
is a testament to their dedication and their commitment to enabling
Americans to move off welfare and, most importantly, be better off.
That committee was able to find consensus on issues that can be both
complex and, at times, controversial.
The PRIDE bill can and should be taken up by the full Senate and
debated on the Senate floor early next year. This is not a debate that
should consume weeks but, rather, a debate that should consume at most
a few days. I pledge today to work closely with my colleagues on our
side and the Republican side of the aisle to ensure that the bill does
not get bogged down in the Senate and that we move it along.
A full debate, though, on the issues would give the Senate, not just
a few Senate conferees to a reconciliation bill, the opportunity to
have a real discussion about the future of welfare and what policies we
should accept or reject during reauthorization. That is what we need to
do. And I believe it need not take weeks to develop a consensus and
pass a bipartisan bill by a wide margin.
In my view, the House welfare reform bill, called the Personal
Responsibility, Work, and Family Promotion Act of 2005, is,
unfortunately, decidedly partisan. The bill was reported out of both
subcommittee and committee by party-line votes and was then dropped
wholesale into the budget reconciliation bill.
While I am opposed to the inclusion of the House TANF provisions in
the reconciliation bill, I encourage my Senate colleagues to oppose
including it for a number of other reasons as well.
I fear that the House's inclusion of a welfare reauthorization bill
in a budget reconciliation bill sets up two likely possibilities: No.
1, that the conferees will simply recede to the House TANF provisions;
or, No. 2, differences between the House TANF provisions and the Senate
PRIDE bill will have to be worked out during a hurried conference
committee, in which a few conferees will be faced with tough choices on
an incredible array of other issues. Neither scenario is acceptable.
Welfare will likely be overshadowed in this context and is not likely
to get much thoughtful review.
The work-first approach to welfare reform has enabled States to
reduce caseloads dramatically over the last decade or so, while helping
members of low-income families to move into jobs and toward financial
self-sufficiency. We should build on these successes, not jeopardize
them. By giving welfare the proper legislative consideration in both
the House and the Senate, we can do just that.
The House TANF provisions differ greatly from the Senate's, and I
believe a number of the House provisions are flat out unacceptable. The
House bill
[[Page 27943]]
would dramatically increase, for example, the number of hours that
welfare recipients must work. You may recall, under current law,
welfare recipients must work an average of 30 hours per week. However,
under current law, mothers with young children under the age of 6 must
now work at least 20 hours per week. The House bill, by comparison,
requires that all welfare recipients--if you have a child a week old or
a month old or a year old--even mothers with young children must work
40 hours per week. That is a doubling of the required hours for single
parents with young children.
I have been supportive of increased work requirements in the past,
but the House bill increases work hours while failing to provide
adequate funding for badly needed childcare.
My friends, we can do better than that. To me, it is just basic
logic, basic common sense that in order to move parents off welfare
into work, we have to give them access to decent childcare. The House
bill provides only $100 million per year in additional childcare
funding to meet a doubling of work hours. Spread out over 50 States,
that does not come close to meeting the needs of families. In fact,
over 5 years, this level of funding is $500 million less than what has
been included in previous House-passed bills, and $5.5 billion less
than what the Senate would provide. What is more, according to the
Congressional Budget Office, it is $4.3 billion less than what is
needed to keep pace with inflation and almost $8 billion less than the
amount needed to offset increased demand for childcare caused by the
increased work requirements.
Again, when I was privileged to serve as Governor of my little State,
I saw firsthand that parents cannot move to work successfully if they
do not have an answer to this question: Who is going to take care of my
children and how will I pay for it?
If we want to help parents find jobs--and I know we do--we need to
help them secure childcare. It is just that simple.
In addition to what I feel are inadequate provisions surrounding work
and childcare, the House bill also limits the ability of welfare
recipients to participate in educational activities such as vocational
education, allowing participants to participate in that activity for
only 3 months in a 2-year period instead of the current 12 months.
The Senate bill, on the other hand, continues to allow 12 months of
vocational education and also establishes something called a Parents as
Scholars Program, which allows welfare recipients to go on to higher
education, not forever but for at least a limited period of time.
In my view, the House bill is not friendly to States either. It asks
States to make dramatic changes to their programs. Yet it gives them no
additional funding to accomplish those changes and little time to meet
those requirements before they would be subject to harsh penalties. The
Senate bill, on the other hand, gives States time to meet new
requirements. If States make improvements but for some reason are not
able to immediately ramp up to the strenuous new targets, penalties
will be temporarily waived--not permanently, temporarily. Perhaps some
of my Senate colleagues on the other side of the aisle could find
common ground with the House provisions. Perhaps some believe we could
improve upon the House provisions in conference to come up with
something that is more workable.
I argue, however, that no matter what my colleagues think about the
House proposal, we can all agree that the Senate should have the chance
to consider welfare reauthorization under regular order, and soon. If
we are allowed to debate welfare reform in this body, I am confident we
could come up with a bipartisan agreement that truly advances our
shared goal of making work pay more than welfare.
The motion I will offer tomorrow would urge conferees to give the
Senate a chance to do just that, by rejecting provisions related to the
reauthorization of TANF. Instead, the motion I will offer would urge
that the Congress enact freestanding legislation that builds on the
bipartisan Senate Finance Committee PRIDE bill.
I cannot emphasize enough that the Senate bill was reported out of
the Finance Committee on a bipartisan basis. The House bill, on the
other hand, has consistently enjoyed the support of only one party.
Further, welfare reform should not be considered in the whirlwind of
budget reconciliation. Reform should be based on sound policy, and we
should seek to find bipartisan consensus on this most important issue,
something I am confident we can do.
Tomorrow, when the motion to instruct is offered, I urge and invite
my colleagues, both Democratic and Republican, to support it.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Wisconsin.
Mr. FEINGOLD. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to speak for up
to 30 minutes.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered. The
Senator is recognized for 30 minutes.
____________________
PATRIOT ACT
Mr. FEINGOLD. Mr. President, one of the major items that we will be
taking up prior to the end of the year is the issue of the renewal of
the so-called USA PATRIOT Act. There was quite an effort in the last
couple of years in the Senate to try to fix the problems with the
PATRIOT Act that led me to vote against it originally. That was a very
difficult time, obviously, after 9/11/2001. The PATRIOT Act got through
on a very accelerated basis, and a number of us identified serious
problems that other people didn't have a chance to analyze at the time.
But the situation now has changed. We have had years to look at this.
Thankfully, the Senate worked together to do its job on this bill.
In the Judiciary Committee and in the Senate as a whole, we passed
changes to the USA PATRIOT Act, along with renewing the provisions
scheduled to sunset at the end of this year. It was a unanimous vote.
People from very different philosophies came together and said: Let's
get this right. Let's make sure law enforcement has the power and the
ability to go after the terrorist network. But, at the same time, let's
do what we have to do to protect the civil liberties and rights of
absolutely law-abiding Americans.
Sadly, the conference committee did just the reverse. The conference
committee ignored the will of the Senate. The conference committee did
not make changes in critical areas such as library records and business
records, so-called sneak-and-peek searches, and national security
letters, changes that were essential to reaching the changes that were
agreed to in the Senate. I didn't think the Senate version did as much
to protect civil liberties and the rights of innocent Americans as we
should have, but it was a move in the right direction. Regrettably, the
conference report is nothing of the kind.
I join Senator Sununu, who spoke eloquently about this earlier today,
in saying that the conference report that will be before the Senate is
not acceptable in its current form. The conference committee needs to
go back to the drawing board and make the changes that are needed. The
changes are very easy to find. They were contained in the unanimously
approved Senate reauthorization bill.
Clearly, there will be much more to say about this as the week goes
on, but we are prepared to use whatever means we are allowed to use
under the Senate rules to try to prevent this conference report from
becoming law in its current form.
____________________
IRAQ
Mr. FEINGOLD. Mr. President, over the past few months, I have
addressed the Senate on a number of occasions about the
administration's flawed Iraq policies. I have discussed a number of
problems with those policies. But the most important problem is that
they are undermining our ability to counter a wide range of
transnational threats that face our country. In too many cases, these
threats have been overlooked or insufficiently addressed because of
this administration's misguided emphasis on policies in Iraq.
[[Page 27944]]
Today I will explain why we need to refocus our national security
strategy on the global campaign against terrorist networks, and I will
briefly identify five areas on which we need to focus. A clear,
targeted strategy to strengthen our national security is not an option
but a necessity in the face of the growing threats posed by jihadist
terrorist networks. The President is spending a lot of time talking
about success in Iraq. Unfortunately, he fails to recognize that
success in Iraq will not be achieved by a massive and indefinite U.S.
military presence. He appears to fail to understand the limited role
that the U.S. military can play in Iraq's long-term political and
economic reconstruction efforts. I am afraid to say, he fundamentally
fails to understand that success in Iraq, as important as it is, is
secondary to success in our larger campaign against global terrorists.
Iraq--simply put--is not the be all and end all of our national
security.
Our brave service men and women won a resounding victory in the
initial military operation in Iraq. They have performed magnificently
under very difficult circumstances. Now their task is largely over. The
current massive U.S. military presence, without a clear strategy and a
flexible timetable to finish the military mission in Iraq, is actually
fueling the insurgency and will ultimately prevent the very economic
and political progress that the Iraqis are demanding and that the
President has started to talk about in his speeches. This isn't a
strategy for success in Iraq or a strategy for success in the fight
against global terrorism. That is why we need a flexible timeline for
meeting clear benchmarks and also withdrawing U.S. troops.
I am not talking about an artificial timetable, a phrase the
President likes to use. I am calling for a public, flexible timetable
with clear benchmarks. I have suggested the end of December 2006 as a
target date for completion of that mission. But I have made clear that
any date will have to be flexible to respond to unforeseen
circumstances.
The administration has a unique opportunity this week to set our Iraq
policy on track. Iraqis will return to the polls on December 15 to
choose their leaders. Spelling out a plan for the timely withdrawal of
U.S. troops from Iraq will signal U.S. support for an autonomous,
independent, and self-sustaining Iraqi government. There is no better
way to empower the new Iraqi government and the Iraqi people than by
showing that the U.S. military mission in Iraq is not indefinite. If we
don't heed the advice of a growing chorus of experts to set a timetable
for withdrawal, it will be impossible to recenter our priorities and
reengage in the global campaign against terrorist networks.
And that is what we need to do in order to defeat those networks.
We have not kept our eye on the ball, Mr. President. We have focused
on Iraq to the exclusion of these critical priorities, and we have done
so at our peril. It is far past time for us to engage in a serious
dialogue about the threats we face, and come up with a tough,
comprehensive national security strategy to defeat them.
What are these threats and where do they come from? As we all know,
the jihadist network is global in its reach, and it is showing no signs
of slowing its recruitment and organization in every region of the
world. Since we waged war against the Taliban in the fall of 2001--a
war I supported, by the way--we have seen the network of extremist
jihadist movements proliferate throughout the world. We have seen it
surface in Madrid, London, Amman, Bali, and in places such as the
Philippines, Algeria, Pakistan, Somalia, and Nigeria. And while it has
spread throughout the world, it holds certain similar characteristics
wherever it appears.
It is good to turn to the definition that the 9/11 Commission report
itself gave of what this threat is: ``the enemy is not Islam, the great
world faith, but a perversion of Islam.'' The report reads:
[t]he enemy goes beyond Al-Qaeda to include the radical
ideological movement inspired in part by Al-Qaeda that has
spawned other terrorists groups and violence. Thus our
strategy must match our means to two ends: dismantling the
Al-Qaeda network and in the long term prevailing over the
ideology that contributes to Islamist terrorism.
In order to reduce the danger of Al-Qaeda and radical jihadism all
over the world, we must invest our time, our attention, and our best
minds on this global threat. And we can't defeat it with just one
aspect of American power. We need to develop and execute a national
security strategy that utilizes our entire arsenal of political,
economic, diplomatic and military power in order to counter the primary
threats against us. I want to lay out five major areas of concern
today. They are (1) addressing the conditions in which terrorists
thrive; (2) enhancing our military's ability to wage the campaign
against global terrorists; (3) improving our public and private
diplomacy; (4) strengthening our non-proliferation efforts; and (5),
finally finishing the job in Afghanistan.
First, we must combat the conditions that make extremist ideologies
attractive and that allow terrorist networks to take root and grow.
Failed and weak states, such as Somalia, allow terrorism, narcotics
trade, weapons proliferation, and other forms of organized crime to
take root and grow. By not addressing these conditions, we allow
warlords and terrorists to thrive and we leave people suffering from
poverty and oppression susceptible to their rhetoric, promises, and
pressure.
Let us not forget that three of the poorest and most isolated
countries in the world--Somalia, Sudan, and Afghanistan--served as the
starting blocks for the terrorist network that delivered the most
lethal attack ever on the U.S. If it wasn't clear before September 11,
2001, it is now--we ignore these places at our national peril.
Over 4 years after 9/11, places like Somalia continue to be large,
black holes on our radar, and continue to create the conditions that
allow terrorist networks to recruit, train, and export their lethality
at will. While Somalia has remained a failed state for over a decade
now, recent examples of the lawlessness that exist within that country
made headlines when freely operating pirates attacked a civilian cruise
ship 25 miles off of the Somali coast. We can expect more headlines
like that if we continue to think that supposedly small, marginal
states are not worth our attention.
That is why we should be taking seriously the inability of Uganda,
the new government of southern Sudan, or the U.N. to defeat the Lords
Resistance Army, which continues to commit atrocities around the Great
Lakes region of central Africa. And we do not always have to look far
for failed states. Right here in our backyard, Haiti endures rampant
political violence and a festering humanitarian crisis, and has served
as a base for narcoterrorists and criminal power structures throughout
the region for over a decade. Unfortunately, this administration has
failed to develop a comprehensive policy to help Haiti lift itself from
chaos and to create livable conditions for the citizens of Haiti. That
is a mistake because leaving a country to suffer under chaos only
creates a platform for further threats to the region and to our
country.
If we fail to address weak and failed states, the lawlessness
displayed by warlords, pirates, bandits, thugs, and thieves there will
eventually be exploited by our enemies. After all, terrorists find
active and passive support among the alienated and the disaffected.
Addressing failed and failing states is not easy, but turning a blind
eye to them is naive and dangerous.
My second area of concern today is the need to prepare and equip our
military for a global campaign against terrorist networks. The war in
Iraq has had a devastating affect on our military's readiness and
capabilities. I have voted for an increase in the military's end
strength, but this is a long-term solution and does not address the
immediate problems we face as we continue to over-burden the brave men
and women of our armed forces. It also does not address our failure to
prioritize military spending. Right now, courageous servicemembers are
too often required to do their jobs without the right equipment. While
we continue to spend billions of dollars on Cold War-era weapons
systems, we are not fully
[[Page 27945]]
funding the needs of the military personnel fighting our current wars.
It is a national shame that the Department of Defense budget, which so
dwarfs our spending in any other sector, still has failed to pay for
the timely provision of adequate armor for our men and women in the
battlefield.
Mr. President, waging a successful global campaign against terrorism
also will require us to counter new and growing terrorist tactics.
Improvised Explosive Devices, IEDs, continue to increase in lethality
and complexity in Iraq and elsewhere. I was pleased that Secretary
Rumsfeld recently appointed a retired general to lead a joint task
force on countering the threat of IEDs. As the death of 11 marines in
Iraq on December 5 showed, the U.S. military has yet to develop a
strategy or technology to sufficiently defend our servicemen and women
from these troubling weapons. More troubling is the fact that we are
now seeing the use of increasingly sophisticated IEDs outside of Iraq.
This know-how and technology is being proliferated throughout the
global network of terrorists who seek to harm the United States.
The IED task force needs to identify a strategy, tactics, technology,
and training to defend from these weapons, but it also needs to figure
out ways of countering the proliferation of IED technology, know-how,
and tactical training that are currently being exported from Iraq.
Tragically, Iraq has turned in to a testing-ground for these new
weapons, and the administration needs to explain not just how it is
countering the lethality of IEDs in Iraq, but also how it is mitigating
or preempting the use of these weapons by terrorist networks globally.
My third area of concern is our woefully inadequate diplomatic
efforts, public and private. As the recent 9/11 Commission report card
showed, we need to do much better in communicating our principles and
goals to the international community. In part we are failing because
this administration has not consistently adhered to the core American
values that have made us a model around the world, that helped defeat
communism, and that have inspired democracies globally. The
administration's approach to detainees, torture, and secret prisons, to
name a few issues, has jeopardized this country's unique moral
authority as a country that upholds the rights, liberties, and freedoms
of every individual. I believe that we can combat terrorism while
remaining true to those values.
Mr. President, we need a new, sustained and comprehensive public and
private diplomacy, and a concerted effort to tell the rest of the world
who we really are and what we really believe in. This diplomatic effort
is essential if we are going to prevail in what is in part a battle of
ideas--and one that we cannot afford to lose. I am not talking about
giving lectures or showing videos, but about engaging in genuine
dialogue with other peoples and countries. Listening, and responding
to, their concerns is one of the most effective ways to improve our
image, and thus our relationship, with the international community.
Diplomacy also involves looking for opportunities to demonstrate our
core values. One such opportunity was lost in the response to the
recent tragic earthquake in Pakistan where hundreds of local religious
organizations--many of them linked to extremist or anti-American
ideologies--beat out American relief efforts with quick, appropriate,
and thoughtful responses. A CEO of a U.S.-based relief agency, having
just returned from Pakistan, relayed to me his frustration that ``the
United States lost a significant opportunity to win the hearts and
minds of a core population in Pakistan vulnerable to extremist
ideologies because we responded with standard, boxed solutions.''
We also need to engage our international partners not only in the
campaign against terrorist networks, but also in the challenge to
eradicate malaria, address HIV/AIDS, help rebuild countries such as the
Democratic Republic of the Congo, bring peace to the Darfur region in
Sudan, and help counter the impact that illicit power structures and
the absence of rule of law have on societies around the world, to give
just a few examples. We need to work hand in hand with those partners
in developing strategies to isolate rogue states and to advance
democracy and respect for human rights.
The fourth area we need to focus on is the proliferation of weapons,
large and small. We need to do much more to stop nuclear proliferation
and ensure that terrorist organizations do not obtain access to nuclear
weapons. We must deal with the threats of loose nukes as an urgent
priority both at home and abroad. This administration unfortunately has
failed to do so. More nuclear weapons were secured in Russia in the 2
years before 9/11 than in the 2 years after. That is an alarming fact.
And we should not have missed the opportunity at the last Nuclear Non-
Proliferation Treaty conference to start moving forward on a new global
regime; one that does a better job of protection and punishing cheating
so that states cannot take their nuclear programs right up to the line
of compliance and then withdraw from the treaty when they are ready to
become new nuclear weapons states.
We should also reverse the foolish decision to ease export
restrictions on bomb-grade uranium that was part of the massive and
misguided Energy bill signed by the President this summer.
We must also focus on smaller weapons that continue to fall into the
hands of terrorist networks at a cost of tens of thousands of lives
each year. I applaud the recent announcement by my distinguished
colleagues, Senators Lugar and Obama, of their initiative to make more
funding and new authorities available for new proliferation programs
and to counter the growing threat that light weapons, such as the Man
Portable Air Defense System, pose to the United States.
Unfortunately, we are behind the ball on this issue, and we need to
drastically improve our ability to hunt down, shut down, and capture
the networks of arms dealers that are getting rich by selling weapons
to our enemies.
Fifth and finally, we must refocus our energies on Afghanistan. The
President spends a lot of time discussing Iraq, but not much time on
Afghanistan which was and maybe still is home to Osama bin Laden.
Unlike our presence in Iraq, our presence in Afghanistan is
contributing to increased stability in the country and region and is
delivering progress in the war on al-Qaida.
Success in Afghanistan is essential for making progress in the
campaign against terrorist networks, and it is where we must show the
commitment, resolution, and capabilities of America. It is one of the
first battlefields in this war. We now have the opportunity to turn
what was once a despotic and broken country into a thriving democracy.
It needs a lot of work, though, and disproportionate attention to Iraq
has drained many of our positive and appreciated efforts in
Afghanistan.
I see three major areas that need further attention in Afghanistan.
First, as part of assuring long-term success in Afghanistan, we need
to ensure that international assistance, much of it from the United
States, continues to be targeted, coordinated, and appropriate. We are
running the risk of creating a ``Donor's Republic of Afghanistan'' by
creating an unsustain-
able Afghan Government that the Afghans themselves cannot afford or
manage. At this time, annual recurring costs to maintain the U.S.-
developed Afghan National Army outweigh the central Government's
revenue streams by a multiple of two or three. And this is not taking
into consideration the police force and other essential public services
that are in drastic disrepair or in need of further development.
Second, we need to continue burden sharing throughout the
international community and encouraging a greater role for NATO, the
United Nations and, most importantly, the Afghan Government, as it
struggles to fight resurgent terrorist and obstructionist threats.
I was glad to receive news last week that NATO will increase its
presence in southern Afghanistan, but we need to assure that long-term
development and security aid is tied to measurable benchmarks for
success.
[[Page 27946]]
Third, we need to continue to pressure countries such as Pakistan,
Iran, China, Russia, Turkmenistan, Kyrgyzstan, and others to be
constructive partners in the development of Afghanistan's new and
fragile government and economy. Afghanistan is suffering from porous
borders which make it an ideal environment for a thriving illegal drug
trade, illegal imports and exports, and terrorists and insurgents who
want to prevent the new Afghan Government from developing.
We have to succeed in Afghanistan. If we allow the new Afghan
Government to become weak, feckless, and corrupt, we will risk losing
everything we have invested. We will lose a partner in the campaign
against terrorist networks, and we will lose the opportunity to point
to Afghanistan as an accomplishment.
I have tried to identify five crucial areas in which we are not doing
enough to protect our national security. We are not doing enough for a
number of reasons, but foremost among them is the administration's
single-minded and self-defeating emphasis on Iraq. The President's
debilitating and misguided Iraq policy is preventing us from focusing
our attention, our resources, and our efforts on the global campaign
against terrorist networks. That is why we need a plan to wind down our
military presence in Iraq and bring our focus back to the threat of
radical jihadist-based terrorism.
While this administration talks and thinks about Iraq, our enemies
are growing stronger around the globe. Those enemies are disparate,
diffuse, and relentless. They operate in ungoverned spaces, on the
Internet, in cities, mountains, and jungles. Left unchecked, they will
continue to plot against the United States.
Our national security policy is adrift, but we have the power to
change it, to correct our course. We must tackle these challenges and
build a security strategy that protects our Nation from the most
dangerous threat that it faces.
Mr. President, I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Burr). The Senator from Pennsylvania.
Mr. SPECTER. Mr. President, before the Senator from Wisconsin leaves
the floor, I request that he be available to discuss some of the
provisions of the PATRIOT Act. I see him remaining on the floor, so
permit me at this time to take up a couple of the issues which the
Senator from Wisconsin has raised, appropriately putting my question to
the Chair as our rules require, and then asking for responses.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. SPECTER. The Senator from Wisconsin has raised an issue on the
national security letters with respect to the presumption which arises
when a high-ranking governmental official, such as the Attorney
General, Deputy Attorney General, Assistant Attorney General, head of
the FBI, or head of the departments making the request, certifies that
there is a national security interest or an issue of diplomatic
relations.
This is an issue which, as I understand it, the ranking member, the
Senator from Vermont, Mr. Leahy, raised earlier. The question I have
for the Senator from Wisconsin is whether he is aware of the fact that
the conclusive presumption, which is present in the conference report,
is not as tight as the conclusive presumption which was present in the
Senate bill which passed unanimously from the Judiciary Committee, of
which the Senator from Wisconsin is a member, and by unanimous consent
on the floor of the Senate, without objection by the Senator from
Wisconsin.
I refer specifically to the provision in the Senate bill which says:
In reviewing a nondisclosure requirement, the certification by the
Government that the disclosure may endanger the national security of
the United States or interfere with diplomatic relations shall be
treated as conclusive unless the court finds that the certification was
made in bad faith.
That language is substantially repeated in the conference report,
except that the conference report makes it tougher on the governmental
certification by requiring the high-level official to make the
certification.
Quoting from the conference report, it says: If at the time of the
petition the Attorney General, the Deputy Attorney General and
Assistant Attorney General or the Director of the Federal Bureau of
Investigation or, in the case of a request by a department, agency, or
instrumentality of the Federal Government other than the Department of
Justice, the head or deputy head of such department, agency, or
instrumentality--and now we come to the crucial language, continuing--
certifies that disclosure may endanger the national security of the
United States or interfere with diplomatic relations, such
certification shall be treated as conclusive unless the court finds
that the certification was made in bad faith.
My questions to the Senator from Wisconsin are the obvious ones: No.
1, was he aware that the conference report has the identical provision,
except more restrictive, and if so, why does he now object to this
provision in the conference report when he approved it in committee and
raised no objection on the floor?
Mr. FEINGOLD. As the Senator well knows, on the floor we passed this
bill by unanimous consent, without debate, but I and others raised our
concerns in the Judiciary Committee. The Senator well knows I was not
pleased with the outcome on this provision in the Senate. I fought hard
to get as many changes as possible, but we did not get the changes we
needed with regard to national security letters, and the conference
report failed to improve this provision as it should have done.
The Senator is correct, as I understand it, that the Senate version
did not change much of existing law in this area, and the conference
report is essentially the same. The conference report did not include
the national security letter standard that a bipartisan group sought,
three Democrats and three Republicans, as well as other cosponsors of
the SAFE Act, which is that the Government can only obtain records that
pertain to a terrorist and spy.
In addition, in answer to the Senator's question, the judicial review
of the NSL gag rule in the conference report also is inadequate. In the
SAFE Act, we included meaningful judicial review of national security
letters and the NSL gag rule. Under the Senate version, there is
judicial review of national security letters and gag rule, but there
again, disappointedly, even the Senate version of the bill failed to
create a standard that was realistic. It created a standard for the gag
rule that would be virtually impossible to meet.
Of course, the areas that caused me to vote for the Senate bill were
the improvements it contained, especially the change to Section 215,
which we have lost; on sneak and peak search warrants, which was
largely pulled back; and on John Doe roving wiretaps, which have been
only partially preserved.
The point is that I was not happy with this portion, but in light of
some of the other changes in the Senate bill, I did work, as the
Chairman knows, cooperatively with him to create a document that at
least had some balance. What has happened now is we have lost the
positive changes we gained in the Senate bill, and we continue to have
a very inadequate provision relating to the national security letter
authority.
Mr. SPECTER. Mr. President, with all due respect, the Senator from
Wisconsin has not answered my question. When he takes up the SAFE Act,
which he cosponsored, so did this Senator. I was not satisfied with the
provisions of the PATRIOT Act in effect at the present time, and I was
a cosponsor of the same bill as the Senator from Wisconsin, Senator
Durbin, and others, in order to protect civil liberties, which I sought
to do in the Senate bill and I sought to do, and I think successfully,
in the conference report.
When the Senator from Wisconsin talks about Section 215, I am coming
to that and I wish to engage him in a discussion on that specifically,
but let me put it aside for a minute so as not to confuse that issue.
With respect to sneak and peak, the delayed notice, I am coming to that
as well because
[[Page 27947]]
there are major, vast improvements in the conference report over
existing law. With respect to the roving wiretaps, I am coming to that,
too. But focusing for just a minute one at a time so there can be some
understanding--this is a very complicated bill. I spoke on it at some
length yesterday afternoon in order to acquaint my colleagues with it.
I have made quite a number of calls to my colleagues, as far as I can
go, to acquaint people with what is in this bill so we can understand
it and vote on it with an understanding.
Coming back to the conclusive presumption in the national security
letter, the question I posed to the Senator from Wisconsin was
whether--well, maybe three questions. Does not he agree that the
conference report is even more protective of civil liberties than the
Senate bill? The second question: Did he know about it? And if on this
provision alone, putting aside the others he referred to, 215, sneak
and peak, and wiretap, and we want to come to sunset, too, which is a
gigantic improvement--it was not mentioned by the Senator from
Wisconsin. I think when we get to that he will concede that was a big
improvement and maybe he overlooked it in commenting or at least any
comment that I heard him make. But coming back to the national security
letter, what about my three questions, if I may pose them through the
Chair to the Senator from Wisconsin?
Mr. FEINGOLD. I would say to the chairman through the Presiding
Officer, I did respond to his question, and I can tell him that I was
aware of the changes that occurred in the conference report vis-a-vis
the Senate bill. They are not adequate. We are still very far away from
the SAFE Act with regard to this provision. I note that the chairman
cosponsored the SAFE Act and yet did not object, apparently, to the
significant withdrawal from the SAFE Act provisions in this area. What
we need in this provision on these national security letters to prevent
potential abuses, as well as the abuses that may well be already
occurring--the Washington Post suggested some 30,000 national security
letters per year--is a clear standard that these provisions can only be
used to obtain records that pertain to a terrorist or a spy. Neither
the Senate version nor the version in the conference report achieves
that. So, yes, I acknowledge there are some language differences, but I
do not believe they achieve what we need to achieve with regard to
national security letters.
Mr. SPECTER. Mr. President, the Senator from Wisconsin does not know
what I did in conference because he was not a conferee. There is no
reason why he should know. But I can tell him that I fought very hard
for a lot of these provisions, and I can tell him further that I was
not persuasive enough to get 100 percent of what I wanted.
Mr. FEINGOLD. Mr. President, I would like to say----
Mr. SPECTER. Wait just a minute. I have the floor. I want to finish
this, and I will come back to the Senator from Wisconsin and give him
ample time to comment on what he wants to comment on.
We have a bicameral system. If the Senate could act alone, we would
have had the Senate bill. When the Senator from Wisconsin says he was
not satisfied with this provision in the Senate bill contrasted with
the SAFE Act, I would not disagree with him about that. I will not
disagree with him about that at all. In the Senate bill, I did not have
everything that I would like. There are 17 other members of the
Judiciary Committee and there are many members who thought the Senate
bill went too far on civil rights. It was necessary to balance very
delicately to get 18 Senators to agree, sort of unheard of, and I will
not go over the composition of the committee, but we have people from
opposite ends of the political spectrum on that committee.
Mr. FEINGOLD. Mr. President, would the Senator yield so I can respond
to his comment?
Mr. SPECTER. One moment, and then I will yield for the Senator's
reply.
The point is, the Senate came to this conclusive presumption and the
Senator from Wisconsin voted for it. The full Senate came to this
conclusion. The Senator from Wisconsin did not object to it. So I think
it is rather late in the day--frankly, too late in the day--for the
Senator from Wisconsin to say that a provision which he has approved is
the basis for rejecting the conference report because the conference
report did not do something he would have liked better.
Now, without yielding the floor, I ask unanimous consent that the
Senator from Wisconsin be allowed to make whatever comments he chooses
on this point.
Mr. FEINGOLD. Mr. President, the first thing I want to say is that
the Senator from Pennsylvania is not the problem here. Everything he
has said is accurate. He fought tenaciously in the committee, and I
think brilliantly, to bring us together in a balanced package. I say to
the Senator, through the Presiding Officer, I am grateful for his
efforts in the Judiciary Committee and the Senate as a whole, and for
his efforts in the conference committee, because I know the Senator
tried. What happened in the Senate was that the will of this body as a
whole, which we all compromised on, prevailed. The Senator from
Pennsylvania correctly points out that I had to give, unfortunately, on
this national security letter issue, to get the important changes
regarding library records, sneak-and-peek searches, and sunsets.
The fact is, I say to the Senator that of course I objected to that
provision. But I was trying to work with the Senator to come up with a
balanced package, as Senator Sununu and I were commenting earlier, a
package we could support as a whole. The Senator is now suggesting that
after we made some gains and we lost some issues, I should now accept
the one part we did not prevail on and give up the parts I did prevail
on. That strikes me as a rather odd deal.
It was, as the Senator knows, a very difficult vote for me to support
the Senate package. I was the only Member of this body to vote against
the original PATRIOT Act because it was deeply flawed, and the Senator
from Pennsylvania and many others have acknowledged there were such
flaws and we have worked together to fix what we could. I was
determined, as I said at the time we passed the Senate bill, to work
with my colleagues to fix the other flaws, especially those in the
national security letters.
But this idea that when you get the package back and it only includes
the things you don't like and it doesn't include the things you did
like, that you should keep your mouth shut and you should not oppose
it, that to me is ridiculous.
Mr. President, I say to the Senator, and I mean it absolutely
sincerely, he has been a tremendous chairman. He has been one of the
real keys to us having any chance at all to fix this legislation. But I
am very disappointed with what we got back from the conference
committee. I know very well that the chairman did not want this
document to look like this. He wanted it, I assume, to look like the
very document he crafted in the Senate Judiciary Committee.
I yield back to the Senator from Pennsylvania.
Mr. SPECTER. Mr. President, I do not disagree with everything the
Senator from Wisconsin has said. In fact, I like part of it where he
said I was brilliant, I like the part where he said I was a tremendous
chairman, but there were other parts with which I disagree as to what
he said.
A little levity will not hurt this debate any.
I focus only on national security letters at the outset, to establish
the point that the conference report is more protective of civil
liberties on that point than the Senate bill. I want to go on to the
other points. I have only faint hopes of persuading the Senator from
Wisconsin to support the conference report, but I do think it is very
useful to have this discussion because he is, appropriately, very
deeply involved in this bill and there is no better way to acquaint our
colleagues and the staffs--perhaps two or three people
[[Page 27948]]
watching on C-SPAN2--to acquaint America, to the extent we can, with
what we are doing here.
On to section 215: Section 215 involves business records and the
highly controversial point on library records. The Senator from
Wisconsin is correct that the existing law is deeply flawed. Bear in
mind, we are living under that law until we pass a new law. That is the
law we are operating under today. Existing law enables a law
enforcement official unilaterally to go to get records on his
determination that they are relevant, and there is no judicial review.
What the Senate bill did, and what the conference report perpetuates,
is to put in judicial review. The traditional safeguard of liberty has
been to interpose a disinterested, impartial magistrate between law
enforcement and the citizen. That is what happens when you get a
search-and-seizure warrant to establish probable cause. That is what
happens when you get an arrest warrant to take somebody into custody.
We have moved substantially toward that cause, although not quite
probable cause for a search warrant or an arrest warrant, but a very
substantial portion of the way by the Senate bill, which is perpetuated
in the conference report, that a court may issue an order for records
only on ``a statement of facts showing that there are reasonable
grounds to believe that the tangible things sought are relevant to an
authorized investigation to protect against international terrorism.''
The Senate bill established three criteria for the relevant standard.
First, activities of a suspected agent of a foreign power; second, a
foreign power or agent of a foreign power; third, an individual in
contact with or known to a suspected agent of a foreign power. In
conference we did add an additional provision, which the Senator from
Wisconsin has objected to. The additional provision is that the judge
may order the production of records of an individual where the judge
concludes those records are important--crucial to the investigation, to
a terrorism investigation.
If I had my druthers, I wouldn't have put the provision in, but we
had a closed-door briefing where the Department of Justice came in and
showed us what they consider to be needed. I thought it was within the
realm of reason, but I knew it would be an obstacle to getting the law
put into effect and getting support for that provision, and I opposed
it. But when I recognized that there are other points of view besides
mine and besides the Senate's, and without a lot of other major
concessions on the national security letter, which I have already
described and will come back to--there were more concessions we got
there--it seemed to me that provision was acceptable.
The question which I have for the Senator from Wisconsin is whether
he has had an opportunity to get that briefing? Last Thursday, I asked
my Chief Counsel, who has done such an extraordinary job, Michael
O'Neill--who was here a moment or two ago; he's probably too busy to
stay and listen to his speeches--to make a briefing available to the
Senator or his staff. My question to the Senator from Wisconsin is, No.
1, if he has had an opportunity to get that briefing; No. 2, if so,
what he thought of it with respect to the weightiness of what the
Department of Justice had to say; and, No. 3, if this modest addition
is so significant as to sink--or in conjunction with other similarly
unweighty matters--sink the bill?
Mr. FEINGOLD. In response to the Senator from Pennsylvania, the
Senator knows very well I am familiar with what went on in that
briefing. You and I spoke here outside this Senate Chamber about these
very provisions. I indicated to the Senator that I had my staff, who
received this briefing, go over with me, in a secure setting, exactly
the hypotheticals that those who wanted this additional provision in
the conference report raised. My staff and I looked at those
hypotheticals and were very unper-
suaded.
Here is the significance. What the Senator from Pennsylvania is
suggesting is that it is not a major change to add, on top of the
three-part test of the Senate, an additional provision that merely
requires relevance. This is a big deal, because the other three
provisions require that the records pertain to a terrorist or spy, or
records of people in contact with or known to a terrorist or spy, or
relevant to the activities of a terrorist or spy. All three of those
tests require something closer to the connection that the Senator from
Pennsylvania and I demanded in the SAFE Act.
The additional item put in the conference report is the loophole, the
exception, that swallows that three-part test. It does not require the
connection to the terrorist or spy, even though this legislation, from
the very outset, was supposed to be a response to what happened on 9/
11, to terrorism. This does gut the changes to section 215 that are in
the Senate bill. This does render meaningless the efforts you and I and
others made to get a good provision in the Senate. And, yes, it is a
sufficient reason not to go forward.
The feelings the American people have about this poorly drafted
section 215 cannot be answered by a provision that simply demands
general relevance and does not require a connection to terrorism or
espionage. It is unacceptable. And on that ground alone, although there
are other grounds, it is very disturbing.
I want to say that the Senator, my colleague and friend, did try
hard. He said earlier that if he had his druthers he would have
preferred a better provision. This isn't about druthers. This is about
a devastating power of the Government to be able to go and take your
library records on some general notion of relevance that has nothing to
do with any connection to terrorism or espionage. That is unacceptable
in America, and under our Bill of Rights.
Mr. SPECTER. Mr. President, I did not acquiesce in this matter simply
as a matter of druthers or nondruthers. I acquiesced in this matter
because it was, as a total scheme of things, acceptable. There was
adequate protection. It is not, as the Senator from Wisconsin defines
it, broad-ranging authority of a judge. The impartial judicial official
has to agree that it is a terrorism investigation, and that these
records are crucial and important to the investigation, that they are
relevant to the investigation, and it is not something that is
extraneous but it is a terrorism investigation.
I focus on this matter again not with any expectation of persuading
the Senator from Wisconsin but to tell my colleagues why he is
objecting to this provision, and to invite my colleagues, the other 98
Senators, if they want the briefing, to see why there were sensible
reasons for the Department of Justice and the details of this provision
not going too far, not impinging on civil liberties because I wouldn't
support a bill which impinged on civil liberties. I simply wouldn't do
it. But there are others who have contentions, and we had a great many
concessions from the House of Representatives.
I have taken up the two principal considerations which the Senator
from Wisconsin was arguing, the conclusive presumption in the national
security letter and this additional provision under section 215.
But I want to come back for a moment to the national security letter
on important concessions which the Senate obtained in the conference
report, first, to point out that the national security letter was not
established by the PATRIOT Act which we enacted shortly after 9/11. The
national security letters have been in existence for decades. But the
Senate utilized the revisions to the PATRIOT Act to put limitations on
the national security letters because they fit within the overall
parameters. We have some very important concessions on national
security letters in the conference report. The standard has always been
that if you had a national security letter, you kept quiet about it,
the recipient did. There was no explicit opportunity for the recipient
of a national security letter to challenge it. But the conference
report fixing up the Senate provision explicitly gives the recipient of
a national security letter the right to contact an attorney, to go to
court, and to have a national security letter quashed, if it is
unreasonable, oppressive, or otherwise contrary to law. The
[[Page 27949]]
recipient also has the power to get a court order to tell the target.
That is subject to a certification by these high-ranking governmental
officials that it would endanger national security or diplomatic
relations.
But again, the provision in the conference report is more protective
of civil liberties than what was in the Senate report. On this
provision on national security letters, the conference report goes much
further than existing law. Again, the national security letters were
not covered in the PATRIOT Act.
I don't have a question for the Senator from Wisconsin. I will come
to some later, but I ask unanimous consent that I might yield to the
Senator, if he cares to reply at this point to what I have said,
without losing my right to the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. FEINGOLD. Mr. President, I say to the Senator that I meant what I
said about his efforts and his sincere desire to try to fix these
provisions, and that is what we started to do in the Senate version.
Second, I do think this is an excellent process, that we need to come
out here on the floor and be very specific about what is right and what
is wrong about these provisions. It is neither sufficient to say to our
colleagues that we have to pass it as it is because the time is running
out, nor is it sufficient for somebody on my side to say, look, this is
an enormously dangerous, unfixable provision and the whole thing should
go down. Neither of those positions is defensible. What is defensible
is to look at each of these provisions as we have been doing and ask if
we have done enough to protect law-abiding Americans. I come to the
conclusion that we were very close, had maybe even achieved that with
regard to section 215. But the conference report failed in that regard,
and it brings us back far too close to the original mistake.
On the national security letters, I am not impressed by the
improvements of the Senate version, which I didn't find to be adequate
in the first place. So with regard to both of those, not to mention the
sneak-and-peek searches that we will discuss later on, the conference
report simply does not do the job.
I do recognize the Senator's sincere desire to make sure the Senate
is well informed about the remaining issues that could affect how
Members vote on the conference report.
I yield the floor.
Mr. SPECTER. Mr. President, the national security letters are
stronger in the conference report than they were in the Senate bill.
The conclusive presumption in the conference report is more protective
than the language in the Senate bill on conclusive presumption. The
conference report picking up the Senate bill provisions improves the
civil liberties protection from existing law by the explicit right of
the recipient to go to court to quash or to make the disclosure to the
target.
Mr. FEINGOLD. Mr. President, if I could make one remark, and then I
will have to leave. If the Senator will yield.
Mr. SPECTER. I will yield on the condition that I not lose my right
to the floor.
Mr. FEINGOLD. On the national security letters, we will have to agree
to disagree and continue to debate this and come to a similar
conclusion with regard to what the conference report did vis-a-vis the
Senate bill. Perhaps we could agree on how valuable it would be in
light of how serious these concerns are about the national security
letters, for that provision at least to be part of the group of
provisions subject to a sunset.
I want to point out to my colleagues with regard to these national
security letters that there may have been 30,000 issued, according to
the Washington Post, per year. That power is not sunsetted. That is
troubling.
I yield the floor.
Mr. SPECTER. Mr. President, I suggest that the Senator from Wisconsin
get a classified briefing and not accept what he reads in the
Washington Post. The Washington Post is wrong. I hope the Senator from
Wisconsin will not leave the floor. If I can have the attention of the
Senator from Wisconsin, I hope he will not leave the floor while I make
a couple of other comments. I will try to be brief, although I don't
think it has been extensive so far.
Mr. FEINGOLD. I appreciate that. I need to leave briefly. I will be
right back, but I enjoy this process. I need to take care of one
matter, and I look forward to returning to continue this discussion.
Mr. SPECTER. Let me be brief with one comment about 30,000. I urge
the Senator from Wisconsin to get a classified briefing and not to take
the facts of the Washington Post, because the Washington Post is
totally wrong. I am not at liberty to tell the Senator what the facts
are, although I asked the Department of Justice to put those facts
before the public. Too much is classified, and I think this is
inappropriately classified. I would like to be able to detail it.
Let me talk about the delayed notice provisions.
Existing law provides for notification of the target in a reasonable
period of time, which could mean anything. The Senate bill called for 7
days, the House bill wanted 180 days, and we got 30 days.
I suggest in the totality of the legislation that we are in the 85 to
15-percent range, 85-percent Senate provisions, 15-percent House
provisions, and the 15 percent which the House has does not impinge on
civil liberties. I wouldn't take 1 percent if this were an
inappropriate impingement on civil liberties. The 30 days can be
extended by a court on cause shown for specific reasons.
With respect to the wiretap provision, I joined the Senator from
Wisconsin in opposing the roving wiretaps. I have never liked wiretaps.
When I was district attorney for Philadelphia, this issue came up for
consideration of our body, and I was the only one of 67 county district
attorneys to object to wiretapping.
Since I can only be brief here, I would invite my colleagues again--I
know I am not going to persuade the Senator from Wisconsin. In talking
about the late notice and talking about the wiretap provisions, I want
my colleagues to look at the details as to how we have protected
against random selection on the specification, a description of the
person who is to be wiretapped, and showing that the person subject to
the wiretap is likely to try to avoid the wiretap.
The final comment I have to make is about sunsetting. The House put
in a provision for a 10-year sunset. The Senate put in a provision for
a 4-year sunset. The House wanted the compromise of 7 years, halfway
between 4 and 10. The Senate conferees insisted on a compromise at 4
years. The House said it was not much of a compromise, not when they
were at 10 and the Senate was at 4 years. I thank the White House for
assistance in working this detail out. We did so on the expectation
that by working the sunset to 4 years, we would have a number of
Senators' signatures on the conference report and a number of House
signatures on the conference report.
I am not going to wash that linen in public as to what happened but
only to say that our ability to review this bill at 4 years is a mighty
potent weapon to keep law enforcement on its toes, knowing it is going
to be subject to review in that period of time.
I have pledged privately and publicly and again in the Senate
yesterday to have extensive and piercing oversight as to what law
enforcement does. I think the Senator from Wisconsin will agree on the
point that in the year I have been chairman, there has been real
oversight. We have called for it and done a job here.
The debate has been very useful. I don't have any questions to pose
to the Senator from Wisconsin. I am glad he is here to respond so the
other side can be articulated and so my colleagues can make their own
evaluation as to the weight of the objection of the Senator from
Wisconsin to section 215, which is very limited to that one additional
provision, which is justified, so they can evaluate his objection to
the national security letters where the conclusive presumption is
tighter in
[[Page 27950]]
the conference report than in the Senate version and other protections,
and the protections on delayed notice, so-called sneak and peek, and
wiretaps, and then especially on sunset.
The debate is very illuminating and does more than the speech I gave
yesterday. There is nothing as dull as a speech on the Senate floor and
nothing as lively as a little debate. This Senate has very little
debate, very little exchange of ideas where Senators come and in a
respectful way pose questions and in a respectful way give answers to
illuminate rather than obfuscate; no table-pounding.
I thank the Senator from Wisconsin for what he has done this year on
the committee and for his thoughtful approach here, albeit wrong,
albeit not persuasive and should not carry the day. I thank him for his
contribution.
Without yielding the floor, I ask unanimous consent I may yield to
the Senator from Wisconsin without losing the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Chambliss). Without objection, it is so
ordered.
Mr. FEINGOLD. Mr. President, I am thoroughly enjoying this, and I
came out here and described the Senator again as valiant on this issue.
But I am getting a little worried as we start reviewing each of these
provisions. The Senator from Pennsylvania voted for every single one of
these provisions that I have talked about as part of the Senate
version. There was a reason we drafted it that way.
When the Senator properly puts me through my paces on each of these
issues and I identify my remaining objections and he minimizes the
objections--keep in mind he already voted for those very provisions; he
voted for exactly these provisions in the Senate bill. So when I point
out on section 215 that a general relevance standard is not a
sufficient protection and he agrees on the record that was troubling to
him, it seems to me that is a valid issue to be concerned about.
With regard to the sneak-and-peek provision, the Senator did not
vote, when he voted in the Senate, for 30 days' permission for a sneak
and peek and a 90-day extension after that; he voted for 7 days,
because the Senator from Pennsylvania knows as well as any Member in
this Senate that the idea of a sneak-and-peek search in the first place
is a very troubling exception to the fourth amendment protection that
every American has against unreasonable searches and seizures. This is
a very narrow exception. When the Senate voted in the Senate, he did
not vote for 30 days. He did not vote for a period of time that is over
four times larger than 7 days; he voted for 7 days. To now suggest this
is somehow a trivial concern is not consistent with either the
Senator's record on this particular legislation or consistent with his
apparent cosponsorship of the SAFE Act in the past.
This debate is valuable, but when the Senator actually lists these
all together as he has done, the only thing I can agree with him on
is--and I am grateful--that the sunsets have been preserved. That is
positive.
Let me say, the Senator cosponsored the SAFE Act. He knows some of
the things we are sunsetting potentially permit the violations of the
rights of innocent and law-biding Americans. A sunset is only a
secondary level of protection that essentially says, Look, people's
rights might be violated now, but at least we will have a chance to
change it later. The idea of simply prevailing on the sunsets, which
allow violations to continue without changing the substance of the law
to protect Americans' rights and civil rights liberties, is not a
sufficient reason to vote for the conference report. But I do look
forward to further exchange with the Senator on this as the week goes
on.
I thank the Chair.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Pennsylvania.
Mr. SPECTER. I thank the Senator from Wisconsin.
The last comments made the argument better than I have during the
course of the last hour when he chastises me for agreeing to 30 days
when I voted for 7 days but the House bill has 180 days. That is a
reason to vote against the bill. He has made my case.
When you take up an issue about what is fair and appropriate and
adequately protective of civil rights as to when the target should be
notified as to a surreptitious or secret search of his apartment, and
you have an existing bill which says a reasonable period of time--which
could be anything--and the Senate comes in at 7 days and the House
comes in at 180 days, there is no real concession on civil liberties.
The House made a concession of 150 days, from 180 to 30. The Senate
made a concession of 23 days, from 7 to 30.
I ask the other 98 Senators whether this is a meritorious argument, a
weighty argument, or more of scintilla. That is an expression we use in
the law when the item has virtually no weight. In the common law, they
talk about a peppercorn being adequate for consideration. But this is a
scintilla. Maybe this is not even a scintilla, to say a concession from
7 to 30 days is meaningful.
I am glad the Senator from Wisconsin made that as his final,
persuasive, overwhelming argument because that illustrates the
flimsiness of the considerations.
Mr. FEINGOLD. Mr. President, because of the last exchange, that will
not be----
Mr. SPECTER. I have the floor, but I will yield to the Senator from
Wisconsin on unanimous consent. I saw Senator Byrd one day perfect
this, and I will not make a mistake of yielding without reserving the
right to the floor.
Mr. FEINGOLD. I have no desire----
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. FEINGOLD. I have no desire to take the floor away from the
Senator from Pennsylvania, but back where I live, when the Government
comes into your home and you do not know they have been rummaging
around in your house and you find out 7 days later that they did this,
you are upset. If you do not find out for 30 days, where I come from
that is not a scintilla; that is a big deal. The U.S. Government coming
into your house without giving you notice, as people expect under the
fourth amendment, is not a triviality.
It is at the very core of one of the most important provisions of the
Bill of Rights. I am not sure I am, in the end, even comfortable with
this concept of a sneak and peek search. I think it has been
demonstrated it may be needed in some cases, but why in the world can't
a judge have to renew that every 7 days?
It is not a matter of trivia to the people of my State that the
Government can come into their house without notice under the fourth
amendment. And I reject the idea that it is a minor difference between
7 and 30 days.
Mr. SPECTER. Mr. President, the problem with the renewed argument by
the Senator from Wisconsin is not on 7 days or 30 days, it is on 1 day.
It is on any sneak and peek. It is on any delayed notification. Law
enforcement has that latitude because they need to continue the
investigation. If a disclosure is made, it will impede an
investigation. A short period of time enables them to continue the
investigation without alerting the target.
One day would be too long for the argument which is made by the
Senator from Wisconsin. We are conducting this debate as if we have a
law enforcement community in this country made up totally of rogues who
have no regard for the rights of the individual. And when they get a
delayed notice warrant, bear in mind, my colleagues and the Senator
from Wisconsin, they have gotten judicial review on this sneak-and-peek
warrant. On this delayed notification warrant, they have gone to a
judge and have gotten leeway on standards which are set forth and
articulated in the PATRIOT Act.
Mr. President, the Senate is not in order.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator is correct.
The Senate will come to order.
Mr. SPECTER. Back to the substance of the argument: this period of
time, the less, the closer to the Senate position the better. But this
is not some random act of a rogue law enforcement officer. This is a
delayed notice warrant which has been obtained by going
[[Page 27951]]
to an impartial magistrate and by showing cause and by showing reason
to have this delayed notice.
Mr. President, the Senator from New Hampshire was on the floor
earlier today and has raised a number of arguments. I see other of my
colleagues on the floor seeking recognition so I will not take these up
at this time. But I would invite my colleagues to examine what the
Senator from New Hampshire has had to say in the context of the debate
which I have had with the Senator from Wisconsin because I think they
are covered. But I will want to deal with them specifically.
I would point out--I am looking through the transcript for a moment
on some of the things which he has had to say. There are also some
comments made by the Senator from Vermont, the distinguished ranking
member, which I will comment about later. We will have a debate.
____________________
CONTINUED DUMPING AND SUBSIDY OFFSET ACT
Mr. SPECTER. Mr. President, I want to take an additional moment or
two, while I have the floor, to make a brief argument in support of the
motion which is going to be offered by Senator DeWine and Senator Byrd
to instruct the budget conferees to drop the repeal of the Continued
Dumping and Subsidy Offset Act.
This legislation was passed in the year 2000 under a program which
allows the Bureau of Customs and Border Protection to distribute duties
collected on unfairly traded imports to those U.S. businesses and their
workers who have been injured by dumped or unfairly subsidized imports.
Over 700 companies in almost every State of the Union, including many
small- and medium-sized companies, have received distributions under
this act, benefitting producers and workers in lumber, crawfish,
shrimp, honey, garlic, cement, mushrooms, steel, bearings, raspberries,
furniture, semiconductor chips, and a broad range of other industries
across the Nation hurt by continued unfair trade.
My State, Pennsylvania, has been a victim to a very substantial
extent. Companies in a variety of industries, including those that
produce steel, cement, agriculture, and food products, have benefitted
from the $1.261 billion since this program was put into operation. The
World Trade Organization has objected to this provision, and it is my
hope that the administration will fight the World Trade Organization's
conclusion. There have been instances in the past where the World Trade
Organization has said our practices violate their laws, and our
executive branch has gone to fight them to make a change. I think that
is what they should do here.
This compensates the companies and the workers who have been
victimized by these unfair trade practices. As a matter of basic and
fundamental fairness, this money ought to continue going to that.
In the interest of brevity, I ask unanimous consent that the complete
text of my statement be printed in the Record following my oral
remarks.
There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in
the Record, as follows:
DeWine Motion To Instruct Conferees To Drop the Repeal of CSDOA
Statement of Senator Arlen Specter
Mr. SPECTER. Mr. President, as I have said, I have sought
recognition to express my opposition to section 8701 of H.R.
4241, the House-passed budget reconciliation bill, which
seeks to repeal the Continued Dumping and Subsidy Offset Act,
CDSOA, or Byrd amendment, and to express my support for the
DeWine motion to instruct conferees to not include this
provision in the conference report.
CDSOA was enacted in 2000 to enable U.S. businesses and
workers to survive the face of continued unfair trade. The
program allows the Bureau of Customs and Border Protection to
distribute duties collected on unfairly traded imports to
those U.S. businesses and their workers who have been injured
by dumped and unfairly subsidized imports.
Over 700 companies in almost every State of the Nation,
including many small- and medium-sized companies, have
received distributions under CDSOA, which benefits procedures
of lumber, crawfish, shrimp, honey, garlic, cement,
mushrooms, steel, bearings, raspberries, furniture,
semiconductor chips and a broad range of other industries
across the Nation hurt by continued unfair trade.
In Pennsylvania, companies in a variety of industries,
including steels, cement, agriculture, and food products have
benefitted from these distributions by investing in research
and development, infrastructure improvements, and
improvements to pension programs. In doing so, companies have
been able to continue operations and, in some situations,
increased capacity.
Overall, disbursements have totaled $1.261 billion since
its inception in 2000, $226 million in fiscal year 2005.
Pennsylvania companies, alone, have received over $111
million in disbursements under CDSOA from fiscal year 2005
through fiscal year 2005 approximately $22 million annualy--
approximately 9 percent of the total distributions.
Repealing or modifying this act would negatively impact
U.S. workers and businesses, leading to the loss of the U.S.
jobs to foreign competition, which would cost thousands of
American workers their health insurance and pension benefits
and contribute to the further outsourcing of Americans jobs.
This provision has had broad support in this body, where
some 75 Senators have signed letters to the administration
urging retention of this vital provision in the face of an
adverse WTOP decision allowing countries to retaliate by
imposing tariff surcharges on U.S. products.
Congress directed the administration to resolve the WTO
issued in ongoing trade negotiations in the fiscal year 2004
and fiscal year 2005 ombinus appropriations bills, and the
fiscal year 2006 CJS appropriations bill that became law last
month. That language requires the administration to hold
negotiations to recognize the right of countries to
distribute duties collected from unfair trade as they deem
appropriate.
I urge my colleagues to support the motion.
Mr. SPECTER. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that a letter
dated November 4, 2005, and a letter which I signed along with some 69
other Senators, dated February 4, 2003, be printed in the Record.
There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in
the Record, as follows:
U.S. Senate,
Washington, DC, November 4, 2005.
Hon. Bill Frist,
U.S. Senate,
Washington, DC.
Dear Senator Frist, It is our understanding that the House
of Representatives will include the repeal of the Continued
Dumping and Subsidy Offset Act (CDSOA) in their budget
reconciliation measure. We do not believe that the budget
reconciliation process should be used to substantively change
U.S. trade law.
The goal of our trade laws is to ensure that an even
playing field is provided for American and foreign producers
of goods. As you know, Congress passed CDSOA in response to
concerns about the consistent, unfair trade practices in
which some of our trading partners have been engaged. Under
CDSOA, hundreds of companies, farmers, ranchers, and worker
groups, from all across America, have received distributions
from duties collected from our trading laws. Recipients
include large, medium and small companies, worker
representatives and farmers in nearly every state in the
country.
Seventy-two senators have made their opposition to
repealing CDSOA public. Should legislation regarding budget
reconciliation move towards conference, we would urge the
Senate not to accede to any provisions that may be included
in the House bill that would repeal CDSOA.
Sincerely,
Mike DeWine, John Warner, Elizabeth Dole, Larry E. Craig,
George V. Voinovich, Arlen Specter, Johnny Isakson, --
---- ------, Rick Santorum, Conrad Burns, Norm Coleman,
Mel Martinez, Saxby Chambliss.
Richard Shelby, Olympia Snowe, George Allen, John Thune,
Susan M. Collins, Mike Crapo, Jim Bunning, David
Vitter, John Cornyn, Thad Cochran, Trent Lott, Michael
B. Enzi.
____
U.S. Senate,
Washington, DC, February 4, 2003.
Hon. George W. Bush,
President of the United States,
Washington, DC.
Dear Mr. President: We write to express our strong interest
regarding the approach that may be taken by the U.S.
Government in response to the WTO Appellate Body's January
16, 2003, ruling that the United States violated its WTO
obligations when it enacted the Continued Dumping and Subsidy
Offset Act (CDSOA) in 2000. In our view, the WTO has acted
beyond the scope of its mandate by finding violations where
none exists and where no obligations were negotiated.
CDSOA is a payment program established by Congress to
address policy objectives that can enable our domestic
producers to continue to invest in their facilities and
workers. Its continued operation is critical to preserve jobs
that will otherwise be lost as the result of illegal dumping
or unfair subsidies and to maintain the competitiveness of
American industry.
[[Page 27952]]
In its November 2002 statement to the Appellate Body
defending this law, the Administration stated that, ``[T]he
Panel in this case has created obligations that do not exist
in the WTO Agreements cited. The errors committed are serious
and many about a statute which, in the end, creates a payment
program that is not challenged as a subsidy.'' We concur with
this statement and consequently believe that America's
trading partners must be pressed into negotiations on CDSOA
prior to any attempt to change our laws.
Specifically, we urge you to: (1) seek express recognition
of the existing right of WTO Members to distribute monies
collected from antidumping and countervailing duties; (2)
promptly integrate the Administration's recent Report to
Congress on the WTO Dispute Settlement Process; and (3)
consult closely with the Congress on the particulars of any
approach taken in negotiations on this issue.
We look forward to consultations with your Administration
on this important matter and to obtaining a positive
resolution that preserves the law for American companies and
their workers.
Sincerely,
Robert C. Byrd, Max Baucus, Mark Dayton, Tom Daschle, Jay
Rockefeller, John Breaux, Kent Conrad, John F. Kerry,
Jeff Bingaman, Mike DeWine, Rick Santorum, Larry E.
Craig, Trent Lott, Jim Bunning, ------ ------, Olympia
Snowe, George V. Voinvich, Arlen Specter, Dianne
Feinstein, Dick Durbin.
Blanche L. Lincoln, John Edwards, Fritz Hollings, Joe
Biden, Hillary Rodham Clinton, Jon Corzine, Byron L.
Dorgan, Norm Coleman, Saxby Chambliss, Susan Collins,
Mike Enzi, Evan Bayh, Robert E. Bennett, Craig Thomas,
Pete Domenici, Thad Cochran, Richard Shelby, Russell D.
Feingold, Ron Wyden.
Tom Harkin, Debbie Stabenow, Daniel Inouye, Frank R.
Lautenberg, Mark Pryor, ------ ------, Zell Miller,
Paul Sarbanes, Mike Crapo, John Warner, Harry Reid,
Jeff Sessions, Ben Nighthorse Campbell, Jack Reed, E.
Benjamin Nelson, Barbara A. Mikulski, Charles Schumer,
Ted Kennedy, Patrick Leahy, Jim Jeffords.
Herb Kohl, Joseph Lieberman, Chris Dodd, Tom Carper, Carl
Levin, Barbara Boxer, Bill Nelson, Mary L. Landrieu,
Daniel K. Akaka, Judd Gregg.
Mr. SPECTER. I thank the Chair and thank my colleague from New
Mexico, who has been waiting patiently, or at least waiting, and yield
the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from New Mexico is recognized.
____________________
MEDICAID
Mr. BINGAMAN. Mr. President, I rise to speak briefly in support of
the motion that I understand is to be made by the Senator from Montana,
Mr. Baucus, who is here on the floor, to instruct conferees with
respect to the Medicaid Program.
The motion to instruct conferees on the Medicaid Program highlights
one of the many ways in which the House of Representatives budget
reconciliation bill radically departs from the Senate bill. Let me
spend a very few minutes highlighting the differences between the House
and Senate packages on Medicaid, particularly with regard to the health
of children.
The contrast between the two bills could not be more stark. The
Senate bill arguably improves coverage of children through the
inclusion of the Family Opportunity Act that provides a State option to
expand Medicaid coverage to children with disabilities and through
inclusion of outreach and enrollment funding based on legislation that
Senator Frist and I introduced earlier this year.
In sharp contrast, however, according to the Congressional Budget
Office, the House budget reconciliation package imposes increased cost
sharing on low-income Medicaid beneficiaries and reduces health
services by $6.5 billion over 5 years and by $30.1 billion over 10
years.
For children, the impact of the House bill would be devastating.
Medicaid covers more than 27 million children, almost one in four in
this country. Medicaid also covers more than a third of all the births
and health care costs of newborns in the United States each year.
In spite of the importance of Medicaid for children, the House budget
package increases cost sharing for all children who rely on it for
prescription drugs or for emergency room services. The bill also allows
States to impose premiums for the first time under Medicaid for
children's coverage and to deny children coverage even if their family
cannot afford to pay the premium or other cost sharing.
The House budget bill also allows States to eliminate the early and
periodic screening diagnosis and treatment benefit rules that are so
critical to the health of children with special health care needs and
disabilities. Benefits that could be lost include comprehensive
developmental assessments, assessment and treatment for elevated blood
lead levels, eyeglasses, dental care, hearing aids, wheelchairs and
crutches, respiratory treatment, comprehensive mental health services,
prescription drugs and speech and therapy services. In short, three-
fourths of the savings in the House bill come at the expense of low-
income Medicaid beneficiaries. By CBO's estimate, half of the
beneficiaries affected by the increased cost-sharing provisions in the
House package are imposed on children, and half of those who will lose
Medicaid benefits would be children.
In CBO's own words:
We estimate that the number of affected enrollees [due to
increased cost-sharing requirements] would increase from 7
million in 2010 to 11 million in 2015, and that about half of
those enrollees would be children.
CBO adds that, due to added premiums, ``about 70,000 enrollees would
lose coverage in fiscal year 2010 and 110,000 would lose coverage in
fiscal year 2015 because of the imposition of premiums.''
Furthermore, CBO estimates that the flexibility in the House bill to
reduce benefits will also heavily impact children. CBO estimates that
``benefit reductions would affect an estimated 2.5 million Medicaid
enrollees in 2010 and about 5 million enrollees by 2015--about 8
percent of the Medicaid population--and that about one-half of those
receiving alternative [or reduced] benefit packages would be
children.''
Without the Medicaid Program, the number of children without health
insurance, which was 8.3 million in 2004, would be substantially
higher. In fact, the number of uninsured children has dropped by over
300,000 over the past 4 years due in large part to Medicaid and the
SCHIP Program. We should not at this time be taking steps backward by
reducing coverage for low-income and vulnerable populations that
primarily include the children I have been referring to.
I urge that colleagues support the Baucus motion to instruct
conferees on Medicaid. We are coming into the holiday season. This is
not a time when we, the wealthiest Nation in the world, should be
cutting health care assistance to the low-income children of this
country. I did not support the Senate budget reconciliation bill for a
variety of reasons, but even with the imperfections that were in that
bill, it was far superior to the House budget package. For one thing,
it does not contain the type of cuts for children's health that are
included in the House bill.
I urge my colleagues to recognize how much better the Senate bill is
for the health and well-being of our Nation's children. I urge my
colleagues to vote to instruct conferees to support the Senate's
approach over that of the House of Representatives.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Montana.
____________________
BUDGET RECONCILIATION
Mr. BAUCUS. Mr. President, at the appropriate time I will be sending
a motion to instruct to the desk. I will be doing that at a later time.
In the meantime, I rise to speak on that motion.
The motion instructs the Senate conferees on the spending
reconciliation bill not to bring back a conference report that hurts
Medicaid beneficiaries. This is the item about which the Senator from
New Mexico just spoke.
Last month, the House passed such a bill, one that would hurt
Medicaid beneficiaries. The House passed a bill that would cut health
care for millions of seniors and lower income Americans who depend on
Medicaid.
I believe the Senate should reject these harmful cuts. In early
November, the Senate voted by a thin margin to
[[Page 27953]]
cut Medicaid, our Nation's safety net health program for low-income
Americans. Many of us at that time objected to those cuts. That day,
the Senate bill planted a seed of opportunity to make even more harmful
cuts, hurting millions of low-income children, seniors, pregnant women,
and individuals with disabilities. Just 2 weeks ago, the Senate
reconciliation bill bore bitter fruit. Why? Because the Medicaid cuts
in the House bill turned out to be substantial and, in fact, will hurt
millions of the poorest and neediest among us.
According to the Congressional Budget Office, most of the Medicaid
savings in the House bill come from targeting our poorest citizens. CBO
says three-quarters of the House bill's Medicaid savings come from
provisions that increase costs, cut benefits, or impair access to
services for low-income individuals. These cuts will affect millions of
people. The CBO estimates that about 17 million Medicaid enrollees will
pay more under the House bill, and half of those paying more will be
children.
Who will these cuts affect? Medicaid now serves more than 50 million
low-income Americans. A quarter are children. A quarter are seniors and
disabled. The rest are pregnant women, low-income parents, and
individuals with serious medical needs.
Many believe that all low-income Americans are eligible for Medicaid.
That is not the case. Often only the very poor qualify. On average, a
nonworking parent making about $150 per week for a family of three
makes too much for Medicaid. Again, a nonworking parent of a family of
three making about $150 a week makes too much for Medicaid. That is
less than one-half the Federal poverty level.
Eligibility levels for working parents are also low. On average, a
working parent with a family of three earning more than $5.50 an hour
also makes too much to qualify for Medicaid. So we are talking about
the very poor.
Under the House bill, these needy individuals will pay more for less.
CBO estimates that about 80 percent of the savings from increasing cost
sharing would come from decreased use of health care services. Some may
say that increasing cost sharing will curb waste, abuse. I am not
saying we cannot or should not look at reducing unnecessary treatments
under Medicaid. Far from it. But increasing cost sharing is not the
right way to do it.
Increasing costs deters patients from seeking health care services,
both good and bad services. If we really want to control overuse of
services, we should be investing in care management strategies for
expensive chronic diseases such as diabetes. These strategies have
proven to lower cost while increasing the quality of care.
Increasing enrollee cost sharing can also have unintended systemwide
effects. Many States have already said they will deduct the new
copayment fees from provider rates regardless of whether providers
collect the fees. The result puts the new burden on doctors and clinics
and hospitals serving our health safety net. Many of these providers
will be forced to make up uncompensated care costs by increasing
private market rates, which will drive up health care costs for all of
us, leading to more uninsured and an even greater need for Medicaid.
Even more troubling, the House bill's premium increases will result
in tens of thousands of individuals losing Medicaid coverage. According
to CBO, about a quarter of the savings from the premium increases are
for individuals losing coverage. We don't need to rely on CBO to know
that this will actually happen. Why? Because in the State of Oregon,
this was tried, and the results were quite clear and disturbing. That
State began to enforce nominal monthly premiums for higher income
Medicaid beneficiaries. What happened? Oregon saw its enrollment drop
by nearly one-half in 10 months. Nearly 50,000 individuals lost
coverage.
This increased cost sharing amounts to a tax on poor families now in
Medicaid. For a family of three with income at 135 percent of poverty,
annual cost sharing would be as high as $1,086 per year or, stated
another way, about 60 percent of their annual Federal tax liability.
Let me say that again. For a family of three, with income at 135
percent of poverty, annual cost-sharing could be as high as over
$1,000, which amounts to less than 60 percent of their annual Federal
tax liability. In effect, it is a tax--a big tax, about 60 percent of
their Federal tax. Add them together and it is about 160 percent of tax
they are paying.
Many of these poor individuals would also be forced to pay more to
get less. How? Because the House allows States to cut Medicaid
benefits.
The Congressional Budget Office estimates that 5 million enrollees
would see their benefits cut over the next 10 years. Half of those
affected would be children. Higher income children would no longer have
guaranteed access to medically necessary care under Medicaid.
It is also unclear whether individuals with disabilities and chronic
conditions would be protected. This could undermine access to more
expensive treatments and services for those individuals who turn to
Medicaid because the private market will not cover them.
Shifting costs and cutting benefits for our poorest and least able to
pay is not the smart way to preserve our Nation's safety net for future
generations.
In the Finance Committee, many of my colleagues on the other side of
the aisle chose to support the Senate bill because it didn't include
changes that would hurt Medicaid beneficiaries. My friend and
colleague, Finance Chairman Grassley, praised the bill, saying it
``protects Medicaid benefits for the most vulnerable in our society.''
The Senator from Oregon, Mr. Smith, said that ``the reconciliation
package we are considering today is not only fiscally responsible, but
also morally defensible. This is a bill that protects the less
fortunate among us. It takes pains to preserve the vital safety net
programs that millions of Americans rely on.''
And the junior Senator from Pennsylvania said during the committee
markup:
Let us set the record straight. We are not cutting health
care services to the beneficiary.
So today I will offer this motion to set the record straight on
Medicaid cuts. This motion instructs Senate conferees on the
reconciliation bill to reject changes to Medicaid that would hurt
Medicaid beneficiaries or undermine Medicaid's guarantee. Given the
threat of the cuts passed in the House, the Senate must take a stand in
support of the neediest among us.
Let us ensure that we keep the record straight on Medicaid. Let us
ensure that we do no harm to the vulnerable individuals whom Medicare
serves. Let us pass this motion.
Mr. President, at the appropriate time I will make the motion.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Rhode Island is recognized.
Mr. REED. Mr. President, I, too, at the appropriate moment will offer
a motion to instruct the conferees. I will offer the motion in
conjunction with Senators Collins, Kennedy, Snowe, Lieberman, Leahy,
Bingaman, Coleman, Salazar, Stabenow, Clinton, Lugar, Harkin, Levin,
Smith, and Pryor.
This motion to instruct conferees is about LIHEAP, the Low Income
Heating Assistance Program. Each of us, at this point, is very familiar
with the struggle that is taking place today. If you were in New
England over the weekend, as I was, or in many other parts of the
country, you understand that temperatures have fallen and many families
are having to perform a juggling act with their budgets in order to
heat their homes.
According to EIA's most recent short-term energy outlook, released
last week, energy costs for the average family using heating oil are
estimated to hit $1,454 this winter, an increase of $255. That is a 21-
percent increase over last year's heating season. Natural gas prices
could hit $1,024 for an average family using natural gas. That would be
an increase of $282 or a 38-percent increase. For a family using
propane, prices are projected to hit $1,269, an increase of $167 from
last heating season, and that is a 15-percent increase.
Despite these sharp increases in fuel costs, we sadly continue to
fund
[[Page 27954]]
LIHEAP--the one program that can provide sufficient help to these
families--at the same level as last year, which in reality means an
actual cut in the level of assistance we can provide low-income
consumers this winter's heating season.
The responsible thing for Congress to do is to fully fund LIHEAP at
the full $5.1 billion authorized in the Energy Policy Act enacted
earlier this year. Indeed, we have tried to do that on numerous
occasions. Today marks the fifth time in the last 2 months that Senator
Collins and I, along with some 30 other colleagues, have made an
attempt to fully fund LIHEAP. We offered amendments to the Defense
bill, the Transportation-Treasury-HUD bill, Labor-HHS bill and, most
recently, the tax reconciliation bill. On each occasion, we reach
across the aisle and across the country to provide more assistance for
the LIHEAP program. While we did not reach the 60-vote margin needed to
pass these amendments under the budget rules, in each instance, a
majority of this body was on record supporting full funding for LIHEAP.
My preference, of course, was to provide funding to fully fund LIHEAP
on an emergency basis through an appropriations bill. Those
opportunities have passed. Budget reconciliation is the last train that
is leaving the station. That is why I come to the floor and will offer,
at the appropriate time, a motion to instruct budget conferees to
insist on a level of funding for LIHEAP that is sufficient to fully
fund the program at its fully authorized level.
The heat-or-eat dilemma is not just rhetoric. The RAND Corporation
conducted a study and found that low-income households reduced food
expenditures by roughly the same amount as increases in fuel
expenditures. In some respects, this is a tidal wave not of rising
water, like Katrina, but of rising energy prices.
We have all had the opportunity to visit our constituents and get a
firsthand glimpse of the struggle they are faced with. A few weeks ago,
I visited with Mr. Aram Ohanian, an 88-year-old veteran of the U.S.
Army in World War II, living on a $779-a-month Social Security check.
Money is so tight that he sometimes has to eat with his children or go
to a local soup kitchen. He also gets assistance from our Rhode Island
food bank. These heating price increases to Mr. Ohanian will be very
difficult. He received LIHEAP assistance last year, but that assistance
will be relatively less this year because of rising prices and greater
demand.
Last month, the Social Security Administration announced that cost-
of-living adjustments for 2006, on average, are about $65. That $65
increase to Mr. Ohanian is not going to take up the slack in terms of
these tremendous increases in fuel prices.
The motion to instruct conferees that we will submit at the
appropriate moment calls for LIHEAP to be funded at the fully
authorized level. Under the best-case scenario, if we fully fund
LIHEAP, there would still be a significant number of Americans who
qualify for the program but will not get any help. LIHEAP would still
only serve about one-seventh of 35 million households that are poor
enough to qualify for assistance. But at least we are taking a step by
fully funding this important program.
I urge my colleagues to support this motion when it comes to the
floor for a vote.
I yield back the remainder of my time.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from New Hampshire is recognized.
Mr. GREGG. I ask for the regular order, Mr. President.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senate is in morning business with 10
minutes for Senators.
Mr. GREGG. Mr. President, we are trying, as the Senate and as a
Congress, to wrap up the business for the Government this year. A major
part of that effort is to complete the budget process. Included in the
budget were two directions to the Congress, which were voted in by a
majority of the Congress--regrettably, very few people from the other
side of the aisle supported it--and one of the directions was, for the
first time in 8 years, to attempt to bring under control the rate of
growth of entitlement spending.
Anybody who looks reasonably at the Federal Government--and let's
take an independent view here and the view specifically of Chairman
Greenspan, who recently gave a speech in London where he pointed out
that the biggest concern he has from the standpoint of fiscal policy
was the burgeoning costs of the Federal Government which were being
driven by entitlement spending, and which would explode as the baby
boom generation began to retire in 2008 and become an untenable burden
for the children of the baby boom generation and their children as they
have to pay the taxes or costs of supporting that retired generation
which is so large.
This bill, in what I consider to be the first act of fiscal
responsibility of significance in the last 8 years, moved legislation
that said the Congress, for the first time in 8 years, will address the
issue of entitlements.
Now, the savings being projected in the bill were not that dramatic
and they continue to be not that dramatic. They are large numbers,
obviously, but in the context of the total spending on entitlements,
they are not that large.
For example, the savings that are being projected in the area of
Medicaid are about $10 billion over 5 years. But what you have to
understand--and that is a big number--is over that period, Medicaid
will be spending approximately $1.4 trillion--trillion dollars. So we
are actually asking for less than a one-tenth of 1 percent reduction in
the rate of growth in Medicaid, and Medicaid during that period will
grow at 40 percent--a 40-percent growth rate over those 5 years, down
from 41 percent, assuming we make the $10 billion reduction over the 10
years in the rate of growth.
The total deficit reduction bill was to be somewhere in the range of
$35 billion to $50 billion, depending on which bill was taken from
which House. It left the Senate at $39 billion and left the House of
Representatives at about $50 billion, $51 billion, something like that;
I am not sure. In any event, it is going to fall somewhere between
those two numbers.
We as a Congress hopefully can pass legislation that accomplishes
that goal which starts to reduce the rate of growth of entitlements and
reduces the debt of the Government to at least $40 billion--hopefully
more than that, $45 billion, $46 billion over the next 5 years. This is
the responsible thing to do, and it will be the first act of
significant fiscal responsibility in which we have participated in a
while around here as we continue to pass in the entitlement area--there
has been significant fiscal responsibility in the nondefense
discretionary area executed by the Appropriations Committee under,
again, the budget which essentially froze nondefense discretionary
spending and put in place what is known as caps so we can enforce them.
Ironically, none of these proposals for fiscal responsibility put in
place have received any significant support from the other side of the
aisle. When the budget passed this Congress, I don't think any Members
from the other side of the aisle voted for it. When the reconciliation
bill passed this Congress, two Members from the other side of the
aisle--I appreciate it very much--the Senator from Louisiana and the
Senator from Nebraska voted for it, but other than that, no one else on
the other side of the aisle voted for fiscal responsibility or an
attempt to reduce the rate of growth of the Government. So this has
become a lifting exercise in which, for all practical purposes,
Republican Members of the Congress appear to be ready to participate.
Yet today we are hearing from the other side of the aisle that they
want to instruct the conferees of a bill, against which they voted--
they voted against the budget, which was the underlying bill--instruct
the conferees how the conference should occur. I find that to be a
touch inconsistent--to be kind, a touch inconsistent, a big touch
inconsistent, to be honest. Here they are, folks who have not voted for
any fiscal restraint and, in fact, as we moved through the
appropriations
[[Page 27955]]
process have suggested that we add $500 billion of new spending to the
Federal Government under the appropriations process, which is not, by
the way, impacted under this deficit reduction bill because this is
entitlement activity, the two accounts being separate, appropriations
being one-time annual expenditures of the Government, entitlements
being programs which people have a right to and, therefore, they can go
out and receive funding. They may be veterans, they may be low-income
individuals, they may be students--they have a right to receive
funding. It goes on independent of annual legislation.
As I said, the other side of the aisle not only has not supported the
efforts of fiscal responsibility by voting for either the budget or the
vast majority, with the two exceptions I mentioned, not voting for a
deficit reduction bill, but now come forward with a series of what are
going to be instructions to the conferees as to how the conferees
should act after they voted against passing the bill and moving forward
with the legislation. Chutzpah is an understatement for that type of
approach.
Let's just take one or two examples and discuss them for a second.
For example, the Senator from Rhode Island was talking about LIHEAP.
There is significant irony in the position of the Senator from Rhode
Island--significant irony. To begin with, he voted against the one
proposal that we could have passed--which was funded--which would have
funded LIHEAP to keep people protected from the increase in oil costs.
It was paid for. That amendment was offered by myself. It was paid for
with an across-the-board cut in the Labor-HHS bill. It would have fully
funded the LIHEAP account at a level which would have held harmless
everybody who receives LIHEAP money, low-income energy assistance,
because we all realize the Low-Income Home Energy Assistance Program is
a critical program and there is going to be significant stress,
especially in the Northern States, as a result of the increased costs
of the price of oil. And yet this was opposed.
When this opportunity came along, it was opposed for political
reasons, if nothing else, I suspect, because they wanted to make a
claim that they were going to fund LIHEAP at a level that was
significantly higher than what CBO and what the Energy Department and
what everyone else said was needed, including the Health and Human
Services Department, to hold the program harmless, to keep the people
funded who needed to be funded.
That increase, which was required, was a $1.2 billion increase. You
don't have to listen to me to believe that. Take a look at the letter
the Senator from Rhode Island sent out asking that the funding in
LIHEAP be increased--it was signed by I think 44 Members of the
Senate--be at a level that held harmless the system so people who
receive money under LIHEAP would get the money they needed. What was
the number in that letter? The number was $1.2 billion. But suddenly,
in order to promote an agenda which had nothing to do with making sure
the people were held harmless but had a lot to do with maybe headlines,
we find the number being asked for is another $1.5 billion on top of
that. It is not paid for, not offset. Just run up the debt and put
money into an account far in excess of what that account needs to do
the job right.
In fact, as a result of the warm season in November in many of the
Northern States and the result of the softening, to some degree, of oil
prices, especially home heating oil prices, the number has now dropped.
It is down below $1.2 billion, according to the estimates I have been
seeing, to hold the system harmless. I am still willing to go to the
$1.2 billion level and have it paid for. That is the way it should be
done. You have to set priorities. You live in a household, and this is
all about households trying to make ends meet. They set priorities.
One of the priorities should be that the Federal Government should
not pass the bills in an energy program today which pays for oil that
is purchased today and given out today on to our children and our
grandchildren to pay through debt. We should pay for it ourselves. We
should be willing as a Congress to step up and say: Yes, this is an
important program; yes, it should be funded at a level that holds
everybody harmless and makes sure they get the support they need, but
also it should be paid for by the generation that is going to benefit
from it or at least the Government that is taking advantage of it. It
should not be passed on to the next generation as a bill to our kids
because our kids are also probably going to have cold winters, and they
sure are going to have tough energy issues because we haven't solved
any of those issues around here. We passed an energy bill that was
filled with a lot of vertical subsidies but didn't have a whole lot of
good energy policy in it; a little bit, a little bit of good energy
policy and a lot of bad policy which was basically driven by interest
groups around here, but it sure didn't do anything to make us more
long-term solvent in the area of energy.
One item that might address that is the issue of producing more
energy for our country, and that, of course, is a big issue in this
bill, and we will get into that in a later discussion.
The point here is we are being asked to vote for the reconciliation
bill when it comes out of conference. We are being asked to instruct
the conferees to add another $2.9 billion of debt onto our children's
backs rather than doing an appropriate action which is what I suspect
the conference will do, which is increase the money in the Low-Income
Home Energy Assistance Program by $1.2 billion, or something in that
range, and have it paid for within the context of the entire deficit
reduction bill, which is the fiscally responsible way to approach this
issue.
This will make a good press release, and it will obviously make a
good political ad, but I hope there will be a followup statement and
maybe even a followup political ad, maybe paid for by our kids or
grandkids which says: Hey, why are you doing this to us? Why do you not
take responsibility for your generations? Why are you giving us a bill
for oil and heat for this year when we may have the same bills to deal
with when we retire or when our children have to take care of us in
retirement 10, 15 years from now?
Let us do this the right way. Let us make this system solvent, not
only solvent but make the system--put in the system the funds that are
necessary to make sure that people who need the low-income energy
assistance can get it under the higher oil prices, and then let us pay
for it. Set a priority and say there are some things we can afford,
some things we cannot afford, and in the Federal Government let us make
the decisions to reduce the things we cannot afford and pay for the
things we need, which specifically would be this proposal for low-
income energy assistance at $1.2 billion. But that is not the politics
of this institution.
So I do hope we will pass a reconciliation bill, otherwise known as a
deficit reduction bill, and I do hope it will step forward and reduce
the debt by somewhere around $45 billion or $46 billion, maybe more,
and that in that process we will address the low-income energy
assistance program and make sure that it is funded at a level that is
necessary in order to make sure people are held harmless, and low-
income individuals who need energy can afford it to heat their homes
and do not have to make difficult choices. But we should all do it
within the context of prioritizing the responsibilities of the Federal
Government today and not pass our responsibilities today on to our
children and our children's children tomorrow by deficit-financing this
event.
So we are going to get these instructions. I guess there has been
some unanimous consent agreement worked out. There are going to be
about seven proposals, instructions to conferees. I just hope that as
we go through these instructions people will have the intellectual
integrity to ask the question, if they did not vote for the bill, if
they did not vote for the budget which was trying to control spending,
and they did not vote for the deficit reduction bill which is trying to
control spending, why are they coming to the floor
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and suddenly telling the conferees how they should go about hitting
their targets which are part of the bill, which they did not vote for,
and they do not support? Maybe we will hear somebody preface their
request for instructions with an explanation of that point.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Montana.
____________________
ASBESTOS
Mr. BAUCUS. Mr. President, Libby, MT, is a special place. Libby is a
city of more than 2,600 people in Lincoln County, in the northwest
corner of Montana. It rests in a valley high in the Rocky Mountains, on
the green Kootenai River between the Cabinet and Percell Mountains.
Libby is not a rich city. In 2000, the median family income in Libby
was just under $30,000. That compares with just over $40,000 in all of
Montana, and just over $50,000 in all of America.
Across the river, and 9 miles northeast of the town, rises a mountain
that they call Zonolite Mountain. Until 1990, the W.R. Grace Company
used to mine vermiculite there in the mountain.
Vermiculite is shiny mineral. Heat it, and it pops like popcorn.
People used to pop vermiculite to make building insulation. They called
the popped vermiculite ``Zonolite.''
The layers of rock where people found the vermiculite contained
harmful asbestos. And the vermiculite outside Libby is laced with a
especially dangerous type of asbestos, called tremolite.
Tremolite is the most toxic form of asbestos. Termolite has long
fibers that are barbed like fishhooks. These fibers work their way into
soft lung tissue. These fibers do not come out.
Until the mid-1970s, W.R. Grace processed the vermiculite mined in
Libby in a nearby mill. The mill was so dusty that workers often could
not see their hands on their brooms. Dust was everywhere. Mill workers
swept dust outside. They dumped it down the mountainside. I remember
seeing employees come out of the mine off the bus so caked with dust I
wondered what in the world is going on here. I never knew any working
conditions to be so dusty.
The mill's ventilation stack spewed the dust into the air. The
ventilation stack released 5,000 pounds of asbestos every day. When the
wind blew from the east, a deadly white dust would cover the town.
For decades, 24 hours a day, the dust fell all over Libby. Dust fell
on Libby's gardens. Dust fell on Libby's homes. Dust fell on Libby's
high school track. Dust fell on Libby's playgrounds.
Some of the vermiculite went downtown to a plant, right next to the
baseball diamonds. The plant popped the vermiculite into Zonolite.
Batches of Zonolite spilled all around the plant.
Kids played in the Zonolite. People brought home bags of Zonolite to
pour into the attics. People put Zonolite in their walls. People put
Zonolite in their gardens. People put vermiculite and ore in road beds.
People used vermiculite and ore as aggregate in their driveways.
An article in the journal Environmental Health Perspectives would
later conclude:
Given the ubiquitous nature of vermiculite contamination in
Libby, along with historical evidence of elevated asbestos
concentrations in the air, it would be difficult to find
participants who could be characterized as unexposed.
Every day, men from the valley went to the mountain to work in the
mine and the mill. Every day, these men came home, covered with the
fine, deadly white powder.
The powder got into their clothes. The powder got into their
curtains. The powder covered their floors.
The fine fibers of tremolite asbestos are easy to inhale. Miners
inhaled fibers in the mine. Workers inhaled fibers at the mill. Wives
inhaled fibers when they washed their husband's clothes. Children
inhaled fibers when they played on the carpet.
And those fibers caused respiratory disease. Those fibers caused a
serious lung disease called asbestosis. And those fibers caused a
serious form of cancer, mesothelioma, which plagues the chest and
abdominal cavities.
Tremolite asbestos causes unique diseases. These diseases are highly
progressive and deceptive. These diseases often result in severe
impairment or death, without the typical warning markers that show up
on x-rays. Without the usual medical signals, the people of Libby often
went undiagnosed.
The Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry found that
people from Libby suffer from asbestos-related disease at a rate 40-to-
60 times the national average. People from Libby suffer from the
asbestos cancer mesothelioma at a rate 100 times the national average.
Because of the W.R. Grace mine and the mill, hundreds of people in
Libby died from asbestos-related diseases. And hundreds of current and
former area residents are now ill.
The people in Libby will be plagued by asbestos for years to come.
These diseases can take 40 years to appear. Hundreds more will fall
victim to these diseases in the future.
Now, the people of Libby must watch their neighbors struggle to tend
their gardens. They must watch their neighbors struggle to walk to the
cafe. They must watch their neighbors struggle to provide a future for
their children. And they must wonder if they, too, will fall ill.
Hundreds of people live in discomfort. Hundreds of people live in
pain. ``It took my mother 17 months to slowly suffocate,'' said Gayla
Benefield.
After Gayla's mother died in 1996, Gayla and her sister sued W.R.
Grace. They brought only the second such lawsuit to be decided by a
jury in Libby. W.R. Grace had quietly settled dozens of other claims
with agreements of secrecy.
In 1999, the Environmental Protection Agency started to investigate.
The EPA found tremolite contamination in the air around the nursery.
They found it near the ball fields. They found it inside homes.
The EPA started cleaning up. The entire community of Libby was
designated a Superfund site. Libby was listed on the EPA's National
Priorities List.
The EPA concluded:
The occurrence of non-occupational asbestos-related disease
that has been observed among Libby residents is extremely
unusual, and has not been associated with asbestos mines
elsewhere, suggesting either very high and prolonged
environmental exposures and/or increased toxicity of this
form of amphibole asbestos.
The EPA has worked hard. The EPA has shown a good response and solid
clean-up work. And the EPA is committed to finishing the job. I commend
them. I made many visits to Libby--many, many times. I talked with EPA
officials over the years, and I think they have done a pretty good job.
The EPA has identified more than a thousand properties in Libby that
still need cleaning up.
The agency has pushed back the timeframe for cleaning up the town
from 2004 to 2008. After having been in Libby for 3 years, the agency
had completed only 10 percent of the cleanup work needed to give the
town a clean bill of health. The EPA must keep Libby a priority.
In 1999, I was the first high-ranking elected official to visit
Libby. Since the winter of 1999, I have gone to Libby 16 times. I have
worked heard to get funds to help with cleanup, health care, and
economic development.
I have looked into the eyes of people in Libby. I have seen mothers
and fathers, sister and brothers, husbands and wives. I have listened
to their troubling stories.
In Libby, I heard many concerns of residents who cannot afford their
health care. People are sick. Many are getting sicker. They are dying
up there. Health care is one of the most pressing needs facing Libby.
In 2000, I helped to establish the Center for Asbestos Related
Diseases, or CARD. The CARD clinic has done a tremendous job providing
health care and screening for Libby residents. CARD needs additional
Federal dollars to provide more and better care.
The healthcare costs of treating asbestos-related disease can be
devastating. Simple, routine procedures to help a person breathe more
easily can cost more than $30,000. Those costs continue to add up. They
are crippling a
[[Page 27957]]
community that is struggling to get back on its feet.
The people of Libby face a health care crisis. This crisis was caused
by alarming rates of tremolite asbestos-related disease. Treating the
sick people in Libby will cost hundreds of millions of dollars. It was
caused by no fault of their own, but, I might add, by a company that
knew it was damaging and killing the people in that community.
Libby is working to overcome years of asbestos exposure from the W.R.
Grace mine. They have been through enough. They did not ask for this
lot. Affording quality health care remains one of the biggest hurdles
for the town to move forward.
That is why I fought to make sure that asbestos bills working through
the Senate addressed the needs of the people of Libby. When, in May of
this year, the Judiciary Committee voted to report S. 852, the Fairness
in Asbestos Injury Resolution Act, the committee included appropriate
language.
The good people of Libby need our help. They are dying up there. They
cannot afford health care. I am dedicated to getting them the
healthcare treatment that they need and deserve. I made a commitment to
the people of Libby and I intend to work together with my colleagues to
see that commitment honored.
Asbestos disease has devastated many communities across the country
But tremolite asbestos hit Libby hardest of all. Libby is unique. The
type of asbestos at Libby is unique. The duration of exposure at Libby
is unique. The manner in which asbestos disease manifests itself in
Libby is unique. And the community-wide exposure in Libby was unique.
That is why the tailored solution that the Judiciary Committee has
proposed makes sense.
I want my colleagues to know that I will fight to defend the Libby
provisions in the asbestos bill. Libby is extremely important to me. If
the Congress takes out the Libby provisions from the bill, they will
lose my vote.
People in Libby are dying from tremolite asbestos exposure. The town
has risen mightily to the challenges that it has faced. But they need
our help. They deserve our help.
The people in Libby are working hard to revitalize their economy and
their community. They are rightly proud of their resilience and their
ability to land on their feet. They deserve all the help that we can
give them to make their town whole again.
I urge my colleagues to support the Libby provisions in the asbestos
bill. Help us to right this terrible wrong. Help these hundreds of
suffering people to get health care and help save the life of this
town.
Mr. President, I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Alexander). The clerk will call the roll.
The bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order
for the quorum call be dispensed with.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, I do want to, as I have the privilege of
so often doing, express my thanks to my Democratic colleague, the
ranking member of the Senate Finance Committee, for his cooperation
particularly on this United States-Bahrain Free Trade Agreement that we
were able to unanimously report out of our committee. The reason I want
to emphasize ``unanimous'' isn't just to be complimentary to Senator
Baucus but also to the people of this country who think that everything
done in this Congress is always so partisan, that Republicans and
Democrats never get along, that we never talk to each other, that we
never agree on anything. I can see why they have that impression
because that is the impression the news media of America gives about
the Congress of the United States. But as practical matter, nothing
gets done in the Senate that isn't somewhat bipartisan, and
particularly there is quite a tradition of bipartisanship in our Senate
Committee on Finance.
This recent bill that is before us, the United States-Bahrain Free
Trade Agreement, is the latest representation of that bipartisan
cooperation.
I thank Senator Baucus very much.
I give strong support to the bill S. 2027; that is, the United
States-Bahrain Free Trade Agreement Implementation Act.
This legislation is not only good for our U.S. economy, but it is
also going to promote free trade, which is an economic issue as it
creates jobs, but it also promotes democracy, and it promotes economic
stability.
In regard to economic stability, the reason I emphasize that is
because the Middle East is seen as an area of the world that is not
very stable. I think that enhancing trade with those countries, large
or small, is going to bring great economic stability which in turn
ought to bring some political stability.
On top of all this, it is going to cement our ties with this small
kingdom of Bahrain. That country is a very strong ally of the United
States in that region.
This trade agreement is a clear win for our economy. It will create
jobs.
Upon entry into force of this agreement, Bahrain will immediately
eliminate 100 percent of its duties on imports of U.S. consumer and
industrial products.
U.S. farmers will also benefit. On day one of the agreement, Bahrain
will grant duty-free access on 98 percent of its tariff lines that
apply to U.S. agricultural as well as food products. Duties with
respect to that small remaining 2 percent will be phased out over a
period of 10 years.
This is solid market access for U.S. farmers and U.S. manufacturers.
U.S. service providers will also gain from this agreement.
Bahrain will provide substantial market access across its entire
service regime. The service provisions of the agreement are based upon
a ``negative list'' approach, which means that all service sectors are
covered. In other words, there will be trade in all service sectors
unless they are specifically excluded as a result of the list.
Bahrain is already a major center for service providers in the Middle
East, and the government recognizes that its service sector can become
even stronger through economic liberalization. Because of this
agreement, as the region develops, there is going to be very enhanced
opportunities for U.S. exporters.
While it is important to note how the United States-Bahrain Free
Trade Agreement will benefit the economy of the United States in the
aggregate, it is even more important to point out how it will benefit
individual U.S. companies and their workers.
For me, I didn't have to look very far to find Iowa workers and Iowa
companies that benefit from this agreement.
For example, the HNI Corporation--it used to be referred to as the
HON Corporation--the Fortune 500 company in my State, this company in
Muscatine, IA, looks forward to the implementation of this trade
agreement. HNI is the second largest manufacturer of office furniture
in North America. It is specifically targeting the Bahraini market for
increased sales. So HNI employees in Iowa as well as other States will
benefit from Senate passage of the agreement.
Workers at the Lennox residential heating and cooling products
factory in Marshalltown, IA, also stand to gain from the agreement.
Lennox has a strong interest in increasing its sales in Bahrain. Like
HNI, Lennox has a presence in many States, so its employees not only in
Iowa but throughout the country will benefit from the implementation of
this agreement.
Smaller businesses throughout the United States also stand to benefit
from this trade agreement. One such company is Midamar Corporation
located in Cedar Rapids. The Midamar Corporation supplies halal food
and food service equipment to restaurants, hotels, and distributors
throughout the world. This company was started in 1972 by Cedar Rapids
native Bill Aossey. When Bill returned to Iowa after serving in the
Peace Corps and traveling throughout the Middle East, he came up with
the idea of starting a company dedicated to exporting Iowa products.
Now, 33 years later, Bill has a lot to show for this hard work. He
employs 30 Iowans and the Midamar Corporation is very much a clear
success.
[[Page 27958]]
I visited the Midamar facility last August and I can report Bill
Aossey and his employees are very enthusiastic about this prospect of a
trade agreement with Bahrain being implemented so they can even do more
business in the Middle East.
Aside from the immediate benefits to United States exporters to
Bahrain, this agreement's impact will extend beyond Bahrain. The United
States is promoting trade liberalization and economic growth in other
countries in the Middle East and this agreement will serve as the
template for other trade agreements being negotiated in the region. The
solid gains for U.S. farmers, workers, manufacturers, and service
providers found in this agreement may be replicated in other free trade
agreements of their region.
This has already happened with the country of Oman. The United States
recently concluded a free trade agreement with Oman that was based
largely upon our agreement with Bahrain so the benefits to HNI
Corporation, Lennox, and Midamar that I have identified will be
multiplied as other Arab countries adopt free trade agreements with the
United States that are based largely upon the Bahrain agreement.
This is all part of a broader goal and that was expressed in May 2000
by President Bush proposing a plan of graduated steps for Middle
Eastern nations to increase trade and investment with the United States
and others in the world economy, culminating with the establishment of
the Middle East Free Trade Agreement by the year 2013. The importance
of this vision of President Bush was brought home on July 22, 2004,
when the report of the 9/11 Commission was released. That report
contains as one of its key recommendations that ``comprehensive United
States strategy to counterterrorism should include economic policies
that encourage development, more open societies and opportunities for
people who improve the lives of their families and to enhance the
prospect of their children's future.''
Our trade agreement with Bahrain is an important achievement in that
area and joins previously concluded bilateral trade agreements between
the United States and Israel, Jordan, and Morocco. The agreement with
Bahrain is an important part of a broader effort to encourage
development, more open societies, and opportunities for people to
improve the lives of their families and to enhance prospects for their
children's future throughout the Middle East.
Finally, I urge my colleagues to support this bill before the Senate
implementing the United States-Bahrain Free Trade Agreement.
Mr. BAUCUS. Mr. President, today we begin debate on the free trade
agreement between the United States and Bahrain. This is an agreement
that strengthens our ties with a stalwart ally in a troubled part of
the world. It is an agreement with a leading reformer in the Middle
East, and with the most open economy in the Arab world. And it is an
agreement worthy of our support.
On the first day of enactment of the U.S.-Bahrain Free Trade
Agreement, 100 percent of trade in manufactured goods will be duty
free, opening up markets for U.S. exports of motor vehicles and parts,
medical equipment, refrigeration equipment, et cetera. Agricultural
exports are also expected to rise, and I hope Montana beef is among
them.
The services chapter is the most robust of any agreement the United
States has negotiated. Bahrain has promised American companies doing
business in the kingdom a regime free of barriers, modern in its
regulation, and respectful of intellectual property rights.
For Bahrain, this agreement means greater integration into the world
economy, a better environment for its workers, and a pioneering role in
the Arab world. For the Middle East as a region, I hope this agreement
is a firmly planted seed that will grow prosperity, openness, and
stability.
A strong agreement such as this one does not automatically happen. It
takes hard work. It takes perseverance, followthrough. It takes vision.
Fortunately, the United States and Bahraini officials have these
qualities in spades. I applaud their hard work. Ambassador Belooshi--
who, I might add, is observing these proceedings close by, very close,
I might add--of the Kingdom of Bahrain typifies the courageous action
and progressive thinking the Bahrainis have shown through the FTA
process, and we should applaud him for it. He has done a super job.
I also applaud Ambassador Rob Portman and his predecessor, Bob
Zoellick. Ambassador Zoellick negotiated a strong agreement, and
Ambassador Portman saw it through. Ambassador Portman listened to
Senators' interests in monitoring Bahrain's end to its boycott of
Israel, and together we worked out a solution. He has been equally
energetic and flexible in working with my colleagues in the House Ways
and Means Committee to alleviate their concerns, especially on labor.
I also applaud the very capable and energetic staff of the USTR. They
are dedicated public servants, putting in long hours and endless effort
into their work. They do a super job.
This is the first FTA to come before us since the very contentious
Central American Free Trade agreement.
The overwhelming support I expect the Bahrain agreement to secure is
a testament to what can be achieved when the administration and the
Congress work together to address concerns.
The Bahrain FTA shows that when the administration keeps an open
dialogue with Congress, we can find common ground and achieve our
common goals. I hope that we can continue to build upon the success of
this FTA in helping to heal the wounds of previous battles.
I think we have before us a model for open dialogue, and for
congressional support for trade liberalization.
I hope that we can take this model and apply it to much larger
trading partners and even bolder agreements. Agreements that will open
bigger markets, realize greater opportunities, and make our industries
even more competitive.
Mr. President, I am pleased to support the U.S.-Bahrain free trade
agreement. I urge my colleagues to pledge their support as well.
____________________
BUDGET RECONCILIATION
Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, I also take this opportunity to speak on
a motion to instruct conferees on the Byrd amendment.
Yesterday, a Senator sent a letter to the majority leader saying he
would oppose the reconciliation bill if we used repeal of the Continued
Dumping and Subsidy Offset Act to achieve billions in budget savings.
While disappointed, I was not surprised. In fact, I say, join the club.
Already, one Senator told me he would oppose reconciliation unless
specific provisions on specialty hospitals were not included. Several
other Senators threatened to vote against the reconciliation bill
unless the MLLC Program was not extended. Another Senator told me he
will vote no if we save money by trimming waste from the Medicaid
Program. A group of southern Senators said they would vote no on the
reconciliation bill if the Grassley provision on payment limits in the
farm program became a part of the bill.
So, no savings from the CDSOA repeal; no savings from the MLLC
Program; no savings from Medicaid; no savings from payment limits. With
everyone threatening to vote ``no'' there will be no savings in any
Federal program, ever.
Everyone says they are for balanced budgets as long as it is someone
else whose budget is cut to get the job done--not their pet issue. We
need to ask ourselves whether we want to trim the Federal budget or
not. If not, what does the Republican Party stand for?
The most egregious threat has to be over budget savings from the
repeal of the Continued Dumping and Subsidy Offset Act. This program is
Government pork at its worst. It takes money that should go to the
treasury of the United States and it transfers that money to a select
group of companies. Talk about special interests, Mr. President. Plus
there are very few limits on
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what these companies can do with the money that is raised by an act of
Congress.
According to the General Accounting Office, one recipient even used
the money to pay off his home mortgage. The program is so bad it did
not even pass during the light of day a few years ago. Instead, it was
pushed into a conference report before it could receive scrutiny by
either House of Congress. Ironically, some are arguing that budget
reconciliation shouldn't be used to save money by repealing this
amendment. They argue it should go through the regular order. I don't
know why they would argue this given the provision never went through
regular order before it became law in the first place.
Here, unlike passage a few years ago of this bad amendment, repeal
went through regular order in the House. Repeal just a couple weeks ago
went through regular order in the House where that amendment had never
even been considered by the other body when it was originally adopted a
few years ago.
So let me be clear. We are not talking about repealing any aspect of
our trade remedy laws. Every trade protection that has been in place
for years stays in place. What we are talking about is getting rid of a
Government subsidy program that enriches the few at the expense of the
many.
A recent report from the Government Accountability Office shows this
in very stark detail. Over $1 billion has been distributed so far under
this program. One company alone--one company alone--of that $1 billion
received almost 20 percent of the disbursements, and the top 5
recipients account for almost half of those disbursements.
You do not have to cast a very wide net to see where this corporate
welfare is going. Just 39 companies account for over 80 percent of the
disbursements. And the World Trade Organization has authorized a number
of our trading partners to retaliate against us. This is where, to help
a few companies through this amendment, we are going to end up hurting
a lot of American producers, some of them in our powerful agriculture,
and maybe end up hurting every consumer in America. As a result,
innocent U.S. exporters are taking a big hit so the lucky few can
continue guzzling at the public trough.
Already, our exporters face additional duties imposed by Japan,
Canada, Mexico, and the European Union. Here is where it affects some
products. Our producers of live swine, fish, oysters, cigarettes, dairy
products, wine, paper products, clothing, sweet corn, industrial belts,
steel products, forklift trucks, printing machines, and others, are all
bearing the brunt of sanctions against some American companies because
we have a law on the books that violates our international agreement
and at the same time benefits a handful of major companies in America.
It happens that Brazil, Chile, India, and South Korea could soon
impose sanctions. As more countries exercise their authority to
retaliate and as payments under this program continue to grow, innocent
U.S. exporters--the ones I have listed and others--and, more
importantly, their employees, will continue to be hurt more and more as
time goes on. That is not right. This situation needs to end.
The Government Accountability Office report points out some other
ridiculous aspects of this program, such as the complete lack of
accountability. Recipients of funds under the program submit claims
based upon qualifying expenditures, but there is no way to tell whether
those claims are even justified. In fact, the evidence suggests they
may not be justified.
In 2004, company claims were about $1.3 trillion. Mr. President, I
said that right: Companies were making claims for $1.3 trillion. The
gross domestic product of the United States in 2004 was $11.75
trillion. So if the 770 recipients of funds under the Continued Dumping
and Subsidy Offset Act, referred to as the Byrd amendment, are to be
believed, they spent about 11 percent of the U.S. gross domestic
product last year on qualifying expenditures.
I understand that in the year 2005--the year now ending--claims are
about $3.2 trillion. That is equivalent to one-quarter of the GDP of
the entire United States of America.
I think those figures show the magnitude of the incentive for fraud
under this program. The proponents of this program ought to be
embarrassed. This program is bad economic policy, bad trade policy, and
bad Government to use the power of Government to end up giving a few
companies in this country the benefit of the Federal Government's power
to tax.
It should be repealed, as the House has done. I hope that coming out
of conference we can have this provision in there. I hope we will not
instruct conferees to disagree with the House. In the process of doing
this, we are going to put $3.2 trillion into the Federal Treasury
instead of having it go as corporate welfare to a handful of companies.
If we cannot repeal such a blatant example of Government pork to save
money during a time of skyrocketing budget deficits, then why are we
here as representatives of the people at all? Are we here to protect
the pockets of a select few, or do we want to do, and will do, what is
in the best interests of our Nation?
Mr. President, I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Montana.
____________________
A NEW AMERICAN RENAISSANCE
Mr. BAUCUS. Toward the end of the 14th century, Emperor Manuel II
Palaeologus ruled a waning Byzantine Empire. Looking across the
Bosporus, he saw a growing threat from the Moslem Ottoman Turks. In
1390, he sent an embassy up the Adriatic Sea to Venice to build
alliances. And to head the mission, he named the 35-year-old Manuel
Chrysoloras.
Although his embassy to Venice did not prosper, Chrysoloras'
reputation did. And in 1396, the chancellor of the University of
Florence invited him there to teach Greek. The chancellor wrote: ``[W]e
firmly believe that both Greeks and Latins have always taken learning
to a higher level by extending it to each other's literature.''
Chrysoloras accepted.
But no one in Italy had studied Greek for 700 years. Chrysoloras
began. He taught Greek in Florence, Bologna, Venice, and Rome. He
translated Homer and Plato. He wrote the first basic Greek grammar in
Western Europe.
As the early renaissance poet Dante Alighieri wrote in The Divine
Comedy, ``A great flame follows a little spark.'' The flame of learning
spread through the rest of Europe, reconnecting the West with classical
antiquity, experimentalism, and the desire to live well.
Chrysoloras and scholars like him helped to begin the scientific
revolution and artistic transformation that would become known as the
Italian Renaissance. Europe emerged from the backwater. Commerce and
exploration burst forth. The Modern Age began.
Renaissance historian Matteo Palmieri exhorted a fellow Italian of
the mid 15th century to ``[t]hank God that it has been permitted to him
to be born in this new age, so full of hope and promise, which already
rejoices in a greater array of nobly-gifted souls than the world has
seen in the thousand years that have preceded it,''
With the Renaissance, Western Europe began its domination of the
world economy. The West has held this power so long that it is easy--
especially for us here in the West--to take it for granted. But it need
not have been so.
In the century leading up to the year 1000, Moorish Spain could claim
a far more advanced civilization than that of Christian Italy.
Cordoba's streets were paved and lit. Cordoba had 300 public baths and
70 libraries. Cordoba's great central library alone held 400,000
books--more than all of France. The Arab postal service delivered
regular mail as far as India. Arab civilization was internally
creative. And Arab thinkers of the time were open to Persian and Indian
science, as well.
In the 12th century, an English scholar named Adelard of Bath
traveled through the Islamic lands of Spain, North Africa, and Asia
Minor. Adelard reported: ``The further south you go, the more they
know. They know how to think.''
[[Page 27960]]
And Adelard carried back from the south a way of thinking. He said:
``Although man is not armed by nature, nor is naturally swiftest in
flight, yet he has something better by far--reason.''
The advanced Moorish state suffered civil conflict and fell to the
less-developed Christian states of Europe. Finally, on January 2, 1492,
the leader of the last Muslim stronghold in Granada surrendered to
armies of a resurgent, newly-united Christian Spain. The remaining
Spanish Muslims were forced to leave Spain or convert to Christianity.
At the end of the first millennium, Arab Spain had the most advanced
science and economy of its day. But in the centuries that followed, it
fell to a newly-emergent Western Europe.
At the end of the first millennium, Western Europe slumbered in its
Dark Ages. But in the next centuries, it emerged into the Renaissance.
We here today inherit the legacy of the Italian Renaissance. We have
absorbed the learning of the Arab Caliphates. And we inhabit the land
made known to Europeans by another voyage of 1492.
At the end of the second millennium, America has the most advanced
science and economy of our day. But we cannot take that leadership for
granted.
In the centuries ahead, if America wishes to remain the most advanced
economy of our day, we will need to create a new American renaissance.
We need this new American renaissance, because leadership does not
come from continuing to do what we do already. Smart people in China
and India and around the globe are quickly learning how to do what we
do now. And people in China and India and around the globe will be able
to do it more cheaply.
Instead, leadership comes from constant innovation. Leadership comes
from rapidly adjusting what we do to what the market demands. And
leadership comes from serving the customer. Fortunately, these are
characteristics at which Americans excel.
This is my eighth Senate floor statement this year on
competitiveness. I began in June with a general statement on
competitiveness and America's place in the world. In June, I also spoke
of education and competitiveness. In July, I spoke of trade and
competitiveness and health care and competitiveness. In September, I
spoke of savings and competitiveness. In October, I spoke of energy and
competitiveness. In November, I spoke of immigration and
competitiveness. And today, I conclude this series of addresses with
this discussion of the need for the new American renaissance.
My message is this: To foster this continuing American renaissance,
American government cannot stand idly by. Remaining economically
competitive will require action. Let me summarize my six-step agenda
for action. This is what we need to do:
First, we must improve education. The Italian Renaissance relied on
the learning of the Greeks that Manuel Chrysoloras helped to spread.
The new American renaissance will rely on our having the best educated
workforce of the centuries to come.
We need to ensure that children come to school ready to learn. We
need to ensure that children have modern and well-equipped schools. And
we need to ensure that children have small classes.
We should raise salaries for teachers in poor schools by 50 percent.
We should raise the salaries of top-performing teachers and teachers in
math, science, and languages by another 50 percent.
We can ensure quality afterschool programs. We can lengthen the
school year.
We must support community colleges and link them more strongly to
workforce opportunities. We must expand Pell Grants. We must improve,
consolidate, and expand education tax incentives. We must expand and
extend the deduction for tuition expenses. We must increase
scholarships and loan forgiveness for science and engineering students.
We must expand the Hope and Lifetime Learning credits.
We need to make it possible for non-traditional students to obtain an
education. We need to retrain workers whose jobs are lost to trade and
help them reenter the workforce.
We should make it easier, consistent with the requirements of
national security, for foreign students to study in America.
We should make visa renewals during multiyear studies routine. And we
should change visa renewal requirements policies that are now
contingent on students' return to their home countries.
Second, we must foster research. For it was discovery that helped
bring about the renaissance.
We need to reward innovation and risk-taking. We need to fully fund
research support organizations like the- National Science Foundation,
the National Institutes of Health, and the Office of Science at the
Department of Energy. We need to simplify and make permanent the R&D
tax credit.
We should encourage talented foreign students to study, research, and
innovate at American universities and research institutions. And we
should simplify the permanent residence process for exceptional foreign
students with advanced science degrees from American universities.
Third, we have to advance international trade. Insularity
characterized the Dark Ages. The Renaissance spread from an
international spark. And the ensuing blaze of international commerce
brought on the Modern Age.
We must open new markets for American exports worldwide. We must
improve enforcement of existing trade agreements. We must do more to
defend American intellectual property rights. And we must prompt China
to further loosen its currency.
We should look more to Asia for bilateral agreements. We should
advance regional trade agreements in Asia. We should seek out further
sectoral agreements such as the WTO's Information Technology Agreement.
And we should launch an initiative in the advanced medical equipment
sector.
We need to expand trade adjustment assistance to service workers. And
we need to expand wage insurance.
We can make it easier for major American companies to employ and
train their overseas employees. And we can facilitate international
participation in meetings and conferences and travel to trade shows.
Fourth, we must address the burden that high health care costs place
on American business. And we must help provide health insurance to
those who do not have it.
We can provide health insurance tax credits to small employers. We
can fund employer-based group-purchasing pools. We can increase funding
for high-risk pools. We can expand Medicaid and the State Children's
Health Insurance Program. We can permit a Medicare buy-in for the near-
elderly.
We need to facilitate the use of health information technology. We
need to use health IT to link medication administration to a patient's
clinical information. We need to foster standards for the
interoperability of health IT systems. We need to improve healthcare
providers' ability to exchange clinical data. And we need to provide
loans and grants to encourage the use of health IT. The Senate has
passed legislation this session to further many of these health IT
goals. The House must do it, too, and move quickly to provide higher
Medicare reimbursements and work to improve quality of care, known as
``pay-for-performance.''
We should provide higher Medicare reimbursements to providers working
to improve the quality of delivered care. And we should coordinate
senior care to ensure adequate preventive care and chronic condition
management. This year's Senate-passed spending reconciliation bill took
the first steps toward pay-for-performance. Although there is much in
that bill that gives me pause, we should enact those pay-for-
performance changes.
Fifth, we must increase national savings to finance the investment
and innovation of the next renaissance.
We need to plug the biggest leak in our national savings pool: the
federal budget deficit. We need to truthfully
[[Page 27961]]
report current and future Federal Government spending needs. We need to
restore pay-as-you-go rules for both entitlement spending and tax cuts.
We should reduce the annual tax gap. We should eliminate wasteful and
unnecessary spending. We should eliminate wasteful and unfair tax
breaks, such as abusive tax shelters and corporate tax loopholes. And
we should slow the growth in healthcare costs.
We can increase private savings. We can improve financial education.
We can encourage automatic enrollment of eligible workers in retirement
savings plans. We can bring payroll-deduction retirement savings to
private sector workers lacking 401(k)s or similar plans. We can make
incentives for saving more progressive. And we can extend the Savers'
Credit and expand it to Americans with no income tax liability.
Sixth, for a modern renaissance, we must address the need for
sustainable and environmentally compatible sources of energy.
We can launch a new ``Manhattan Project'' to develop clean
alternative energies. We can foster the use of hydrogen and fuel cells.
We can foster wind energy. We can make a clear commitment to the
development of biomass and ethanol-based fuels.
We should encourage energy R&D through research grants to industry
and educational institutions and tax incentives for R&D. We should
offer prizes to spur innovation.
We need an investment tax credit for coal gasification technology. We
need a tax credit for companies that generate fuel using an updated
version of the F-T process. And we need a Federal loan guarantee so
that companies can finance these capital investments. This year's
energy and highway bills addressed some of these needs.
Taken together, these policies form a bold agenda to advance American
competitiveness. They can help maintain American economic leadership in
the world. And they can help to preserve high-wage American jobs here
at home.
Beginning next month, I will introduce a comprehensive 2006
legislative package to strengthen America's competitiveness in a
changing world. This package will encompass several bills that cover
the many aspects of competitiveness. I invite my colleagues to join me
in this effort.
The early Renaissance poet, Dante Alighieri, embodied the spirit of
his times when he wrote in The Divine Comedy that people ``were not
born to live like brutes, but to follow virtue and knowledge.''
And from that grounding of virtue and knowledge flowed naturally
Dante's description: ``And thence we came forth, to see again the
stars.''
Let us follow virtue and knowledge and foster a new American
renaissance. Let us strengthen America's competitiveness in a changing
world. And let America again go forth, toward the stars.
I yield the floor, and I suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for
the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Allen). Without objection, it is so
ordered.
The Senator from North Dakota is recognized.
____________________
BAHRAIN FREE TRADE AGREEMENT
Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, my understanding is that the Senate is
taking up the free-trade agreement with Bahrain. Of all the priorities
that exist in our country dealing with the subject of trade, somewhere
close to last would be a trade agreement with Bahrain. Nothing against
the country of Bahrain. I am sure it is a wonderful place. I have not
actually visited there. But I believe the total trade between our
country and Bahrain is somewhere in the neighborhood of $700 million,
less than $1 billion on both sides of the ledger.
There are all kinds of trade problems our trade officials ought to be
working on. But a free-trade agreement with Bahrain would not rank
right near the top. Let me tell you what would rank near the top.
We are deep in debt with respect to international trade. This country
is in desperate trouble with respect to trade. We are now experiencing
a trade deficit of over $700 billion a year. That means every single
day, 7 days a week, we buy more from abroad than we sell in exports, $2
billion a day every day 7 days a week. How long can a country sustain
that?
We have lost 3 million jobs in this country in the past 4 years--3
million jobs--going to China, to Vietnam, Bangladesh, Indonesia, and
more.
So what is all of this about? It is about a new strategy, a strategy
developed in the past two to three decades, but accelerated now more
recently. It is a strategy that says we are a global economy, and
because it is a global economy, enterprises, corporations, and others
should take a look around this world and find out where these 1 to 1.5
billion people are who will work for pennies an hour, employ them, shut
down your U.S. manufacturing plant, hire the employees in China or
Bangladesh, for example, and it will all work out because they will
work for 30 cents an hour, and they will build bicycles and wagons and
produce textiles and other things. And then you can ship it to a big
box retailer in this country, and someone can walk through the front
door of that big box retailer and buy a cheap product.
I noticed last year at Christmastime there was a woman from Texas who
decided she was going to buy her children some presents, and she wanted
to make a point of buying American made products. So she started
shopping, and she discovered she could not purchase one present for her
children that was made in the United States.
What does it mean? It means our country is changing and our country
is, in my judgment, being hollowed out. Jobs are being lost, the middle
class is shrinking because we have been told now American workers must
compete with others around the world who are willing to work for 30,
40, 50 cents an hour, work without health insurance, without a
retirement, and work under the threat, in many cases, if they would
like to organize as workers, of being sent to prison.
I can actually give names of people now sitting in prison in China
whose transgression was deciding to try to organize workers because the
conditions in those plants were awful. So there are people who tried to
organize workers, were arrested, and now are sitting in prison. Those
are the conditions under which we are now trading.
One-third of our trade deficit, incidentally, is with the country of
China. Last month, we sold China $3 billion worth of American goods--$3
billion. And we purchased from China $23 billion in goods.
China has almost 1.4 billion people, and we are told this is going to
be a huge market for American production. The creation of a middle
class in China is going to be terrific for our country because we will
be able to produce and sell into the Chinese marketplace.
It is not working out that way, of course. What is happening is China
sells us $23 billion worth of goods produced in China, and we sell them
only $3 billion worth of goods produced in America, $20 billion-a-month
trade deficit with China. On an annual rate, that is a $240 billion
deficit with China in a year. That is unbelievable. And this Congress
is perfectly content to dose through it all; in fact, probably a very
satisfactory sleep for most because they still are willing to stand on
street corners and chant about this so-called free trade that is not
free at all.
Some will say, and I think perhaps most who have studied economics
will say, that this is unsustainable. This country is headed toward
some whitewater rapids with these kinds of trade deficits. We are not
only losing American jobs because American workers are being told they
cost too much money, and we are going to produce elsewhere, but we are
also up to our neck in debt.
Incidentally, the trade deficits are financed by selling part of our
country.
[[Page 27962]]
Every single day we sell another $2 billion worth of our country to
foreigners. That is the way the trade debt is financed.
In most recent months, one of General Motors' top executives called
in about 300 of the top executives of the companies they buy parts from
and said this to them: You are the companies from which we buy
automobile parts. We want you to begin producing those parts in China.
You need to move those parts to China. Get your production done in
China. We are about driving down the costs.
Then we see Delphi, which was formerly part of General Motors and
then spun off as the largest automotive parts producer, going through
bankruptcy, and Delphi says to the public: The problem is we have
people making $20 to $30 an hour. That is up to $40,000, $50,000,
$60,000 a year. What we want to do is get to a point where we have
people making $8 to $10 an hour. In fact, what we want to do is move
most of our production offshore to China and elsewhere so we can pay 30
cents an hour. And then the jobs that are retained, we want to pay $8
to $10 an hour.
I ask this question of, yes, General Motors, IBM, and all of these
companies engaged in this activity, and virtually all of them are: Who
will be your future customers if your job is to lay off American
workers so you can produce elsewhere where it is cheap in order to sell
back into this established marketplace? Who is going to buy your laptop
computers and your automobiles?
If we were going to do something representing a priority today for me
on trade, I would deal with China first. But there are all kinds of
bilateral trade problems with a number of major trading partners. Let
me give you some examples.
I have mentioned many times that in the past year we will have
shipped in well over 600,000 automobiles from Korea into this country.
In return, we were able to send about 3,900 American vehicles to be
sold in Korea. Sound fair? Sound reasonable? Sound like a thoughtful
deal for America? The answer is clearly no.
What this means is shifting American jobs elsewhere, produce the cars
in Korea, ship them to the United States, and if you start selling any
U.S. vehicles in Korea, shut it down. That is what has happened.
Incidentally, the Dodge Dakota pickup truck became a little bit popular
for a couple of months in Korea. They saw that and shut it down just
like that. They do not want American vehicles sold in Korea. They just
want to sell their cars here.
China has 20 million cars on the road. It is estimated that by the
year 2020 they will have 120 million cars on the road. They are gong to
add 100 million cars because they want to start driving in China, even
in the rural areas of China. General Motors says a Chinese company has
stolen the production blueprints for one of its small cars. They have
actually filed a legal action against the Chinese company for stealing
what they call the production blueprints for a vehicle.
So a company in China called Chery, which is only one letter away
from Chevy, is going to be producing a car called the QQ. The QQ is a
car that will be produced in China with what General Motors alleges are
the production blueprints that were stolen from General Motors.
Recent Wall Street Journal reports say that the Chinese are gearing
up for a very substantial automobile industry, and they want to export
around the world.
I ask unanimous consent for an additional 5 minutes.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. DORGAN. They want to export those vehicles around the world so
very soon. Unless something changes, China will be exporting
automobiles as Korea is doing. Does anyone think China wants to take
American vehicles into China? No, no. What they want to do is accept
the American marketplace as a sponge for all that they produce.
I have spoken at great length on the Senate floor about the people
who have lost their jobs in this country when their plants closed down.
I talked about Pennsylvania House Furniture. In fact, I talked to the
Governor of Pennsylvania about this. Pennsylvania House Furniture, the
description of that for almost a century was using the finest
Pennsylvania wood and producing high-end furniture, and when people
bought Pennsylvania House furniture, they knew they were getting a real
piece of furniture.
Well, La-Z-Boy bought that furniture company. After a couple of
years, La-Z-Boy decided, we want to produce that furniture in China.
The Governor of Pennsylvania and others tried to put together a
financing package to keep the jobs in Pennsylvania, to do everything to
see if they can keep in this country the Pennsylvania House Furniture
Company that had been around a century.
The answer was no. La-Z-Boy said: Those jobs are going to China. Now
what they do is ship the wood from Pennsylvania to China and pay the
Chinese workers pennies on the hour to put the wood together in
furniture and then send the furniture back to our country to be sold.
Yes, it is Pennsylvania House furniture but not made in Pennsylvania.
So those workers lost their jobs. Is it because they were not good
workers? No, they were craftsmen. In fact, the very last piece of
furniture they made in Pennsylvania they turned upside down and those
craftsmen who made that furniture all signed their name on it, the last
piece of furniture that company made in America by American workers.
La-Z-Boy, which owned Pennsylvania House Furniture, decided, as so many
others have, that those jobs had to go to China because they can pay
pennies on the hour, they can work kids if you want to, they can dump
the pollution into the sky and into the water, and they will not have
anybody worrying about whether they are going to form a union because
it will not be allowed. That is not fair trade. That is not something
we should continue to allow in this country, stand by and thumb the
suspenders and whistle a little bit while Americans lose those jobs and
those jobs go to China and then come back to a big-box retailer to be
sold at discount prices. Who ultimately is going to buy those products?
My point is this does not work. Instead of dealing with a range of
issues, yes, with China, Korea, Canada, Mexico, Europe, with whom we
have very large trade deficits and growing trade deficits, I might add,
instead of dealing with that, talking about it, responding to that,
trying to deal with this country's challenges in trade, we are on the
Senate floor talking about the free trade agreement with Bahrain.
Where is the energy to do something real? Once again, it is a small
moment to do a free trade agreement with Bahrain. It is a very small
country in the middle of the Middle East. Our total trade with them, on
both sides, is $700 million a year. We cannot get trade officials in
this country, this administration or this Congress, to look truth right
in the eye on these kinds of problems, the huge deficits, year after
year, that are shipping jobs overseas. There is another corollary to
this as well. The same companies that decide that they should not hire
Americans, they should shut down the American plant and, by the way, do
so with an encouragement by this Congress because this Congress gives
them a tax break--and we voted I think four times on my amendment to
shut down the tax break that subsidizes jobs going overseas, but, no,
this Congress still wants to provide a tax subsidy to those companies
that shut down their American plant and move jobs overseas. But this
new environment in which companies do not say the Pledge of Allegiance
any more but they are an international corporation, they want to
produce where they can produce for pennies, they want to sell into this
marketplace where they can get high-end consumers to buy it, and then
at the same time, by the way, they want to run the income, if they can,
through a mailbox in the Bahamas or the Caymans.
I want to mention that there is one building that is a five-story
building in the Cayman Islands located on Church Street. I have brought
a photo of it to
[[Page 27963]]
the Senate floor previously, and I should do that again at some point.
That building is the official residence and address for 12,748
corporations.
Now, one might ask, how is it 12,748 corporations can share a
residence or an address in a 5-story white building in the Cayman
Islands? Simple. It is nothing more than an address.
What is the purpose of having an address in a 5-story white building
in the Cayman Islands? So that one does not have to pay taxes to this
country. Money can be moved through a tax haven and avoid paying U.S.
taxes. So one is a U.S. company, they are chartered probably in
Delaware, have all the advantages of being an American, but now the new
economics tell them they should produce in China, sell in this
marketplace and set up an address in a 5-story white building mailbox
in the Cayman Islands, so that they can have all the opportunities that
come with being an American, except the responsibilities to hire
American workers or to pay American taxes. That is what is happening.
People say, well, that is just an anticorporate rant. It is not. I
think there are some wonderful corporations in this country, some
terrific corporations with inventive people, creative people, who have
advanced this country, have produced wonderful, breathtaking products,
but I think there is a culture in this country, with respect to trade
and corporate responsibility, that has gone off the track. In this
Congress, we cannot get anybody to talk about trade, except perhaps to
come and stand around to talk about the Bahrain trade agreement on a
Tuesday. Would it not be wonderful if we were talking about this full-
blown crisis of $2 billion a day to date, $2 billion that we purchase
from abroad more than we sell to abroad, and therefore today someone
off the shores of this country owns $2 billion worth of this country.
We are selling this country piece by piece.
A budget deficit in this country is financed in the traditional way,
but a trade deficit is financed in a very different way. When we
purchase those foreign goods, the trade deficit puts American currency
in the hands of foreigners. They then use that currency to purchase
real estate, stocks, bonds, to purchase part of this country. Every
single day we are selling part of this country with an incompetent
trade strategy, a jingoistic trade strategy that chants about free
trade that has long ago been discredited. We ought to be describing
circumstances of requiring fair trade. As a country, we ought be a
leader in deciding, yes, let us expand trade in open markets, but it
must be fair, and if it is not fair then this country is obligated to
take the lead to insist on and demand fairness.
Our job ought to finally be to pull others up, not to push us down.
What has happened more recently is we are pushing American workers
down, pushing incomes down, the standard of living down in this country
and seeing jobs exported, opportunity exported, and exporting part of
our future. That is not satisfactory to me. I regret we are here
talking about this free trade agreement when in fact we should be
talking about the center, the bull's-eye of the target dealing with
trade that is causing this hemorrhage of red ink and the loss of
American jobs day after day after day.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Minnesota.
Mr. DAYTON. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent I may speak for up
to 10 minutes.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator has that privilege.
The Senator from Minnesota is recognized.
____________________
TRIBUTE TO LATE SENATOR EUGENE JOSEPH McCARTHY
Mr. DAYTON. Mr. President, I rise today to pay tribute to a great
Minnesotan and great American, former Senator Eugene McCarthy, who
passed away last Saturday at the age of 89. Senator McCarthy served two
terms in this body, from 1958 to 1970, after serving five terms in the
House of Representatives. In addition to his very distinguished
legislative career, he is perhaps best remembered for his historic
Presidential campaign in 1968, in which he deposed an incumbent
President.
Eugene Joseph McCarthy was born on March 29, 1916, in Watkins, MN. He
graduated from St. John's University in Collegeville, MN, in 1935, and
then earned a master's degree in economics and sociology at the
University of Minnesota.
After college, he spent 9 months as a novice in a Benedictine
seminary. The world pulled him away, however, and he played
semiprofessional baseball, taught high school social science, was a
professor at his alma mater, St. John's, and then chaired the sociology
department at St. Thomas University in St. Paul, MN.
During World War II he worked in a military intelligence division of
the War Department. He married a fellow teacher, Abigail Quigley, with
whom he had three daughters and a son. Abigail McCarthy passed away in
2001.
In 1948 Gene McCarthy was elected to the House of Representatives
from Minnesota's Fourth Congressional District. While in the House,
Congressman McCarthy founded McCarthy's Mavericks, which was the
forerunner of the Democratic study group that would, in succeeding
decades, be influential in developing many important legislative
initiatives.
In 1952, he was the first Member of Congress to challenge Senator
Joseph McCarthy in a nationally televised debate on foreign policy.
That political courage presaged his decision 15 years later to
challenge an incumbent President. In 1958, Congressman McCarthy
defeated an incumbent Senator to become Senator McCarthy. He was
reelected to the Senate in 1964 with over 60 percent of the vote. Then,
in November of 1967, he announced his candidacy for President,
challenging the incumbent President of his own party, Lyndon Johnson.
In his announcement speech he said:
I am hopeful that this challenge may alleviate this sense
of political helplessness and restore to many people a belief
in the process of American politics and of American
government.
His candidacy ignited a new generation of political activists, many
of them young college students who shaved, showered, and went ``Clean
for Gene.'' They swarmed into New Hampshire for the first political
contest of 1968. There they helped Senator McCarthy transform the
political landscape by holding President Johnson to 49 percent of the
vote in the Democratic primary, with 42 percent voting for Senator
McCarthy. Seldom has a second-place finish been considered such a
victory. Two weeks later, President Johnson withdrew his candidacy for
reelection. Shortly thereafter, fellow Senator Robert Kennedy and
fellow Minnesotan Vice President Hubert Humphrey entered the
Presidential contest, two actions that Gene McCarthy would never forget
or forgive.
The Democratic contest became divisive in subsequent primaries, then
catastrophic with the assassination of Robert Kennedy, then destructive
at the tumultuous national convention in Chicago that nominated Hubert
Humphrey, not Gene McCarthy. The nominee and the party did not recover
from that disastrous convention and Richard Nixon was elected President
in November. The Vietnam war continued for 7 more years.
Gene McCarthy retired from the Senate in 1970 and never again held
public office. Some of his later remarks, reflecting his disenchantment
and his defiance, along with his acerbic wit, dismayed some Democrats
and disillusioned former supporters. Gene McCarthy, however, was always
his own man. He once said his definition of patriotism was ``to serve
one's country not in submission, but to serve it in truth.''
He used his pen and his tongue to speak his own truth, regardless of
the personal or political consequences. In that respect, he was a true
patriot.
After he was decried by Johnson's supporters as a mere ``footnote in
history,'' he retorted, ``I think we can say with Churchill, `but what
a footnote.'''
You are much more than a footnote, Senator McCarthy. You were a U.S.
Senator. You made history and you changed history. You were true to
[[Page 27964]]
yourself, to your ideals and to your convictions. You were a poet, a
philosopher, and a patriot, a great Minnesotan and a great American.
May you rest in peace.
Mr. President, I yield the floor.
Mr. HARKIN. Will the Senator yield for a second before he does yield
the floor?
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Iowa.
Mr. HARKIN. I thank the Chair. I commend my colleague from Minnesota
for taking the time to speak about an old friend, a remarkable
politician, a remarkable Senator, Gene McCarthy.
In my younger days in Iowa, when they still had a bounty on Democrats
in my State and Republicans ran everything, we always had the Democrats
from Minnesota come down--McCarthy and Mondale and Humphrey, people
such as that. But Gene McCarthy was a very rare, a unique individual. I
was listening in the cloakroom to what the Senator from Minnesota was
saying about Gene McCarthy. He had a way about him that was like Mark
Twain. He had a great sense of humor. He could, like Mark Twain, say
very succinctly what it might take others a paragraph to say. That was
one of the qualities I always envied about McCarthy. I always thought,
Gosh, why can't I say it like that? He had a great way with words.
Like Mark Twain, Gene McCarthy had the ability, with very few words,
to puncture the inflated egos of puffed-up politicians. If you were on
the other end of it, you didn't feel good about it. He had a way of
doing it without being mean, but when you heard him--and he never
attacked anyone but he did it in terms of what they stood for, what
they were saying--you heard it and you realized McCarthy was right. He
had a refreshing and disarming way about him in his approach to
politics. He made his point and he made it well.
I do not know if my friend from Minnesota repeated the quote that was
attributed to him in the newspaper that I read the other day, which I
thought was McCarthy at his best. He said one time that being a
politician is sometimes like being a football coach. You have to be
smart enough to know how to play the game but dumb enough to think it's
important.
Those of us who think all the things we do here are so grandiose
should realize we pass on and others take our place. A lot of the
things we do here, we may think are important and they are not that
important.
So that was Gene McCarthy. He would say things that made you smile,
made you think about things.
I say to my friend from Minnesota, I got out of the Navy in November
of 1967 and I returned home to Iowa in 1968. At that point I was not
active in politics. But like so many of my colleagues and friends in
the Navy, I lost a lot of my friends in Vietnam. Slowly but surely over
the 5 years that I was on active duty, I became convinced that the war
in Vietnam should not go on, that it was wrong, that we ought to get
out of there.
But, of course, I was in the Navy at the time. I couldn't say
anything about it. I was a Navy person. So I thought, well, now that I
am out maybe I can do something. I was looking for someone to give me
advice. I was looking for someone out there who would stand up and take
the lead on this--Gene McCarthy. Gene McCarthy was the first politician
I ever met who wasn't afraid to say the ``emperor has no clothes.'' And
once he did that, people realized, you are right; that this war in
Vietnam was nonsensical, that we ought to bring an end to it. He
encouraged a lot of young people. And I can still remember, and I will
bet the Senator from Minnesota has the same memory. I had one of those
daisies on the trunk of my car, a blue and white daisy with
``McCarthy'' on it. That was in 1968.
I think he brought a lot of young people in and gave a lot of young
people encouragement that they could change the system and that they
could make a difference.
Through his later years I became a friend of Gene McCarthy. In fact,
when I ran for President in 1991, he was running again. So we found
ourselves running against each other.
As we were both fading and Bill Clinton was winning everything, he
drew me aside one time and said: Do you ever wonder why we are still
here and what we are doing?
I said: Yes; I do wonder that sometimes.
He said: Well, we are here because the liberal position needs to be
enunciated and fought for regardless of who the nominee is.
I am paraphrasing, but that is the way I remember him saying that.
I just wanted to take the time to commiserate with my good friend,
Senator Dayton, about a wonderful human being, a truly remarkable U.S.
Senator, one of the most intelligent individuals to ever grace the
floor of the U.S. Senate, and to remember his legacy, the legacy of
having the courage of your convictions, of standing up for what you
think is right, and once in a while don't take ourselves too seriously.
That was the Gene McCarthy I knew and loved. We will remember him
always.
I thank my colleague from Minnesota for taking the time today to
remember our good friend and departed colleague.
Mr. DAYTON. I think Senator McCarthy would be very impressed with the
extemporaneous eloquence of the Senator from Iowa and very appreciative
of his kind words. Of course, Iowa has the first Presidential contest.
Back in those days, I would have seen a lot more of Senator McCarthy.
Mr. HARKIN. He would have taken me to task for talking so long. He
would have said: You could have said that in 2 minutes.
Mr. DAYTON. I thank my friend.
Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
The bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for
the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, so ordered. The Senator
from Iowa is recognized.
____________________
RECONCILIATION
Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, I know that a motion to appoint conferees
has not happened yet on the reconciliation bill, but I understand that
the majority leader will sometime today be making that motion. It is a
debatable motion, and obviously an amendable motion. I think there are
maybe four or five different motions to instruct our conferees
regarding the reconciliation bill.
I want to take the time now to talk about it, even though I have an
amendment, but it is not timely to send the amendment to the desk. But
I do want to talk about what that amendment will do and why I am going
to be offering it.
Basically, it has to do with funding cuts for food assistance
programs.
It has been a challenging year for all of us, especially here in the
Senate. There have been many things upon which this Chamber disagreed.
We have had some spirited debates and disagreements. The budget debate
and ensuing reconciliation bill has been one of the most challenging of
these debates.
But there are also times when agreement rather than discord
characterize our proceedings.
While I disagreed with the underlying reconciliation bill passed by
the Senate, I was pleased and proud of one of the sources of bipartisan
agreement that we had both in committee and on the floor. It was the
decision by the Senate not to cut food assistance programs for working
Americans, for low-income working Americans.
The Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry considered such
cuts. In fact, the President's budget included a proposal to cut the
Food Stamp Program by nearly $600 million. But after careful
examination of the Food Stamp Program, after deliberation in the
committee, both Republicans and Democrats decided against any cuts to
the Food Stamp Program.
I commend today, as I did at that time, our chairman, Senator Cham-
bliss, for listening carefully to committee members' concerns by
looking
[[Page 27965]]
at this and for his conscientious decision not to include any such cuts
in the committee-passed measure.
I commend as well many members of both parties who have objected to
cutting food assistance programs through the reconciliation process.
There are many reasons food stamp cuts should not be enacted.
First, the Food Stamp Program is the first line of defense in the
United States against hunger and food insecurity, providing food
assistance to nearly 25 million Americans. It is also one of our
largest child nutrition programs. Eighty percent of food stamp
benefits--over $23 billion in 2005--go to families with children.
Another reason cutting food assistance is not appropriate is because
the need is growing and not diminishing.
Just recently, a U.S. Agriculture Department study found that 38.2
million people lived in households that were food insecure in 2004, and
that the number increased by nearly 2 million between 2003 and 2004.
Since 1999, the number of individuals classified by USDA as food
insecure rose by 7 million people. These are significant numbers.
That any American should live in the shadow of hunger at the dawn of
the 21st century is shocking and embarrassing. That the number has
increased dramatically in the past 5 years is unacceptable.
We have also been reminded of another reason we shouldn't have food
stamp cuts. We have been reminded by the numerous hurricanes and
disasters this fall of the tremendous role that the Food Stamp Program
plays in times of emergency. The Food Stamp Program rapidly provided
emergency food assistance to approximately 2.2 million individuals
affected by Hurricanes Katrina, Rita, and Wilma, allowing victims to
obtain food assistance within days.
Finally, the Senate Agriculture Committee chose not to cut the Food
Stamp Program because there is not much to cut. It operates efficiently
and effectively.
For 5 years in a row, the error rate in the Food Stamp Program has
declined to consecutive all-time lows.
Frankly, if there were fraud, waste, and abuse to go after, I would
be the first in line to do so.
I say that because I have been on this Agriculture Committee in both
the House and the Senate--this marks my 30th year. We have gone through
a lot in the Food Stamp Program in that time. We have cut and trimmed.
We have gone from food stamps to an electronic benefits card to cut
down on fraud, waste, and abuse. It has worked well.
We have a program that by any measurement operates efficiently.
The farm bill we passed in 2002 included a major reform to the
quality control system. Just last year, Congress made improvements to
Federal child nutrition programs. Again, because of this bipartisan
approach, which I believe kind of goes back to the Dole-McGovern years
when they forged an alliance to ensure we had a bipartisan agreement on
the Food Stamp Program, we have a sound, efficiently, effectively run
program. There just is not any--I would not say there isn't any, but to
go after what little abuse there may be would cost more than what is
happening. We have tightened down on this program over the last 30
years. There is not much fraud, waste, and abuse to go after, so if
Congress wants to make any cuts in the Food Stamp Program, they have to
go after benefits.
I am pleased to say that was not an option either in the Senate
Agriculture Committee or that the Senate wanted to consider.
However, not so across the Capitol. The House of Representatives
passed a reconciliation bill that makes significant cuts to the Food
Stamp Program of approximately $700 million. According to CBO, the Food
Stamp Program cuts contained in the House reconciliation bill would
eliminate food stamp benefits for at least 250,000 individuals. These
are mainly working families with children and legal immigrants.
Right now in the Food Stamp Program, if you are a legal immigrant--
forget about illegal immigrants; illegal immigrants have no access to
the Food Stamp Program. I hear that all the time, but they have no
access to it and they cannot get an electronic benefit card. But a
legal immigrant must be here 5 years before that person can qualify for
food stamps. That is the law right now. Now, they still have to meet
standards. In other words, they still have to meet the standards of
anyone else to be eligible, such as income standards, asset standards,
and work requirements. They still have to meet these standards. Even if
they meet these standards, they still have to wait 5 years.
The House extended it to 7 years. These are legal immigrants. These
are people we want here. What does the sign on the Statue of Liberty
say? Give me your tired, your poor. A lot of these people are tired,
they are poor, but they are here to build a better life. They are
working, they are legal, and their kids are in school here. Yet we want
to make it even tougher.
The second thing they did is they changed the system whereby States
have said, Okay, if you qualify for Temporary Assistance for Needy
Families, then you automatically qualify for food stamps. It makes
sense. In the 1990s we made a change to allow the States to align their
programs. If you qualified for Temporary Assistance for Needy Families,
then you used to have to go to another office to qualify for food
stamps. It was twice the paperwork, twice the administrative burdens.
We said, Why go through all of that? So we made a change that
streamlined the program.
The House takes that out. The House bill takes a step backward from
welfare reform. We put this in there for welfare reform back in the
1990s; they take a step backward. We tried to change it so we would
move low-income families from welfare to work.
One of the provisions was to provide allow TANF recipients to
automatically qualify for food stamps. The House now takes that away.
It makes no sense. In fact, it will increase the burden on States. They
will have to spend more money, and we will probably have to take people
that now qualify off the food stamp rolls. These are low-income people
who work and make money who now qualify because they qualify for
Temporary Assistance for Needy Families. Yet these are the very people
for whom we want to build a bridge. We want to get them off welfare and
get them to work. A lot of times, part of that bridge is food stamps
and making sure families have enough food to eat.
So all of the cuts the House made retreat from the bipartisan
agreements Congress made in recent years to streamline and make the
Food Stamp Program more effective and to make welfare reform work.
When the majority leader makes his motion to instruct conferees, I
will be back in the Senate to offer a motion to instruct conferees on
the reconciliation conference committee to reject cuts to Federal food
assistance programs. I might add that we should have a lot of
bipartisan support. Senator Smith of Oregon and I are joining together
to offer this amendment to instruct.
There was also a letter written by a number of Republican Senators
recently asking that we not make cuts in the Food Stamp Program. I hope
we can have a strong vote on this. We should have a recorded vote. I
will ask for a recorded vote to send a strong signal to the House of
Representatives that the Senate will not accept their food stamp cuts.
By voting for this motion to instruct, the Senate can show that it
stands side by side with working families, that we do not want to
retreat from welfare reform. We do not want to retreat from the changes
we have made to make this program meaningful and effective.
I will offer that motion at some point, I hope today--whenever the
majority leader makes a motion to instruct the conferees.
LIHEAP
There are a couple of other items on which there will be motions
made. There will be a motion offered by Senators Collins and Reed,
again, to instruct conferees to add $2.92 billion in
[[Page 27966]]
funding for the Low-Income Home Energy Assistance Program. That is the
amount required to bring LIHEAP up to its authorized level.
The House reconciliation bill provides an additional $1 billion for
LIHEAP. Unfortunately, because of the way the program works, my home
state of Iowa would not receive additional funding under the House
bill. My State of Iowa gets pretty darn cold, I can tell you. Last
weekend I was out there, and it was 6 above zero.
In contrast, the level of funding provided in the Reed-Collins
amendment provides an additional $24 million for LIHEAP in Iowa, money
that I can say is desperately needed.
Last weekend when I was out there, I met with some families who have
applied and have been qualified for LIHEAP. There was one woman with
two children who lives in a rented house. She gets no child support
from her husband. She works full time every day. The kids go to school.
She has a low-income job. She qualified for LIHEAP at $319.
I mentioned that later on to someone, that I met this person who
qualified for $319 LIHEAP. This individual said to me: Well, that is
pretty good; that will take care of her heating bills for the month.
But it is $319 for the year. A year. For Iowa, that means you have to
buy heat in October, November, December, January, February, March,
April--6, 7 months. That is $319 to help pay heating for 7 months. This
individual thought that was for 1 month. I said: No, no, that is $319
for the year. And the price of natural gas--we heat with natural gas in
Iowa--has gone up 40 percent in the last year. This program is
desperately needed.
According to the Hawkeye Area Community Assistance Program in
southeast Iowa, LIHEAP funds are likely to run out in mid-January, one
of the coldest months of the year. Last week, I held a discussion in
Spencer, IA, to hear firsthand from some citizens. Again, I want to
tell you, these people are not just concerned about the high cost of
home heating; they are in panic.
Now, because of a State law, they are not going to have utilities cut
off. But in order to qualify and pay their bills, they may have to cut
other necessities, such as medical care, prescription drugs, clothes,
other things.
One of the women I spoke with is on disability. She is on an ``even
pay'' program. This is where you pay the same amount every month so you
do not get hit with a big bill in the wintertime. Last year, with
LIHEAP assistance, she paid 9 percent of her income on heat--9 percent
for heat. This year she figures it will be about 13 percent. Her ``even
pay'' monthly bill--get this--last year was $39 a month. This year it
is $68 a month, a 75-percent increase. This is a person with a
disability, living alone, trying to heat her house.
For another woman, her even-pay bill was $72 a month last year. This
year it is $84 a month. The testimony I listened to from these women is
backed up by hard data. According to a statewide Iowa survey, more than
20 percent of households receiving LIHEAP report going without needed
medical care or prescription drugs--1 out of 5. More than 10 percent
reported going without food in order to pay their heating bill. And I
can tell you the numbers are going to skyrocket this winter.
Last winter, about 86,000 Iowa households received an average of $317
in LIHEAP assistance. Keep in mind that is for the year. Most years,
everyone who applies gets some level of assistance. But this year we
are not so certain of that.
Community services agencies are being deluged with calls from
panicked senior citizens and others who simply do not know how they are
going to stay warm. Many have had their utilities cut off and they
cannot make the past-due payments to get them turned back on. Others
are being threatened with cutoffs just as we head into winter.
Of course, the catch-22 situation most people do not understand is
that you cannot qualify for LIHEAP if your gas or electricity has been
cut off. Let's say you did not make your payments this summer, so they
did not connect you back up. You cannot qualify for LIHEAP now.
The other thing is a lot of low-income families who live in a small
town or rural area, such as I do, heat their home using propane. I have
a propane tank outside my house. That is how we heat our houses in
small towns. Well, when they deliver propane, you pay for the whole
thing at one time. That is unlike natural gas, for which once you have
it coming in, they cannot cut you off. If you cannot pay your propane
bill, you do not get it delivered. That hurts poor people in small
towns such as mine. That is another thing we have to remember as to
people who live in small towns and communities who heat their homes
with propane.
We can do better. We need to boost the LIHEAP funding. I hope the
motion that will be offered by Senator Collins and Senator Reed to
instruct the conferees to add $2.92 billion in funding for LIHEAP will
again be supported by an overwhelming majority of the Senate.
Mr. President, there is one last one. A motion will be offered by
Senator Kohl to instruct conferees to reject cuts in the Child Support
Enforcement Program. Again, in the Senate last month when we debated
the reconciliation bill, I offered a sense-of-the-Senate amendment
opposing the House's drastic plan to gut the successful child support
program--a $4.9 billion cut. The Senate accepted it on a voice vote,
which around here is tantamount to unanimously accepting something.
It is not right, it is not ethical, it is not moral to cut a program
that gave crucial funds to over 17 million children last year. But the
bill approved by the House would slash funding for child support
enforcement efforts by 40 percent over the next 10 years.
Again, CBO estimates that as a result of these cuts, more than $24
billion in delinquent payments will go uncollected in the next 10
years. This is money that goes directly to feed and clothe children.
The biggest negative impacts will be felt by children living in poverty
and children in low-income households. In my home State of Iowa, it is
estimated that collections will drop by more than a third in the first
year.
Now, keep in mind, this is not Government money going out for child
support. This is the Government money we send out to States to help
them collect child support from deadbeat dads. I think that is
something we all support. Yet if you take away the funding that helps
them go out and collect it, CBO estimates $24 billion will go
uncollected in the next 10 years.
For families in poverty who receive child support, those payments
account for an average of 30 percent of their income.
Why is the House doing this? Why would the House want to pull the rug
out from underneath our efforts to collect child support payments--
child support payments that benefit the most vulnerable, disadvantaged,
neglected children in our society? Well, they are doing it in order to
make room for yet another $60 billion in tax cuts--tax cuts that
overwhelmingly benefit our wealthiest citizens.
Child support payments helped lift more than 1 million Americans out
of poverty in 2002. As a result of what the House did, many of these
people--and these are mostly children--will go back into poverty. This
is cruel. It is counterproductive. Talk about penny wise and pound
foolish. Because you take this away, these families will fall back into
poverty. They then will end up on food stamps, Medicaid, TANF,
Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, other forms of public
assistance--unless you cut those, too. And guess what. The House bill
cuts food stamps, cuts Medicaid, disconnects the food stamps from the
TANF program. Think about what the House is doing here.
According to the Office of Management and Budget, for every $1 we
spend on child support, $4.38 is recovered for families in child
support payments. Not a bad deal. The President even praised this
program.
Reforms have made the program effective. Since 1996, there has been
an 82-percent increase in collections. With the House cut, deadbeat
parents get off, kids suffer, and the goal of self-sufficiency becomes
less attainable for more custodial parents trying to stay off of
welfare.
Cutting this program is outrageous. I urge my colleagues again to
send a
[[Page 27967]]
loud and clear message to the House and the American people that the
Senate will not accept these cuts in the Child Support Enforcement
Program.
Again, I wanted to talk about those three. Now I will offer one
motion with Senator Smith. Senator Kohl is going to offer another.
Senator Reed of Rhode Island and Senator Collins will be offering
another.
Last evening, we met, conferees met on the Labor, Health and Human
Services, Education appropriations bill. As you know, the Senate passed
their version. The conference was abysmal in that the House insisted on
all their provisions. It went back to the House. The House defeated it.
So we went back to conference again last night.
I pointed out that there are three avenues of cuts that are going to
hurt low-income families right before Christmas, at least Christmas to
those of us who are of the Christian faith. Think about what is
happening right before Christmas.
We are going to cut programs for some of the most vulnerable of our
citizens in the Labor-HHS appropriations bill. We are cutting Head
Start. We are cutting assistance programs in health. We are cutting
programs such as LIHEAP that give people a little hope that they will
have enough money to pay their fuel bills. We have all these cuts
coming in the Labor-HHS bill.
But that is not the end of it. We now have this reconciliation bill
that is going to cut the very things I talked about--the child support
enforcement program, Medicaid, food stamp cuts. So we are going to
whack the poor right before Christmas with the Labor-HHS-Education
appropriations bill. We give them another backhand in the
reconciliation bill, if we take what the House has. And then there is
one more coming. It is my understanding that the DOD appropriations
bill will have a 1-percent across-the-board cut in these discretionary
programs, another cut to the most vulnerable of our citizens.
So right before Christmas, we say to the poor in this country, to the
low-income families working and struggling to pay their heating bills,
keep their families together, trying to make it through the winter:
Hang your stockings. And guess what this Congress is going to put in
them. Three lumps of coal.
That is what we are doing to the poor. I can't believe we are doing
this right before Christmas. Yet right before Christmas, we are going
to try to enact a tax cut of which over 50 percent goes to people
making over $1 million. If my figures are right, I think less than 7
percent of the money in the tax cuts goes to people making less than
$50,000 a year. Ninety percent goes to people making over $100,000 a
year. The most vulnerable people work for the minimum wage, people who
are making 8 bucks an hour. Guess what that is a year? That is 16,000
bucks a year. Try feeding two or three kids on that.
I don't understand how we can do this at this time of year. I don't
understand how we can do it at any time of year. But you would think
now our consciences would bother us in making these kinds of cuts. It
is almost as if this Congress is trying to rewrite Charles Dickens'
``Christmas Carol.'' Remember Scrooge in the ``Christmas Carol'' has a
change of heart at the end and sees clearly what the spirit of
Christmas is all about. It is as if this Congress is rewriting Charles
Dickens' tale and Scrooge does not have a change of heart right before
Christmas. It is as if this Congress, if we proceed down this path--and
it looks as though that is where we are headed--truly will be the
Scrooge who is stealing the food from young kids, taking away hope that
low-income families have, destroying the hope a lot of low-income
families have. All for more tax cuts for some of the most privileged
people.
We all have friends, a lot of friends who make a lot of money. I
don't hear them clamoring for these tax cuts. In fact, what I hear them
saying is: Why are you doing this? Why don't you take care of the
business of the country? Why don't you do something about education and
health care and getting people out of poverty and getting people jobs
and getting people work? That would be a better use than giving the
rich a few more dollars with which to buy another diamond or a
wristwatch that costs $25,000. I saw a wristwatch advertised in the
paper for $25,000. Why would anyone buy a wristwatch for $25,000. All
it does is tell the time.
I have a watch. It might have cost me about 75 bucks. I have had it
for 10 years. I had it repaired once.
I don't mind if people who have a lot of money want to spend it that
way. But why are we cutting the taxes for these people and then, to
make it up, cutting food stamps? It would be one thing if you could say
with a straight face: We have to do it to cut the deficit. But guess
what. Under this reconciliation bill the deficit goes up, not down. So
with the tax cut we get a bigger deficit. And then we are still cutting
food stamps, Medicaid, LIHEAP, and a number of other programs that are
out there that help low-income people.
I hope at this time of year especially we will think long and hard
about what we are doing around here and that we will come to our
senses. The Senate has acted well. We acted in a good, bipartisan
fashion to do these things. I hope tomorrow when we vote on the various
motions to instruct, we will have that same bipartisan approach as we
had before. Hopefully, there will be a new spirit across the Capitol in
that House Members will agree to go along with the Senate provisions
and not cut food stamps and LIHEAP and the child support enforcement
program, among a number of others.
We await the majority leader making his motion. Until that point, I
yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
The bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. COBURN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for
the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
The Senator from Oklahoma is recognized.
Mr. COBURN. Mr. President, I come to the floor to advise the American
public. We just heard a very eloquent talk by the Senator from Iowa on
the motion he plans to offer to instruct conferees on food stamps, but
I think it is very important that the American people recognize that 1
out of every 19 people in this country who receive food stamps receive
them illegally. In other words, they are not eligible.
In this motion to instruct, it states in No. 5:
The Food Stamp Program operates efficiently and effectively
with its error rate at an all-time low.
It is at an all-time low. It is 6.64 percent. In other words, 1 out
of 14 who are getting food stamps have an error associated with what
they are receiving, or 1 out of 15 or 16. But in terms of overpayments,
5.5 percent of the money spent, $1.6 billion, is spent on food stamps
to people who don't qualify.
An easy way for us to control food stamps is to make the error rate
less--in other words, to do a better job--instead of to gloss over and
say we don't have a problem here and it is running efficiently and
effectively. Anybody else in their own personal budget, if they were
paying out 5.5 percent more than what they should be, would be quick to
change that.
The Federal financial management oversight subcommittee which I chair
had a hearing this year. It is true, they have reduced the error rate
some. But a 6.9-percent overall error rate is unacceptable, and a 5.5-
percent overpayment rate is highly unacceptable. In a time of
tremendous budget deficits, in a time of war, and a time of natural
disasters that have hit us greater than we have ever seen, accepting
5.5 percent and saying we can't do better is unacceptable. It is
unacceptable by everybody who lives by a budget out there who is an
American citizen. For us to have a motion to instruct to say that is
good, that is effective, that is efficient, it is not the truth.
We need to be cognizant of the fact that we have a long way to go to
help those people who need us with food but at the same time to not
help those people who are cheating the system, who
[[Page 27968]]
are squandering money that would otherwise go to people who have needs
when those people who don't have needs are stealing from the system. I
think it is important for the record to reflect that.
Mr. ROCKEFELLER. Mr. President, this budget is about choices. We in
Congress can choose to protect Medicaid, the Federal safety net for
over 50 million Americans, by supporting the Baucus motion to instruct.
Or we can turn our backs on the millions of working families who
would otherwise be uninsured without the Federal guarantee of Medicaid
benefits by giving States the green light to charge more in monthly
premiums than are charged in monthly premiums under Medicare; by
allowing Medicaid cost-sharing that can grow six times faster than
wages; by permitting States to provide fewer Medicaid benefits to
recipients in rural areas than those offered to recipients in urban
areas; and by asking hospitals, pharmacists, and other health care
providers to continue to participate in the Medicaid program even if
they cannot cover their costs.
If the Senate recedes to the House on Medicaid, then we will begin to
undo one of the most important social programs of our time. And people
and health care providers in our respective States will suffer greatly.
In West Virginia, nearly 20 percent of our State's population--over
350,000 people--depend on Medicaid for access to health care.
Not only is it unfair to consider such draconian changes to the
Medicaid Program in the context of meeting an arbitrary budget number,
it is also unwarranted.
Some of my colleagues have argued that Congress must reduce spending
in Medicaid in order to decrease the Federal deficit. I would remind my
colleagues that this budget does not decrease the Federal deficit.
Instead, this budget could increase the Federal deficit by $10 to $20
billion over the next 5 years. And that is not even considering the
cost of adding more tax cuts.
Even more important is the fact that there are other options on the
table besides Medicaid that provide more than enough savings to meet
the $10 billion budget target set by Congress. Reducing Medicare
overpayments to HMOs saves nearly $12 billion over 5 years alone.
America has a moral obligation to take care of its most vulnerable
citizens. Programs that help low-income working families improve their
lot in life should be the last resort when it comes to balancing the
budget.
Not supporting this motion to instruct fails our Nation's pregnant
women, children, the elderly, and the disabled.
I urge my colleagues to support this motion to instruct. The quality
of life of 50 million Americans depends, on it.
____________________
HONORING OUR ARMED FORCES
Corporal Jonathan F. Blair
Mr. BAYH. Mr. President, I rise today with a heavy heart and deep
sense of gratitude to honor the life of a brave young man from Fort
Wayne. Jonathan Blair, 21 years old, died on November 19 in Bayji, Iraq
when a roadside bomb exploded near his vehicle during a combat
operation. With his entire life before him, Jonathan risked everything
to fight for the values Americans hold close to our hearts, in a land
halfway around the world.
Remembered for his thoughtfulness and patriotism, Jonathan joined the
Army shortly after graduating from Elmhurst High School in 2002. The
attacks of September 11 inspired him to consider military service, but
Jonathan also saw the military as a gateway to further knowledge and a
potential ticket to a higher education. One of his high school teachers
fondly recounted to the Fort Wayne Journal Gazette that Jonathan was a
patriotic and ``cerebral'' student who would contemplate fully any
answer in class. Another teacher remembered, ``Jonathan challenged you
as a teacher to make him better as a student; he was just a really
interesting kid.''
Jonathan was killed while serving his country in Operation Iraqi
Freedom. He was a member of the 1st Battalion, 187th Infantry Regiment,
3rd Brigade Combat Team of the 101st Airborne Division based at Fort
Campbell, KY.
Today, I join Jonathan's family and friends in mourning his death.
While we struggle to bear our sorrow over this loss, we can also take
pride in the example he set, bravely fighting to make the world a safer
place. It is his courage and strength of character that people will
remember when they think of Jonathan, a memory that will burn brightly
during these continuing days of conflict and grief.
Jonathan was known for his dedication to his family and his love of
country. Today and always, Jonathan will be remembered by family
members, friends, and fellow Hoosiers as a true American hero, and we
honor the sacrifice he made while dutifully serving his country.
As I search for words to do justice in honoring Jonathan's sacrifice,
I am reminded of President Lincoln's remarks as he addressed the
families of the fallen soldiers in Gettysburg: ``We cannot dedicate, we
cannot consecrate, we cannot hallow this ground. The brave men, living
and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor
power to add or detract. The world will little note nor long remember
what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here.'' This
statement is just as true today as it was nearly 150 years ago, as I am
certain that the impact of Jonathan's actions will live on far longer
that any record of these words.
It is my sad duty to enter the name of Jonathan Blair in the official
record of the U.S. Senate for his service to this country and for his
profound commitment to freedom, democracy, and peace. When I think
about this just cause in which we are engaged and the unfortunate pain
that comes with the loss of our heroes, I hope that families like
Jonathan's can find comfort in the words of the prophet Isaiah, who
said, ``He will swallow up death in victory; and the Lord God will wipe
away tears from off all faces.''
May God grant strength and peace to those who mourn, and may God be
with all of you, as I know He is with Jonathan.
Remembering Army Sergeant First Class Michael C. Parrott
Mr. SALAZAR. Mr. President, I rise to reflect for a moment on the
service and life of SFC Michael Parrott of Tinmath, CO. Sergeant First
Class Parrott was tragically killed last month while serving this
Nation in Balad, Iraq. Today would have been Sergeant First Class
Parrott's 50th birthday.
Mike Parrott was a native of Canton, NC, where he graduated from
Pisgah High School in 1974 and went on to earn a degree from the
University of North Carolina at Asheville. His 6-foot-tall frame made
him hard to miss in a crowd, but it was his easy smile and brown eyes
that first drew the attention of his wife, Meg, when she was a student
at UNC-Asheville almost two decades ago. Mike Parrott was honest,
opinionated, and unafraid to speak his mind. His wife, Meg, knew how
unique Mike was when she discovered that he kept Voltaire in his
bathroom. They celebrated their 19th wedding anniversary last month.
Mike Parrott was an avid fan of the outdoors and could often be found
biking, camping and hiking, activities he and Meg often enjoyed
together. Mike rode his bike to and from work, and made it a point to
run every day. In fact, this past year, on the day of the Leadville
Marathon, Sergeant First Class Parrott laced up his running shoes and
ran 26.2 miles in the blazing Iraqi heat.
Sergeant First Class Parrott was a true American patriot. Sergeant
First Class Parrott served in this Nation's armed forces for more than
15 years in active and reserve duties. Three years ago, he signed up
for the National Guard, looking to reach his 20 years of service. He
was a member of the 115th Field Artillery Brigade in Cheyenne and was
on loan to the 28th Infantry of the Pennsylvania Army National Guard at
the time of his death. He had already completed a year's tour in Kuwait
with his Wyoming unit but signed up as a loaner to return to Iraq.
Sergeant First Class Parrott was an inspiring leader for the men who
served under him, some less than half his age.
[[Page 27969]]
They looked up to his leadership and calm, affectionately calling him
``The Old Man.'' Sergeant First Class Parrott believed that he had a
mission to help younger soldiers. He looked forward to being a mentor.
Sergeant First Class Parrott and his wife both disagreed with U.S.
policy in Iraq, but he did not shrink from his duties. Instead, he rose
honorably to serve his Nation in the time it called for his aid.
Mr. President, what becomes clear upon reflection is that SFC Mike
Parrot loved this Nation. He loved its spirit of dissent and
discussion. He loved its wide open spaces and natural wonders. He loved
it for providing him the opportunity to be with his wife and family,
his friends of so many years that gave him so much. He was the
embodiment of Voltaire's remark: ``I may disagree with what you have to
say, but I shall defend, to the death, your right to say it.''
To the family of SFC Mike Parrott, including his wife Meg Corwin and
his mother Suzanne Parrott, know that the thoughts and prayers of an
entire Nation are with you today. We are grateful for Mike's courageous
service to the people of America and Iraq. The values he lived by will
remain far beyond our time on this Earth, a humble legacy that will
live on in every life he touched.
a fallen hero: army sergeant luis r. reyes
Mr. President, I also wish to reflect on a life of promise taken too
soon from us--Army Sergeant Luis Reyes of my home State of Colorado.
Sergeant Luis Reyes was 26 years old, a member of the 947th Engineer
Company of the Colorado National Guard based out of Durango. He was
killed in Kuwait while on his way to Iraq.
A native of Denver, Luis was a husband of 6 years to his wife,
Christina, and a father of two: Sienna and Nikko. Luis was devoted to
his family and community, a man known for helping his friends and
neighbors with repair jobs and who loved to work on his truck.
After graduating Montbello High School in Denver in 1997, Luis
enlisted with the Army and married Christina after finishing basic
training. He had just re-enlisted for another 3-year term with the Army
and in one of his last phone calls home marveled to his wife about his
service in the Middle East, telling her it was a ``whole other world.''
When Sergeant Reyes was killed, his unit was on its way to help Iraq
with the complicated task of rebuilding its infrastructure and roads.
It was an important mission, which will allow the far-flung villages of
Iraq to connect once more with each other and foster the blessings of
liberty.
A friend of Sergeant Reyes remembered him as a man who would go
``above and beyond'' the call of duty. With his service to this Nation,
Luis Reyes did just that. He could have stayed with his young family in
the safe confines of Aurora. But he had a passion for serving this
Nation and accepted great risk on behalf of all of us.
Isaiah 25:8 teaches us, ``The Lord will swallow up death in victory;
and the Lord will wipe away tears from off all faces.'' To Sergeant
Reyes's wife, Christina, and his two young children, his mother Tomasa
and his brother Roger, the thoughts and prayers of an entire Nation go
with you during this difficult time. Luis served this Nation with honor
and distinction and has left all of us forever in his debt. For that,
we all offer our humble thanks.
tribute to specialist gregory l. tull
Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, I rise today to honor one of our
country's bravest, SPC Gregory L. Tull of Pocohontas, IA. Specialist
Tull sadly died November 25, 2005, after an improvised explosive device
detonated near his Humvee in Al Anbar province in Iraq. Specialist Tull
served with the Iowa Army National Guard's 1st Battalion, 194th Field
Artillery based in Storm Lake, IA. He was only 20 years old.
I ask that all Americans join me in remembering and honoring
Specialist Tull. He was an upstanding and courageous soldier who fell
far before his time. Our country has survived these many years due to
the brave men and women who have served in our Armed Forces, and it
greatly saddens me to announce that another young man has made the
ultimate sacrifice for our country and for the freedom of Iraq.
LTC Gregory Hapgood of the Iowa Army National Guard remembered that
Specialist Tull was ``a good guy that didn't shrink from
responsibility,'' and was someone who ``wanted in on the action.''
During this crucial time in America's history, we should all remember
Greg Tull's courage and dedication to his country.
We should also stand with Specialist Tull's parents, Eileen and Gary,
and his brother, Bryan, and all his family in their time of grief. Our
thoughts and prayers also go out to Gregory's friends, classmates, and
all others who were lucky enough to know him. Greg Tull did not die in
vain, but rather gave his life defending America and promoting freedom
around the world. He will be sorely missed but also fondly remembered.
____________________
WORLD AIDS DAY
Mr. WYDEN. Mr. President, December 1, was World AIDS Day, and I
wanted to take this time to both acknowledge the good work that is done
around world to prevent and treat this disease and to acknowledge the
need is still great around the world and in our own country to fund
prevention, treatment, and support.
AIDS kills 3 million people each year, and 13,500 people are newly
infected each day. AIDS has already left 15 million orphans in its
wake. The theme of World AIDS Day 2005 was ``Keeping the Promise.'' To
date, the United States has led the world in contributions to the
Global Fund, providing one-third of all contributions. However, the
statistics tell us that while we have come far, we still have far to go
in preventing this tragic disease, including here at home.
We have experienced many medical miracles in the form of drugs that
help people diagnosed with HIV/AIDS live healthier longer. Yet, we seem
to be able to fund less and less of the services that help individuals
stay healthy and maintain the structure of their lives.
I was recently visited by constituents who were either HIV positive
or had full-blown AIDS. They told many moving stories about how their
lives had been made better by programs that help them get health
services, pay for their drugs, rent and provide other support services.
Many of these programs are through the Ryan White Act.
The unmet need grows daily. For example, in Portland, the Russell
Street Dental Clinic provides about $60,000 worth of services to HIV
patients each month compared with about $15,000 a month 3 years ago. In
2003, a study was released that documented the service gaps in Oregon.
The list of services for which there is not enough funding to meet the
need is long and includes dental care, help with legal affairs,
counseling, housing and help in paying rent or utilities, and
transportation.
Despite an increased number of people living with HIV/AIDS, Ryan
White funding has decreased. Many of the programs my constituents tell
me help them are through Title I of the Ryan White Act. This title
provides the vital core services of Medical care, mental health and
substance abuse treatment, dental care, and case management.
The Oregon AIDS Drug Assistance Program has had to change eligibility
and take other steps to limit enrollment because of budget constraints.
This program helps individuals with their drug costs. I view it as a
wise investment because it helps people stay healthier, working, and
productive.
What I have heard from my constituents is sheer frustration that the
programs they know work are yet again on the chopping block. I share
their frustration. An investment in health care, whether abroad or in
our own country, an investment in a community and in making that
community healthier. I hope Congress keeps this in mind as we face
difficult decisions about funding in the future.
I ask unanimous consent that my remarks be printed in the Record.
[[Page 27970]]
____________________
HUMANITARIAN ASSISTANCE FOR PAKISTAN
Mr. JOHNSON. Mr. President, this past year, the world has witnessed
multiple natural disasters including the tsunami in South Asia and
Hurricane Katrina in the gulf coast. Most recently, the devastating
earthquake that struck northern Pakistan in early October has been
equally catastrophic. More than 73,000 people were killed in the
immediate aftermath, while tens of thousands more were wounded. Just as
troubling, millions more have been left homeless having lost their
life's possessions in this tragic event.
As Pakistan approaches the bitter winter months, many are still
without adequate shelter. The United Nations estimates that at least
350,000 will remain in the mountainous regions of Pakistan through the
winter and will require sufficient food and materials to winterize
their tents in order to survive. Exacerbating the situation is the
recent cancellation of helicopter sorties that deliver humanitarian
relief due to deteriorating weather conditions. In addition, UNICEF is
conducting a massive immunization campaign to vaccinate individuals
from the measles following an outbreak at a camp outside of
Muzaffarabad in early December. For all these reasons, it imperative
that countries honor their commitments to this ravaged country to
ensure humanitarian relief is provided to the victims of this tragedy.
To date, the international community and private industries have
pledged aid for relief an reconstruction, and the United States has led
the effort. After recognizing that our original pledge of $50 million
would be inadequate to assist the victims, the United States
substantially increased the amount of aid to Pakistan by pledging a
total of $510 million.
In addition, the United States has provided rescue teams and aircraft
to assist in locating victims in remote areas. The U.S. military has
helped deliver humanitarian supplies, as well as evacuating casualties
from the region. Currently a Mobile Army Surgical Hospital, MASH, unit
has been established in the most devastated parts of the country to
perform urgent surgery and attend to less critical patients.
While I applaud these efforts, we should remember that Pakistan has
been a critical ally in the war on terror. Unfortunately, our image in
the Muslim world has been distorted though propaganda and
misperceptions of America's intent in the Middle East. Humanitarian aid
can assist in dispelling these myths and will clearly demonstrate that
the American people are deeply compassionate toward all those in need.
With the upcoming winter months, it will be vital that the
international community continue to honor the commitments it has made
to Pakistan. I believe that the United States should lead these
efforts. We have a moral obligation to reach out and assist those who
are so desperately in need, and I look forward to working with my
colleagues to ensure the victims of this earthquake receive adequate
humanitarian assistance.
____________________
ALLOWING A CONTINUING FRIENDSHIP
Mr. ALLARD. Mr. President, I rise today to discuss the future of Air
Force TSgt. Jamie Dana and her working military dog Rex.
When our Nation's leaders called thousands of men and women in
uniform to liberate Iraq from its most brutal dictator, Technical
Sergeant Dana was among those brave citizens for whom the duty to her
country comes before all other luxuries. Technical Sergeant Dana joined
the Air Force in 1998 and volunteered to serve in Iraq. Her assignment
included supporting Army personnel by clearing vehicles at checkpoints
and searching buildings for booby traps and explosives. Jamie was never
alone while performing her duties in Iraq. She was accompanied by a
working military dog, Rex, a 5-year-old German shepherd. The duo had
trained together in the military fo 3 years and deployed as a team
first to Pakistan and then Iraq.
Last June, after completing another mission, Technical Sergeant Dana
and Rex were traveling in an armored humvee when a roadside bomb
exploded under her seat. She suffered severe wounds resulting in
massive internal bleeding that required 19 blood transfusions. ``The
helicopter ride was the scariest 45 minutes of my life,'' remembers
Major Paul Morton, a member of the medical trauma team who helped save
Jamie's life.
Even when facing death, Technical Sergeant Dana never stopped
thinking about her friend and comrade Rex. While recuperating from the
injuries she suffered in Iraq, Rex has always been in Jamie's prayers.
Although her future in the Armed Forces remains uncertain to this day,
Dana never questions her decision to go to war. As she stated in a
recent interview, ``I had begged for it. I wanted to deploy. You want
to feel like you're a part of it.''
After her military duty is over, Technical Sergeant Dana plans to
become a different kind of vet--a veterinarian, a profession that I
admire. Dana asked the Air Force for permission to adopt her beloved
friend, and I commend the leadership of the Air Force and Senator
Warner for their efforts to find a legislative solution to Jamie's
request. I fully support the inclusion of this solution in the Defense
authorization conference report. The work of our Nation's military and
political leaders demonstrates their willingness to express our humble
gratitude to those who proudly wear our Nation's uniform and endanger
their lives to protect the freedom that we often take for granted.
Jamie's story traveled thousands of miles and warmed the hearts of her
fellow Americans, as well as political and military leaders.
A simple act of Congress will allow Technical Sergeant Dana be
reunited with Rex. Both Jamie and Rex gave their best in the fight to
protect the ideals of liberty and courageously participated in the
spread of democracy across the globe. The least this country can do to
honor their service is to allow this friendship to continue.
____________________
STOLEN VALOR ACT
Mr. BURNS. Mr. President, today, I join my colleagues, Senators
Conrad, Vitter, Salazar, Nelson, Johnson, Chambliss, Thune, Hagel,
Isakson, Lautenberg, Dole, and Stevens, in cosponsoring S. 1998, the
Stolen Valor Act of 2005.
During this Christmas season, our forces are deployed around the
world, and many serve in hostile locations. Our service men and women
continue to make great sacrifices abroad to ensure our safety here at
home. It is our duty to recognize and honor that sacrifice and heroism.
Unfortunately, some civilians have created elaborate lies to claim some
of this honor as their own.
I am disturbed by stories of these despicable frauds who have tried
to falsify heroic military records. These people wear medals that they
did not earn, and claim honors which they do not deserve. This type of
lie strikes at the very heart of the honor of our military and our
Nation.
We must act now to protect the reputation of our military heroes with
the full force of law. Those who seek to steal recognition that they
have not earned must be held accountable and brought to justice. The
Stolen Valor Act of 2005 does just that by enhancing penalties for
making false claims in regard to personal medals awarded for combat
action and valor, such as the Purple Heart, Distinguished Service
Cross, Navy Cross, Air Force Cross, Silver Star, or Congressional Medal
of Honor. This law will allow law enforcement officials to prosecute
individuals who falsely claim to be recipients of these awards, and
perpetrators may receive a sentence of up to 1 year as a result.
As a veteran, I will always seek to protect the honored place of our
military heroes. I cherish the sacrifices of all veterans, and I will
continue to do everything in my power to support and protect their
interests. I look forward to working with my Senate colleagues to pass
this important piece of legislation.
[[Page 27971]]
____________________
REPUBLICAN JEWISH COALITION AD SUPPORTING WAR ON TERROR
Mr. COLEMAN. Mr. President, Freedom is Worth Fighting For. That is
the headline of a full page advertisement today in The New York Times.
I was proud to add my name to this strong statement in support of our
troops and our President in fighting the war on terror. The ad is
sponsored by the Republican Jewish Coalition, a grassroots organization
based in Washington, DC, with five full-time offices, 41 chapters, and
over 20,000 members across our Nation.
The ad takes strong exception to a resolution approved last month by
about 2,000 members of the Union for Reform Judaism--URJ--at a
convention in Houston. The URJ resolution said, ``American Jews, and
all Americans, are profoundly critical of this war and they want this
administration to tell us how and when it will bring our troops home,''
and called the Iraq war ``unjust.'' The resolution reversed a 2002 URJ
endorsement of the war and, according to news accounts, was adopted
with very limited debate and only one person speaking against it.
As the Republican Jewish Coalition ad states, the URJ statement that
American Jews oppose President Bush on Iraq is misleading and wrong.
The URJ does not speak for me. Nor does it speak for all reform Jews or
for the American Jewish community.
The Republican Jewish Coalition ad carries the signatures of 180
leaders and prominent figures in the Jewish community. In addition to
my name, among those signing the newspaper ad are my colleague in the
other body Representative Eric Cantor of Virginia, Hawaii Governor
Linda Lingle, and two former chairmen of the Conference of Presidents
of Major American Jewish Organizations, James Tisch and Kenneth
Bialkin. Other signers include rabbis and cantors; as well as State and
local elected officials.
The Republican Jewish Coalition ad contains several other important
messages. It notes that we support the President and the war on terror.
We stand behind our troops and their mission of creating a safe,
democratic Iraq. This mission is vital, says the ad, not only for the
continuing fight against terrorism and the stability of the Middle
East, but also for making the world a safer place for our children. I
believe this message of support is particularly important as the Iraqi
people prepare to vote for a permanent government later this week.
We can never surrender to terrorism. Those who attacked us on
September 11, 2001, will not hesitate to do so again if given the
opportunity. We dare not encourage them by weakness and vacillation in
our unrelenting war on terror.
I commend the Republican Jewish Coalition for its leadership on this
vital issue. I am proud to stand with them in defense of freedom.
____________________
ADDITIONAL STATEMENTS
______
CALIFORNIA HIGHWAY PATROL OFFICER DAVID MARIN ROMERO: IN MEMORIAM
Mrs. BOXER. Mr. President, Today I rise to honor and share
with my colleagues the memory of a remarkable man, Officer David Marin
Romero of the California Highway Patrol. Officer David Marin Romero
spent 23 years with the California Highway Patrol, providing the
citizens of California with safety and service. On September 23, 2005,
while on motor patrol in the city of Industry, Officer Romero was
struck and killed by a driver suspected to be under the influence of a
controlled substance.
The California Highway Patrol was Officer Romero's passion. He began
his career with the California Highway Patrol at the Riverside Station
near his home, and a year later he transferred to the Sante Fe Springs
Station, near his childhood community. Romero served the remainder of
his career in Santa Fe Springs, giving back to his community. He loved
riding his motorcycle and combined this with his passion for law
enforcement to become a very successful motorcycle officer. Officer
Romero's colleagues shall always remember his infectious grin,
practical jokes, and commitment to his job.
Officer Romero was a devoted family man. He is survived by his wife
Sandra and children, Austin, Windsor, David, Victor, and Vanessa. When
he was not on duty, Officer Romero enjoyed spending time with his
family, riding dirt bikes, and coaching his children's sports teams.
Officer David Marin Romero served the State of California honorably and
conscientiously, and fulfilled his oath as an officer of the law.
Officer Romero gave his life while assisting those in peril or
distress. His character, integrity, loyalty, and dedication to law
enforcement are greatly appreciated and will never be forgotten.
Officer David Marin Romero sacrificed his life doing what he loved to
do--providing protection for the community in which he was raised. We
shall always be grateful for Officer Romero's heroic service and the
sacrifices he made while protecting the community he loved.
____________________
IN HONOR OF THE MEMORY OF NICK BRONZAN
Mrs. BOXER. Mr. President, I rise to honor the memory of the
late Nick Bronzan, a tireless champion for young people and seniors in
central California. Mr. Bronzan, a long-time Fresno resident, passed
away in the peaceful company of his family and loved ones on December
4, 2005. He was 90 years old.
Nick Bronzan, the son of Yugoslavian immigrants, was a true son of
California's Central Valley. He was born in Stockton and spent his
formative years in Manteca. A gifted athlete, Nick excelled as a
football player at Fresno State College. Admired by his coaches and
teammates for his great leadership qualities, Nick served as the
captain of the 1939 championship team.
Upon graduation, Nick taught mathematics and coached a number of
sports at Kerman High School for 5 years. Nick and his wife Peggy were
beloved for all they did in both school and community activities. He
would further his passion for helping young people by working for the
YMCA in Fresno, Tulare, and Culver City. In 1961, Nick became the
general secretary of the Fresno YMCA, and 7 years later, he was
appointed as the executive director of the Central Valley YMCA.
Throughout his professional career, Nick demonstrated an unyielding
commitment to positively impact the lives of young people.
In his retirement, Nick generously lent his leadership and passion
for community service to a number of very worthy and empowering causes.
As director of the Fresno Foster Grandparents Program, he spearheaded a
volunteer program for seniors to work with children lacking parents and
families. Nick also began a house-sharing organization to increase and
enhance older companionship. A powerful and determined advocate for the
senior community, Nick successfully convinced businesses to hire senior
watchmen to work late shifts. In 1984, he was appointed by then-
California Assembly Speaker Willie L. Brown, Jr., to the California
Commission on Aging and Long-Term Care. Whereas some see their golden
years as a time to fade into the background in public life, Nick
embraced it as an opportunity to continue to lead, to motivate others,
and to make good things happen.
Nick Bronzan devoted 70 of his 90 years to community service. Nick
selflessly gave his boundless energy, genuine compassion, and precious
humanity to uplifting and empowering those who are most often neglected
in our society: the young and the old. Nick has left behind a legacy of
service and the admiration of those whose lives he touched over the
years. He will be dearly missed.
Nick is survived by his wife Peggy; two daughters, Mary Bronzan and
Ann McDonald; son, Bruce; five grandchildren and seven great-
grandchildren. On December 11, more than 200 members of his family and
friends gathered in Fresno to honor a rich life, well lived.
____________________
TRIBUTE TO LINWOOD CARTER
Mr. LUGAR. Mr. President, I rise today to pay tribute to and
recognize the contributions of an individual who has dedicated three
decades of his life to serving the U.S. Congress.
[[Page 27972]]
Linwood B. Carter II began his career with the Congressional Research
Service in 1975 and will be embarking on a well-earned retirement
shortly after the New Year. As an information research specialist in
U.S. military and international security affairs, Linwood has responded
to literally thousands of congressional research requests over the
years with a level of professionalism and skill I have seldom
encountered. In carrying out our responsibilities as legislators, we in
the Senate and our colleagues in the House confront a constant need for
accurate and timely information; often it has been through the efforts
of Linwood Carter that those responsibilities have been met. His
mastery of the Library of Congress's resources and the informational
nooks and crannies in the world of international security affairs has
been unsurpassed.
Linwood's dedication to serving the needs of Congress is
unparalleled. His quiet professional demeanor will be sorely missed by
Members, the Congressional Research Service, and by the Library of
Congress. I would like to extend our thanks to him for his efforts on
our behalf for the last three decades and to wish him the best in the
years to come.
____________________
COMMENDING THE INDIANA WEAPONS OF MASS DESTRUCTION CIVIL SUPPORT TEAM
Mr. LUGAR. Mr. President, I rise today to commend the
certification of the Indiana Civil Support Team and the support it will
provide the people of Indiana in the event of an attack utilizing a
weapon of mass destruction. During this holiday season, many prefer not
to think of the horrors associated with nuclear, chemical and
biological weapons, but the 22 members of the 53rd WMD-CST don't have
that luxury. It is their job to help protect Hoosiers should a WMD
attack occur in Indiana.
On November 28, 2005, the Pentagon announced that the Indiana Civil
Support Team was fully ready to assist civil authorities in responding
to a domestic weapon of mass destruction incident. Stationed in
Indianapolis, the team possesses the requisite skills, training and
equipment to make a difference in assisting first responders and local
officials in the critical moments immediately following a nuclear,
radiological, chemical or biological event. The CST is able to deploy
rapidly, assist local first responders in determining the nature of the
attack, provide medical and technical advice, and pave the way for the
identification and arrival of follow-on State and Federal military
response assets.
In March 2004, I was pleased to join with Governor Kernan and Senator
Bayh to announce the creation of the WMD-CST in Indiana. The team is
made up of highly skilled, full-time members of the Indiana National
Guard and Reserve who have completed 20 months of intense training. The
team is equipped with sophisticated detection, analytical, monitoring,
communications and protective equipment and is under the command and
control of Governor Mitch Daniels. This signifies another important
step to ensuring that our country, the State of Indiana, and our local
communities are prepared should we face terrorists armed with a
nuclear, chemical or biological weapon.
Last week's announcement occurred with little fanfare and negligible
public interest. This is unfortunate because the threat posed by the
proliferation of weapons of mass destruction is the No. 1 national
security threat facing our country.
Chemical weapons were introduced on the battlefields of World War I.
Nuclear weapons ended World War II. Biological weapons were components
of Cold War arsenals. The 20th century witnessed the brutal use of
these powerful weapons by superpowers and nation-states. Technological
advancements and the proliferation of weapons, materials and know-how
have made weapons of mass destruction accessible to a growing number of
national and non-state entities.
Despite the threat of nuclear annihilation throughout the standoff
between the United States and the Soviet Union, it was unfathomable
that a religious sect could acquire the means to attack a major
metropolitan subway system with biological weapons. Yet the Aum
Shinrikyo dispersed anthrax in a Tokyo train station in March 1995. Who
would have expected rebels from a remote region of the Caucasus to
threaten the detonation of a radiological weapon in a Moscow park?
Chechens did that in November 1995. Even more difficult to believe
would have been the notion that the leader of a deadly terrorist
organization would announce that it was the organization's mission to
acquire a weapon of mass destruction and use it against the United
States. Osama bin Laden did that in December 1998.
The use of a weapon of mass destruction in the United States could
cripple our economy, lead to the fall of our Government, and threaten
large segments of our population with disease and death. During the
Cold War, the Soviet Union had the resources and incentives to
carefully guard and maintain these weapons and the scientific knowledge
that produced them. But the political collapse of the Moscow government
was accompanied by a broader economic collapse throughout the vast
nation. Not only did Russia and the other successor states have few
resources for maintaining the Soviet-era arsenal, they could not even
afford to adequately pay members of the military and scientific
community who had responsibility for safeguarding the weapons and
related technology. The United States faced the grim possibility that
weapons previously held in impenetrable Soviet facilities and
technology previously restricted to the minds and computers of elite
Soviet scientists could be stolen or sold to the highest bidder.
As a country, we must acknowledge that the weapons that haunted the
Cold War are now available to irrational and undeterrable foes. While
the threat of nuclear attack from the Soviet Union was awesome, it was
certain, in that we knew who and where our enemy was and had the
ability to hold them at equal peril. The post-Cold War security
environment is anything but certain. Battles are no longer determined
by armored divisions taking and holding large swaths of territory, nor
is strategic competition marked by the building of the biggest bomb or
the longest range missiles. A small group of fanatics with the right
contacts and resources can obtain and utilize a weapon of mass
destruction that could destroy or make unlivable large portions of
Washington, DC, New York, or Chicago. Similarly, toxins introduced into
our food supply and distribution systems could spread disease and
panic.
There is no silver bullet to these threats. U.S. security will be
secured by small numbers of American Government officials and
contractors working with former enemies to eliminate the weapons that
could threaten the future of our country. It will also depend on
American allies working closely and effectively in detecting and
interdicting these weapons and local police officers, medical
personnel, and guardsmen preparing to respond to a WMD event.
Since the end of the Cold War, I have worked with colleagues here in
Congress and the executive branch to defend the American people from
these threats. I have often described the best strategy to deal with
the WMD threat as ``defense in depth,'' layers of defensive efforts
designed to stop a nuclear, chemical and biological weapon from
reaching our shores.
The first line of defense is prevention and entails activities at the
source to stop weapons, materials and know-how from leaving their
current locations. The second is detection and interdiction and
involves efforts to stem the flow of illicit trade in these weapons and
materials at foreign and domestic borders. The third line of defense is
crisis and consequence management and requires domestic preparedness
should such threats turn into hostile acts. Individually, each of these
lines of defense is insufficient; together, they help to form the
policy fabric of an integrated defense-in-depth.
In 1991, I joined with Senator Sam Nunn and co-authored the Nunn-
Lugar, Cooperative Threat Reduction Program. The program's goal is to
address
[[Page 27973]]
the threat posed by nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons at their
source. Over the program's first decade and a half it has focused on
the threats emanating from the former Soviet Union. When the USSR
crumbled, it had the largest nuclear, chemical, and biological arsenals
in the world. The next day, four new independent countries emerged from
the ashes with nuclear weapons. The totalitarian command and control
system that secured the chemical and biological weapons arsenals and
infrastructure disappeared. Divisions of ballistic missiles, wings of
long-range bombers, and fleets of strategic missile submarines were
left with a bankrupt, dysfunctional master and numerous individuals and
organizations seeking to steal them.
The Nunn-Lugar Program has made excellent progress in eliminating
these threats. Ukraine, Belarus, and Kazakhstan emerged as the third,
fourth and eighth largest nuclear powers in the world. Today all three
are nuclear weapons free. More than 6,760 nuclear warheads, each
capable of destroying an American city, have been deactivated. Nearly
2,000 intercontinental ballistic missiles fired from land-based silos,
missile submarines, and bombers have been eliminated. Two-thirds of the
Soviet Union's strategic bomber force and over half of its strategic
submarine force have been destroyed.
The Soviet Union also left behind enormous quantities of chemical and
biological weapons materials. Russia declared a chemical weapons
stockpile of 40,000 metric tons stored under questionable. A public
accounting of the Soviet biological weapons programs has never been
made, but it is believed to be the largest and most advanced in the
world. Tens of thousands of scientists, engineers, and technicians had
assisted in the development of the Soviet Union's weapons of mass
destruction. With the economies of Russia and other republics in bad
shape, many of these experts faced unemployment, and concerns existed
that they might have an incentive to sell their skills to other
countries and terrorist organizations. In each of these cases, Nunn-
Lugar has responded with innovative dismantlement strategy for the
chemical weapons stocks, elimination of biological weapons production
capacity and security upgrades for pathogen collections, and partnering
with the private sector to find long-term, peaceful employment for
former weapons experts.
Nunn-Lugar has also taken on formerly top-secret missions to remove
dangerous weapons and materials before they could fall into the wrong
hands. In November 1994, the United States launched Project Sapphire to
remove 600 kilograms of highly enriched uranium from Kazakhstan and
ship it to Oak Ridge, TN. More recently, Operation Auburn Endeavor was
carried out in Georgia to remove HEU and transport it to Scotland. In
Moldova, the United States removed fourteen MIG-29s capable of
launching nuclear weapons because of efforts by a number of rogue
states to acquire them.
Despite the progress we made in the former Soviet Union, the skills
and capabilities of the Nunn-Lugar Program were confined to that
geographical region. In 2004, Congress changed that by approving the
Nunn-Lugar Expansion Act which authorized the use of up to $50 million
in Nunn-Lugar funds for activities outside the former Soviet Union.
This authority will be used for the first time in Albania to destroy
nearly 16 tons of chemical weapons and consideration is being given for
the program to work in Libya and countries in Southeast Asia.
Earlier this year, I joined with Senator Barack Obama to introduce
legislation focused on improving the capabilities of other nations to
detect and interdict weapons and materials of mass destruction and
bolstering, expanding, and improving the second line of defense. The
United States military and intelligence services cannot be everywhere.
We need the cooperation and vigilance of like-minded nations if we are
to successfully detect and interdict WMD threats before they can be
used against their targets. The United States has constructed the
Proliferation Security Initiative, which enlisted the participation of
other nations in the interdiction of WMD, but it lacks a coordinated
effort to improve the capabilities of our foreign partners so that they
can play a larger and more effective role.
The Lugar-Obama bill earmarks 25 percent of the Nonproliferation,
Anti-
terrorism, Demining, and Related Programs account to address the
shortcomings in the State Department's response. If currently law, this
would have amounted to $110 million this year. Our bill goes one step
further by calling on the State Department to also commit 25 percent of
annual foreign military financing amounts to nations for the purchase
of equipment to improve their ability to detect and interdict WMD. This
would represent a potent but flexible tool that could help build a
network of WMD detection and interdiction capabilities world wide and
contribute to U.S. national security.
Senator Obama and I recently wrote in the Washington Post that the
United States cannot stop the proliferation of weapons of mass
destruction alone. We need the vigilance of like-minded nations, but
many of our potential partners lack the capability to detect hidden
weapons and interdict shipments. We believe our legislation will
address this gap.
If weapons or materials of mass destruction elude U.S. programmatic
efforts at the source, at international borders, and our own borders,
the next line of defense must take the form of help to local ``first
responders''--the firemen, police, emergency management teams, and
medical personnel who will be on the front lines.
In 1996, I joined my colleagues Sam Nunn and Pete Domenici in
offering the Nunn-Lugar-Domenici ``Defense Against Weapons of Mass
Destruction'' legislation. For the first time, it directed the
professionals from the Department of Defense, Department of Energy,
Federal Bureau of Investigation, Department of Health and Human
Services, the Federal Emergency Management Agency, and the
Environmental Protection Agency to join into a partnership with local
emergency professionals in cities across the country, including
Indianapolis and Fort Wayne.
The Pentagon developed plans to supply training and equipment to 120
cities across the country. In February 1998, the Nunn-Lugar-Domenici
Domestic Preparedness Program visited Indianapolis and Marion County.
Six hundred fifty first responders received training to respond to
nuclear, chemical and biological incidents. In the years that followed,
thousands of additional professionals received instruction through the
program's train-the-trainer program. In 2000, Fort Wayne and Allen
County received similar training under the Nunn-Lugar-Domenici Program.
The training proved its worth when Indianapolis was confronted with
the threat of weapons of mass destruction. Planned Parenthood clinics
in Indianapolis and New Albany and at St. Matthews Catholic Church and
elsewhere received anthrax threats. We were relieved that the threats
were determined to be false but proud to see the professional manner in
which the city's first responders reacted to the threat and treated the
potential victims.
Over the last 15 years, I have worked closely with both Bush
administrations and President Clinton to safeguard the American people
from the threats associated with weapons of mass destruction. We still
have much work to do, but the certification of the Indiana WMD-CST
makes the people of Indiana safer. I am thankful that in the event of a
WMD incident, the people of Indiana will not be alone. Local first
responders and the WMD-CST will be there to provide assistance and
expertise.
____________________
MESSAGES FROM THE PRESIDENT
Messages from the President of the United States were communicated to
the Senate by Ms. Evans, one of his secretaries.
____________________
EXECUTIVE MESSAGES REFERRED
As in executive session the Presiding Officer laid before the Senate
messages
[[Page 27974]]
from the President of the United States submitting sundry nominations
and withdrawals which were referred to the appropriate committees.
(The nominations received today are printed at the end of the Senate
proceedings.)
____________________
MEASURES PLACED ON THE CALENDAR
The following bills were read the second time, and placed on the
calendar:
H.R. 4096. An act to amend the Internal Revenue Code of
1986 to extend to 2006 the alternative minimum tax relief
available in 2005 and to index such relief for inflation.
H.R. 4388. An act to amend the Internal Revenue Code of
1986 to extend certain expiring provisions, and for other
purposes.
H.R. 4440. An act to amend the Internal Revenue Code of
1986 to provide tax benefits for the Gulf Opportunity Zone
and certain areas affected by Hurricanes Rita and Wilma, and
for other purposes.
____________________
EXECUTIVE AND OTHER COMMUNICATIONS
The following communications were laid before the Senate, together
with accompanying papers, reports, and documents, and were referred as
indicated:
EC-4769. A communication from the Special Assistant to the
President and Director, Office of Administration, Executive
Office of the President, transmitting, pursuant to law, the
personnel report for personnel employed in the White House
Office the Executive Residence at the White House, the Office
of the Vice President, the Office of Policy Development
(Domestic Policy Staff), and the Office of Administration; to
the Committee on the Budget.
EC-4770. A communication from the Acting Director, Defense
Procurement and Acquisition Policy, Department of Defense,
transmitting, pursuant to law, the report of a rule entitled
``Extraordinary Contractual Actions'' (DFARS Case 2003-D048)
received on November 28, 2005; to the Committee on Armed
Services.
EC-4771. A communication from the Acting Director, Defense
Procurement and Acquisition Policy, Department of Defense,
transmitting, pursuant to law, the report of a rule entitled
``Subcontracting Policies and Procedures'' (DFARS Case 2003-
D025) received on November 28, 2005; to the Committee on
Armed Services.
EC-4772. A communication from the Acting Director, Defense
Procurement and Acquisition Policy, Department of Defense,
transmitting, pursuant to law, the report of a rule entitled
``Update of Clauses for Telecommunications Services'' (DFARS
Case 2003-D053) received on November 28, 2005; to the
Committee on Armed Services.
EC-4773. A communication from the Acting Director, Defense
Procurement and Acquisition Policy, Department of Defense,
transmitting, pursuant to law, the report of a rule entitled
``Acquisition of Telecommunications Services'' (DFARS Case
2003-D055) received on November 28, 2005; to the Committee on
Armed Services.
EC-4774. A communication from the Acting Director, Defense
Procurement and Acquisition Policy, Department of Defense,
transmitting, pursuant to law, the report of a rule entitled
``Contract Administration'' (DFARS Case 2003-D023) received
on November 28, 2005; to the Committee on Armed Services.
EC-4775. A communication from the Acting Director, Defense
Procurement and Acquisition Policy, Department of Defense,
transmitting, pursuant to law, the report of a rule entitled
``Information Technology Equipment--Screening of Government
Inventory'' (DFARS Case 2003-D054) received on November 28,
2005; to the Committee on Armed Services.
EC-4776. A communication from the Acting Director, Defense
Procurement and Acquisition Policy, Department of Defense,
transmitting, pursuant to law, the report of a rule entitled
``Contract Modifications'' (DFARS Case 2003-D024) received on
November 28, 2005; to the Committee on Armed Services.
EC-4777. A communication from the White House Liaison,
Department of Education, transmitting, pursuant to law, the
report of a nomination for the position of General Counsel,
received on November 28, 2005; to the Committee on Health,
Education, Labor, and Pensions.
EC-4778. A communication from the White House Liaison,
Department of Education, transmitting, pursuant to law, the
report of the designation of an acting officer for the
position of Assistant Secretary, received on November 28,
2005; to the Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and
Pensions.
EC-4779. A communication from the White House Liaison,
Department of Education, transmitting, pursuant to law, the
report of a vacancy in the position of Assistant Secretary,
received on November 28, 2005; to the Committee on Health,
Education, Labor, and Pensions.
EC-4780. A communication from the Deputy Executive
Director, Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation, transmitting,
pursuant to law, the report of a rule entitled ``Benefits
Payable in Terminated Single-Employer Plans; Allocation of
Assets in Single-Employer Plans; Interest Assumptions for
Valuing and Paying Benefits'' (29 CFR Parts 4022 and 4044)
received on November 28, 2005; to the Committee on Health,
Education, Labor, and Pensions.
EC-4781. A communication from the Director, Regulations
Policy and Management Staff, Food and Drug Administration,
Department of Health and Human Services, transmitting,
pursuant to law, the report of a rule entitled ``Medical
Devices; General and Plastic Surgery Devices; Classification
of the Low Energy Ultrasound Wound Cleaner'' (Docket No.
2005P-0366) received on November 28, 2005; to the Committee
on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions.
EC-4782. A communication from the Regulations Coordinator,
Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, Department of
Health and Human Services, transmitting, pursuant to law, the
report of a rule entitled ``Federal Enforcement in Group and
Individual Health Insurance Markets'' (RIN0938-AN35) received
on November 28, 2005; to the Committee on Health, Education,
Labor, and Pensions.
EC-4783. A communication from the Regulations Coordinator,
Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, Department of
Health and Human Services, transmitting, pursuant to law, the
report of a rule entitled ``Medicare Program; Hospice Care
Amendments'' (RIN0938-AJ36) received on November 28, 2005; to
the Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions.
EC-4784. A communication from the Regulations Coordinator,
Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, Department of
Health and Human Services, transmitting, pursuant to law, the
report of a rule entitled ``Medicare Program; Electronic
Submission of Medicare Claims'' (RIN0938-AM22) received on
November 28, 2005; to the Committee on Finance.
EC-4785. A communication from the Chairman, International
Trade Commission, transmitting, pursuant to law, the Buy
American Act Report covering fiscal year 2004; to the
Committee on Finance.
EC-4786. A communication from the Acting Chief,
Publications and Regulations Branch, Internal Revenue
Service, Department of the Treasury, transmitting, pursuant
to law, the report of a rule entitled ``Applicable Federal
Rates--December 2005'' (Rev. Rul. 2005-77) received on
November 28, 2005; to the Committee on Finance.
EC-4787. A communication from the Unit Chief, Publications
and Regulations Branch, Internal Revenue Service, Department
of the Treasury, transmitting, pursuant to law, the report of
a rule entitled ``Revenue Procedure: Reduction of Penalty for
Understating Tax by Adequate Disclosure of an Item on
Return'' (Rev. Proc. 2005-75) received on November 28, 2005;
to the Committee on Finance.
EC-4788. A communication from the Chief, Publications and
Regulations Branch, Internal Revenue Service, Department of
the Treasury, transmitting, pursuant to law, the report of a
rule entitled ``Market Segment Specialization Paper: Audit
Technique Guide--Retail Industry'' received on November 28,
2005; to the Committee on Finance.
EC-4789. A communication from the Regulatory Officer,
Directives and Regulations Branch, Forest Service, Department
of Agriculture, transmitting, pursuant to law, the report of
a rule entitled ``Travel Management; Designated Routes and
Areas for Motor Vehicle Use; Final'' (RIN0596-AC11) received
on November 28, 2005; to the Committee on Agriculture,
Nutrition, and Forestry.
EC-4790. A communication from the Principal Deputy
Associate Administrator, Office of Policy, Economics, and
Innovation, Environmental Protection Agency, transmitting,
pursuant to law, the report of a rule entitled ``Tralkoxydim;
Pesticide Tolerance'' (FRL7722-6) received on November 28,
2005; to the Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition, and
Forestry.
EC-4791. A communication from the Secretary of the
Interior, transmitting, pursuant to law, a report regarding
the future of Rocky Flats National Wildlife Refuge; to the
Committee on Energy and Natural Resources.
EC-4792. A communication from the Secretary of Energy,
transmitting, pursuant to law, a report entitled ``Report to
Congress on Energy Savings Performance Contracts''; to the
Committee on Energy and Natural Resources.
EC-4793. A communication from the Director, Office of
Management, Department of Energy, transmitting, pursuant to
law, the Buy American Act Report for fiscal year 2004; to the
Committee on Energy and Natural Resources.
EC-4794. A communication from the Administrator, Energy
Information Administration, Department of Energy,
transmitting, pursuant to law, a report entitled ``Annual
Energy Review 2004''; to the Committee on Energy and Natural
Resources.
EC-4795. A communication from the Assistant Secretary, Land
and Minerals Management, Department of the Interior,
transmitting pursuant to law, the report of a rule entitled
``Application Procedures, Execution
[[Page 27975]]
and Filing of Forms: Correction of State Office Address for
Filings and Recordings, Proper Offices for Recording of
Mining Claims'' (RIN1004-AD77) received on November 28, 2005;
to the Committee on Energy and Natural Resources.
EC-4796. A communication from the Director, Office of
Surface Mining, Department of the Interior, transmitting,
pursuant to law the report of a rule entitled ``North Dakota
Regulatory Program'' (ND-048-FOR) received on November 28,
2005; to the Committee on Energy and Natural Resources.
EC-4797. A communication from the Director, Office of
Surface Mining, Department of the Interior, transmitting,
pursuant to law the report of a rule entitled ``Illinois
Regulatory Program'' (IL-103-FOR) received on November 28,
2005; to the Committee on Energy and Natural Resources.
EC-4798. A communication from the Director, Office of
Surface Mining, Department of the Interior, transmitting,
pursuant to law the report of a rule entitled ``Alaska
Regulatory Program'' (AK-006-FOR) received on November 28,
2005; to the Committee on Energy and Natural Resources.
EC-4799. A communication from the Acting Assistant
Secretary, Legislative Affairs, Department of State,
transmitting, pursuant to law, a report entitled ``Cuban
Emigration Policies''; to the Committee on Foreign Relations.
EC-4800. A communication from the Assistant Secretary,
Legislative Affairs, Department of State, transmitting,
pursuant to the Arms Export Control Act, the certification of
a proposed license for the export of defense articles or
defense services sold commercially under contract in the
amount of $50,000,000 or more to Taiwan and Israel; to the
Committee on Foreign Relations.
EC-4801. A communication from the Assistant Secretary,
Legislative Affairs, Department of State, transmitting,
pursuant to the Arms Export Control Act, the certification of
a proposed license for the export of defense articles or
defense services sold commercially under contract in the
amount of $100,000,000 or more to France, Austria, Germany,
Italy, Spain, and the United Kingdom; to the Committee on
Foreign Relations.
EC-4802. A communication from the Assistant Legal Adviser
for Treaty Affairs, Department of State, transmitting,
pursuant to the Case-Zablocki Act, 1 U.S.C. 112b, as amended,
the report of the texts and background statements of
international agreements, other than treaties (List 05-277-
05-290); to the Committee on Foreign Relations.
____________________
DISCHARGED NOMINATIONS
The Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation was
discharged from further consideration of the following nominations and
the nominations were placed on the Executive Calendar:
Michael Joseph Copps, of Virginia, to be a Member of the
Federal Communications Commission for a term of five years
from July 1, 2005.
Deborah Taylor Tate, of Tennessee, to be a Member of the
Federal Communications Commission for the remainder of the
term expiring June 30, 2007.
____________________
INTRODUCTION OF BILLS AND JOINT RESOLUTIONS
The following bills and joint resolutions were introduced, read the
first and second times by unanimous consent, and referred as indicated:
By Mr. NELSON of Florida:
S. 2084. A bill to direct the Consumer Product Safety
Commission to issue regulations concerning the safety and
labeling of portable generators; to the Committee on
Commerce, Science, and Transportation.
By Mr. BAUCUS:
S. 2085. A bill to provide a supplemental payment to assist
agricultural producers in mitigating increasing input costs,
including energy and fertilizer costs; to the Committee on
Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry.
By Mr. LAUTENBERG (for himself and Mr. Smith):
S. 2086. A bill to amend the Internal Revenue Code of 1986
to modify the definition of compensation for purposes of
determining the limits on contributions to individual
retirement accounts and annuities, and for other purposes; to
the Committee on Finance.
By Mr. CHAMBLISS:
S. 2087. A bill to amend the Immigration and Nationality
Act to provide for the employment of foreign agricultural
workers, and for other purposes; to the Committee on the
Judiciary.
By Mr. ALLARD (for himself and Mr. Enzi):
S. 2088. A bill to assist low-income families, displaced
from their residences in the States of Alabama, Louisiana,
and Mississippi as a result of Hurricane Katrina, by
establishing within the Department of Housing and Urban
Development a homesteading initiative that offers displaced
low-income families the opportunity to purchase a home owned
by the Federal Government and for other purposes; to the
Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs.
By Mr. AKAKA (for himself and Mr. Inouye):
S. 2089. A bill to designate the facility of the United
States Postal Service located at 1271 North King Street in
Honolulu, Oahu, Hawaii, as the ``Hiram L. Fong Post Office
Building''; to the Committee on Homeland Security and
Governmental Affairs.
By Mr. LEVIN:
S. 2090. A bill for the relief of Ibrahim Parlak; to the
Committee on the Judiciary.
By Mr. JOHNSON:
S. 2091. A bill to amend title 38, United States Code, to
provide for certain servicemembers to become eligible for
educational assistance under the Montgomery GI Bill; to the
Committee on Veterans' Affairs.
By Mr. BAUCUS:
S. 2092. A bill to amend the Internal Revenue Code of 1986
to authorize review by the Joint Committee on Tax of Federal
income tax returns of United States Supreme Court nominees,
and for other purposes; to the Committee on Finance.
By Mr. McCAIN (for himself and Mr. Dorgan):
S. 2093. A bill to amend the Morris K. Udall Scholarship
and Excellence in National Environmental and Native American
Public Policy Act of 1992 to provide funds for training in
tribal leadership, management, and policy, and for other
purposes; considered and passed.
By Mr. McCAIN (for himself and Mr. Dorgan):
S. 2094. A bill to reauthorize certain provisions relating
to Indian tribal justice systems; considered and passed.
By Mr. BIDEN:
S. 2095. A bill to ensure payment of United States
assessments for United Nations peacekeeping operations in
2005 and 2006; to the Committee on Foreign Relations.
____________________
ADDITIONAL COSPONSORS
S. 521
At the request of Mrs. Hutchison, the name of the Senator from New
Mexico (Mr. Bingaman) was added as a cosponsor of S. 521, a bill to
amend the Public Health Service Act to direct the Secretary of Health
and Human Services to establish, promote, and support a comprehensive
prevention, research, and medical management referral program for
hepatitis C virus infection.
S. 707
At the request of Mr. Alexander, the names of the Senator from
Illinois (Mr. Durbin), the Senator from Indiana (Mr. Bayh), the Senator
from South Dakota (Mr. Johnson) and the Senator from Alaska (Ms.
Murkowski) were added as cosponsors of S. 707, a bill to reduce preterm
labor and delivery and the risk of pregnancy-related deaths and
complications due to pregnancy, and to reduce infant mortality caused
by prematurity.
S. 716
At the request of Mr. Akaka, the name of the Senator from Colorado
(Mr. Salazar) was added as a cosponsor of S. 716, a bill to amend title
38, United States Code, to enhance services provided by vet centers, to
clarify and improve the provision of bereavement counseling by the
Department of Veterans Affairs, and for other purposes.
S. 737
At the request of Mr. Craig, the name of the Senator from Nebraska
(Mr. Hagel) was added as a cosponsor of S. 737, a bill to amend the USA
PATRIOT ACT to place reasonable limitations on the use of surveillance
and the issuance of search warrants, and for other purposes.
S. 908
At the request of Mr. McConnell, the name of the Senator from
Arkansas (Mrs. Lincoln) was added as a cosponsor of S. 908, a bill to
allow Congress, State legislatures, and regulatory agencies to
determine appropriate laws, rules, and regulations to address the
problems of weight gain, obesity, and health conditions associated with
weight gain or obesity.
S. 1100
At the request of Mr. Bunning, the name of the Senator from New York
(Mr. Schumer) was added as a cosponsor of S. 1100, a bill to amend the
Internal Revenue Code of 1986 to provide capital gains treatment for
certain self-created musical works.
S. 1120
At the request of Mr. Durbin, the names of the Senator from Maryland
(Mr. Sarbanes) and the Senator from Rhode Island (Mr. Reed) were added
as cosponsors of S. 1120, a bill to reduce
[[Page 27976]]
hunger in the United States by half by 2010, and for other purposes.
S. 1313
At the request of Mr. Cornyn, the name of the Senator from Nebraska
(Mr. Hagel) was added as a cosponsor of S. 1313, a bill to protect
homes, small businesses, and other private property rights, by limiting
the power of eminent domain.
S. 1508
At the request of Mr. Feingold, the name of the Senator from
Connecticut (Mr. Lieberman) was added as a cosponsor of S. 1508, a bill
to require Senate candidates to file designations, statements, and
reports in electronic form.
S. 1538
At the request of Mr. Rockefeller, the name of the Senator from South
Dakota (Mr. Johnson) was added as a cosponsor of S. 1538, a bill to
amend the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 to expand the incentives for
the construction and renovation of public schools.
S. 1687
At the request of Ms. Mikulski, the name of the Senator from Michigan
(Ms. Stabenow) was added as a cosponsor of S. 1687, a bill to amend the
Public Health Service Act to provide waivers relating to grants for
preventive health measures with respect to breast and cervical cancers.
S. 1733
At the request of Mr. Thune, the name of the Senator from Georgia
(Mr. Isakson) was added as a cosponsor of S. 1733, a bill to establish
pilot projects under the medicare program to provide incentives for
home health agencies to utilize home monitoring and communications
technologies.
S. 1791
At the request of Mr. Smith, the names of the Senator from Washington
(Ms. Cantwell) and the Senator from Washington (Mrs. Murray) were added
as cosponsors of S. 1791, a bill to amend the Internal Revenue Code of
1986 to allow a deduction for qualified timber gains.
S. 1801
At the request of Mr. Hagel, his name was added as a cosponsor of S.
1801, a bill to amend the McKinney-Vento Homeless Assistance Act to
reauthorize the Act, and for other purposes.
S. 1841
At the request of Mr. Nelson of Florida, the names of the Senator
from Connecticut (Mr. Lieberman), the Senator from Washington (Ms.
Cantwell), the Senator from Louisiana (Ms. Landrieu), the Senator from
Wisconsin (Mr. Feingold), the Senator from Maryland (Ms. Mikulski) and
the Senator from California (Mrs. Boxer) were added as cosponsors of S.
1841, a bill to amend title XVIII of the Social Security Act to provide
extended and additional protection to Medicare beneficiaries who enroll
for the Medicare prescription drug benefit during 2006.
S. 1881
At the request of Mrs. Feinstein, the names of the Senator from
Minnesota (Mr. Coleman) and the Senator from Hawaii (Mr. Inouye) were
added as cosponsors of S. 1881, a bill to require the Secretary of the
Treasury to mint coins in commemoration of the Old Mint at San
Francisco otherwise known as the ``Granite Lady'', and for other
purposes.
S. 1952
At the request of Mr. Coleman, the name of the Senator from Georgia
(Mr. Isakson) was added as a cosponsor of S. 1952, a bill to provide
grants for rural health information technology development activities.
S. 1991
At the request of Mr. Burr, the name of the Senator from North
Carolina (Mrs. Dole) was added as a cosponsor of S. 1991, a bill to
amend title 38, United States Code, to establish a financial assistance
program to facilitate the provision of supportive services for very
low-income veteran families in permanent housing, and for other
purposes.
S. 2075
At the request of Mr. Durbin, the names of the Senator from Maine
(Ms. Collins), the Senator from Arkansas (Mr. Pryor), the Senator from
Nevada (Mr. Reid), the Senator from Rhode Island (Mr. Chafee) and the
Senator from New York (Mrs. Clinton) were added as cosponsors of S.
2075, a bill to amend the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant
Responsibility Act of 1996 to permit States to determine State
residency for higher education purposes and to authorize the
cancellation of removal and adjustment of status of certain alien
students who are long-term United States residents and who entered the
United States as children, and for other purposes.
S. 2076
At the request of Mr. Hatch, the name of the Senator from Mississippi
(Mr. Cochran) was added as a cosponsor of S. 2076, a bill to amend
title 5, United States Code, to provide to assistant United States
attorneys the same retirement benefits as are afforded to Federal law
enforcement officers.
S. 2082
At the request of Mr. Sununu, the name of the Senator from Nebraska
(Mr. Hagel) was added as a cosponsor of S. 2082, a bill to amend the
USA PATRIOT ACT to extend the sunset of certain provisions of that Act
and the lone wolf provision of the Intelligence Reform and Terrorism
Prevention Act of 2004 to March 31, 2006.
At the request of Mr. Leahy, the names of the Senator from California
(Mrs. Boxer), the Senator from Illinois (Mr. Obama), the Senator from
Massachusetts (Mr. Kerry) and the Senator from Nevada (Mr. Reid) were
added as cosponsors of S. 2082, supra.
S.J. RES. 22
At the request of Mr. Durbin, the name of the Senator from Delaware
(Mr. Carper) was added as a cosponsor of S.J. Res. 22, a joint
resolution proclaiming Casimir Pulaski to be an honorary citizen of the
United States posthumously.
S. CON. RES. 64
At the request of Mr. Craig, his name was added as a cosponsor of S.
Con. Res. 64, a concurrent resolution expressing the sense of the
Congress regarding oversight of the Internet Corporation for Assigned
Names and Numbers.
S. RES. 180
At the request of Mr. Schumer, the names of the Senator from Nevada
(Mr. Reid) and the Senator from Minnesota (Mr. Coleman) were added as
cosponsors of S. Res. 180, a resolution supporting the goals and ideals
of a National Epidermolysis Bullosa Awareness Week to raise public
awareness and understanding of the disease and to foster understanding
of the impact of the disease on patients and their families.
S. RES. 320
At the request of Mr. Ensign, the names of the Senator from
California (Mrs. Boxer), the Senator from California (Mrs. Feinstein)
and the Senator from New Hampshire (Mr. Sununu) were added as
cosponsors of S. Res. 320, a resolution calling the President to ensure
that the foreign policy of the United States reflects appropriate
understanding and sensitivity concerning issues related to human
rights, ethnic cleansing, and genocide documented in the United States
record relating to the Armenian Genocide.
____________________
STATEMENTS ON INTRODUCED BILLS AND JOINT RESOLUTIONS
By Mr. NELSON of Florida:
S. 2084. A bill to direct the Consumer Product Safety Commission to
issue regulations concerning the safety and labeling of portable
generators; to the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation.
Mr. NELSON of Florida. Mr. President, over the last several years,
hundreds of Americans have died from the poisonous carbon monoxide
emitted from portable gas generators. Congress needs to step in and act
quickly to stop these needless deaths. That is why today I am
introducing the Portable Generator Safety Act.
As most of us know, portable generators are frequently used to
provide electricity during temporary power outages. These generators
use fuel-burning engines that give off poisonous carbon monoxide gas in
their exhaust.
[[Page 27977]]
Every hurricane season, news stories come from Florida and elsewhere
about people injured or killed by poisoning caused by portable gas
generators. From 1998 to 2003, the most recent year of official
statistics, at least 228 carbon monoxide poisoning deaths were reported
to the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission. At least one person was
killed and seven were hospitalized near Miami, FL, this fall after
being overcome by carbon monoxide fumes. And over the last two
hurricane seasons in Florida, at least twelve people died from
poisoning caused by poorly ventilated portable generators. These people
died because portable generators are not manufactured to automatically
cut off when high carbon monoxide rates are reached and because many
manufacturers fail to place adequate warning labels on generators.
Here is what is especially troubling about these senseless deaths:
The Consumer Product Safety Commission has known for years that people
were dying from carbon monoxide poisoning at an increasingly alarming
rate. In study after study, the Commission has recognized the high
death rate from portable generators, and Commission staff has found
that portable generator warning labels are often inconsistent, vague,
and incomplete. Yet the Commission has continued to let the generator
industry police itself--without any mandatory Federal safety standards.
Enough is enough. Industry self-regulation--which works in some
settings--clearly is not working here. Congress must now step in and do
its part to eliminate these tragic and avoidable deaths.
My bill--the Portable Generator Safety Act--takes some simple,
commonsense steps. The bill requires the Consumer Product Safety
Commission to pass tough Federal regulations within 180 days of the
passage of the bill. The new regulations would have three components.
First, every portable generator must have a sensor that automatically
shuts off the generator before lethal levels of carbon monoxide are
reached. Other products, such as portable heaters, already contain
these types of sensors, which save lives.
Second, every portable generator must have clearly written warning
labels on the packaging and on the generator itself. These labels must
include a pictogram that visually depicts the safety hazard from carbon
monoxide. What I am talking about here is labels that are easy to read
and can quickly be understood by people who are desperate for power in
emergency circumstances.
Third, every instruction manual that accompanies a portable generator
must clearly explain the safety hazards associated with operating the
generator.
How many more innocent people must needlessly die before we require
the Consumer Product Safety Commission and the portable generator
industry to take some sensible, pro-consumer steps? It is my goal that
after the next hurricane season, we will not be back here asking these
same questions.
I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the
Record.
There being no objection, the bill was ordered to be printed in the
Record, as follows:
S. 2084
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of
the United States of America in Congress assembled,
SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.
This Act may be cited as the ``Portable Generator Safety
Act''.
SEC. 2. FINDINGS.
The Congress finds the following:
(1) Portable generators are frequently used to provide
electricity during temporary power outages. These generators
use fuel-burning engines that emit carbon monoxide gas in
their exhaust.
(2) In the last several years, hundreds of people
nationwide have been seriously injured or killed due to
exposure to carbon monoxide poisoning from portable
generators. From 1990 through 2003, 228 carbon monoxide
poisoning deaths were reported to the Consumer Product Safety
Commission.
(3) Virtually all of the serious injuries and deaths due to
carbon monoxide from portable generators were preventable. In
many instances, consumers simply were unaware of the hazards
posed by carbon monoxide.
(4) Since at least 1997, a priority of the Consumer Product
Safety Commission has been to reduce injuries and deaths
resulting from carbon monoxide poisoning. Although the
Commission has attempted to work with industry to devise
voluntary standards for portable generators, and despite
Commission staff statements that voluntary standards were
ineffective, the Commission has not promulgated mandatory
rules governing safety standards and labeling requirements.
(5) The issuance of mandatory safety standards and labeling
requirements to warn consumers of the dangers associated with
portable generator carbon monoxide would reduce the risk of
injury or death.
SEC. 3. SAFETY STANDARD.
Not later than 180 days after the enactment of this Act,
the Consumer Product Safety Commission shall promulgate
regulations, pursuant to section 7 of the Consumer Product
Safety Act (15 U.S.C. 2056), requiring, at a minimum, that
every portable generator sold to the public for purposes
other than resale shall be equipped with an interlock safety
device that detects the level of carbon monoxide in the areas
surrounding such portable generator and automatically turns
off power to the portable generator before the level of
carbon monoxide is capable of causing serious bodily injury
or death to people.
SEC. 4. LABELING AND INSTRUCTION REQUIREMENTS.
Not later than 180 days after the enactment of this Act,
the Consumer Product Safety Commission shall promulgate
regulations, pursuant to section 7 of the Consumer Product
Safety Act (15 U.S.C. 2056), requiring, at a minimum, the
following:
(1) Warning labels.--Each portable generator sold to the
public for purposes other than resale shall have a large,
prominently displayed warning label on the exterior
packaging, if any, of the portable generator and permanently
affixed on the portable generator regarding the carbon
monoxide hazard posed by incorrect use of the portable
generator. The warning label shall include the word
``DANGER'' printed in a large font, and shall include the
following information, at a minimum, presented in a clear
manner:
(A) Indoor use of a portable generator can kill quickly.
(B) Portable generators should be used outdoors only and
away from garages and open windows.
(C) Portable generators produce carbon monoxide, a
poisonous gas that people cannot see or smell.
(2) Pictogram.--Each portable generator sold to the public
for purposes other than resale shall have a large pictogram,
affixed to the portable generator, which clearly states
``POISONOUS GAS'' and visually depicts the harmful effects of
breathing carbon monoxide.
(3) Instruction manual.--The instruction manual, if any,
that accompanies any portable generator sold to the public
for purposes other than resale shall include detailed, clear,
and conspicuous statements that include the following
elements:
(A) A warning that portable generators emit carbon
monoxide, a poisonous gas that can kill people.
(B) A warning that people cannot smell, see, or taste
carbon monoxide.
(C) An instruction to operate portable generators only
outdoors and away from windows, garages, and air intakes.
(D) An instruction to never operate portable generators
inside homes, garages, sheds, or other semi-enclosed spaces,
even if a person runs a fan or opens doors and windows.
(E) A warning that if a person begins to feel sick, dizzy,
or weak while using a portable generator, that person should
shut off the portable generator, get to fresh air
immediately, and consult a doctor.
______
By Mr. LAUTENBERG (for himself and Mr. Smith):
S. 2086. A bill to amend the Internal Revenue code of 1986 to modify
the definition of compensation for purposes of determining the limits
on contributions to individual retirement accounts and annuities, and
for other purposes; to the Committee on Finance.
Mr. LAUTENBERG. Mr. President, today I am joined by Senator Smith in
introducing the IRA Equity Act of 2005, which would allow the disabled
and those who temporarily leave the workforce to continue to save for
their retirement.
We should be encouraging responsible behavior. When those whose
income is slashed because they become disabled--or because they take
time off to care for a child, volunteer for a good cause, or go to
school--want to continue to save for retirement, that is commendable,
it is responsible, and we ought to do everything we can to make it
easier.
Yet today, people who are injured and have their income replaced by
workers' compensation or Social Security disability suddenly are no
longer able to contribute to their IRAs. That's
[[Page 27978]]
because under current law, income contributed to IRAs must be
``compensation,'' or earned through work. Under the current rules,
disability income doesn't qualify.
We know that those who become disabled will still need to support
themselves in their old age; we know that they may even need to spend
more because of their disability; and we know that because of their
disability, they have less earning power and that makes it harder to
save. So why in the world would we further penalize them for being
disabled by taking away one of the most effective savings tools they
have? It just doesn't make any sense.
My legislation would fix this problem by allowing wage replacement
income, including Social Security disability and workers' compensation,
to be contributed to IRAs. Additionally, my legislation would permit
those who take up to two years away from the workforce to contribute
earnings from prior years to their IRAs so that they can continue to
save. Federal law should not force people to break good savings habits.
In the name of fairness and retirement security, I urge my colleagues
to support this common-sense legislation.
______
By Mr. CHAMBLISS:
S. 2087. A bill to amend the Immigration and Nationality Act to
provide for the employment of foreign agricultural workers, and for
other purposes; to the Committee on the Judiciary.
Mr. CHAMBLISS. Mr. President, I rise to introduce the Agricultural
Employment and Workforce Protection Act. My home State of Georgia is
one of the most diversified agricultural producing States east of the
Mississippi. The livelihood of many of my constituents and many
Americans across the country depends on the quality of the crop, the
bounty of the harvest, and the health of the livestock.
In drafting this legislation I am introducing today, I was guided by
four principles:
1. Prevention--if we do not stem the tide of illegal immigrants
coming into our country then there is no point in Congress attempting
to have a positive impact on our immigration policy. Strict enforcement
of our immigration laws is essential and we should demand no less.
2. Protection--the United States has always been a welcoming country
to immigrants, and many non-immigrants are admitted for temporary
periods to perform necessary jobs--particularly in the field of
agriculture--that employers cannot fill. However, any temporary worker
program must provide adequate protections for American jobs. Employers
should not view alien workers as a way to get cheaper labor--it is not
fair to Americans willing to work hard and looking for a well-paying
job and it is not fair to the aliens who are exploited by working for
sub-standard wages.
3. Accountability--if Congress, through reform legislation, provides
employers with an avenue to obtain legal temporary workers, there
should be no tolerance for employers who hire illegal aliens. We all
know that many illegal immigrants come to the United States seeking
employment. Employers who flaunt the rule of law by hiring illegally
are hampering our efforts to secure the border by providing incentives
for people to illegally come to the United States, and they must be
held accountable.
4. Compassion--We are a Nation of immigrants and immigrants have made
many wonderful contributions to our country--not the least of which is
helping ensure there is a stable supply of food in the grocery stores
for all Americans. We need to ensure that those workers who come to the
United States on a temporary basis to perform agricultural work are not
exploited and are treated with fairness and respect. The best way to
show compassion for illegal immigrants is to stop illegal immigration.
I know the Senate is planning to take up debate on comprehensive
immigration reform early next year, and I think it is important that we
engage in this discussion. The purpose of my legislation is to ensure
that reform for the agricultural community is included in whatever
reforms Congress considers. The agricultural sector of our economy has
been historically plagued by illegal immigration. We already have an
avenue for agricultural employers to obtain legal temporary workers--
the H-2A program. However, many agricultural employers do not use the
program because its bureaucracy is difficult to navigate, it is costly,
and it is litigious. In addition, it excludes certain occupations from
agriculture. My legislation provides needed reforms to the H-2A
program, provides for the creation of a temporary blue card program,
establishes an H-2AA worker program for cross-border commuter workers,
and, above all, provides for increased border security.
First, it mandates that the Department of Homeland Security establish
and present to Congress a comprehensive plan for increased border
security and stricter enforcement of our Nation's immigration laws,
including detailed strategies, timelines, and estimated costs. Until
such time the Secretary presents and Congress approves the plan, some
interim measures would apply.
Second, the legislation streamlines and modernizes the H-2A program.
H-2A is not a new guestworker program. It has been around for many
years, but underutilized because of its high costs, red tape, and risks
of drawn out litigation. To increase the use of the program, the bill
expands the definition of ``agriculture'' to include industries that
have been excluded from use of the program previously--industries such
as poultry, seafood, and meat processors, landscapers, and
reforestation contractors. The bill also bases the definition
``temporary'' on the duration a worker is allowed to be in the United
States rather than tying it to seasonality. Some agricultural
occupations, like poultry producers and dairy producers, do not follow
seasons but require workers year round. If these employers in
occupations previously excluded from the H-2A program were offered a
viable alternative to an illegal workforce, I have no doubt they would
seize it.
Third, my legislation creates a cross-border commuter worker program,
called the H-2AA program. This program is modeled after the H-2A
program, but recognizes that many farms located close to the Canadian
and Mexican borders seek to employ workers who prefer to live in their
home countries and simply come to the U.S. each day. The H-2AA program
exempts farmers who employ these H-2AA workers from the housing and
transportation requirements of the H-2A program, and requires those who
use it to enter and exit the United States each day. It allows these
agricultural operations to attract workers who live close to the
borders but do not desire to move to the United States.
Finally, my legislation establishes a blue card program. This is a
temporary program that provides for the transition of employees who are
currently here in an undocumented status filling needed jobs. To
qualify for a blue card, aliens must have worked at least 1600 hours in
agriculture in 2005, have never been convicted or a felony or a
misdemeanor in the United States, and must have a petition filed on
their behalf by their employer. Only after a background check is
conducted by the Department of Homeland Security would these blue card
workers be allowed to work in the United States for a period of 24
months before they must return to their home country. The blue card
allows employers who are currently utilizing an illegal workforce to
transition their workforce into a legal one by having their employees
leave the country and return on the legal H-2A temporary worker program
without experiencing a complete work stoppage. There is no amnesty with
the blue card program--all workers must return to their home country.
The underlying premise of any guestworker program and explicitly
provided for in my proposed legislation is that United States employers
should not be allowed to utilize a guestworker program unless and until
they have actively recruited American workers and are unable to find
enough to fill needed jobs. We don't want to stifle American
[[Page 27979]]
businesses but more importantly we don't want to disadvantage American
workers.
I hope my colleagues will join me in supporting practical needed
reforms for the agricultural community and I look forward to the time
early next year in which this vital issue will be debated here in the
United States Senate.
______
By Mr. ALLARD (for himself and Mr. Enzi):
S. 2088. A bill to assist low-income families, displaced from their
residences in the States of Alabama, Louisiana, and Mississippi as a
result of Hurricane Katrina, by establishing within the Department of
Housing and Urban Development a homesteading initiative that offers
displaced low-income families the opportunity to purchase a home owned
by the Federal Government, and for other purposes; to the Committee on
Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs.
Mr. ALLARD. Mr. President, I rise to introduce the Hurricane Katrina
Recovery Homesteading Act of 2005. Modeled on the United States' 19th
century homesteading initiatives and similar urban programs in the
1970s, this legislation will help us begin to rebuild the Gulf Coast
areas destroyed by the hurricane and flooding, providing a fresh start
for families victimized by this tragedy.
The new urban homesteading proposal will serve several purposes.
First, it is an initial step towards rebuilding and revitalizing the
hurricane ravaged Gulf Coast. While we have spent recent months
appropriately focusing on rescue and clean up, we must now examine the
long term need to rebuild and revitalize.
Second, the new urban homestead initiative will be one way to begin
to address the housing needs of those displaced by Hurricane Katrina.
But I want to make it clear that this program is not being introduced
as the sole answer to all of the housing problems faced by hurricane
victims. Getting all of those individuals back on their feet will
require multiple efforts on a significant scale. This is one component
of a comprehensive response to the housing needs of the Gulf Coast
region. I believe the initiative is a very good start.
Third, the Hurricane Katrina Recovery Homesteading Act is a
productive way of dealing with government owned properties. Through the
Federal Housing Administration (FHA), Veterans' Administration (VA),
and other programs, the Federal Government holds title to thousands of
properties in the Gulf Coast region. Vacant government owned properties
have the potential to be a blight on their neighborhoods, diminishing
property values and acting as a magnet for crime and vandalism.
Following Hurricane Katrina, vacant properties can also present health
and safety dangers. Unless the properties are rebuilt and have families
living in them, they will likely be a significant drag on the efforts
to rebuild the region. The homesteading initiative will address the
health and safety concerns and further the revitalization effort while
putting the property to productive use.
I would like to briefly describe how the initiative will work. I am
pleased that it is based on a Federal-local partnership, as well as a
partnership between government, non-profits, and the private-sector.
HUD will identify potential government owned property for transfer
without cost to units of local government. The local government would
establish an equitable procedure for selecting low income families
affected by the hurricane for participation. HUD and the local
government would work with partners, such as Habitat for Humanity,
mortgage lenders, and others, to help the new urban homesteaders find
resources to construct their new homes.
Participating families must agree to occupy the property for five
years as their principal residence, to bring the property up to health
and safety codes within one year, and to build a house to applicable
code standards within three years. They must also agree to periodic
compliance inspections. In exchange, the family would receive title to
the property.
I would like to thank President Bush, Department of Housing and Urban
Development Secretary Alphonso Jackson, and House sponsor
Representative Jindal for working with me on this effort. I look
forward to continuing to work with them, long with the rest of my
colleagues, to enact the Hurricane Katrina Recovery Homesteading Act of
2005.
______
By Mr. BAUCUS:
S. 2092. A bill to amend the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 to
authorize review by the Joint Committee on Tax of Federal income tax
returns of United States Supreme Court nominees, and for other
purposes; to the Committee on Finance.
Mr. BAUCUS. The Greek philosopher Plato warned, ``where there is an
income tax, the just man will pay more, and the unjust man will pay
less on the same amount of income.'' This phrase is telling.
The way people fill out their tax returns is an important window into
their private ethical conduct. And it is a good barometer of their
integrity, character, and suitability for office. Paying one's fair
share of the tax burden is one of an American's most important
patriotic duties. Americans from all walks of life pay their taxes out
of obligation and fidelity to their country. Isn't it fair to know
whether individuals who have been nominated for lifetime positions to
the highest court in the land have faithfully paid their taxes?
The legislation that I introduce today, The Supreme Court Tax
Accountability Act of 2005, would require that nominees to the Supreme
Court--including Judge Samuel Alito--provide 3 years of tax returns for
an independent review to ensure compliance with the law. Specifically,
the legislation would require the nonpartisan Joint Committee on
Taxation to review a Supreme Court nominee's returns and report on the
nominee's tax compliance to the Judiciary and Finance Committees. The
bill does not extend the power to inspect tax returns to any persons
who do not currently have such authority. And the bill ensures that
private taxpayer information is not shared unscrupulously. Certainly,
these returns would not be released to the public.
This approach has precedent. Thirty years ago, Supreme Court Justice
William O. Douglas retired from the bench. Within days, President Ford
nominated John Paul Stevens for the vacancy. The President hoped that
the nomination of a moderate who had been given the American Bar
Association's highest rating would help restore confidence in
government in the wake of the Watergate scandals. As the confirmation
hearings drew near, six members of the Senate Judiciary Committee wrote
Chairman Eastland requesting ``the most thorough practicable
investigation of the nominee.'' The Senators' letter requested full
disclosure of Stevens' personal health and finances, including a
complete and thorough review of his Federal and state tax returns.
Stevens promptly complied.
When the full Senate took up the nomination, Chairman Eastland urged
the confirmation of Stevens saying, ``his personal integrity, as
reflected in his financial statements and income tax returns, is of the
highest order.'' The Senate confirmed Stevens by a vote of 98 to 0 and
he took the oath of office 2 days later at the age of 55.
Washington is now under a similar ethical cloud. But the White House
has resisted my efforts to have the Joint Committee on Taxation review
the tax returns of Chief Justice John Roberts, Ms. Harriet Miers, and
Judge Samuel Alito. The administration's decision to put its Supreme
Court nominees' tax returns off limits is consistent with its penchant
for secrecy.
Its refusal to heed this most basic document request, however, is a
barrier to the rigorous due diligence process required for prospective
Government officials that come before the Senate Committee on Finance.
All nominees, from Cabinet secretaries to Tax Court judges, have their
tax returns scrutinized. On more than one occasion, the Finance
Committee has admonished the administration for failing to do a
[[Page 27980]]
better job of determining a candidate's compliance with the tax laws.
In some cases, tax issues have contributed to the withdrawal of
nominees who were before the Senate.
Despite these warnings and withdrawals, the administration still
doesn't do a particularly good job of catching nominees' tax problems.
Therefore, it is vital to the constitutional process of advice and
consent for the Senate to have the information necessary to ensure
fitness to serve. The Senate must not rely on the executive branch to
provide oversight.
Finally, I am introducing this bill today to apply to all nominees--
those nominated by Democratic Presidents and Republican Presidents.
Careful oversight of nominees to the highest Court in the land should
not be a partisan issue. It was Ronald Reagan who famously said,
``trust, but verify.'' This bill aims to embody President Reagan's
maxim. Trust in government is an issue that Republicans, Democrats, and
Independents value.
The noted Supreme Court justice Louis Brandeis said that ``secrecy
necessarily breeds suspicion.'' The American people have a right to
know that public officials--particularly those appointed for life--have
faithfully and fully paid their taxes. Blocking Congressional access to
Supreme Court nominees' returns creates questions that can breed public
distrust in government. Providing access to those returns can help to
provide the transparency and trust Americans deserve in the Supreme
Court nomination process. I look forward to working with my colleagues
to get this bill enacted.
______
By Mr. BIDEN:
S. 2095. A bill to ensure payment of United States assessments for
United Nations peacekeeping operations in 2005 and 2006; to the
Committee on Foreign Relations.
Mr. BIDEN. Mr. President, today I introduce legislation to ensure
that the United States does create new arrears at the United Nations.
At a time when our Government is seeking important reforms at the
United Nations, it would be a mistake for us to fall short on our dues
at the U.N. But unless Congress acts promptly, that is what we are
about to do.
Here's why.
In 1994, Congress passed a law limiting U.S. payments for U.N.
peacekeeping at 25 percent after 1995. At the time, the United States
was assessed by the U.N. at a rate of about 31 percent for
peacekeeping. Thus, the United States incurred arrears because of the
25 percent limitation--that is, the gap between the 25 percent and 31
percent.
In 1999, Congress approved the Helms-Biden law. It authorized the
repayment of U.S. arrears to the U.N. conditioned on certain reforms in
the U.N. system. One of those reforms was a negotiated reduction in the
United Nations of the U.S. peacekeeping rate down to 25 percent.
Through negotiations in 2000, U.S. Ambassador Holbrooke succeeded in
reducing the U.S. assessments for peacekeeping to just over 27 percent.
In 2001, Congress amended the Helms-Biden law to allow the arrears
payments to be provided to the U.N. at the higher rate--27 percent--
that Ambassador Holbrooke negotiated. But the original 1994 law
limiting our payments to 25 percent was never repealed.
In the past few years, Congress has amended the 1994 law on a
temporary basis by raising the 25 percent limitation to conform it to
the rate negotiated by Ambassador Holbrooke. That temporary change in
law lasted through fiscal year 2005. But it has now expired.
Therefore, the law today is this: the United States may not pay more
than 25 percent for peacekeeping--even though the United Nations
assesses the United States at the rate of roughly 27 percent. In the
coming weeks, we are scheduled to pay a bill of about $344 million that
has come due since October 1. Under U.S. law, we will only be able to
pay about $319 million, leaving a shortfall of about $25 million. At a
time when our diplomats are in the final stages of negotiating
important reforms in the U.N. system, it would be a mistake
unilaterally to withhold payments to the U.N. Rather than encourage
reform, it may cause an adverse reaction by other nation and undermine
our reform agenda.
Earlier this year, the Bush administration recognized this coming
train wreck. On March 1, the Department of State transmitted to
Congress its official request for the Foreign Relations Authorization
Act for fiscal year 2006 and 2007. Section 401 of that legislation
would amend current law and raise the limitation on U.S. payments to
27.1 percent through calendar year 2007. The summary of the request
said as follows: ``Without further relief, the U.N. peacekeeping cap
would revert to 25% and the United States would go into arrears. The
proposed section would . . . enable the United States to pay U.N.
assessments at the rate assessed by the U.N. up to a rate of 27.1% . .
. [t]his would allow the United States to pay its peacekeeping
assessment in full, including funding for a new peace support operation
in Sudan . . .''
Since then, however, the administration has done little to secure
enactment of this provision. On December 1, 2005, the Secretary of
State requested by letter to the chairman of the Committee on
Appropriations several ``critical legislative proposals that are of a
time sensitive nature and warrant enactment prior to the Congress'
adjournment in mid-October.'' The request contains four provisions but
does not include the provision required to assure full payment of U.N.
peacekeeping assessments.
Mr. President, I realize that the Congress has a lot on its agenda in
the final days of the first session. But we have a responsibility to
ensure payment of our obligations to the United Nations--and to ensure
that we do not undermine the negotiations on U.N. reform now underway.
____________________
AUTHORITIES FOR COMMITTEES TO MEET
Committee on Armed Services
Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the
Committee on Armed Services be authorized to meet during the session of
the Senate on December 13, 2005, at 10:15 a.m., in executive session,
to consider the nomination of J. Dorrance Smith to be Assistant
Secretary of Defense for Public Affairs.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation
Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the
Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation be authorized to
meet on Tuesday, December 13, 2005, at 10:30 a.m., on the nominations
of Deborah Taylor Tate and Michael Joseph Copps to be Federal
Communications Commissioners.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
____________________
PRIVILEGE OF THE FLOOR
Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, I have a unanimous consent request,
which I would like to make for Senator Baucus, that the following
fellows and interns be granted floor privileges during the duration of
the debate on this measure, Jonathan Coleman, Andreas Datsopoulos, and
Holly Luck.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
____________________
UNANIMOUS-CONSENT AGREEMENT--S. 1932
Mr. FRIST. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that on Wednesday,
following morning business, the Chair lay before the Senate a message
from the House to accompany S. 1932, the deficit reduction bill. I
further ask consent that the Senate disagree to the amendment of the
House, request a conference with the House, and that the Chair be
authorized to appoint conferees on the part of the Senate with the
ratio of 11 to 9; provided further that before the Chair appoints
conferees, the following motions to instruct be the only motions in
order and that they be considered under the following limitations:
Kennedy, higher education, 60 minutes equally divided;
[[Page 27981]]
Baucus, Medicaid, 5 minutes equally divided; DeWine, trade, 60 minutes
equally divided; Kohl, child support enforcement, 60 minutes equally
divided; Carper, TANF, 5 minutes equally divided; Harkin, food stamps,
5 minutes equally divided; and Reed, LIHEAP, 60 minutes equally
divided.
I further ask consent that no amendments be in order to the motions
and the only debate in order under the statute other than debate on the
motions be 30 minutes equally divided for general debate, divided
between the chairman and ranking member; further, that all motions be
debated on Tuesday and Wednesday and that the vote occur in relation to
the motions in the stacked sequence at a time determined by the
majority leader after consultation with the Democratic leader; finally,
that any votes which do not occur prior to 1 p.m. on Wednesday be
stacked to occur beginning at 3:30 on Thursday, December 15.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
____________________
UNITED STATES-BAHRAIN FREE TRADE AGREEMENT IMPLEMENTATION ACT
Mr. FRIST. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate
proceed to the immediate consideration of H.R. 4340, the Bahrain Free
Trade Agreement. I ask unanimous consent that all time be yielded back.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
The clerk will report the bill by title.
The legislative clerk read as follows:
A bill (H.R. 4340) to implement the United States-Bahrain
Free Trade Agreement.
There being no objection, the Senate proceed to consider the bill.
Mr. FRIST. Mr. President, the Bahrain free-trade agreement is a very
important agreement that reflects in this post-9/11 environment the
recommendation that had been made in terms of facilitating trade to
nations such as Bahrain. I am delighted we were able to both debate it
earlier today and ultimately pass this important free-trade agreement.
Mr. REID. Mr. President, I reluctantly oppose the legislation
implementing the U.S.-Bahrain Free Trade Agreement. I have nothing
against expanded trade with Bahrain, and I know that there is plenty in
this FTA that is appealing to the U.S. business community. However,
this agreement is another example of the misplaced priorities in the
Bush administration's flawed trade policy, which can best be described
as a policy of ``fiddling while Rome is burning.''
If you were to ask Americans to list their top trade priorities, I
think they would suggest the following: dealing with the enormous trade
deficit, on pace to exceed $700 billion this year; addressing the rise
of China; meeting the challenges of outsourcing and globalization;
enforcing our existing agreements and rules for fair trade; and perhaps
global negotiations in the World Trade Organization. A trade agreement
with Bahrain would be nowhere near the top of the list; it probably
would not even be on the list at all.
Yet, here we are, with the Bahrain FTA as the big trade item to close
out the year. The U.S. has a trade deficit with China that is on pace
to exceed $200 billion this year--more than a quarter of the entire
U.S. trade deficit. Last year, China passed the U.S. as the largest
exporter of high-tech information technology and communications
products. There is no doubt that the rise of China presents an
extraordinary challenge to the United States. Yet, the Bush
administration has essentially no policy dealing with China's currency
manipulation and the accompanying U.S. indebtedness to the government
of China, rampant piracy of U.S. intellectual property, WTO violations,
forced technology transfer requirements, and industrial policy in areas
critical to the U.S. like semiconductors and automobiles.
Instead, we have the Bahrain FTA, which involves .03 percent of total
U.S. trade.
The Bush administration has proposed no policies in the face of
outsourcing and the revolution of globalization to ensure that America
keeps good-paying jobs and remains the most competitive economy in the
world. They basically say, ``Don't Worry, Be Happy.''
Instead, the U.S. uses the scarce resources of the U.S. Trade
Representative to negotiate an FTA with Bahrain, which has an economy
one-tenth-of-one percent the size of the U.S. economy.
When it comes to enforcing our current agreements, the Bush
administration has been asleep at the wheel. While the Clinton
administration brought on average 11 WTO cases per year to knock down
foreign barriers to U.S. exports, the Bush administration has filed
fewer than three cases per year.
Instead, they have focused their energies on negotiating an FTA which
is so small that the independent ITC has stated, ``the effect of the
FTA on total U.S. exports is likely to be minimal.''
Meanwhile, the WTO negotiations have delayed and floundered. Ironic
may not be the right word, but it is a fitting testament to this
administration's skewed priorities that Senators are stuck in
Washington debating the Bahrain FTA this week, and so were not able to
travel to Hong Kong to provide oversight on the WTO negotiations--which
could have an impact thousands of times larger than a trade agreement
with Bahrain.
Looking at the merits of the Bahrain FTA in isolation, let me note
that I applaud the Government of Bahrain. It has been a good U.S. ally
and is an important moderate Arab and Islamic country. I wish the
people of Bahrain well and hope that the U.S. and Bahrain will continue
to enjoy good relations, including trading relations. I also note that
there are many good provisions in this agreement to ensure protection
for U.S. intellectual property rights, to prevent expropriations of
U.S. investments, to reduce barriers to U.S. exports, and to expand the
access of U.S. service providers to Bahrain's market.
It is regrettable, though, that the Bush administration followed its
flawed model in this FTA. In short, the interests of the business
community are taken care of, but the interests of the average American
are not. I certainly understand that many of the businesses that care
about these FTAs make important contributions to the U.S. economy and
are a critical source of employment, exports, and innovation. I value
those contributions and think for the most part the chapters and
provisions of the FTA important to the U.S. business community make
sense. What I do have a problem with, however, is the fact that our
trade agreements provide short shrift to areas of interest to human
beings, including workers' rights and environmental protection.
When it comes to transparency in government regulation,
telecommunications regulation, financial services regulation, other
services regulation, and e-commerce, we include provisions that force
our trading partners to change their laws. When it comes to protection
for intellectual property rights, our trade agreements have provisions
that force our trading partners to adopt some of the highest levels of
IP protection in the world. In each case, if a country violates the
rules in the FTA, it is subject to trade sanctions.
Yet, when it comes to respect for the most basic, internationally-
recognized worker rights and respect for the environment, our trade
agreements say, ``You don't need to change your laws, just enforce
whatever you have.'' If our trading partners violate even this weak
rule, then they pay a fine; and the fine gets turned around and given
right back to them. Somehow, trade sanctions imposed to vindicate the
interests of business are just ``tough enforcement,'' but trade
sanctions for worker rights or the environment are ``protectionism.''
Worse, our FTAs would allow a country to weaken its laws related to
workers' rights and the environment, and the United States would have
absolutely no effective recourse. If Bahrain turns around and allows
child labor, or turns around and prohibits its guest workers in export
industries from joining unions, then the best the U.S. can
[[Page 27982]]
do is seek consultations with Bahrain. This is a step back from what
the Clinton administration negotiated, which would have allowed the
U.S. to pursue full dispute settlement on all of the labor provisions
in the FTA. It is also a step back from existing U.S. trade preferences
programs, which allow the U.S. to impose sanctions on countries that
are not adequately protecting basic workers rights.
What is it about worker rights and environmental protection that
warrants this disparate treatment? The same people who argue that these
provisions do not belong in trade agreements bemoan U.S. labor
standards and environmental rules, arguing that they hurt U.S.
competitiveness and add to our trade deficit. It is absurd and
dishonest to say on the one hand that these rules affect competition,
and then on the other that they do not belong in an agreement that is
designed to set the terms of competition.
I want to take a moment to acknowledge the good work done by
Democrats in the other chamber, who pushed and pushed and got Bahrain
to agree to make important reforms to its labor laws to bring them into
conformity with internationally-recognized standards. And, to its
credit, USTR agreed to monitor Bahrain's implementation and enforcement
of these changes as part of the FTA. I applaud the efforts of these
congressmen. Their hard work on this and other FTAs should shame anyone
who has tried to discredit their cause by calling it protectionist or
xenophobic. I regret that I will not be joining them in support of this
agreement, however. The bottom line is that this agreement does not
contain binding, enforceable rules that treat respect for workers'
rights and the environment on the same footing as respect for corporate
interests, so I will oppose it.
Separately, I want to address Bahrain's boycott against Israel. For
decades now, the United States has had a policy to oppose the Arab
League boycott against Israel. There is an entire office in the
Department of Commerce tasked with implementing this anti-boycott
policy. Congress has also directed USTR to ``vigorously oppose'' WTO
admission for countries that engage in the boycott. In my view, it is
an implicit corollary of this latter rule that the U.S. should not
enter into bilateral trade agreements with countries that participate
in the boycott.
Bahrain continues to participate in the boycott, however. To its
credit, Bahrain has terminated participation in the secondary and
tertiary aspects of the boycott. And, Bahrain has stated in a letter to
USTR that ``the Kingdom of Bahrain recognizes the need to dismantle the
primary boycott of Israel and is beginning efforts to achieve that
goal.'' That said, it is worth noting that even the primary boycott can
hurt U.S. producers. The primary boycott prohibits imports with Israeli
content. So, U.S. companies that use Israeli inputs could be barred
from exporting a mostly U.S.-made product to Bahrain.
USTR and supporters of this agreement argue that the quoted statement
constitutes a binding commitment by Bahrain to eliminate the primary
boycott. I hope they are correct, but I am not so sure. First, the
lower house of Bahrain's parliament--the only democratically elected
body in Bahrain's national government--recently voted resoundingly to
keep the boycott in place. Second, it is not as clear as I would like
that the statement at issue has the character of a legal obligation
rather than a statement of unilateral intent. While I hope that Bahrain
has officially committed itself to eliminating the primary boycott
against Israel once and for all, there is certainly no way for the U.S.
to bring an enforcement action against Bahrain if it fails to do so.
I think the antiboycott policy we have had in place for decades now
is the correct one. We should not be entering into trade agreements--
whether bilaterally or through the WTO--with countries that enforce the
boycott against Israel--primary, secondary or tertiary. It is
disturbing to me that the Bush administration has been quietly moving
away from this policy--here in the FTA today, as well as in its support
for Saudi Arabia's WTO accession this week.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The question is on the third reading and
passage of the bill.
The bill (H.R. 4340) was ordered to a third reading, was read the
third time, and passed.
Mr. FRIST. I ask unanimous consent that the motion to reconsider be
laid upon the table, and I move to lay that motion on the table.
The motion to lay on the table was agreed to.
____________________
EXECUTIVE CALENDAR
______
NOMINATIONS DISCHARGED
Mr. FRIST. As in executive session, I ask unanimous consent that the
Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation be discharged from
further consideration of the following nominations and that they be
placed on the calendar: Michael Copps, PN 1051; Deborah Tate, PN 1052.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
____________________
AMENDING THE MORRIS K. UDALL SCHOLARSHIP AND EXCELLENCE IN NATIONAL
ENVIRONMENTAL AND NATIVE AMERICAN PUBLIC POLICY ACT OF 1992
Mr. FRIST. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate
proceed to the immediate consideration of S. 2093, introduced earlier
today.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will report the bill by title.
The legislative clerk read as follows:
A bill (S. 2093) to amend the Morris K. Udall Scholarship
and Excellence in National Environmental and Native American
Public Policy Act of 1992 to provide funds for training in
tribal leadership, management, and policy, and for other
purposes.
There being no objection, the Senate proceeded to consider the bill.
Mr. McCAIN. Mr. President, today I have introduced the Native Nations
Leadership, Management, and Policy Act of 2005, originally introduced
as a component of the Native American Omnibus Act of 2005. I am pleased
to be joined by the vice chairman of the Senate Indian Affairs
Committee, Byron Dorgan, on this bill.
The Native Nations Leadership, Management, and Policy Act authorizes
funding for leadership training, strategic and organizational
development, and research and policy analysis to assist American Indian
nations to achieve effective self-governance and sustainable economic
development. This provision renews authorized funding for the Native
Nations Institute programs for a period of 10 years, beginning in
fiscal year 2007. Dedicated funding for NNI is necessary to ensure the
continuation of these important programs without further draining funds
from the Udall Foundation's other educational activities.
Mr. President, I look forward to working with my respective
colleagues on both sides of the aisle to enact this legislation.
Mr. FRIST. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the bill be
read a third time and passed, the motion to reconsider be laid upon the
table, and that any statements relating to the bill be printed in the
Record.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
The bill (S. 2093) was read the third time and passed, as follows:
S. 2093
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of
the United States of America in Congress assembled,
SECTION 1. NATIVE NATIONS LEADERSHIP, MANAGEMENT, AND POLICY.
(a) Findings.--Congress finds that--
(1) the policy of the United States favors self-
determination for Indian tribes;
(2) consistent with the policy described in paragraph (1),
Indian tribes are increasingly taking control of the affairs
of the tribes in order to realize in practice most of the
status afforded the tribes in treaties, court decisions, and
legislation;
(3) as a result of the increasing control of the tribes,
tribes require enhanced leadership preparation and greater
access to information relating to research and analysis of
successful models for tribal government and business
operations, similar to the information regularly available to
Federal, State, and local government agencies;
[[Page 27983]]
(4) enabling Indian tribes to develop strong leadership and
governing policy is consistent with Federal policy supporting
tribal self-determination and increases the likelihood that
tribal governments will achieve political and economic self-
determination; and
(5) during the last 5 years, the Morris K. Udall
Scholarship and Excellence in National Environmental Policy
Foundation, in cooperation with the Native Nations Institute
at the University of Arizona, pursuant to section 6(7) of the
Morris K. Udall Scholarship and Excellence in National
Environmental and Native American Public Policy Act of 1992
(20 U.S.C. 5604(7)), has provided to Indian tribes the
leadership and management training, policy analysis, and
research of the quality and type required to assist Indian
tribes to achieve self-determination.
(b) Definitions.--Section 4 of the Morris K. Udall
Scholarship and Excellence in National Environmental and
Native American Public Policy Act of 1992 (20 U.S.C. 5602) is
amended--
(1) by redesignating paragraphs (6) through (9) as
paragraphs (7) through (10), respectively; and
(2) by inserting after paragraph (5) the following:
``(6) the terms `Indian tribe' and `tribe' have the meaning
given the term `Indian tribe' in section 4 of the Indian
Self-Determination and Education Assistance Act (25 U.S.C.
450b);''.
(c) Authorization of Appropriations.--Section 13 of the
Morris K. Udall Scholarship and Excellence in National
Environmental and Native American Public Policy Act of 1992
(20 U.S.C. 5609) is amended by striking subsection (c) and
inserting the following:
``(c) Training in Tribal Leadership, Management, and
Policy.--
``(1) In general.--There is authorized to be appropriated
to carry out section 6(7)--
``(A) $2,500,000 for the period of fiscal years 2007 and
2008;
``(B) $4,000,000 for the period of fiscal years 2009 and
2010; and
``(C) $13,500,000 for the period of fiscal years 2011
through 2016.
``(2) Limitations.--An appropriation made pursuant to this
subsection shall not be subject to section 7(c).''.
____________________
REAUTHORIZING CERTAIN PROVISIONS RELATING TO INDIAN TRIBAL JUSTICE
SYSTEMS
Mr. FRIST. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate
proceed to the immediate consideration of S. 2094, introduced earlier
today.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will report the bill by title.
The legislative clerk read as follows:
A bill (S. 2094) to reauthorize certain provisions relating
to Indian tribal justice systems.
There being no objection, the Senate proceeded to consider the bill.
Mr. McCAIN. Mr. President, today I have introduced the Indian Tribal
Justice Systems Act of 2005, originally introduced as a component of
the Native American Omnibus Act of 2005. I am pleased to be joined by
the vice chairman of the Senate Indian Affairs Committee, Byron Dorgan,
on this bill.
The Indian tribal justice systems amendments extends the
authorization for the Indian Tribal Justice Technical and Legal
Assistance Act through fiscal year 2010, and extends the Indian Tribal
Justice Act for 3 more years.
Mr. President, I look forward to working with my respective
colleagues on both sides of the aisle to enact this legislation.
Mr. FRIST. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the bill be
read a third time and passed, the motion to reconsider be laid upon the
table, and that any statements relating to the bill be printed in the
Record.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
The bill (S. 2094) was read the third time and passed, as follows:
S. 2094
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of
the United States of America in Congress assembled,
SECTION 1. INDIAN TRIBAL JUSTICE.
(a) Indian Tribal Justice Technical and Legal Assistance.--
The Indian Tribal Justice Technical and Legal Assistance Act
of 2000 is amended--
(1) in section 106 (25 U.S.C. 3666), by striking ``for
fiscal years 2000 through 2004'' and inserting ``for fiscal
years 2004 through 2010''; and
(2) in section 201(d) (25 U.S.C. 3681(d)), by striking
``for fiscal years 2000 through 2004'' and inserting ``for
fiscal years 2004 through 2010''.
(b) Indian Tribal Justice Systems.--Section 201 of the
Indian Tribal Justice Act (25 U.S.C. 3621) is amended by
striking ``2007'' each place it appears and inserting
``2010''.
____________________
NATIONAL TEEN DATING VIOLENCE AWARENESS AND PREVENTION WEEK
Mr. FRIST. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Judiciary
Committee be discharged from further consideration of and the Senate
now proceed to S. Res. 275.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered. The clerk
will report the resolution by title.
The legislative clerk read as follows:
A resolution (S. Res. 275) designating the week of February
6, 2006 as ``National Teen Dating Violence Awareness and
Prevention Week.''
There being no objection, the Senate proceeded to consider the
resolution.
Mr. FRIST. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the resolution
be agreed to, the preamble be agreed to, and the motion to reconsider
be laid upon the table.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
The resolution (S. Res. 275) was agreed to.
The preamble was agreed to.
The resolution, with its preamble, reads as follows:
S. Res. 275
Whereas 1 in 3 female high school students reports being
physically abused or sexually abused by a dating partner;
Whereas over 40 percent of male and female high school
students surveyed had been victims of dating violence at
least once;
Whereas violent relationships in adolescence can have
serious ramifications for victims, who are at higher risk for
substance abuse, eating disorders, risky sexual behavior,
suicide, and adult re-victimization;
Whereas the severity of violence among intimate partners
has been shown to increase if the pattern was established in
adolescence;
Whereas 81 percent of parents surveyed either believed
dating violence is not a problem or admitted they did not
know it is a problem; and
Whereas the establishment of a ``National Teen Dating
Violence Awareness and Prevention Week'' will benefit
schools, communities, and families regardless of socio-
economic status, race, or gender: Now, therefore, be it
Resolved, That the Senate--
(1) designates the week of February 6, 2006 as ``National
Teen Dating Violence Awareness and Prevention Week''; and
(2) calls on the people of the United States, especially
high schools, law enforcement, local, and State officials,
and interested groups to observe the week with appropriate
activities that promote awareness and prevention of the crime
of teen dating violence in our communities.
____________________
MEASURES PLACED ON THE CALENDAR--H.R. 4096, H.R. 4388, AND H.R. 4440
Mr. FRIST. Mr. President, I understand there are three bills at the
desk due for a second reading.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will read the bills for the second
time.
The legislative clerk read as follows:
A bill (H.R. 4096) to amend the Internal Revenue Code of
1986 to extend to 2006 the alternative minimum tax relief
available in 2005 and to index such relief for inflation.
A bill (H.R. 4388) to amend the Internal Revenue Code of
1986 to extend certain expiring provisions, and for other
purposes.
A bill (H.R. 4440) to amend the Internal Revenue Code of
1986 to provide tax benefits for the Gulf Opportunity Zone
and certain areas affected by Hurricanes Rita and Wilma, and
for other purposes.
Mr. FRIST. In order to place the bills on the calendar under the
provisions of rule XIV, I object to further proceedings en bloc.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Objection is heard. The bills will be placed
on the calendar.
____________________
ORDERS FOR WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 14, 2005
Mr. FRIST. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that when the
Senate completes its business today, it stand in adjournment until 9:45
a.m. on Wednesday, December 14. I further ask that following the prayer
and pledge, the morning hour be deemed expired, the Journal of
proceedings be approved to date, the time for the two leaders be
reserved, and the Senate then proceed to a period of morning business
for up to 30 minutes, with the first 15 minutes under the control of
the majority leader or his designee and the final 15 minutes under the
control of the Democratic leader or his designee; further,
[[Page 27984]]
that the Senate then proceed to the consideration of motions to
instruct conferees with respect to the deficit reduction bill as under
the previous order.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
____________________
PROGRAM
Mr. FRIST. Mr. President, under the time agreement that we just
entered into this evening, we have a number of motions to instruct
conferees with respect to the deficit reduction bill that we will
debate and vote on over the next 2 days. We will vote on three of those
motions--the Baucus motion on Medicaid, the Carper TANF motion, and the
Harkin food stamp motion--during tomorrow's session. These votes will
start somewhere between 11:45 and noon. We will finish the remaining
motions to instruct on Thursday.
Over the course of this week, we will be very busy, as I pointed out
earlier this morning. We will begin voting around midday tomorrow, and
in all likelihood we will be voting Thursday afternoon as well. We will
be stacking votes Thursday afternoon. We will be voting on Friday and
may well go into this weekend if we are unable to finish our business
by late Friday. That means possibly Saturday and then maybe into next
week. We have a whole slew of bills that we need to address, that we
have been doing and will be doing over the next several days.
Tomorrow I will have more to say about the schedule.
____________________
IRAQ ELECTIONS
Mr. FRIST. Mr. President, elections are currently underway in Iraq.
It is very exciting. The election formally in Iraq itself will be
Thursday, although in the United States those Iraqi citizens are
voting. They are actually voting in Tennessee at one of those distant,
remote locations, remote from Iraq.
That is a powerful statement to the progress made in Iraq over the
last 2\1/2\ years, that this is the third election in the last year. At
the first election in January, about 8.5 million turned out; at the
next election in mid-October, over 10 million people turned out; at the
third election, we will have to wait and see, but it looks as though
there will be record numbers of individuals voting in Iraq.
Two-and-a-half years ago, we had a country that had no representative
government whatsoever and had a tyrant, Saddam Hussein, oppressing the
people there. This morning, several of us had the opportunity to talk,
by teleconferencing, with our Ambassador in Iraq, as well as General
Casey. They did review with us a number of the real advances that have
been made. When you look at issues such as Iraqis who are currently
participating, they cited several statistics. In August 2004, there
were five Iraqi army battalions actually in the fight. There are
currently 97 Iraqi battalions in the fight. In July 2004, there were no
ready operational divisional headquarters. Today there are at least 7
operational divisional headquarters and 31 operational brigade
headquarters.
There has been huge progress over the last year, year and a half. In
November 2004, there were about 110,000 fully trained and equipped
Iraqi security forces. Today there are almost double that, a year
later, 214,000 trained and equipped security forces.
Does all of this make a difference? One of the fascinating statistics
cited and brought to my attention was compared to last year, or at some
point last year, how many tips were being provided by the Iraqi people.
In many ways it reflects the confidence the Iraqi people have in law
enforcement and security. In March, there were just under 500 tips to
the Iraqi Armed Forces. In September 2005, there were 4,700 tips by
Iraqi citizens to Iraqi and coalition forces. Therefore, information is
flowing much more freely, which reflects, I believe, the confidence the
Iraqis have in their security forces. One tip resulted in the
disruption of an IED factory and the capture of 4,000 pounds of
explosives and about a dozen 500-pound bombs. That shows the importance
of the improved security by the Iraqi people and what it allows to
flow, in terms of information.
Mr. President, 75,000 Iraqi policemen are patrolling Iraqi cities,
and another 5,700 are in training. I think we are seeing real progress
there. There is much progress to make, but the progress being made
currently, as we speak, and will be made over the next several days is
truly exciting in terms of an operational, permanent government being
formed. Lastly, as I mentioned earlier, it won't be until actually
April that the new government is in place. The elections are occurring
now. Certification takes place in December, and the final is in early
January. From that point, the government takes root. So the government
itself won't be formed until April of next year.
____________________
ADJOURNMENT UNTIL 9:45 A.M. TOMORROW
Mr. FRIST. Mr. President, if there is no further business to come
before the Senate, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate stand in
adjournment under the previous order.
There being no objection, the Senate, at 6:21 p.m., adjourned until
Wednesday, December 14, 2005, at 9:45 a.m.
____________________
NOMINATIONS
Executive nominations received by the Senate December 13, 2005:
Department of Defense
MICHAEL L. DOMINGUEZ, OF VIRGINIA, TO BE DEPUTY UNDER
SECRETARY OF DEFENSE FOR PERSONNEL AND READINESS, VICE
CHARLES S. ABELL, RESIGNED.
Department of Energy
RAYMOND L. ORBACH, OF CALIFORNIA, TO BE UNDER SECRETARY FOR
SCIENCE, DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY. (NEW POSITION)
Department of State
GARY A. GRAPPO, OF VIRGINIA, A CAREER MEMBER OF THE SENIOR
FOREIGN SERVICE, CLASS OF COUNSELOR, TO BE AMBASSADOR
EXTRAORDINARY AND PLENIPOTENTIARY OF THE UNITED STATES OF
AMERICA TO THE SULTANATE OF OMAN.
BRADFORD R. HIGGINS, OF CONNECTICUT, TO BE AN ASSISTANT
SECRETARY OF STATE (RESOURCE MANAGEMENT), VICE CHRISTOPHER
BANCROFT BURNHAM.
BRADFORD R. HIGGINS, OF CONNECTICUT, TO BE CHIEF FINANCIAL
OFFICER, DEPARTMENT OF STATE, VICE CHRISTOPHER BANCROFT
BURNHAM, RESIGNED.
Department of Education
MICHELL C. CLARK, OF VIRGINIA, TO BE ASSISTANT SECRETARY
FOR MANAGEMENT, DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION, VICE WILLIAM
LEIDINGER.
Institute of Museum Services
ANNE-IMELDA RADICE, OF VERMONT, TO BE DIRECTOR OF THE
INSTITUTE OF MUSEUM SERVICES, VICE ROBERT S. MARTIN.
In the Air Force
THE FOLLOWING NAMED OFFICER FOR APPOINTMENT IN THE UNITED
STATES AIR FORCE TO THE GRADE INDICATED WHILE ASSIGNED TO A
POSITION OF IMPORTANCE AND RESPONSIBILITY UNDER TITLE 10,
U.S.C., SECTION 601:
To be lieutenant general
MAJ. GEN. RONALD F. SAMS, 0000
THE FOLLOWING NAMED OFFICERS FOR APPOINTMENT IN THE RESERVE
OF THE AIR FORCE TO THE GRADE INDICATED UNDER TITLE 10,
U.S.C., SECTION 12203:
To be major general
BRIGADIER GENERAL DAVID L. FROSTMAN, 0000
BRIGADIER GENERAL JAMES W. GRAVES, 0000
BRIGADIER GENERAL LINDA S. HEMMINGER, 0000
BRIGADIER GENERAL JOHN M. HOWLETT, 0000
BRIGADIER GENERAL HAROLD L. MITCHELL, 0000
BRIGADIER GENERAL HANFERD J. MOEN, JR., 0000
BRIGADIER GENERAL WILLIAM M. RAJCZAK, 0000
BRIGADIER GENERAL DAVID N. SENTY, 0000
BRIGADIER GENERAL ERIKA C. STEUTERMAN, 0000
To be brigadier general
COLONEL JOHN M. ALLEN, 0000
COLONEL ROBERT E. BAILEY, JR., 0000
COLONEL ERIC W. CRABTREE, 0000
COLONEL DEAN J. DESPINOY, 0000
COLONEL WALLACE W. FARRIS, JR., 0000
COLONEL JOHN C. FOBIAN, 0000
COLONEL THOMAS W. HARTMANN, 0000
COLONEL JAMES R. HOGUE, 0000
COLONEL MARK A. KYLE, 0000
COLONEL CAROL A. LEE, 0000
COLONEL JON R. SHASTEEN, 0000
COLONEL ROBERT O. TARTER, 0000
Colonel Howard N. Thompson, 0000
COLONEL CHRISTINE M. TURNER, 0000
COLONEL PAUL M. VAN SICKLE, 0000
In the Army
THE FOLLOWING NAMED OFFICERS FOR APPOINTMENT IN THE UNITED
STATES ARMY TO THE GRADE INDICATED UNDER TITLE 10, U.S.C.,
SECTION 624:
To be major general
BRIGADIER GENERAL MICHAEL D. BARBERO, 0000
BRIGADIER GENERAL SALVATORE F. CAMBRIA, 0000
BRIGADIER GENERAL JOHN M. CUSTER III, 0000
BRIGADIER GENERAL RICHARD P. FORMICA, 0000
BRIGADIER GENERAL DAVID P. FRIDOVICH, 0000
BRIGADIER GENERAL KATHLEEN M. GAINEY, 0000
BRIGADIER GENERAL WILLIAM T. GRISOLI, 0000
BRIGADIER GENERAL CARTER F. HAM, 0000
BRIGADIER GENERAL JEFFERY W. HAMMOND, 0000
BRIGADIER GENERAL FRANK G. HELMICK, 0000
BRIGADIER GENERAL PAUL S. IZZO, 0000
BRIGADIER GENERAL FRANCIS H. KEARNEY III, 0000
BRIGADIER GENERAL STEPHEN R. LAYFIELD, 0000
BRIGADIER GENERAL ROBERT P. LENNOX, 0000
BRIGADIER GENERAL WILLIAM H. MCCOY, JR., 0000
BRIGADIER GENERAL TIMOTHY P. MCHALE, 0000
BRIGADIER GENERAL JOHN W. MORGAN, 0000
BRIGADIER GENERAL MICHAEL L. OATES, 0000
BRIGADIER GENERAL ROBERT M. RADIN, 0000
BRIGADIER GENERAL CURTIS M. SCAPARROTTI, 0000
In the Marine Corps
THE FOLLOWING NAMED OFFICER FOR APPOINTMENT IN THE UNITED
STATES MARINE CORPS RESERVE TO THE GRADE INDICATED UNDER
TITLE 10 U.S.C., SECTION 12203:
To be major general
BRIG. GEN. JAMES L. WILLIAMS, 0000
[[Page 27985]]
In the Army
THE FOLLOWING NAMED OFFICERS FOR APPOINTMENT TO THE GRADE
INDICATED IN THE RESERVE OF THE ARMY UNDER TITLE 10, U.S.C.,
SECTION 12203:
To be colonel
DEIBY ACEVEDO, 0000
DARLENE H. ADAMS, 0000
TRAVIS L. ADCOCK, 0000
TOMMY H. S. AFLAGUE, 0000
MARK T. AHLES, 0000
ERIC D. AHLNESS, 0000
STEVEN W. AINSWORTH, 0000
JAMES G. ALLISON, 0000
HECTOR F. ALVARADO, 0000
DONALD G. AMBURN, 0000
DANIEL R. AMMERMAN, 0000
HAROLD G. ANDERSON, 0000
SCOTT V. ANDERSON, 0000
ADOLFO AQUINO, 0000
TERAN L. ARMSTRONG, 0000
MARK C. ARNOLD, 0000
TODD W. ARNOLD, 0000
MATTHEW J. ARTERO, 0000
JOSE R. ATENCIO III, 0000
DENISE A. ATKINS, 0000
JULIE M. AUGERI, 0000
CARL C. AUGUSTUS, 0000
JOHN J. AULBACH II, 0000
CHRISTOPHER C. BACHMAN, 0000
HENDERSON BAKER II, 0000
CLAIRE E. BANDY, 0000
JOSEPH A. BANICH, 0000
CRAIG A. BARGFREDE, 0000
LELAND E. BARKER, 0000
STEPHANIE A. BARNA, 0000
RICHARD C. BARR, JR., 0000
LINDA A. BEARD, 0000
RICHARD A. BEDARD, 0000
VAEVA R. BEEBEMOCILAC, 0000
MATTHEW P. BEEVERS, 0000
DAVID R. BELCHER, 0000
WALTER BENARD, 0000
JAMES G. BERENZ, 0000
THOMAS S. BERG, 0000
ERIC BERMUDEZ, 0000
DAVID M. BESSHO, 0000
SAMUEL R. BETHEL, 0000
FAREED M. BETROS, 0000
NIKOLA T. BILANDZICH, 0000
JOHN E. BILBURY III, 0000
MARTIN B. BISCHOFF, 0000
IVAN N. BLACK, 0000
DARYL W. BLOHM, 0000
CORRINA M. BOGGESS, 0000
GARY D. BOMSKE, 0000
JEFFERY O. BONNER, 0000
STEPHEN T. BOONE, 0000
RALPH J. BORKOWSKI, 0000
PETER A. BOSSE, 0000
JANSON D. BOYLES, 0000
MARK D. BRACKNEY, 0000
KENNETH C. BRADDOCK, 0000
R. CHRISTION BREWER, 0000
FREDERICK J. BRITTON, 0000
JEFFERY R. BROUGHTON, 0000
TIMOTHY L. BROWN, 0000
JANICE E. BRUNO, 0000
TODD E. BURCH, 0000
THRESA BURNES, 0000
MARIANNE O. BURTNETT, 0000
JEFFERSON S. BURTON, 0000
JOHN A. BYRD, 0000
SHANNON P. CALAHAN, 0000
MICHAEL F. CALCATERRA, 0000
SHERRI P. CALHOUN, 0000
GLENN S. CAMPBELL, 0000
STEVEN J. CAMPFIELD, 0000
ALVIN CANNON, 0000
ROBERT I. CANON, 0000
THOMAS V. CANTWELL, 0000
CHRISTOPHER F. CARNEY, 0000
GERALD N. CAROZZA, JR., 0000
DANIAL C. CASMIRO, 0000
GRAHAM A. CASTILLO, 0000
LARRY D. CERNY, 0000
MARY CHAN, 0000
JOHN G. CHAPMAN, 0000
DOUGLAS T. CHARNEY, 0000
AMOS M. CHASE, 0000
RONALD G. CHEW, 0000
LOUIS A. CHIARELLA, 0000
LAURA J. CHICHESTER, 0000
SHAH A. CHOUDHURY, 0000
MICHAEL CHYTERBOK, 0000
PAUL V. CIMINELLI, 0000
ARTHUR L. CLARK, 0000
RICHARD A. CLARK, JR., 0000
TIMOTHY J. CLARK, 0000
DIANNA L. CLEVEN, 0000
RICHARD D. COLE, 0000
TIMOTHY R. COLLINS, 0000
CLARENCE COMBS III, 0000
JOHN W. CONLEY, 0000
ROBERT CONLEY III, 0000
MICHAEL A. CONNELL, 0000
MICHAEL R. CONSIDINE, 0000
RANDALL J. CORDEIRO, 0000
PETER L. COREY, 0000
MARK W. CORSON, 0000
LISA COSTANZA, 0000
ANTHONY G. COTTLES, 0000
NORMAN L. COTTON, 0000
ALBERT L. COX, 0000
JOSEPH L. CRAMER, 0000
MATTHEW E. CROKE, 0000
MARY T. CROTEAU, 0000
THOMAS A. CROWDER, 0000
PETER C. CUSOLITO, 0000
ELIZABETH M. DAMONTE, 0000
ANTHONY B. DANIELL, 0000
JODY J. DANIELS, 0000
DARRYL W. DAUGHERTY, JR., 0000
GARY L. DAVID, 0000
JOSE R. DAVIS, 0000
RICHARD W. DEAN II, 0000
LORETTA A. DEANER, 0000
ARLAN M. DEBLIECK, 0000
ROBERT F. DEL CAMPO, 0000
LUIS A. DELGADO, 0000
DAVID J. DEMPS, 0000
WILLIAM A. DENT, 0000
JOHN T. DEWEY, 0000
CLAYTON DIEDRICHS, 0000
MARC V. DINGER, 0000
BARBARA J. DOUGLAS, 0000
CHRIS R. DOWNEY, 0000
LAWRENCE C. DOYLE, 0000
LAWRENCE E. DRAPER, 0000
STUART K. DRIESBACH, 0000
RANDY L. DUCOTE, 0000
RALPH W. DUDDING, 0000
MICHAEL K. DUNN, 0000
TIMOTHY G. DUNN, 0000
DANIEL A. DUPONT, 0000
RON D. DUPREE, 0000
LEE K. DURHAM, 0000
CINDY DWYER, 0000
ALBERT P. EDWARDS, 0000
JOHN C. EDWARDS, 0000
JAMES S. EICHER, 0000
JOHN J. ELAM, 0000
FREDERIC C. ELBERT, 0000
ISOLINA ESPOSITO, 0000
CRAIG A. ESSICK, 0000
HENRY R. EVANS, 0000
THOMAS P. EVANS, 0000
PAUL W. FARROW, 0000
JOHN W. FELLEISEN, 0000
FRANK S. FERACO, 0000
FERNANDO FERNANDEZ, 0000
JUAN FERNANDEZ, 0000
STEVEN FERRARI, 0000
ROBERT A. FINK, 0000
DAVID L. FRANCAVILLA, 0000
FLOYD V. FREEMAN III, 0000
JAMES R. FREES, 0000
JONATHAN H. FRY, 0000
TIMOTHY J. FUCIK, 0000
GEOFFREY M. GARRISON, 0000
MICHAEL J. GARSHAK, 0000
JAMES D. GATES, 0000
SCOTT F. GEDLING, 0000
CHRIS R. GENTRY, 0000
JAMES A. GEORGES, 0000
KEVIN S. GERDES, 0000
JOHN T. GERESKI, JR., 0000
PATRICK C. GIBSON, 0000
CHERYL A. GILLIGAN, 0000
ROBERT J. GINGRAS, 0000
JOSE M. GIROT, 0000
KYLE E. GOERKE, 0000
JOSEPH A. GOETZ, JR., 0000
DOUGLAS P. GORGONI, 0000
JAMES E. GOWEN, 0000
ANTHONY S. GRAY, 0000
SHEILA M. GREEN, 0000
RALPH H. GROOVER III, 0000
MELINDA C. GROW, 0000
EDWARD B. GUNDERSEN, 0000
ANGELITO L. GUTIERREZ, 0000
FERNANDO GUTIERREZ, 0000
BRUCE E. HACKETT, 0000
DEBORAH T. HAFFEY, 0000
NORMAN H. HAHN, JR., 0000
TIMOTHY A. HAIGHT, 0000
THOMAS C. HAMILTON, 0000
JOHN A. HAMMOND, 0000
ROBERT A. HAMMONS, 0000
SCOTT S. HARABURDA, 0000
KURT A. HARDIN, 0000
JOHN C. HARRIS, JR., 0000
THOMAS W. HARRIS, 0000
DANIEL E. HARTMAN, 0000
SCOTT B. HAYNES, 0000
KEVIN C. HEGARTY, 0000
FERNANDO L. HENDERSON, 0000
SAMUEL L. HENRY, 0000
JOSEPH P. HEUER III, 0000
WILLIAM E. HICKMAN, 0000
JAMES H. HIGGINBOTHAM, 0000
MICHAEL J. HIGGINS, 0000
JAY R. HILDEBRAND, 0000
DAVID M. HILDRETH, JR., 0000
RONALD L. HILL, 0000
THAD W. HILL, 0000
TIMOTHY E. HILL, 0000
TIMOTHY J. HILTY, 0000
DONNA E. HINTON, 0000
BARBARA J. HIRST, 0000
GEORGE S. HLUCK, 0000
MICHAEL J. HOLLAND, 0000
DAVID D. HOLLANDS, 0000
JAY J. HOOPER, 0000
DARLENE G. HOPKINS, 0000
JUANITA I. HOPKINS, 0000
HARDEN P. HOPPER III, 0000
TIMOTHY F. HORAN, 0000
RICHARD A. HOWLEY, 0000
MICHAEL G. HOXIE, 0000
MICHAEL J. HUDDLESTON, 0000
BERNARD J. HYLAND, 0000
JANICE G. IGOU, 0000
ARTHUR F. INGRAM III, 0000
CEDRIC R. JASMIN, 0000
BRUCE A. JENSEN, 0000
GARRETT P. JENSEN, 0000
ARTHUR S. JEPSKY, 0000
JEFFREY J. JEROME, 0000
JANICE M. JOHNSON, 0000
ROBERT C. JONES, 0000
STEPHEN E. JOYCE, 0000
KERRY C. KACHEJIAN, 0000
ROBERT A. KARMAZIN, 0000
ROBERT J. KAUFMAN, 0000
WILLIAM M. KEHRER, 0000
JOHN F. KELLY, 0000
GERALD W. KETCHUM, 0000
ERIC F. KETTENRING, 0000
GARY A. KHALIL, 0000
THEODORE C. KIENTZ, 0000
RICHARD A. KILBURN, 0000
CURTIS L. KING, 0000
MICHAEL R. KITTS, 0000
KEITH A. KLEMMER, 0000
MICHAELENE A. KLOSTER, 0000
EMMETT M. KLUMP, 0000
DENNIS L. KNAPPEN, 0000
LEE F. KNIGHT, 0000
GLENN A. KOLIN, 0000
MICHAEL J. KOMICHAK, 0000
RICHARD A. KOSKI, 0000
MICHAEL E. KOZLIK, 0000
JOSEPH M. KRAKOWIAK, 0000
JEFFREY P. KRAMER, 0000
RICHARD W. KUCKSDORF, 0000
DOUGLAS C. LADD, 0000
TIMOTHY L. LAKE, 0000
JEFF C. LAMB, 0000
CHRISTOPHER M. LAMOUREUX, 0000
LOUIS J. LANDRETH, 0000
JAMES B. LASCHE, 0000
GARY B. LEAMON, 0000
STUART L. LEEDS, 0000
KIM R. LEFTWICH, 0000
KRISTOPHER A. LEMASTER, 0000
JAMES C. LETTKO, 0000
JAMES C. LEWIS, 0000
KENNETH R. LEWIS, 0000
LYNN F. LODWICK, 0000
PHILIP J. LOGAN, 0000
NEAL G. LOIDOLT, 0000
JANET W. LONG, 0000
HECTOR LOPEZ, 0000
KERMIT F. LOWERY, 0000
CHERYL A. LUDWA, 0000
STEPHEN G. LUKOSKIE, 0000
MICHAEL R. LYNCH, 0000
THOMAS J. LYNCH, 0000
DAVID W. MADDEN, 0000
GREGORY S. MAIDA, 0000
ANTHONY G. MAJOR, 0000
KEVIN G. MANGAN, 0000
MICHAEL A. MANN, 0000
WINSTON E. MANN, 0000
BRIAN D. MARKWELL, 0000
KEITH H. MARTIN, 0000
TED S. MARTINELL, 0000
DAVID MARTINEZ, 0000
ROBERT L. MASSIE, 0000
DONLL A. MCBRIDE, 0000
FRANCIS D. MCCABE, JR., 0000
GEORGE R. MCCAHAN III, 0000
DAVID W. MCDONALD, 0000
RICHARD D. MCINTYRE, 0000
MARK T. MCQUEEN, 0000
LAWRENCE W. MEDER, 0000
RICARDO A. MENENDEZ, 0000
PAUL A. MERRITT, 0000
DAWN L. MICHAUD, 0000
DWIGHT V. MICKELSON, 0000
DEREK N. MILLER, 0000
TIM MILLER, JR., 0000
JAMES P. MONAGLE, 0000
GLEN E. MOORE, 0000
JOHN P. MOORE, 0000
ROBERT A. MOORE, 0000
JAMES A. MORALES, 0000
JAMES P. MORAN, 0000
JOHN P. MORAN, 0000
JOSEPH F. MORAVEC IV, 0000
EDWARD R. MORGAN, 0000
JAMES J. MOUNTAIN, 0000
MICHAEL S. MOUSSEAU, 0000
JAMES G. MURPHY, 0000
SANDRA D. MURRAY, 0000
THOMAS T. MURRAY, 0000
VALERIE J. MYLES, 0000
PAUL P. NAIDOO, 0000
ALAN B. NEIDERMEYER, 0000
MARK E. NEUSE, 0000
JOHN C. NEWCOMER, 0000
KENNETH G. NIELSEN, 0000
BARBARA A. NUISMER, 0000
DAVID M. OAKS, 0000
[[Page 27986]]
BRIAN E. OCONNOR, 0000
JANE K. OCONNOR, 0000
CRAIG D. ODEKIRK, 0000
PAUL V. OETTINGER, 0000
PATRICIA L. OKEEFE, 0000
JARED W. OLSEN, 0000
GARY D. OLSON, 0000
ROBERT A. OLSON, 0000
JAMES G. ONEIL, 0000
CLINTON R. ONEILL III, 0000
MARVIN A. OWINGS, JR., 0000
CHARLES W. PALMER, 0000
MARC S. PAQUIN, 0000
MATTHEW W. PARSONS, 0000
EDWIN D. PAYNE, 0000
SAM M. PEARSON, JR., 0000
RAPHAEL G. PEART, 0000
HARRY E. PECOTTE, 0000
DAVID A. PEEK, 0000
MILTON PEREZ, 0000
JAMES E. PERRY, JR., 0000
THOMAS E. PERRY, 0000
CARL E. PFEIFFER, 0000
JEFFREY W. PFLUG, 0000
ALAN M. PHANEUF, 0000
RICHARD L. PHILLIPS, 0000
ROBERT A. PIAZZA, 0000
PATTON K. PICKENS, 0000
FRANCISCO A. PIETRI, 0000
LILLIAN C. PITTS, 0000
JOHN C. PLUMLEY, 0000
THOMAS B. PLUNKETT, 0000
WESTLEY J. POLENDER, 0000
ALLEN R. PONSINI, 0000
JAMES H. POWELL, 0000
KENNETH W. POWELL, 0000
MONTY C. POWERS, JR., 0000
JOSEPH A. PRICE, 0000
WOODROW S. RADCLIFFE, 0000
SYLVIA M. RAFELS, 0000
MATTHEW A. RANEY, 0000
KENNETH W. RATHJE, JR., 0000
GEORGE F. REASOR, JR., 0000
BRAD D. REID, 0000
PATRICK A. REILY, 0000
DONALD A. RENNER II, 0000
JAMES R. RICE, 0000
BART A. RIGG, 0000
BIENVENIDO RIVERA, 0000
RICHARD T. ROBERTS, 0000
KEVIN P. ROBINSON, 0000
PAUL E. ROEGE, 0000
GORDON A. ROGNRUD, 0000
WILFREDO ROSARIO, 0000
ROBERT W. ROSHELL, 0000
JAMES W. ROSS, JR., 0000
JEANNE M. ROWAN, 0000
DAVID W. ROWLAND, 0000
ARLEN R. ROYALTY, 0000
GLORIA A. RUDOLPH, 0000
JAMES W. RUNYON, 0000
DAVID P. RURUP, 0000
JAMES A. RUTH, 0000
SEAN RYAN, 0000
DANIEL T. SAILER, 0000
REBECCA C. SAMSON, 0000
CRAIG R. SANDERS, 0000
DAVID W. SANDERS, 0000
STEPHEN W. SANDERS, 0000
ANDREW P. SCHAFER, JR., 0000
LORIN E. SCHELL, 0000
CLAUDE I. SCHMID, 0000
GARY T. SCHMITT, 0000
MARK B. SCHMITZ, 0000
MARK K. SCHMITZ, 0000
WILLIAM J. SCHOCK, 0000
THOMAS G. SCHOLTES, 0000
LAWRENCE M. SCHORR, 0000
EMMETT C. SCHUSTER, 0000
MICHAEL D. SCHWARTZ, 0000
GLENN G. SCHWEITZER, 0000
ARTHUR L. SCOTT, 0000
STEVEN T. SCOTT, 0000
SHAUN A. SCULLY, 0000
LEVONDA J. SELPH, 0000
DENNIS R. SEWELL, 0000
DAVID R. SHAW, 0000
STEVE SHELTON, 0000
DAVID P. SHERIDAN, 0000
JONATHAN L. SHIELDS, 0000
SCOTT E. SHORT, 0000
JOSEPH L. SIEBER, 0000
JULES D. SILBERBERG, 0000
SCOTT C. SIMMONS, 0000
EDDIE L. SINGLETON, 0000
GEOFFREY SLACK, 0000
LAWRENCE J. SLAVICEK, 0000
PATRICK J. SLOWEY, 0000
DAVID O. SMITH, 0000
DONALD E. SMITH II, 0000
HOPPER T. SMITH, 0000
JAMES T. SMITH, JR., 0000
PAUL G. SMITH, 0000
RICHARD S. SMITH, 0000
WILLIAM L. SMITH, 0000
LEWIS R. SNYDER, 0000
WILLIAM M. SNYDER, 0000
ALAN K. SOLDAN, 0000
DIRK D. SPANTON, 0000
RICHARD E. SPEIRS, 0000
STEPHEN E. SPELMAN, 0000
DAVID W. SPENCE, 0000
ROBERT D. SPESSERT, 0000
WENDY C. SPRIGGS, 0000
GLEN C. STAGNITTA, 0000
ROY Q. STATON, 0000
JAMES E. STEVENS, JR., 0000
FRANK A. STEWART, 0000
JOHN STEWART, JR., 0000
ALAN L. STOLTE, 0000
MICHAEL A. STONE, 0000
ANTHONY W. STRATTON, 0000
JOHN D. STRICKLAND III, 0000
SEAN P. SULLIVAN, 0000
TIMOTHY J. SULLIVAN, 0000
TIMOTHY J. SWANN, 0000
LEE E. TAFANELLI, 0000
VICTOR A. TALL, 0000
ROBERT E. TEBERG, 0000
STEPHEN F. TELLATIN, 0000
DOUGLAS J. TELLESON, 0000
PATRICK J. TENNIS, 0000
JACQUES D. THIBODEAUX, 0000
ARTURO T. THIELESARDINA, 0000
SCOTT L. THOELE, 0000
CHARLES M. THOMAS, 0000
LORETTA S. THOMAS, 0000
JAMES W. THOMPSON, 0000
BOBBY C. THORNTON, 0000
JOHN W. TILFORD, 0000
JAMES M. TOBIN, 0000
JOHN C. TOBIN, 0000
NEIL H. TOLLEY, 0000
MITCHELL E. TORYANSKI, 0000
STANLEY E. TOY, 0000
JAMES E. TRAFTON, 0000
LARRY D. TURNER, 0000
RONDAL L. TURNER, 0000
MICHAEL D. VANCE, 0000
STEVEN VANDERHOOF, 0000
KIRK E. VANPELT, 0000
RANDALL K. VANROOSENDAAL, 0000
MICHAEL A. VASILE, 0000
JOHN L. VAVRIN, 0000
ROBERT R. VESSELIZA, JR., 0000
KARL A. VOIGT, 0000
RICK B. WAHLEN, 0000
JOHN W. WALERSKI, 0000
JOHN E. WALSH, 0000
KENNETH F. WALTER, 0000
ROBERT P. WALTERS, 0000
TIMOTHY L. WALTERS, 0000
ROBERT R. WALTON, JR., 0000
MARK R. WARNECKE, 0000
NELSON B. WARTHAN, 0000
JAMES Z. WARTSKI, 0000
BARRY J. WASHINGTON, 0000
PAULINE E. WASHINGTON, 0000
TIMOTHY A. WATERS, 0000
DIANNE B. WATKINS, 0000
WALTER T. WEAVER, 0000
RICHARD D. WELCH, 0000
RUBEL D. WEST, 0000
DANA A. WHALEY, 0000
JAMES K. WHITE, JR., 0000
JOHN D. WHITE, 0000
MICHAEL T. WHITE, 0000
SCOTT J. WHITTEMORE, 0000
ANTHONY A. WICKHAM, 0000
BERND WILLAND, 0000
GREGORY K. WILLIAMS, 0000
JAMES T. WILLIAMS, 0000
JESSE J. WILLIAMS, 0000
JAMES M. WILLIAMSON, 0000
LARIE J. WILSON, 0000
ROBERT E. WINDHAM, JR., 0000
LISA M. WINDSOR, 0000
TEY C. WISEMAN, 0000
FREDERICK F. WOERNER, 0000
JOAL E. WOLF, 0000
JEROLD A. WOOD, 0000
PATTI D. WOODS, 0000
BART L. WOODWORTH, 0000
KAREN L. WRIGHT, 0000
KENNETH L. WRIGHT, 0000
DALLAS F. WURST III, 0000
WILLIAM A. ZAMMIT, 0000
MICHAEL R. ZERBONIA, 0000
DAVID R. ZYSK, 0000
THE FOLLOWING NAMED OFFICERS IN THE GRADES INDICATED IN THE
REGULAR ARMY UNDER TITLE 10, U.S.C., SECTION 531:
To be lieutenant colonel
HOLTORF R. ALONSO, 0000
JAMES A. BAILIE, 0000
KELLY N. CAMPBELL, 0000
BRYAN A. GROVES, 0000
MICHAEL D. HILLIARD, 0000
LADONNA M. HOLT, 0000
JEFFREY J. HUNT, 0000
TINA S. KRACKE, 0000
GEORGE A. LUMPKINS, 0000
ALBERT J. MCCARN, 0000
GEORGE F. MINDE, 0000
CAROL S. MOSSBAILEY, 0000
LARRY D. NAYLOR, 0000
FELIX ORTIZ, 0000
ROGER A. PRETSCH, 0000
RONALD A. RYNNE, 0000
EUGENE SAIN, 0000
GLENN G. SCHWEITZER, 0000
STEVEN A. STEBBINS, 0000
JOHN S. WEAVER, 0000
JOEL D. WEEKS, 0000
FREDERICK P. WELLMAN, 0000
MICHAEL L. WHETSTONE, 0000
DARRYL K. WOOLFOLK, 0000
To be major
CHRISTOPHER W. ABBOTT, 0000
ANTHONY L. ADAMS, 0000
JAMES H. ADAMS, 0000
LAWRENCE AGUILLARD, 0000
JAMES M. AHEARN, 0000
DAVID K. ALMQUIST, 0000
ROGER S. ALVAREZ, 0000
JEFFREY S. AMOS, 0000
BRENDEN C. ANDERSON, 0000
JOSEPH L. ANDERSON, 0000
MIGUEL A. APONTERODRIGUEZ, 0000
BRENDAN JOSEPH ARCURI, 0000
KRISTINE M. ARMSTRONG, 0000
ERIC S. ATHERTON, 0000
ANTONIO D. AUSTIN, 0000
MICHAEL A. BACHAND, 0000
BRIAN K. BAKER, 0000
JAY F. BALL, 0000
ROBERT S. BALLAGH, 0000
CHARLES H. BARBER, 0000
CHRISTOPHER M. BARNWELL, 0000
KYLE W. BAYLESS, 0000
BRADLEY E. BECHEN, 0000
BRIAN T. BECKNO, 0000
JOHN C. BELANGER, 0000
GARY M. BELCHER, 0000
PHILLIP D. BENEFIELD, 0000
ROBERT J. BERG, 0000
CEASAR P. BERGONIA, 0000
BARRETT M. BERNARD, 0000
DAVID D. BIGGINS, 0000
JONATHAN A. BLAKE, 0000
MEGAN A. BOGLEY, 0000
RONALD A. BONOMO, 0000
DON E. BOTTORFF, 0000
JEFFERY G. BOUMA, 0000
JENNIFER I. BOWER, 0000
ERIC L. BRADLEY, 0000
TANYA J. BRADSHER, 0000
CHARLES E. BRANSON, 0000
JASON T. BRIDGES, 0000
KAREN L. BRIGGMAN, 0000
BRIAN D. BRITTAIN, 0000
HARRY D. BROOKS, 0000
NICHOEL E. BROOKS, 0000
DARRYL B. BROWN, 0000
EDWARD F. BUCK, 0000
ROBERT A. BURGE, 0000
THOMAS E. BURKE, 0000
MATTHEW L. BURR, 0000
LINNIE W. CAIN, 0000
ROBERT A. CAIN, 0000
EARL D. CALEB, 0000
LUKE T. CALHOUN, 0000
CHAD A. CALVARESI, 0000
ROMAN J. CANTU, 0000
DOUGLAS J. CARBONE, 0000
THOMAS E. CARLSON, 0000
OWEN B. CASTLEMAIN, 0000
JOHN R. CAUDILL, 0000
STEVEN CELESTE, 0000
MICHAEL A. CHARLEBOIS, 0000
DARREN L. CHARTIER, 0000
TORRANCE D. CHISM, 0000
JOSEPH J. CIESLO, 0000
JORGE L. CINTRONOLIVIERI, 0000
JOSEPH D. CLARK, 0000
MICHAEL J. CLARKE, 0000
CLYDE S. COCHRANE, 0000
CHRISTOPHER H. COLAVITA, 0000
MALCOLM C. COLE, 0000
RAHHSHAHUN COLLEY, 0000
SCOT A. COLVER, 0000
JAMES M. COOK, 0000
ROBERT H. COOPER, 0000
MICHAEL R. CORBISIERO, 0000
SEAN M. COREY, 0000
DOUGLAS J. COTE, 0000
WILLIAM D. COTTY, 0000
KEVIN E. COUNTS, 0000
MARVA D. COURTNEY, 0000
ERICK C. CREWS, 0000
SIDNEY W. CREWS, 0000
MARY K. CRUSAN, 0000
MANUEL CRUZ, 0000
RICHARD E. CURETON, 0000
CHRISTOPHER S. CUTLER, 0000
WESLEY G. DABNEY, 0000
DEXTER C. DANIEL, 0000
DAVID J. DANIELS, 0000
DANIEL L. DAVIS, 0000
MICHAEL E. DAWSON, 0000
JEFFREY A. DECARLO, 0000
BRIAN N. DELAPLANE, 0000
ERIC M. DERYNIOSKI, 0000
DWAYNE A. DICKENS, 0000
MARCUS K. DICKINSON, 0000
BRADLEY S. DOMBY, 0000
THOMAS A. DORSEY, 0000
JOHN F. DOWNEY, 0000
JOSEPH W. EDSTROM, 0000
JOHN E. ELRICH, 0000
RYAN W. EMERSON, 0000
ROBERT E. ERIKSEN, 0000
BRIAN B. ETTRICH, 0000
[[Page 27987]]
BRAD J. EUNGARD, 0000
CHARLES A. FALLANG, 0000
JAMES A. FAULKNOR, 0000
RYAN J. FAYRWEATHER, 0000
JOHN A. FEJERANG, 0000
KEITH X. FENNELL, 0000
GEORGE G. FERIDO, 0000
JOHN M. FERRELL, 0000
ALFREDO E. FERRER, 0000
BARBARA R. FICK, 0000
KEVIN FIELD, 0000
GARY D. FITTS, 0000
WILLIAM G. FITZHUGH, 0000
AARON P. FITZSIMMONS, 0000
CHRIS A. FLAND, 0000
ERIC C. FLESCH, 0000
TOY G. FLORES, 0000
THOMAS M. FLOYD, 0000
ROLAND C. FORD, 0000
JONATHAN A. FOSKEY, 0000
MATTHEW J. FOX, 0000
BARRY J. FRANKS, 0000
PHILLIP A. FRERES, 0000
RICHARD C. FULGIUM, 0000
BLAISE L. GALLAHUE, 0000
JOSE L. GALVAN, 0000
JESUS GARCIA, 0000
JOSE A. GARCIAESMURRIA, 0000
HILTON B. GARDNER, 0000
TIMOTHY M. GARTEN, 0000
STEVEN M. GEORGE, 0000
JOSEPH B. GILION, 0000
STEPHEN M. GOLDMAN, 0000
ROBERTO GONZALEZPENA, 0000
KENNETH S. GOODPASTER, 0000
SARAH M. GOODSON, 0000
GIUSTI GOVEO, 0000
KATHERINE J. GRAEF, 0000
SCOTT D. GRANT, 0000
MAUREEN J. GREEN, 0000
GEOFFREY D. GREENE, 0000
CHRISTOPHER P. GRELL, 0000
JEFFREY C. GROSKOPF, 0000
JOSEPH W. GROSS, 0000
CRAIG S. GUTH, 0000
PETER J. HABIC, 0000
WALTER O. HADLEY, 0000
DEAN B. HAGADORN, 0000
MICHAEL A. HALES, 0000
RONALD HALEY, 0000
LAMONT J. HALL, 0000
RICHARD A. HALL, 0000
JASON M. HANCOCK, 0000
JERRY L. HARDING, 0000
AARON HARDY, 0000
GORDON D. HARRINGTON, 0000
SAMUEL HARVILL, 0000
KRISTEN A. HASSE, 0000
GARY M. HAUSMAN, 0000
GEORGE J. HAWVER, 0000
KENNETH G. HAYNES, 0000
TAMARA L. HEDBERG, 0000
AARON D. HEIMKE, 0000
ERIK L. HEINZ, 0000
PAUL A. HENLEY, 0000
BARTHOLOME J. HENNESSEY, 0000
LAWRENCE W. HENRY, 0000
PAUL A. HENRY, 0000
RENE G. HERNANDEZ, 0000
RUFINO HERRERA, 0000
PAUL E. HESLIN, 0000
ERIC L. HESTER, 0000
JEFFREY D. HICKS, 0000
JAMES HILLIAN, 0000
DANIEL R. HOCHSTATTER, 0000
EVERETT D. HOCKENBERRY, 0000
CHRISTOPHER W. HOFFMAN, 0000
JASON L. HOGE, 0000
GREGORY A. HOLIFIELD, 0000
LOREN A. HOLLINGER, 0000
KEVIN M. HOLTON, 0000
STEVEN T. HOPINGARDNER, 0000
STEVEN G. HOPPER, 0000
STEVEN T. HOWELL, 0000
EDWARD J. HUNTER, 0000
TERRY C. HYMAN, 0000
TIMOTHY M. IRISH, 0000
ALEXANDER ISAAC, 0000
JOSEPH G. IZAGUIRRE, 0000
SHANNON C. JACKSON, 0000
WILLIAM K. JAKOLA, 0000
JOHN A. JAMES, 0000
EDWIN B. JANKOWSKI, 0000
DEAN E. JANOSIK, 0000
THOMAS G. JAUQUET, 0000
DEVERICK M. JENKINS, 0000
DARREN K. JENNINGS, 0000
WYLIE A. JENSEN, 0000
THOMAS D. JESSEE, 0000
ANNETTE JOHNSON, 0000
BRION L. JOHNSON, 0000
ROBERT D. JOHNSON, 0000
RONNY A. JOHNSON, 0000
STEVEN M. JOHNSON, 0000
STEVEN R. JOHNSON, 0000
TERRANCE L. JOHNSON, 0000
THOMAS JOHNSON, 0000
WILLIAM N. JOHNSON, 0000
DESMOND C. JONES, 0000
BRENT M. JORGENSEN, 0000
ANDREW D. KAMINSKY, 0000
CLINT E. KARAMATH, 0000
STEPHEN L. KAVANAUGH, 0000
SEAN A. KEENAN, 0000
JIM R. KEENE, 0000
MICHAEL B. KELLEY, 0000
KEVIN KELLY, 0000
JEFFREY S. KEMP, 0000
IAN P. KENNEDY, 0000
WILLIAM KEPLEY, 0000
ROBERT F. KIERMAYR, 0000
DON KING, 0000
GARY W. KING, 0000
DANIEL K. KIRK, 0000
KENNETH KLOCK, 0000
KENNETH W. KNOWLES, 0000
PETER J. KOCH, 0000
KARLIS A. KRIEVINS, 0000
GARY C. KUCZYNSKI, 0000
CARL A. LAMAR, 0000
DAVID J. LAMBRECHT, 0000
JAY C. LAND, 0000
ANDREW M. LAWFIELD, 0000
STEPHEN W. LEDBETTER, 0000
ANGELA LEE, 0000
CEDRIC D. LEE, 0000
BRADEN G. LEMASTER, 0000
KEEGAN S. LEONARD, 0000
HERBERT E. LEPLATT, 0000
KENNETH W. LETCHER, 0000
PETER S. LEVOLA, 0000
ALAN T. LINDLEY, 0000
WALTER LLAMAS, 0000
JAMES L. LOCK, 0000
ARTHUR J. LONTOC, 0000
JOHN D. LOONEY, 0000
RALPH A. LOUNSBROUGH, 0000
KIRK A. LUEDEKE, 0000
ROBERT LUTZ, 0000
FREDDIE A. MACK, 0000
MATTHEW D. MacNEILLY, 7199
STEVEN MADDRY, 0000
MARIANNE MADRID, 0000
TOBIAS M. MAGAN, 0000
JOEL S. MAGSIG, 0000
LUCIO MALDONADO, 0000
DANIEL M. MALONEY, 0000
ROBERT P. MANN, 0000
GREGORY A. MANNS, 0000
VINCENT G. MARTINELLI, 0000
LILLIAM MARTINEZ, 0000
FRANK W. MAUDIE, 0000
JAMES A. MAXWELL, 0000
ROBERT J. McARDLE, 6398
KEVIN J. McAULIFFE, 5735
EDWARD W. McCARTHY, 2090
MICHAEL McCURRY, 8227
JESSE McFARLAND, 4382
MITCHELL J. McKINNEY, 8751
GLENN McNORIAL, 7457
JOSEPH W. MEANS, 0000
RICHARD L. MENHART, 0000
BRIAN M. MICHELSON, 0000
CHRISTOPHER W. MILLER, 0000
JAMES MILLER, 0000
RUSSELL S. MILLER, 0000
WILLIAM M. MIZELL, 0000
DAVID R. MIZELLE, 0000
DOUGLAS A. MOHLER, 0000
KAREN J. MONROE, 0000
THEO K. MOORE, 0000
VIRGINIA A. MOORE, 0000
SAMUEL W. MORGAN, 0000
SEAN P. MORIARTY, 0000
JAMES C. MOSES, 0000
JOSEPH M. MOUER, 0000
JAMES D. MULLINAX, 0000
ROBERT D. MURPHY, 0000
MICHELLE M. MURRAY, 0000
JAMES M. MYERS, 0000
RICKEY MYSKEY, 0000
JOSE NAPUTI, 0000
JEFFREY S. NELSON, 0000
KEITH L. NELSON, 0000
THOMAS M. NELSON, 0000
DANTE S. NETHERY, 0000
MARK T. NEUMANN, 0000
THONG H. NGUYEN, 0000
JEFFREY S. NIEMI, 0000
MICHAEL J. NIXON, 0000
SCOTT P. NOLAN, 0000
RYAN P. OCONNOR, 0000
HENRY OFECIAR, 0000
ROSS M. OHARAHULETT, 0000
MARGARET OHMS, 0000
CHARLES R. OQUINN, 0000
JOSEPH PALASTRA, 0000
JOHNATHAN T. PARCHEM, 0000
CARL L. PARSONS, 0000
KEVIN M. PAYNE, 0000
AUSTIN PEARSON, 0000
GARY PEARSON, 0000
GERRY A. PEPPMULLER, 0000
GARTH N. PEREZ, 0000
THOMAS C. PETTY, 0000
CHRISTOPHER J. PFLANZ, 0000
JIMMY M. PHILLIPS, 0000
SEAN M. PICCIANO, 0000
MICHAEL D. PIERCE, 0000
ALFONSO T. PLUMMER, 0000
DAWSON A. PLUMMER, 0000
JOHN P. POPPIE, 0000
PAUL POWELL, 0000
SHANE P. POWELL, 0000
BRIAN W. PREISS, 0000
KEITH T. PRITCHARD, 0000
ERIC S. PULS, 0000
JOHN QUINENE, 0000
ANTHONY U. QUINN, 0000
MICHAEL A. QUITANIA, 0000
KENNETH A. RAIFORD, 0000
CHARLES R. RAMBO, 0000
RICHARD RAMSEY, 0000
RICHARD A. RASSBACH, 0000
KEITH R. RAUTTER, 0000
CRAIG M. RAVENELL, 0000
ANDREW M. REARDON, 0000
DON REDD, 0000
ERIC M. REMOY, 0000
ERIK J. REYNOLDS, 0000
MICHAEL E. REZABEK, 0000
WILLIAM E. RIEPER, 0000
SCOTT W. RILEY, 0000
ROBERT A. RISDON, 0000
MICHAEL A. RITCHART, 0000
CARLOS A. RIVERA, 0000
JOSEPH F. ROACH, 0000
ANDREW P. ROBERTS, 0000
CURTIS V. ROBERTS, 0000
ZANDRA D. ROBINSON, 0000
CHRISTOPHER RODRIGUEZ, 0000
EARL ROE, 0000
PATRICK A. ROSE, 0000
ELBERT G. ROSS, 0000
CHARLES X. ROTE, 0000
ROBERT D. ROUSE, 0000
JAN L. RUESCHHOFF, 0000
SCOTT M. RUSH, 0000
MICHAEL J. RUTHERFORD, 0000
BRYAN W. RYDER, 0000
RAMIRO R. SALAZAR, 0000
STEVEN M. SALLOT, 0000
STEVEN R. SAMUELSON, 0000
FLORENTINO SANTANA, 0000
RICHARD D. SAVAGEAU, 0000
BRIAN R. SCHAAP, 0000
WILLIAM R. SCHAFFER, 0000
JEFFREY M. SCHROEDER, 0000
SHAWN C. SCHULDT, 0000
BRADLEY C. SCHUTZ, 0000
CARMELIA J. SCOTTSKILLERN, 0000
JERRY SCRIVEN, 0000
JEFFREY A. SHANER, 0000
JAMES SHARP, 0000
EULYS SHELL, 0000
AARON R. SHIELDS, 0000
SCOTT A. SHORE, 0000
THOMAS A. SHULTZ, 0000
DERRICK J. SINGLETON, 0000
JONATHAN B. SLATER, 0000
MORGAN SMILEY, 0000
ERIC T. SMITH, 0000
FELTON SMITH, 0000
GREGORY S. SMITH, 0000
MICHAEL J. SMITH, 0000
PATRICK M. SMITH, 0000
ROBERT SMITH, 0000
SAMUEL D. SMITH, 0000
MICHAEL J. SNIPES, 0000
ROBERT SNYDER, 0000
JOHN P. SPANOGLE, 0000
ANTHONY D. SPAULDING, 0000
BERNHARD SPOERRI, 0000
MARK L. STEBBINS, 0000
JENNIFER M. STEPHENS, 0000
LLOYD C. STERLING, 0000
MICHAEL D. STERRETT, 0000
ROGERS STINSON, 0000
TAMMY L. STOCKING, 0000
STEVEN D. STOWELL, 0000
DONALD P. SUTTON, 0000
JOHN F. TAFT, 0000
ALBERT J. TAPP, 0000
CALVIN C. THOMAS, 0000
CHRISTOPHER M. THOMPSON, 0000
JOHN THROCKMORTON, 0000
BOGDAN T. TOCARCIUC, 0000
VICTOR E. TODD, 0000
AADAM B. TRASK, 0000
PATRICK W. TRIPLETT, 0000
DAVID S. TROUTMAN, 0000
ANDRE V. TUCKER, 0000
BRETT M. TURNER, 0000
GREGORY S. TURNER, 0000
KEVIN C. TYLER, 0000
OSCAR R. TYLER, 0000
PAUL B. TYRRELL, 0000
JAMES T. VALENTINE, 0000
ROBERT H. VALIEANT, 0000
VICTOR C. VASQUEZ, 0000
GERARD A. VAVRINA, 0000
SCOTT D. VERVISCH, 0000
DERIK F. VONRECUM, 0000
DOUGLAS J. WADDINGHAM, 0000
CRAIG S. WAGONER, 0000
MARION WALKER, 0000
RHETT D. WALKER, 0000
CHAD E. WARD, 0000
FORTE D. WARD, 0000
JOEL E. WARHURST, 0000
KENNETH D. WATSON, 0000
TY S. WEAVER, 0000
SAMUEL J. WELCH, 0000
ROBERT B. WENGER, 0000
GUY E. WETZEL, 0000
RICHARD WHITTINGSLOW, 0000
[[Page 27988]]
BRIAN L. WILLIAMS, 0000
JASON D. WILLIAMS, 0000
EDWARD B. WILTCHER, 0000
RITA J. WINBORNE, 0000
TROY S. WISDOM, 0000
EVAN H. WOLLEN, 0000
BREN K. WORKMAN, 0000
JASON M. WRIGHT, 0000
STEVEN YAMASHITA, 0000
WILLIAM R. YOUNG, 0000
JOHN J. ZEIGLER, 0000
PAUL B. ZEPERNICK, 0000
RICHARD M. ZYGADLO, 0000
THE FOLLOWING NAMED OFFICERS FOR APPOINTMENT TO THE GRADE
INDICATED IN THE UNITED STATES ARMY JUDGE ADVOCATE GENERAL'S
CORPS UNDER TITLE 10, U.S.C., SECTIONS 624 AND 3064:
To be colonel
THOMAS E. AYRES, 0000
GREGORY T. BALDWIN, 0000
TRACY A. BARNES, 0000
BRIAN H. BRADY, 0000
FRED K. FORD, 0000
MICHAEL J. HARGIS, 0000
JAMES W. HERRING, JR., 0000
RANDY T. KIRKVOLD, 0000
TARA A. OSBORN, 0000
JODY M. PRESCOTT, 0000
MICHAEL E. SAINSBURY, 0000
MARK W. SEITSINGER, 0000
KATHERINE SPAULDINGPERKUCHIN, 0000
PAMELA M. STAHL, 0000
KENNETH J. TOZZI, 0000
STEVEN E. WALBURN, 0000
PETER C. ZOLPER, 0000
THE FOLLOWING NAMED OFFICERS FOR APPOINTMENT TO THE GRADE
INDICATED IN THE UNITED STATES ARMY UNDER TITLE 10, U.S.C.,
SECTION 624:
To be colonel
ROBERTO C. ANDUJAR, 0000
DAVID A. BARLOW, 0000
KENNETH C. BARTLETT, 0000
DEAN F. BLAND, 0000
STEVEN A. BOYLAN, 0000
THOMAS W. COLLINS, 0000
DERIK W. CROTTS, 0000
STEVEN P. DAMON, 0000
MARK G. EDGREN, 0000
PATRICK F. FRAKES, 0000
FREDERICK A. HENRY, 0000
JOHN J. HICKEY, JR., 0000
ROBERT W. HOELSCHER II, 0000
JEFFREY S. JOHNSON, 0000
PATRICK M. MANNERS, 0000
MARK A. MCMANIGAL, 0000
JAMES L. MERCHANT III, 0000
JOHN P. MILLAR, 0000
MICHAEL J. NEGARD, 0000
GERALD J. OHARA, 0000
CARL D. PORTER, 0000
MICHAEL H. POSTMA, 0000
PATRICIA A. QUINN, 0000
THOMAS W. QUINTERO, 0000
HAROLD W. REEVES, JR., 0000
ROBERT S. REILLY, 0000
THOMAS C. RIDDLE, 0000
ANDREW B. SEWARD, 0000
ROBERT M. SHEPPARD, 0000
WILLIAM J. STERNHAGEN, 0000
ANDREW W. STEWART, 0000
STEPHEN M. WOOLWINE, 0000
KENNETH A. YOUNG, 0000
THE FOLLOWING NAMED OFFICERS FOR APPOINTMENT TO THE GRADE
INDICATED IN THE UNITED STATES ARMY UNDER TITLE 10, U.S.C.,
SECTION 624:
To be colonel
CRAIG J. AGENA, 0000
RICHARD C. AKRIDGE, 0000
DANIEL A. ALABRE, 0000
JOHN P. ANDERSON, 0000
GREGORY V. BARRACK, 0000
CHRISTOPHER R. BENYA, 0000
BOBBY F. BLACKWELL, 0000
JAIME L. BONANO, 0000
JON W. CAMPBELL, 0000
PHILIP J. CAREY, 0000
MARK A. CONLEY, 0000
WILLIAM N. COSBY, 0000
VENTURA A. CUELLO, 0000
RALPH C. DELUCA, 0000
DANNY S. DENNEY, 0000
KEITH R. EDWARDS, 0000
DANIEL J. GETTINGS, 0000
JOSEPH A. GREBE, 0000
RUSSELL L. GRIMLEY, 0000
THOMAS K. HAASE, 0000
KIRK J. HASCHAK, 0000
JOHN P. HESS, 0000
GLENN R. HUBER, JR., 0000
KENNEDY E. JENKINS, 0000
STEVEN W. KIHARA, 0000
DION J. KING, 0000
ANDRE C. KIRNES, 0000
LANE J. LANCE, 0000
PAUL R. LEPINE, 0000
THOMAS C. LOPER II, 0000
DANIEL J. MCCORMICK, 0000
KIP A. MCCORMICK, 0000
DAVID T. MCNEVIN, 0000
LAWRENCE W. MCRAE, JR., 0000
BRYAN J. MCVEIGH, 0000
SCOTT G. MESSINGER, 0000
STEVEN J. MINEAR, 0000
DAVID M. MOORE, 0000
VINCENT J. MOYNIHAN, 0000
FREDDY W. MULLINS, 0000
PEDRO A. ORONA, 0000
PAUL A. OSTROWSKI, 0000
JOHN R. OXFORD, JR., 0000
YEONG T. PAK, 0000
JACK A. PELLICCI, JR., 0000
MICHAEL R. PERRY, 0000
PHUONG T. PIERSON, 0000
ANTHONY W. POTTS, 0000
DAVID J. RICE, 0000
KEITH W. ROBINSON, 0000
HUMBERTO RODRIGUEZ, 0000
HECTOR A. SALINAS, 0000
MATTHEW C. SCHAFER, 0000
KARL R. SEABAUGH, 0000
CHRISTOPHER A. SHALOSKY, 0000
MICHAEL S. SKARDON, 0000
BOBBY L. SMITH, 0000
PERRY R. SMITH, 0000
RONALD A. STEPHENS, 0000
GREGORY E. STEWART, 0000
JEFFREY A. STIMSON, 0000
VINCENT M. TOBIN, 0000
DAVID L. TRELEAVEN, 0000
CHARLES W. VANBEBBER, 0000
KIRK F. VOLLMECKE, 0000
ERIC J. VONTERSCH, 0000
FRANK P. WAGDALT, 0000
BRIAN C. WINTERS, 0000
JOHN S. WRIGHT, 0000
THE FOLLOWING NAMED OFFICERS FOR APPOINTMENT TO THE GRADE
INDICATED IN THE UNITED STATES ARMY UNDER TITLE 10, U.S.C.,
SECTION 624:
To be colonel
DANIEL G. AARON, 0000
JOSEPH F. ADAMS, 0000
JOSEPH C. AMMON, 0000
AMANDA L. ANDERSON, 0000
ANTHONY P. ARCURI II, 0000
DUANE E. BRUCKER, 0000
GWYNNE T. BURKE, 0000
GREGORY L. CANTWELL, 0000
CARLEN J. CHESTANG, JR., 0000
VERNON T. DAVIS, 0000
ROBERT L. DEYESO, JR., 0000
JAMES F. DICKENS, 0000
JUDE C. FERNAN, 0000
ANDREW G. GLEN, 0000
MICHAEL B. GLENN, 0000
JOSH H. GOEWEY, 0000
STEVEN R. GRIMES, 0000
THEA HARVELL III, 0000
DOUGLAS A. HERSH, 0000
ROBERT L. HESSE, 0000
DAVID E. HILL, JR., 0000
JOEL R. HILLISON, 0000
HERSHEL L. HOLIDAY, 0000
PAMELA J. HOYT, 0000
ROBERT S. HUME, 0000
LAUREL J. HUMMEL, 0000
CARL M. JOHNSON, 0000
WILLIAM E. JOHNSON, JR., 0000
KATHLEEN L. KNAPP, 0000
RICHARD A. LACQUEMENT, 0000
GARRETT R. LAMBERT, 0000
ROBERT F. LARSEN, JR., 0000
JON M. LOCKEY, 0000
JASON C. LYNCH, 0000
JOHN M. MATTOX, 0000
THOMAS D. MAYFIELD III, 0000
TAMER R. MCGUIRE, 0000
DEAN W. MENGEL, 0000
KARL F. MEYER, 0000
KENT M. MILLER, 0000
RONALD C. MIXAN, 0000
PHILLIP T. NETHERY, 0000
DAVID R. NORTON, 0000
ROBERT A. POWELL, 0000
SCOTT A. PRINTZ, 0000
MILTON L. SAWYERS, 0000
JOHN C. SEES, JR., 0000
JAMES T. SEIDULE, 0000
THOMAS P. SLAFKOSKY, 0000
CHERYL L. SMART, 0000
JOHN J. SMITH, 0000
DAVID A. WALLACE, 0000
MICHAEL S. WEAVER, 0000
CHRISTOPHER F. WHITE, 0000
RICHARD E. WIERSEMA, 0000
MARILYN D. WILLS, 0000
THE FOLLOWING NAMED OFFICERS FOR APPOINTMENT TO THE GRADE
INDICATED IN THE UNITED STATES ARMY AND FOR REGULAR
APPOINTMENT (IDENTIFIED BY AN ASTERISK(*)) UNDER TITLE 10,
U.S.C., SECTIONS 624 AND 531:
To be colonel
WILLIAM G. ADAMSON, 0000
ROBERT B. AKAM, 0000
GEORGE G. AKIN, 0000
MICHAEL A. ALBANEZE, 0000
ERIC S. ALBERT, 0000
DAVID R. ALEXANDER, 0000
KEITH A. ANDERSON, 0000
BRENDA A. ANDREWS, 0000
HODGES ANTHONY, JR., 0000
JUAN L. ARCOCHA, 0000
CHRISTOPHER S. ARGO, 0000
SPENCER Q. ARTMAN, 0000
DAVID A. ATCHER, 0000
DAVID D. BAKER, 0000
MICHAEL J. BARBEE, 0000
RANDALL T. BARNES, 0000
WILLIAM M. BARNETT IV, 0000
RICHARD E. BARROWMAN, 0000
BRADLEY A. BECKER, 0000
JOHN A. BECKER, 0000
RICHARD M. BECKINGER, 0000
KEVIN R. BEERMAN, 0000
GERALD E. BELLIVEAU, JR., 0000
CHRISTOPHER F. BENTLEY, 0000
DOUGLAS L. BENTLEY, JR., 0000
BRYAN W. BEQUETTE, 0000
MEAREN C. BETHEA, 0000
RANDOLPH R. BINFORD, 0000
KEVIN R. BISHOP, 0000
DAVID L. BLAIN, 0000
RANDALL W. BLAND, 0000
MICHELE P. BOLINGER, 0000
CURTIS D. BOYD, 0000
STUART W. BRADIN, 0000
JOSEPH A. BRENDLER, 0000
WILLIAM D. BRINKLEY, 0000
MATTHEW W. BROADDUS, 0000
EDWARD J. BROCK, 0000
DEBORAH P. BROUGHTON, 0000
DAVID A. BROWN, 0000
OTIS L. BROWN II, 0000
STANLEY M. BROWN, 0000
STEPHEN E. BRUCH, 0000
JAMES E. BRUNDAGE, 0000
JOSEPH P. BUCHE, 0000
LAURIE G. BUCKHOUT, 0000
STEVEN L. BULLIMORE, 0000
ROBERT A. BURNS, 0000
WILLIAM C. BURRELL, 0000
BRIAN A. BUTLER, 0000
SEAN M. CALLAHAN, 0000
JAMES M. CAMPBELL, JR., 0000
ROBERT K. CARL, 0000
RICHARD A. CARLSON, 0000
SCOTT M. CARLSON, 0000
MARTIN T. CARPENTER, 0000
DANIEL L. CASSIDY, JR., 0000
JOHN G. CASTLES II, 0000
ROBERT J. CEJKA, 0000
THOMAS C. CHAPMAN, 0000
J. KEVIN CHESNEY, 0000
JAMES H. CHEVALLIER, 0000
JONATHON L. CHRISTENSEN, 0000
STEPHEN M. CHRISTIAN, 0000
KEVIN A. CHRISTIE, 0000
NORBERTO R. CINTRON, 0000
TROY A. CLAY, 0000
SAMUEL CLEAR, 0000
CLAYTON W. COBB, 0000
ANTONIO S. COLEMAN, 0000
JOHN E. COLLIE, 0000
PEGGY C. COMBS, 0000
CHRISTOPHER E. CONNER, 0000
JUDSON A. COOK, 0000
LORELEI E. COPLEN, 0000
MARK A. COSTELLO, 0000
JOHN A. COX, 0000
MICHAEL P. CRALL, 0000
BRUCE T. CRAWFORD, 0000
ANTHONY CRUZ, 0000
FRANKIE CRUZ, 0000
JOHN P. CURRAN, 0000
BEVAN R. DALEY, 0000
EDWARD M. DALY, 0000
RICHARD S. DAUM, JR., 0000
SUSAN A. DAVIDSON, 0000
ALEXANDER D. DAVIS, JR., 0000
MARCUS F. DEOLIVEIRA, 0000
JOHN K. DEWEY, 0000
MARK A. DEWHURST, 0000
JAMES H. DICKINSON, 0000
LILLIAN A. DIXON, 0000
WILLIAM H. DODGE, 0000
TERRANCE J. DOLAN, 0000
DAVID W. DORNBLASER, 0000
ROBERT L. DOUTHIT, 0000
JEFFREY M. DOUVILLE, 0000
JOHN F. DOWD, JR., 0000
DAVID R. DRAEGER, 0000
DAVID D. DWORAK, 0000
GREGORY J. DYEKMAN, 0000
ROBERT C. EFFINGER III, 0000
RICHARD A. EVANS, 0000
SAMUEL S. EVANS, 0000
THOMAS H. EVANS, 0000
KARI L. EVERETT, 0000
BENJAMIN A. EVERSON, 0000
KURT W. FEDORS, 0000
KEVIN M. FELIX, 0000
JOHN FENZEL III, 0000
JOSEPH M. FISCHETTI, 0000
ANDRE Q. FLETCHER, 0000
SCOTT N. FLETCHER, 0000
FRANKLIN D. FORD, JR., 0000
BRUCE C. FOREMAN, 0000
[[Page 27989]]
MARK R. FORMAN, 0000
DARRELL D. FOUNTAIN, 0000
CYNTHIA L. FOX, 0000
MICHELLE M. FRALEY, 0000
ROBERT E. FREEHILL, 0000
BYRON A. FREEMAN, 0000
RONALD A. FROST, 0000
ANTHONY C. FUNKHOUSER, 0000
PAUL W. GAASBECK, 0000
DOUGLAS M. GABRAM, 0000
PETER A. GALLAGHER, 0000
WILLIAM E. GARNER, 0000
MARK L. GARRELL, 0000
JOHN F. GARRITY, 0000
PATRICK M. GAWKINS, 0000
DAVID T. GERARD, 0000
JOSEPH I. GILL III, 0000
WESLEY G. GILLMAN, 0000
PAUL E. GIOVINO, 0000
HARRY C. GLENN III, 0000
DALE E. GOBLE, 0000
GLENN H. GOLDMAN, 0000
KERRY M. GRANFIELD, 0000
JAMES W. GRAY, 0000
GLENN K. GROTHE, 0000
BRYAN A. * GROVES, 0000
EDUARDO GUTIERREZ, 0000
DAVID B. HAIGHT, 0000
JOHN F. HALEY, 0000
DAVID W. HALL, 0000
JEFFREY M. HALL, 0000
SHARON R. HAMILTON, 0000
LEE E. HANSEN, 0000
JOHN W. HARNEY, 0000
CHERYL A. HARRIS, 0000
JEFFERY T. HARRIS, 0000
CLAY B. HATCHER, 0000
JEFFREY B. HELMICK, 0000
BARRY R. HENSLEY, 0000
MARVIN C. HIGDON, 0000
TERENCE J. HILDNER, 0000
JEFFREY G. HILL, 0000
WILLIAM V. HILL III, 0000
LAWRENCE B. HOLMES, 0000
COLIN L. HOOD, 0000
STEPHEN G. HOOD, 0000
DAVID S. HUBNER, 0000
PAUL C. HURLEY, JR., 0000
CRAIG B. HYMES, 0000
DONALD E. JACKSON, JR., 0000
LARRY A. JACKSON, 0000
JOSEPH B. JELLISON, 0000
DARRELL L. JENKINS, 0000
VALERIE T. JIRCITANOTORRES, 0000
NORBERT B. JOCZ, 0000
CRAIG L. JOHNSON, 0000
DARFUS L. JOHNSON, 0000
ERIC S. JOHNSON, 0000
JAMES M. JOHNSON, 0000
JOHN P. JOHNSON, 0000
WILLIAM H. JOHNSON, 0000
DAVID T. JONES, 0000
ROBERT E. JONES, JR., 0000
TIMOTHY A. JONES, 0000
BYRON G. JORNS, 0000
PHILIP E. KAISER, 0000
GREGORY C. KANE, 0000
THOMAS J. KEEGAN, 0000
JOHN D. KEENAN, 0000
SHERRY B. KELLER, 0000
JEFFREY P. KELLEY, 0000
JEFFREY A. KELLY, 0000
THOMAS E. KELLY, 0000
JOHN S. KEM, 0000
EDWARD J. KERTIS, JR., 0000
DANIEL R. KESTLE, 0000
CHARLES W. KIBBEN, 0000
GENE R. KING, 0000
KENNETH E. KING, 0000
RICHARD T. KNAPP, 0000
DOUGLAS J. KNIGHT, 0000
MICHAEL G. KOBA, 0000
JOHN KULIFAY, 0000
JEFFREY J. KULP, 0000
RAYMOND P. LACEY, 0000
DAVID A. LAMBERT, 0000
TOMMY L. LANCASTER, 0000
RAYMOND R. LANGLAIS, JR., 0000
KERRY R. LARRABEE, 0000
DICK A. LARRY, 0000
TRACY L. LEAR, 0000
MELVIN R. LEARY, 0000
SHARON L. LEARY, 0000
GLORIA A. LEE, 0000
JEFFREY P. LEE, 0000
PAUL L. LEGERE, 0000
CHARLES S. LEITH, 0000
CLARK W. LEMASTERS, JR., 0000
THERESA S. LEVER, 0000
BRETT G. LEWIS, 0000
RONALD F. LEWIS, 0000
JEFFREY C. LIEB, 0000
MARK R. LINDON, 0000
VERNON L. LISTER, 0000
ROBERT P. LOTT, JR., 0000
JAMES P. LUDOWESE, 0000
MICHAEL D. LUNDY, 0000
THOMAS H. MAGNESS, 0000
MICHAEL T. MAHONEY, 0000
JOHN E. MALAPIT, 0000
JAY S. MALLERY, 0000
MARVIN S. MALONE, 0000
MICHAEL S. MALONEY, 0000
EDWARD P. MANNING, 0000
ERNEST P. MARCONE, 0000
MATTHEW T. MARGOTTA, 0000
JOSEPH M. MARTIN, 0000
EDWARD D. MASON, 0000
CURTIS A. MATHIS, 0000
TODD B. MCCAFFREY, 0000
RAY W. MCCARVER, JR., 0000
DAVID R. MCCLEAN, 0000
JAMES L. MCGINNIS, JR., 0000
EDWARD J. MCHALE, 0000
BRIAN J. MCKIERNAN, 0000
MICHAEL H. MCMURPHY, 0000
JIMMY L. MEACHAM, 0000
STEVEN G. MEDDAUGH, 0000
FABIAN E. MENDOZA, JR., 0000
JERRY C. MEYER, 0000
CHRISTOPHER L. MILLER, 0000
DAVID M. MILLER, 0000
JAMES L. MILLER, 0000
JOHN W. MILLER III, 0000
WILLIAM K. MILLER, 0000
WILLIAM B. MIRACLE, 0000
DANIEL G. MITCHELL, 0000
MYLES M. MIYAMASU, 0000
MARK G. MOFFATT, 0000
WILLIAM H. MONTGOMERY III, 0000
DAVID R. MOORE, 0000
TERRY V. MORGAN, 0000
JOHN B. MORRISON, JR., 0000
MITCHELL T. MORROW, 0000
SEAN P. MULHOLLAND, 0000
MARY B. MYERS, 0000
ERIC W. NANTZ, 0000
LEWIS C. NAUMCHIK, 0000
CLARENCE NEASON, JR., 0000
BRADFORD K. NELSON, 0000
BRADLEY K. NELSON, 0000
BRYAN T. NEWKIRK, 0000
CLAYTON T. NEWTON, 0000
ALAN W. NEYLAND, 0000
MOLLY A. ODONNELL, 0000
JOHN E. ONEIL, 0000
TIMOTHY S. OROURKE, 0000
AUGUSTUS L. OWENS II, 0000
JOHN T. OWENS III, 0000
JOSEPH V. PACILEO, 0000
DAVID B. PARKER, 0000
STEVEN W. PATE, 0000
RANDOLPH L. PATTERSON, 0000
CHRISTOPHER W. PEASE, 0000
GARY D. PEASE, 0000
DAVID M. PENDERGAST, 0000
ERIK C. PETERSON, 0000
WALTER E. PIATT, 0000
SANDY W. POGUE, 0000
STUART R. POLLOCK, 0000
FRANKLIN A. POUST, JR., 0000
MICHAEL C. PRESNELL, 0000
DAVID C. PRESS, 0000
VINCENT L. PRICE, 0000
TIMOTHY R. PRIOR, 0000
ESMERALDA G. PROCTOR, 0000
BRIAN D. PROSSER, 0000
CHERI A. PROVANCHA, 0000
RONALD J. PULIGNANI, JR., 0000
ROBERT B. QUACKENBUSH, 0000
WILLIAM S. RABENA, 0000
ANITA M. RAINES, 0000
JOSE M. RAMOS, 0000
WESLEY L. REHORN, 0000
JOHN M. REICH, 0000
ALLISON R. REINWALD, 0000
BRIAN R. REINWALD, 0000
ANTHONY D. REYES, 0000
MATTHEW A. RICHARDS, 0000
LAURA J. RICHARDSON, 0000
KAROL L. RIPLEY, 0000
TERRILL S. ROBINSON, 0000
DAVID P. RODGERS, 0000
DARSIE D. ROGERS, JR., 0000
CHARLES V. ROGERSON, 0000
RONALD J. ROSE, JR., 0000
DREXEL K. ROSS, 0000
HOWARD M. RUDAT, 0000
STEPHEN E. RYAN, 0000
TIMOTHY M. RYAN, 0000
WILLIAM R. SALTER, 0000
JOHN L. SALVETTI, 0000
MICHAEL P. SAULNIER, 0000
WILLIAM S. SCHAFF, 0000
EMMETT M. SCHAILL, 0000
BLAIR A. SCHANTZ, 0000
PARKER B. SCHENECKER, 0000
STEVEN M. SCHENK, 0000
GREGORY B. SCHULTZ, 0000
JOHN C. SCHULZ, 0000
ERIC C. SCHWARTZ, 0000
PAUL T. SEITZ, 0000
RONALD E. SELDON, 0000
TERRY L. SELLERS, 0000
MICHAEL SENTERS, 0000
STEVEN A. SHAPIRO, 0000
STEVEN R. SHAPPELL, 0000
CHANDLER C. SHERRELL, 0000
JEFFREY A. SINCLAIR, 0000
MICHAEL J. SIPPEL, 0000
TIMOTHY S. SLEMP, 0000
STEVEN A. SLIWA, 0000
JONATHAN J. SMIDT, 0000
ERIC E. SMITH, 0000
PEYTON E. SMITH, 0000
STEPHEN C. SMITH, 0000
STEPHEN V. SMITH, 0000
THOMAS P. SMITH, 0000
EUGENIA H. SNEAD, 0000
RICHARD L. SOBRATO, JR., 0000
GEORGE R. SORENSEN, 0000
NILS C. SORENSON, 0000
JOSEPH A. SOUTHCOTT, 0000
ROBERT J. SOVA, 0000
JOHN M. SPISZER, 0000
LUCIE M. STAGG, 0000
WILLIAM R. STANLEY, 0000
RICHARD A. STARKEY, 0000
LEE G. STEWART, 0000
JAMES L. STOCKMOE, 0000
MELISSA A. STURGEON, 0000
PHILIP L. SWINFORD, 0000
JEFF B. SWISHER, 0000
RODNEY W. SYMONS II, 0000
MARISA A. TANNER, 0000
THOMAS H. TATUM, JR., 0000
ROBERT J. TAYLOR, JR., 0000
DENNIS D. TEWKSBURY, 0000
SCOTT D. THOMAS, 0000
DENNIS M. THOMPSON, 0000
PATRICK E. TIERNEY, 0000
DANE S. TKACS, 0000
BILLY G. TOLLISON, 0000
HARRY D. TUNNELL IV, 0000
CLARENCE D. TURNER, 0000
JEFFREY A. TURNER, 0000
RANDALL E. TWITCHELL, 0000
ROBERT J. ULSES, 0000
MARTIN I. URQUHART, 0000
BRUCE E. VARGO, 0000
JOHN D. VERNON, 0000
BRIAN VINES, 0000
VANCE P. VISSER, 0000
GARY J. VOLESKY, 0000
STEPHEN E. WALKER, 0000
PATRICK J. WALSH, 0000
SHAWN P. WALSH, 0000
ROBERT P. WALTERS, JR., 0000
ROBERT A. WARBURG, 0000
THOMAS D. WEBB, 0000
MICHAEL C. WEHR, 0000
BRETT D. WEIGLE, 0000
ROBERT W. WERTHMAN, 0000
CARY S. WESTIN, 0000
DAVID C. WESTON, 0000
STEVEN D. WESTPHAL, 0000
SAMUEL R. WHITE, JR., 0000
ANTHONY R. WILLIAMS, 0000
BENNIE WILLIAMS, JR., 0000
CHARLES E. WILLIAMS, 0000
DANIEL E. WILLIAMS, 0000
DAVID M. WILLIAMS, 0000
DWAYNE T. WILLIAMS, 0000
JOHN D. WILLIAMS, 0000
MICHAEL S. WILLIAMS, 0000
TIMOTHY R. WILLIAMS, 0000
GREGORY R. WILSON, 0000
ROGER A. WILSON, JR., 0000
DAVID A. WISECARVER, 0000
SHARON L. WISNIEWSKI, 0000
FREDERICK S. WOLF III, 0000
SCOTT G. WUESTNER, 0000
JEFFREY K. YOUNG, 0000
BARBARA L. ZACHARCZYK, 0000
ROBERT G. ZEBROWSKI, 0000
DARREN B. ZIMMER, 0000
AARON M. ZOOK, JR., 0000
AIDIS L. ZUNDE, 0000
X6878
X1665
X1119
X4096
X2175
X2451
In the Navy
THE FOLLOWING NAMED OFFICERS FOR TEMPORARY APPOINTMENT TO
THE GRADE INDICATED IN THE UNITED STATES NAVY UNDER TITLE 10,
U.S.C., SECTION 5721:
To be lieutenant commander
TONY C. BAKER, 0000
TOMMY L. BEALS, 0000
CHRISTOPHER G. BOHNER, 0000
KEVIN M. BONSER, 0000
RANDY E. BROWN, 0000
ELAINE A. BRYE, 0000
JAMIE F. BURTS, 0000
BRYCE D. BUTLER, 0000
MICHAEL R. CHAPARRO, 0000
MOTALE E. EFIMBA, 0000
STEVEN T. FILES, 0000
HANS A. FOSSER, 0000
MATTHEW T. FRENIERE, 0000
JOHN T. FRYE, 0000
CHRISTOPHER C. GAVINO, 0000
SEAN T. GRUNWELL, 0000
MATTHEW T. HARDING, 0000
CRAIG W. HEMPECK, 0000
CALVIN G. HENDRIX, 0000
DAVID G. HOFFMAN, 0000
MICHAEL P. HOLLENBACH, 0000
KITJA HORPAYAK, 0000
WILLIAM J. JOHANSSON, 0000
JAMES R. JONES, 0000
[[Page 27990]]
JAMES J. JUSTER, 0000
NEIL B. LAPOINTE, 0000
KEVIN W. MACY, 0000
ANTHONY J. MATA, 0000
JOSEPH S. MATISON, 0000
MICHAEL C. MOSBRUGER, 0000
FRANK E. OKATA, 0000
WilLIAM L. PARTINGTON, 0000
EUGENE R. ROBERTS, 0000
SEAN RONGERS, 0000
ERIC M. SAMUELSON, 0000
IAN J. SCHILLINGER, 0000
LEON B. SCORATOW, 0000
MICHAEL S. SHAW II, 0000
PAUL B. SPRACKLEN, 0000
MICHAEL STEPHENS, 0000
RICKY M. URSERY, 0000
JAMES J. VOPELlUS, 0000
Foreign Service
THE FOLLOWING-NAMED CAREER MEMBERS OF THE SENIOR FOREIGN
SERVICE OF THE AGENCY FOR INTERNATIONAL DEVELOPMENT FOR
PROMOTION WITHIN AND INTO THE SENIOR FOREIGN SERVICE TO THE
CLASSES INDICATED: CAREER MEMBER OF THE SENIOR FOREIGN
SERVICE, CLASS OF CAREER MINISTER:
LISA CHILES, OF CALIFORNIA
GEORGE DEIKUN, OF CALIFORNIA
MARK STUART WARD, OF VIRGINIA
CAREER MEMBER OF THE SENIOR FOREIGN SERVICE, CLASS OF
MINISTER-COUNSELOR:
JONATHAN S. ADDLETON, OF FLORIDA
HENRY LEE BARRETT, OF MARYLAND
CAROL R. BECKER, OF MARYLAND
JAMES A. BEVER, OF VIRGINIA
JON H. BRESLAR, OF VIRGINIA
JOSEPH FARINELLA, OF NEW YORK
WILLIAM M. FREJ, OF CALIFORNIA
RICHARD J. GOUGHNOUR, OF FLORIDA
WILLIAM HAMMINK, OF FLORIDA
JAY L. KNOTT, OF OREGON
HENDERSON M. PATRICK, OF FLORIDA
DENNY F. ROBERTSON, OF FLORIDA
KEITH E. SIMMONS, OF CALIFORNIA
MONICA STEIN-OLSON, OF WASHINGTON
PAMELA A. WHITE, OF VIRGINIA
MICHAEL J. YATES, OF VIRGINIA
CAREER MEMBER OF THE SENIOR FOREIGN SERVICE, CLASS OF
COUNSELOR:
TODD HANSON AMANI, OF WASHINGTON
CHERYL L. ANDERSON, OF VIRGINIA
JEFFREY N. BAKKEN, OF MINNESOTA
VICTOR K. BARBIERO, OF VIRGINIA
TIMOTHY THOMAS BEANS, OF VIRGINIA
JEFFERY D. BELL, OF VIRGINIA
LARRY HALL BRADY, OF WYOMING
SUSAN K. BREMS, OF THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA
CONSTANCE A. CARRINO, OF THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA
REBECCA W. COHN, OF MARYLAND
TULLY R. CORNICK, OF MARYLAND
ALAN L. DAVIS, OF FLORIDA
PAUL FRANCIS DAVIS, OF NEW HAMPSHIRE
CHARLES V. DRILLING, OF NEW YORK
MARGOT BIEGELSON ELLIS, OF NEW YORK
ALONZO L. FULGHAM, OF VIRGINIA
JOHN GROARKE, OF THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA
DENISE A. HERBOL, OF PENNSYLVANIA
ELIZABETH ANN HOGAN, OF VIRGINIA
EDWARD T. LANDAU, OF VIRGINIA
NANCY J. LAWTON, OF MISSOURI
AMANDA K. LEVENSON, OF ALASKA
JON DANIEL LINDBORG, OF INDIANA
CECILY L. MANGO, OF MARYLAND
WILLIAM B. MARTIN, OF VIRGINIA
JOHN A. MAY, OF TEXAS
KERMIT CRAIG MOH, OF VIRGINIA
DAVID J. NOBLE, OF MARYLAND
BETH S. PAIGE, OF TEXAS
BARRY K. PRIMM, OF MISSOURI
JOSEPH S. RYAN, JR., OF CALIFORNIA
MIKE E. SARHAN, OF WASHINGTON
JOAN MARGARET SILVER, OF CALIFORNIA
DONNA R. STAUFFER, OF CONNECTICUT
THOMAS MICHAEL STEPHENS, OF VIRGINIA
DAWN ALLISON THOMAS, OF NEW YORK
MICHAEL F. WALSH, OF VIRGINIA
THE FOLLOWING-NAMED PERSONS OF THE AGENCIES INDICATED FOR
APPOINTMENT AS FOREIGN SERVICE OFFICERS OF THE CLASS STATED.
FOR APPOINTMENT AS FOREIGN SERVICE OFFICERS OF CLASS THREE,
CONSULAR OFFICERS AND SECRETARIES IN THE DIPLOMATIC SERVICE
OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA:
DEPARTMENT OF STATE
ANNE ELIZABETH LINNEE, OF MINNESOTA
RAYMOND H. MURPHY II, OF TENNESSEE
FOR APPOINTMENT AS FOREIGN SERVICE OFFICERS OF CLASS FOUR,
CONSULAR OFFICERS AND SECRETARIES IN THE DIPLOMATIC SERVICE
OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA:
DEPARTMENT OF STATE
ANITA STROHSCHEIN CHILDS, OF FLORIDA
JOHN PAUL MOPPERT, OF FLORIDA
THE FOLLOWING-NAMED MEMBERS OF THE FOREIGN SERVICE TO BE
CONSULAR OFFICERS AND/OR SECRETARIES IN THE DIPLOMATIC
SERVICE OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, AS INDICATED:
CONSULAR OFFICERS AND SECRETARIES IN THE DIPLOMATIC SERVICE
OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA:
DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE
IRA BELKIN, OF NEW YORK
FRANCIS M. PETERS, OF TEXAS
ALIZA TOTAYO, OF MARYLAND
DEPARTMENT OF STATE
MICHAEL JOSEPH ABEL, OF WASHINGTON
ALEXANDER T. ALLEN, OF VIRGINIA
MICHAEL A. ALLSHOUSE, OF VIRGINIA
CHRISTOPHER J. ANDERSON, OF THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA
JUAN L. ARELLANO, OF WASHINGTON
STEPHANIE CHRISTINE ARNOLD, OF ILLINOIS
OLGA ELENA BASHBUSH, OF VIRGINIA
MARK BEANE, OF VIRGINIA
STEWART WILLIAM BEITZ, OF SOUTH CAROLINA
CHRISTOPHER A. BERGAUST, OF IDAHO
MELISSA ANN BERMUDEZ, OF CALIFORNIA
MONICA S. BLAND, OF NEBRASKA
ERIC BOWEN, OF VIRGINIA
DANA CHRISTENE COLE BROWN, OF OKLAHOMA
TRAVIS M. BROWN, OF VIRGINIA
JOSEPH T. BURKE, OF CALIFORNIA
ELLEN CALLAHAN, OF NEVADA
GREGORY J. CAMPBELL, OF NEW YORK
KATHERINE J. CHISHOLM, OF VIRGINIA
TODD V. CHRISTIANSEN, OF NEW YORK
ANDREW B. CLARK, OF VIRGINIA
WILLIAM JUSTIN ALBERT CLAYTON, OF THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA
MARISA N. COHRS, OF WASHINGTON
KATHERINE C. CONOVER, OF MARYLAND
BARBARA HERMINIA CORDERO, OF FLORIDA
ANDREI M. COTTON, OF ARIZONA
Kyle A. Crosby, of Virginia
Mark A. Cunningham, of the District of Columbia
Tammy A. Davis, of Kansas
Thomas P. Delaney, of Maryland
Laurent M. de Winter, of the District of Columbia
Nina Diaz, of California
Nga Bich Do, of California
Kathryn T. Dorminey, of Florida
Robert F. Doyle III, of Illinois
Jeffry W. Duffy, of the District of Columbia
Christopher R. Dunn, of Texas
Gottlieb J. Duwan, of Virginia
Peter J. Dycaico, of California
Christopher B. Eaves, of Virginia
Mark D. Estes, of Georgia
David K. Fagley, of Virginia
Heather June Farrar, of Maryland
Jonathan Fischer, of Washington
Matthew Gardner Fuller, of Texas
William Jeffers Furnish, Jr., of Louisiana
Kanishka Gangopadhyay, of the District of Columbia
Virginia R. Giles, of Virginia
Ixtaccihuatl Gonzalez, of Massachusetts
Andrea Gorog, of Washington
Jeff Gringer, of Washington
Janelle R. Guest, of Michigan
Kapil Gupta, of the District of Columbia
Prasenjit Gupta, of Iowa
Matthew M. Habinowski III, of Massachusetts
Erin P. Hamrick, of Georgia
Carol M. Hanlon, of Georgia
Sean R. Hantak, of Illinois
Nathan Nozomi Hara, of Ohio
Stanly Hayes, of Maryland
H. Alexander Henegar III, of Georgia
Denis Higginbotham, of the District of Columbia
Marilyn J. Holleran, of Connecticut
Daniel Charles Holtrop, of Maryland
Jesse B. Hughes, of Virginia
Robert George Hunter, of Virginia
Stephen F. Ibelli, of New York
Christopher George Istrati, of Pennsylvania
Christine Peyton Jackson, of New York
Jenae Denise Johnson, of Washington
James Stephen Jones, of Virginia
Gregory B. Keller, of Nebraska
Abdul-Rahman Kenyatta, of Virginia
Eugene Hyun Kim, of the District of Columbia
Michele Ann Kimpel Guzman, of California
Christopher D. Kjelland, of Texas
Suzanne Knight, of Virginia
Mark R. Lanning, of Washington
Timothy Layman, of Maryland
Carrie K. Lee, of California
Sonia Mercedes Leger, of Virginia
Lena Levitt, of California
Theresa Lindo Spazian, of Florida
Christie Carmelle Lopez, of California
Nathan L. Macklin, of Wyoming
Kanika Mak, of Florida
Aaron I. Martz, of Texas
Mark C. Matthews, of Minnesota
Gene P. McCusker, of Virginia
Maureen Brigid McGovern, of Florida
Matthew Carr McHorris, of Virginia
Luis F. Mendez, of New Jersey
Johanna R. Merejo, of New Jersey
Mark Leslie Molnar, of Virginia
Benjamin Abraham Montanez, of Texas
Cynthia A. Morgan, of Maryland
David Vaughan Muehlke, of New Hampshire
David R. Myers, of the District of Columbia
Gregg Dickson Myrup, of Tennessee
Nhan T. Nguyen, of Washington
Christopher Markley Nyce, of California
Dennis H. O'Hearn, of Virginia
Adam C. Olsen, of Virginia
Tula Cruz Orum, of California
Jennifer A. Parker, of Virginia
Samuel R. Peale, of Virginia
Yaroslava Y. Petrova, of California
Benjamin Loyd Pierce, of Utah
Susan Marie Plott, of Texas
Irfan Qaiyumi, of Virginia
Lorenzo Reed, of Maryland
Charles K. Regan, of New Hampshire
Amanda J. Rei-Perrine, of Washington
Victoria Charlotte Reppert, of Massachusetts
Donald H Riggs, of Virginia
Kevin Conley Ruffner, of Virginia
Carrie A. Schlauch, Ph.D., of Ohio
Megan Leigh Selmon, of Oklahoma
Chirag P. Shah, of Virginia
Christopher M. Shahidi, of the District of Columbia
Steen W Simonsen, of Virginia
Rachel M. Smith, of New York
Breeann Marie Songer, of New York
Ashley B. Stewart, of the District of Columbia
Sherry R. Stup, of Virginia
Ray Richard Sudweeks, of Virginia
Sean T. Sullivan, of Maryland
Nathan Tidwell, of Tennessee
Andres Valdes, of Florida
Kimberly C. Valdes-Dapena, of Ohio
Wendy M. Varner, of Virginia
Kevin Virgil, of Virginia
Anthony Joseph Vitale, of West Virginia
Jonathan T. Ward, of Washington
Heather Ann Watson-Ayala, of Nevada
Jeffrey Michael Weinshenker, of the District of Columbia
Michael John Whipple, of Texas
Lynn Christine Whiteheart, of Virginia
David Whitted, of Georgia
Carter W. Wilbur, of the Virgin Islands
Bryan J. Willats, of Virginia
Kathleen Anne Yu, of Maryland
____________________
WITHDRAWALS
Executive Message transmitted by the President to the Senate on
December 13, 2005 withdrawing from further Senate consideration the
following nominations:
EDWARD L. FLIPPEN, OF VIRGINIA, TO BE INSPECTOR GENERAL,
CORPORATION FOR NATIONAL AND COMMUNITY SERVICES, WHICH WAS
SENT TO THE SENATE ON JANUARY 24, 2005.
ELLEN G. ENGLEMAN CONNERS, OF INDIANA, TO BE CHAIRMAN OF
THE NATIONAL TRANSPORTATION SAFETY BOARD FOR A TERM OF TWO
YEARS, WHICH WAS SENT TO THE SENATE ON APRIL 4, 2005.
JOHN M. MOLINO, OF VIRGINIA, TO BE AN ASSISTANT SECRETARY
OF VETERANS AFFAIRS (POLICY AND PLANNING), WHICH WAS SENT TO
THE SENATE ON SEPTEMBER 6, 2005.
[[Page 27991]]
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES--Tuesday, December 13, 2005
The House met at 12:30 p.m. and was called to order by the Speaker
pro tempore (Mr. Pearce).
____________________
DESIGNATION OF SPEAKER PRO TEMPORE
The SPEAKER pro tempore laid before the House the following
communication from the Speaker:
Washington, DC,
December 13, 2005.
I hereby appoint the Honorable Stevan Pearce to act as
Speaker pro tempore on this day.
J. Dennis Hastert,
Speaker of the House of Representatives.
____________________
MORNING HOUR DEBATES
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Pursuant to the order of the House of
January 4, 2005, the Chair will now recognize Members from lists
submitted by the majority and minority leaders for morning hour
debates. The Chair will alternate recognition between the parties, with
each party limited to not to exceed 30 minutes, and each Member, except
the majority leader, the minority leader, or the minority whip, limited
to not to exceed 5 minutes.
The Chair recognizes the gentleman from Oregon (Mr. DeFazio) for 5
minutes.
____________________
IRAQ
Mr. DeFAZIO. Well, with great fanfare last week and very belatedly,
the President unveiled a document called A Plan For Victory in Iraq,
and he said that this was a declassified version of the longstanding
military strategy in Iraq.
Now, help to review that strategy: The initial strategy based on
unrealistic assumptions by Mr. Wolfowitz, Mr. Rumsfeld, and others was
that our troops would be welcomed as liberators, we would be drawn down
to 40,000 troops within a few months, and that the Iraqis would be able
to pay for their rebuilding themselves. Of course, all these things
were horribly, horribly wrong. A number of us have called to remove Mr.
Rumsfeld for more than a couple of years now, but he is still there. So
we would assume that the President condones the incredible mistakes
that he has made which have caused many, many American lives.
Now, with his support slumping into the 30s on his execution of the
war in Iraq, the President has decided to shift gears. Now, that would
be good if this was really a declassified version of a credible
military plan for victory and return of our troops home from Iraq.
Unfortunately, the White House and its folks do not quite understand
high technology and the Internet, and by clicking on this, you could
find out who really wrote it. It was not written by a military
strategist, it was not written at the Pentagon; it was written by a
political science professor named Peter D. Feaver from Duke University,
and his specialty is polling and public opinion on military conflicts.
He has a theory that Vietnam could have continued if only the American
people had been given a vision that we were headed toward victory, and
he is now testing that theory by writing this document which the
President presented as an actual declassified version of a military
document. It is not. It is a political construct based on a theory of a
political science professor from Duke University who the President has
named to the National Security Council. So the dissembling continues
here for the American people.
We want a real plan on how we are going to bring our troops home from
Iraq. We do not want any more dissembling, we do not want any more
Pollyannas. The President seems in his recent speeches to be admitting
to the numerous mistakes that were made, but if we look at this
document and the way it has been presented, they just made another
grievous mistake for the American people. In fact, the general in
charge in Iraq, Lieutenant General Martin Dempsey, top military
official in charge of training Iraqi troops, he surprised some
reporters by saying that the first time he saw our strategy for victory
in Iraq was the day it was released to the press. So this
administration is still failing to create a clear vision.
I and others have proposed that the President should negotiate with
the newly elected Iraqi government after the elections on a withdrawal,
or enhance their credibility, their legitimacy. I think it would also
begin to remove a crutch which they are using, which is the U.S. forces
in Iraq. They are not settling their differences legitimately between
the Sunnis, the Shiites, and the Kurds, and of course many predicted
that before the war, but the administration also glossed over that. And
they will not as long as the U.S. is there, and the Sunnis in
particular resent the U.S. presence. So if we negotiated that sort of
an agreement with them and had a timeline to draw down and remove our
troops and stand up the Iraqis, I believe that then the insurgency
would abate, as do many others, including others in the military who
have said that in fact it is our forces that are the kindling for many,
other than the foreign fighters who are there, and then soon the Iraqis
would turn on the foreign fighters and hopefully then reclaim their own
country. So I am very saddened to learn that this is yet one more
deception by this administration in this sorry chapter in American
history.
____________________
CHINA--PIRACY OF U.S. PRODUCTS
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Pursuant to the order of the House of
January 4, 2005, the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Stearns) is recognized
during morning hour debates for 5 minutes.
Mr. STEARNS. Mr. Speaker, counterfeiting is a growing international
concern that requires international cooperation to defeat. It threatens
our national security interests in areas of health, economics, and of
course homeland defense. The Food and Drug Administration estimates
that counterfeit drugs account for 10 percent of all drugs that are
sold in the United States. An estimated 14 percent of these drugs that
are sold through the mail are counterfeit, they are mishandled, or
expired. Pfizer Pharmaceutical recalled 16.5 million Lipitor pills
nationwide as a result of an FDA investigation that uncovered evidence
that these pills were counterfeit.
Counterfeit technologies have caused immense harm as well. For
example, in California a 13-year-old boy sustained severe injuries from
a counterfeit battery that exploded in his cell phone. The phone
exploded with such force that fragments of the phone lodged into the
ceiling of his family's home.
Exploding batteries, doctored medications, foods, dangerous cosmetics
and skin products, fake shampoos and soaps, doctored teas, substandard
auto and airplane components, the list of counterfeit goods grows
daily. Even fake and dangerous baby foods have been reported. In China,
for example, infants suffered severe malnourishment and a dozen died
after being fed fake infant formula that contained few nutrients.
The hazards of counterfeit products have also affected our
transportation. In 2003, the Motor and Equipment Manufacturers
Association cited safety violations due to counterfeit auto parts:
Brake linings made of compressed
[[Page 27992]]
grass, sawdust, or cardboard; transmission fluid made of cheap oil that
is dyed, and oil filters that use rags for the filter element.
Additionally, the FAA estimates that 2 percent of the 26 million
airline parts installed each year are counterfeit, equaling
approximately 520,000 parts. While still the safest form of travel, a
Business Week investigation found that bogus airplane parts played a
major role in at least 166 U.S. based accidents and mishaps during a
recent 20-year period.
According to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, approximately 5 to 7
percent of world trade is in counterfeit goods. The FBI estimates that
intellectual property theft costs the United States companies between
$200 and $250 billion a year in revenue. According to the U.S. Customs
and Border Protection, counterfeit merchandise is directly responsible
for the loss of more than 750,000 American jobs, in addition to tens of
thousands more lost of privacy of software programs, movies, and music.
The auto industry could hire 200,000 additional workers if sale of
counterfeit auto parts was eliminated.
In some cases, the counterfeiters are not only breaking the law, they
are supporting terrorists. According to Interpol, seized al Qaeda
training manuals recommend selling fake goods to finance illegal
activities. One example is the confiscation of $1.2 million of
counterfeit German brake pads and shock absorbers in Lebanon in October
2003. The profits from the products were earmarked for supporters of
Hezbollah. Another poignant example is the 1993 World Trade Center
bombing, which was financed partially through the sale of fake Nike t-
shirts from a store on Broadway.
We are currently involved in trade with a country that refuses to
enforce these laws. Mr. Speaker, I am referring to China, which has
ignored its own anti-piracy laws on American movies, music, computer
software, and other products. In 2003, China accounted for 66 percent
or $62.4 million of all counterfeit goods seized by the U.S. Customs
Service at ports of entry into the United States. In 2004, U.S.
industries lost between $2.5 and $3.5 billion due to privacy alone.
Some reports estimate virtually 90 percent of products in some
industries sold in China are pirated from the United States.
In June, Under Secretary John Dudas testified in a hearing I held in
the House Commerce, Trade and Consumer Protection subcommittee, ``This
administration has been pressing China to impose prison sentences and/
or stiffer fines on violators, provide little or no deterrence.''
Chinese government efforts since have yielded no results.
U.S. Trade Representative Bob Portman recently announced the U.S.
would be requesting from China an explanation of the steps it has taken
to curb privacy of U.S. products. In the announcement he said, ``Piracy
and counterfeiting remain rampant in China despite years of engagement
on this issue.''
In conclusion, requiring accounting ability is an essential first
step to stopping Chinese abuse of U.S. intellectual property rights. I
support this request, and I hope the President's trip to Asia this week
will further convince Chinese officials of the need for enforcing
intellectual property rights laws.
____________________
GLOBAL WARMING
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Pursuant to the order of the House of
January 4, 2005, the gentleman from New Mexico (Mr. Udall) is
recognized during morning hour debates for 5 minutes.
Mr. UDALL of New Mexico. The World Meets to Solve Global Warming.
U.S. on Sidelines. U.S. Won't Join in Binding Climate Talks.
These are news flashes from the Montreal Conference this weekend on
global warming. Countries from around the world met in Montreal to
address the issue of global warming. Where was the United States and
the Bush administration? On the sidelines, out of commission, not
willing to forward a plan or proposal on the far-reaching challenge of
our time.
The Bush administration has its head in the sand. For most of its
time in office, this administration has refused to recognize there is
even a problem. Recently they acknowledged that man's burning of fossil
fuels is warming the Earth but refused to take concrete action. When
President Clinton was invited to speak to the conference, the U.S. team
threatened to boycott.
President Bush, wake up. The countries of the world are leaving you
behind. President Bush, our country needs a leader who will protect our
children's future.
Since 1990, we have seen the 10 warmest years in history. Before our
eyes, ice caps are melting, glaciers are shrinking, oceans are warming,
and sea levels are rising. Scientists tell us we can expect more
extreme storms, higher intensity hurricanes, more severe droughts, and
other dramatic climate changes. We must act now to protect our
children. We must act now to leave our children a better world.
Carbon dioxide emissions must be brought under control. We know how
to do this. We have specific ways to act now. We have the technology.
One hundred fifty-seven countries are already imposing mandatory limits
on CO2 while the Bush administration stonewalls any
mandatory scheme. We can take steps now to reduce greenhouse gas
emissions but we must do so in a way that would minimize the impact to
our economy. We must implement an economy-wide, upstream, all
greenhouse gas cap-and-trade emissions reduction program that provides
some flexibility and a measure of certainty to those industries and
businesses affected.
The National Commission on Energy Policy, a bipartisan group of top
experts, recommends such an approach. One of the key components of
their proposal is the concept of a safety valve for the cap-and-trade
program. The safety valve essentially puts a price on carbon but
provides for an unlimited number of allowances to be sold by the
government. Since no one would pay more than what the government
charges for allowances, this mechanism effectively controls the price
of allowances. When set at the right price, the safety valve would
start the country down the path of slowing the growth of greenhouse gas
emissions without causing serious economic disruption.
____________________
ANNOUNCEMENT BY THE SPEAKER PRO TEMPORE
The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair must remind all Members to address
their remarks in debate to the Chair and not to the President.
____________________
RECESS
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Pursuant to clause 12(a) of rule I, the
Chair declares the House in recess until 2 p.m. today.
Accordingly (at 12 o'clock and 46 minutes p.m.), the House stood in
recess until 2 p.m.
____________________
{time} 1400
AFTER RECESS
The recess having expired, the House was called to order at 2 p.m.
____________________
PRAYER
The Reverend Dr. Barry C. Black, Chaplain, United States Senate,
offered the following prayer:
God of mercies, whose unfailing love and faithfulness cover our sins,
make us today instruments of Your grace. Give us the wisdom to think
before speaking and to say the right thing at the right time. May our
actions so please You that even our enemies will live at peace with us.
Guide our lawmakers in their challenging work. Remind them that many
counselors bring success. Help them also to remember that they can make
plans, but You determine their steps. Teach us all that it is better to
be patient than powerful, and it is better to have self-control than to
conquer a city. Guide us by Your light that we may reach the light that
never fades. We pray this in Your holy name. Amen.
[[Page 27993]]
____________________
THE JOURNAL
The SPEAKER. The Chair has examined the Journal of the last day's
proceedings and announces to the House his approval thereof.
Pursuant to clause 1, rule I, the Journal stands approved.
____________________
PLEDGE OF ALLEGIANCE
The SPEAKER. Will the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Burgess) come forward
and lead the House in the Pledge of Allegiance.
Mr. BURGESS led the Pledge of Allegiance as follows:
I pledge allegiance to the Flag of the United States of
America, and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation
under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.
____________________
MESSAGE FROM THE SENATE
A message from the Senate by Ms. Curtis, one of its clerks, announced
that the Senate has passed bills of the following titles in which the
concurrence of the House is requested:
S. 1231. An act to amend the Indian Self-Determination and
Education Assistance Act to modify provisions relating to the
National Fund for Excellence in American Indian Education.
S. 1295. An act to amend the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act
to provide for accountability and funding of the National
Indian Gaming Commission.
The message also announced that the Senate disagrees to the amendment
of the House to the bill (S. 1281) ``An Act to authorize appropriations
for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration for science,
aeronautics, exploration, exploration capabilities, and the Inspector
General, and for other purposes, for fiscal years 2006, 2007, 2008,
2009, and 2010,'' agrees to a conference asked by the House on the
disagreeing votes of the two Houses thereon, and appoints Mr. Stevens,
Mr. Lott, Mrs. Hutchison, Mr. Inouye and Mr. Nelson (FL), to be the
conferees on the part of the Senate.
The message also announced that pursuant to Public Law 108-199, title
VI, section 637, the Chair, on behalf of the Majority Leader, appoints
the following individual to serve as a member of the Helping to Enhance
the Livelihood of People (HELP) Around the Globe Commission:
Jerome F. Climer of Virginia.
____________________
THE KING OF TYRANNY
(Mr. POE asked and was given permission to address the House for 1
minute.)
Mr. POE. Mr. Speaker, on this day 2 years ago, United States soldiers
found the king of tyranny, Saddam Hussein, hiding in a hole like a rat
near Tikrit, Iraq. His trial recently started, and it is more public
than some American trials because it is carried on international
television. He pontificates about how he is unjustly treated. He tries
to portray himself as an honorable person. This is the same dreadful
demon dictator that tortured and murdered his own citizens and caused
years of chaos and calamity in his own country.
Witnesses in the trial have described rapes, beatings, and electric
shock torture carried out by his relentless regime. But the news
stories focus on his outrageous court behavior instead of his years of
vicious violence and mayhem. The people of the world deserve a record
of his atrocities, not the senseless stories of his bad courtroom
attitude, his disruptions, and his disrespectful and disgraceful
demeanor. The caged rodent known as Saddam Hussein can protest all he
wants, but even the likes of him now receives a fair trial. Justice
will soon be served, and he will be punished like the rat that he is.
We call this justice system democracy.
That's just the way it is.
____________________
NO OUTSOURCING OF TORTURE
(Mr. MARKEY asked and was given permission to address the House for 1
minute.)
Mr. MARKEY. Mr. Speaker, we must prevent Vice President Cheney and
CIA Director Goss from carving out a special exemption for the CIA to
the McCain amendment barring torture, a Bush-Cheney-Goss EZ pass around
the law. But we should also realize that even if we ban torture by U.S.
Government agencies, the CIA is likely to increase the illegal practice
of extraordinary rendition, where they seize or kidnap suspects and
send them to countries like Syria or Uzbekistan which are likely to
subject the prisoners to torture.
The Secretary of State just flew around Europe trying to explain why
the United States is continuing to snatch citizens off the streets of
Italy and Germany and fly them on CIA planes to secret prisons where
they may be tortured. Earlier this year, I attached an amendment to the
defense authorization bill to stop this practice. If we want to shut
down the fast lane for torturers, we need to adopt both the McCain
amendment on torture and the Markey amendment barring the outsourcing
of torture to countries that do torture around the world in the name of
the United States of America and the CIA.
____________________
2-YEAR ANNIVERSARY OF THE MEDICARE MODERNIZATION ACT
(Mr. BURGESS asked and was given permission to address the House for
1 minute.)
Mr. BURGESS. Mr. Speaker, another 2-year anniversary that we observed
this week is the passage and signing of the Medicare Modernization Act.
A part of that act which really has not received the notice that it
deserves is the part that expanded health savings accounts to more
Americans. A lot of the restrictions were removed, and these changes
allowed more people to be covered by health savings accounts that
resulted in more coverage, coverage for people, and more choices for
those people with insurance products. Mr. Speaker, I know this, because
I had this before coming to Congress, and at that time there were only
two companies that offered MSA-type coverage in my State. Now, the
field has grown so that many companies offer coverage, and the prices
for health savings accounts have dramatically reduced in my area.
Today, Chief Deputy Whip Cantor is going to be introducing a bill
that is going to remove some more restrictions that will allow for the
adaptability for what are called flexible spending accounts and health
reimbursement accounts so they can more seamlessly interact. This is
good legislation, and I urge my colleagues to look into it.
____________________
PATRIOT ACT TOO RESTRICTIVE
(Mr. DAVIS of Illinois asked and was given permission to address the
House for 1 minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)
Mr. DAVIS of Illinois. Later on this week, we are going to be
considering the conference report on the PATRIOT Act. While I recognize
that there has been some movement relative to some of the provisions
that I found to be too onerous, I am afraid that it has not been
changed enough to my liking, and so I simply serve notice that I think
it is still too restrictive, it is still too oppressive, it does not
speak to the kind of patriotism that I believe in; therefore, I shall
be voting against it.
____________________
THANKS TO THE TROOPS
(Mr. PRICE of Georgia asked and was given permission to address the
House for 1 minute.)
Mr. PRICE of Georgia. Mr. Speaker, as we prepare for the Christmas
holiday, it is important that we remember those who will not be home
for Christmas, our men and women in the armed services. Next week is
Thank the Troops Week. While we celebrate the holiday, our troops all
over the world defend our freedom.
Since 9/11, much support and concern has been shown, with yellow
ribbons and clothing drives and helping families and sending care
packages. Just recently, I posted a thank you letter to our troops on
my Web site and shared it on TownHall.com.
A creative program that caught my eye is based in my own district in
Georgia. It is called Armor 4 Troops
[[Page 27994]]
Foundation, which is doing great things for our soldiers. Founded in
December 2004 by marine officers, it provides state-of-the-art
antiballistic glasses and other critical equipment directly to our
troops in the field, and it also provides financial assistance to
families of our soldiers who have been admitted to Walter Reed or
Bethesda Naval Hospital.
Mr. Speaker, I am proud to represent a district that will not forget
those who serve, and we are all blessed to live in a Nation of heroes
like the men and women in our military who fight every single day.
____________________
WE MUST DO MORE
(Mr. PENCE asked and was given permission to address the House for 1
minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)
Mr. PENCE. Mr. Speaker, back in Indiana, when a tree falls on your
house, first you tend to the wounded, then you start the clean-up, then
you sit down and figure out how to pay for it.
Well, the Congress of the United States in the wake of the worst
national catastrophe in our Nation's history responded to the need of
the wounded and the clean-up, appropriating more than $60 billion in 6
days. But this week, in conjunction with the Senate, this Congress will
come together to figure out how we are going to pay for it.
After passing the Deficit Reduction Act, which found more than $50
billion in savings in entitlement spending over the next 5 years,
Congress this week will come together on that measure as well as, it is
our fondest hope, an across-the-board cut in this year's Federal
budget. It is absolutely imperative that this Congress demonstrate the
ability to make tough choices even during tough times to put our fiscal
house in order.
President John F. Kennedy said it best when he said, To lead is to
choose. In this week perhaps at some late hour into the weekend or
early next week, we will see who is willing to come to the floor and
make the hard choices to put our fiscal house in order. We must do
more, Mr. Speaker, but we dare not do less.
____________________
BREAK THE MEDICARE BARRIERS
(Mrs. JOHNSON of Connecticut asked and was given permission to
address the House for 1 minute and to revise and extend her remarks.)
Mrs. JOHNSON of Connecticut. Mr. Speaker, would you work for an
employer who told you he was going to cut your pay next year 4\1/2\
percent? Would you work for an employer who told you he was going to
cut your pay every year for the next 6 years 4\1/2\ percent? Would you
work for an employer who told you he was going to cut your pay every
year for the next 6 years 4\1/2\ percent and your costs were going up
21 percent? Of course you would not.
Our seniors are already finding it hard to find a doctor who will
take a new Medicare patient. What a hollow promise Medicare is if you
cannot choose your own doctor. Only you, Mr. President, can require
bureaucratic minds to take the actions necessary, fair and appropriate
to break through the barriers to a destructive, unworkable, and
outdated law. Only you, Mr. President, can give the order for
administrative actions to allow budget-neutral repeal of the old SGR
law and adoption of a modern pay-for-performance bill so you can
fulfill the progressive vision that you have had that we all share of a
Medicare program that can control costs by improving the quality of
health care delivered to our seniors. I call on you to act, Mr.
President.
____________________
ANNOUNCEMENT BY THE SPEAKER PRO TEMPORE
The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Petri). Pursuant to clause 8 of rule XX,
the Chair will postpone further proceedings today on motions to suspend
the rules on which a recorded vote or yeas and nays are ordered, or on
which the vote is objected to under clause 6 of rule XX.
Record votes on postponed questions will be taken after 6:30 p.m.
today.
____________________
SUPPORTING THE GOALS AND IDEALS OF KOREAN AMERICAN DAY
Mr. CANNON. Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and agree to the
resolution (H. Res. 487) supporting the goals and ideals of Korean
American Day.
The Clerk read as follows:
H. Res. 487
Whereas the influence of Korean Americans may be observed
in all facets of American life, including entrepreneurship,
the arts, and education;
Whereas on January 13, 1903, 102 pioneer Korean immigrants
arrived in the United States initiating the first chapter of
Korean immigration to America;
Whereas the centennial year of 2003 marked an important
milestone in the history of Korean immigration;
Whereas Korean Americans, like other groups of immigrants
that came to the United States before them, have settled and
thrived in the United States through strong family ties,
community support, and hard work;
Whereas Korean Americans have made significant
contributions to the economic vitality of the United States
and the global marketplace;
Whereas Korean Americans have invigorated businesses,
churches, and academic communities in the United States;
Whereas Korean Americans have made enormous contributions
to the military strength of the United States;
Whereas today, at least 4,000 Korean Americans serve in the
Armed Forces of the United States, with approximately 25
percent of them currently serving in Iraq; and
Whereas the Centennial Committees of Korean Immigration and
Korean Americans have designated January 13 of each year as
``Korean American Day'' to commemorate the first step of the
long and prosperous journey of Korean Americans in the United
States: Now, therefore, be it
Resolved, That the House of Representatives--
(1) supports the goals and ideals of a Korean American Day;
(2) urges all Americans to observe Korean American Day so
as to have a greater appreciation of the invaluable
contributions Korean Americans have made to United States;
and
(3) honors and recognizes the 103rd anniversary of the
arrival of the first Korean immigrants to the United States.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Pursuant to the rule, the gentleman from
Utah (Mr. Cannon) and the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Davis) each will
control 20 minutes.
The Chair recognizes the gentleman from Utah.
General Leave
Mr. CANNON. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may
have 5 legislative days within which to revise and extend their remarks
and include extraneous material on H. Res. 487.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Is there objection to the request of the
gentleman from Utah?
There was no objection.
Mr. CANNON. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
Mr. Speaker, I rise today in support of H.R. 487, which supports the
goals and ideals of a Korean American Day and recognizes the 103rd
anniversary of the arrival of the first Korean immigrants to the United
States.
Korean Americans have played an important part in American society
since January 13, 1903, when over 100 pioneer Korean immigrants arrived
in America.
{time} 1415
I am proud to say this last century is chock-full of significant,
creative Korean-American accomplishments from Jam Kim, the first
Korean-American to serve in the United States House of Representatives,
to Eugene Chung, first Korean-American to be selected in the first
round of the NFL draft. To commemorate this remarkable period, the
Centennial Committees of Korean Immigration and Korean-Americans
designated January 13 of each year as Korean-American Day.
The Korean-American community has created a successful community at
large and has established a deep sense of culture and heritage for the
upcoming generations. It has become a centralizing force that promotes
progress and unity of Korean-Americans, as well as preserves their
close historical ties with Korean-American ancestors.
[[Page 27995]]
Korean-Americans have played an integral part in helping the United
States grow our principles of strong family ties, support for our
community as well as aspiring for success. With their contributions to
the economic vitality of the U.S. global marketplace, they have also
rejuvenated businesses, churches and academic communities in the United
States.
The Korean-American population has made enormous contributions to all
facets of American life, including to the United States military. At
least 4,000 Korean-Americans serve in the U.S. Armed Forces with
approximately 25 percent serving in Iraq currently. In addition,
Korean-Americans score among the top tier in academic tests and
scholastic accomplishments.
In closing, Mr. Speaker, I am hopeful that H. Res. 487 will serve to
bring the well-deserved recognition to a community that has given so
much in leadership and heritage to our Nation.
I would like to thank Chairman Tom Davis for introducing this
important resolution and urge my colleagues to join me in its adoption.
Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
Mr. DAVIS of Illinois. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I
might consume.
Mr. Speaker, Korea and the United States entered into their first
treaty, the Treaty of Friendship and Commerce, in 1882. The signing of
the treaty ushered in a sustained period of cooperation between the two
Nations. Not long after the treaty was signed, Korean citizens began
immigrating to the United States and, since that time, have made rich
contributions to the ethnic and cultural fabric of America.
Korean emigration to the United States can be divided into three
major waves. The first, from 1903 to 1905, consisted of about 7,500
Koreans, mostly men, who left their homes to work on Hawaii's sugar
plantations as contract laborers. The second, beginning in 1950,
consisted of women who married American soldiers and children adopted
into American families. The third wave began in 1967 with the
occupational and family reunification preferences of the 1965
Immigration Act. These waves of immigration followed growing U.S.
involvement in Korea during the 20th century.
Immigrants from Korea thrived in the United States despite social,
economic and language barriers. Korean-Americans have made
contributions in the fields of finance, technology, law, medicine, the
military, as well as in other areas. Four thousand Korean-Americans
serve proudly in the United States Armed Forces, many of them in Iraq.
The United States has remained firmly committed to its allies in
Korea, as shown not only by military support during the Korean
conflict, but through the support of the Korean community in the United
States. In June 2002, the United States Senate passed a historic
resolution that recognized the 100th anniversary of Korean immigration
to the United States.
I urge all of my colleagues to join me in the commemoration of
Korean-American Day. This resolution celebrates the success of the
Korean-American community, the contributions Korean immigrants have
made and the contributions they continue to make to America.
Mr. Speaker, I do not believe that I have any additional requests for
time, and I yield back the balance of my time.
Mr. CANNON. Mr. Speaker, I yield as much time as he may consume to my
distinguished colleague and friend from the Commonwealth of Virginia
(Mr. Tom Davis).
Mr. TOM DAVIS of Virginia. Mr. Speaker, it is with extreme pleasure
today that I rise in support of H. Res. 487. This resolution supports
the goals and ideals of Korean-American Day and honors the many
important contributions Korean-Americans have made to the United
States.
January 13, 1903, marked the arrival of the first 102 Korean
immigrants to America. For more than 100 years, Korean-Americans, like
the immigrants from other Nations who came to the United States before
them, have established roots and thrived in the United States through
strong family ties, community support and hard work. The influence of
Korean-Americans has been observed in all facets of American life,
including, but not limited to, entrepreneurship, the arts and
education.
Since my first term in Congress, I have had the pleasure of working
hand-in-hand with a large Korean-American community in Northern
Virginia. Through this warm and prosperous relationship, I have only
become more impressed with a people whose heritage displays such a
strong sense of determination, discipline and compassion. I am very
proud of how rapidly the Korean-American community has spread its roots
in Northern Virginia and am extremely appreciative of their numerous
contributions to our community.
From Annandale to Fairfax to Prince William County, Korean-American-
owned shops and businesses dominate the retail landscape. Their
children are succeeding in our schools and going on to start their own
businesses and bring up their families, making our community better and
more prosperous by far.
I traveled and led a congressional delegation to the Republic of
Korea in August of 2004 to discuss the prosperous relationship between
our two countries. The Republic of Korea is an important ally and
trading partner of the United States, and this is why many Korean
immigrants have chosen to make the U.S. their home. It is the United
States' seventh largest trading partner and is the third largest source
of foreign students studying in the United States.
In addition, the U.S. embassy in Seoul is the busiest American
consular post in the world. I have been working diligently with the
Department of State and the Department of Homeland Security to help
create a roadmap which will eventually admit Korea into the Visa Waiver
Program.
In closing, I want to remind my colleagues that it is all too easy to
overlook the invaluable contributions that Korean-Americans have made,
not just in Northern Virginia but to our Nation as a whole. This bill
provides well-deserved recognition to the Korean-American community for
the indelible mark they have made upon the diversity and prominence of
our great Nation.
I also want to thank the distinguished representative from Utah for
handling this bill on the floor, thanks to the gentleman from New York
(Mr. Rangel), the gentleman from California (Mr. Royce), who has been a
leader in these efforts, and the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr.
Capuano) for their work as original sponsors on this resolution, and I
urge all of my colleagues to support it.
Mr. CANNON. Mr. Speaker, I yield as much time as he may consume to
the gentleman from California (Mr. Royce), my friend and colleague.
Mr. ROYCE. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Utah for the time,
and I rise also in support of this resolution supporting the goals and
supporting the ideals of Korean-American Day, and as mentioned by
Chairman Davis, I am an original cosponsor of the bill.
The Republic of Korea has been an ally and a friend of the United
States now for many decades, and over this time, South Korea has
emerged as a major economic partner for the United States. Korea is the
U.S.'s seventh largest trading partner. That is ahead of Western
European countries such as France and Italy, and frankly, it is our
sixth largest export market. The U.S. is Korea's largest export market,
its second largest source of imports and the largest supplier of
foreign direct investment into South Korea.
South Korea is also a very key ally of the United States, and as
chairman of the U.S.-Republic of Korea Interparliamentary Exchange, I
can report that many in this body recognize the importance of this
resolution. I frequently travel to South Korea on the mission of
building this relationship. It is vital that the two countries work
closely together to address the difficult security challenges in
northeast Asia.
There are now more than 1 million Korean-Americans living in the
United States. A large body of Korean-Americans are in southern
California. From the first 100 who immigrated to the
[[Page 27996]]
United States in the early 20th century, Koreans have become an
integral part of our country. Today, one out of every eight Korean-
Americans is an entrepreneur, owning his or her own business.
In my own district, I am continually impressed with the Korean
community and their commitment in upholding their own rich heritage and
their commitment to education. The United States, and California in
particular, have been enriched and defined by the contributions of
Korean-Americans in a wide variety of fields.
Korean-Americans have invigorated businesses and civic institutions,
certainly academic communities and science across the country. Korean-
owned businesses employ more than a third of the million men and women,
generating sales and receipts of around $50 billion a year.
This legislation gives Congress the chance to recognize the
importance Korean-Americans play in our community by establishing
Korean-American Day.
Mr. CANNON. Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to yield so much time as he may
consume, given the constraint that we may have, to the gentleman from
the Commonwealth of Virginia (Mr. Moran).
Mr. MORAN of Virginia. Mr. Speaker, I thank my good friend from Utah
for yielding me the time, and I will not take much of it, but I would
like to underscore what has already been said.
We have a very close, almost unique relationship with the people of
Korea. Thousands of our young men and women died to enable the South
Koreans to live in democracy. They have taken advantage of that
opportunity and have been a model for the rest of the world in terms of
free enterprise and an active democratic system. Hopefully, the people
of North Korea will one day understand that South Korea's gone in the
right direction, and North Korea's gone in the wrong direction.
In addition to that strong relationship, Korean-Americans have
contributed to this country in a way that is paralleled by very few
other nationalities. They have contributed in ways to our economy and
our society that are incalculable and that are worthy of great
appreciation. Their work ethic, their strong values have done so much
for the business community and, really, for the stability of our
society.
Mr. Speaker, I would like to suggest that one way that we might
substantively express our appreciation for what Korean-Americans have
done for this country's economy and society is to pass the Visa Waiver
bill. I am a sponsor of this, and what it would do is to grant the same
kind of opportunities for Koreans to come from South Korea and to visit
their relatives as are granted to 27 other countries, including all of
our European allies and many of our Asian allies; Bosnia and Japan, for
example. Yet today, there are thousands of South Korean families
waiting in line, trying to get a visa to visit their own families here
in the United States of America. They are not able to because they are
not afforded the same visa waiver that our other allies are. In fact,
they are really the only strong ally that is not granted that
privilege. I think we should grant that privilege, and I think that
would be a further expression of the very strong and genuine sentiments
that are expressed in this resolution.
I obviously strongly support this resolution, and I appreciate the
opportunity to say so on the floor. Mr. Speaker, I thank my friends,
the gentleman from Utah, and the gentleman from Illinois for offering
it and certainly my good friend and colleague from Virginia (Mr. Tom
Davis).
Mr. CANNON. Mr. Speaker, I would like to again thank both the
gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Tom Davis) and the gentleman from Illinois
(Mr. Davis) for their work on this bill and bringing it forward, and I
want to urge all Members to support the adoption of H. Res. 487.
Mr. CASE. Mr. Speaker, aloha and annyong ha shimnikka!
I rise today in strong support of H. Res. 487, which supports the
goals and ideals of Korean American Day and, in doing so, recognizes
the rich history of Korean immigration to our country dating back well
over a century now and the broad and deep contributions of Korean
Americans to all facets of our diverse American life.
The history of our country's Korean American community is commonly
traced to January 13, 1903, when the SS Gaelic arrived in Honolulu
Harbor carrying our first immigrants from Korea. The 56 men, 21 women,
and 25 children who stepped onto my Hawaii's shores that day marked the
beginning of the remarkable Korean cultural thread that has woven
itself so deeply and uniquely into our American tapestry.
Today, 1.2 million Americans of Korean ancestry live throughout our
Nation, with 41,000 in Hawaii alone. Korean American contributions in
our Hawaii, built on the foundation of dedication and sacrifice by
their predecessors, have been notable in a plethora of fields, ranging
from government, law, finance, technology, medicine, and business, to
arts, sports, education, and military service.
As just some examples, Chief Justice Ronald Moon of the Hawaii
Supreme Court is the first Korean American in our country to serve on a
state supreme court. Others are recipients of the Hawaii Korean
American Foundation's 2005 Light of the Orient Award: Hawaii County
Mayor Harry Kim, Honolulu City Councilwoman Ann Kobayashi, community
advocates Agnes Rho Chun, Reverend Tongjin Samuel Lee, Frank Min,
Evelyn Choi Shon, and Duk Hee Lee Murabayashi. And, of course, our most
well-known American of Korean ancestry is professional golfer Michelle
Wie.
But what proud father would not take the opportunity as well to
highlight his own two favorite Korean Americans: James Kahele Case and
David Espenett Case. My sons carry a quarter Korean ethnicity gifted
them by their grandmother, Grace Moon, who emigrated to Hawaii from
Korea shortly after the Korean War, and so join this great community in
the responsibility of bringing forward this great heritage, American
style, into the coming generations.
In closing, I thank Congressmen Tom Davis, Charles Rangel, Michael
Capuano, and Ed Royce, the chief sponsors of this measure, for
providing us all with this opportunity to recognize the many
contributions of Korean Americans, past, present and future. Kamsamnida
to them, and to all Korean Americans, wherever you might be.
Ms. BORDALLO. Mr. Speaker, I rise today in support of House
Resolution 487, which recognizes the goals and ideals of a Korean
American Day and which honors the contributions that Korean Americans
have made in the United States.
On January 13, 1903, 102 Korean immigrants arrived in the United
States. They arrived on the SS Gaelic in Honolulu in the U.S. Territory
of Hawaii where they established residence and labored on Hawaiian
sugar plantations. These immigrants pioneered the migration of Koreans
to America. Today this movement continues and remains strong. The
island of Guam is home to many Korean immigrants and Korean Americans
alike.
In the 1960s, President John F. Kennedy lifted the United States
security clearance requirement for travel to and from Guam. This was an
important-step with respect to the future growth and development of
Guam's economy and trade with Asian nations. The removal of the
security clearance requirement was followed by an influx of new
immigrants to Guam, the westernmost territory of the United States.
Koreans began to establish communities on Guam as early as in the
1970s, and in 1980s many new Korean families arrived on island to
establish a beginning in America. Many Korean immigrants opened new
businesses and several have risen to assume important leadership roles
in advocating for the small business community.
The contributions of Korean Americans are not only found in Guam, but
in every community across the United States. Korean Americans are key
contributors in the economic, medical, academic and religious fields.
Notably, at least 4,000 Korean Americans are currently serving in the
U.S. Armed Forces, with 25 percent serving in Iraq. Whether they are
serving as leaders in their communities or fighting alongside their
fellow Americans in defense of our country, Korean Americans have
demonstrated their significant presence in and contributions to the
United States.
I wish to express my heartfelt support in recognizing the 103rd
anniversary of the arrival of the first Korean immigrants to the United
States. On this occasion, I also take the opportunity to recognize the
growth and contributions of the Korean Association of Guam. The Korean
Association of Guam was established to advance the professional and
civic interests of Korean Americans in Guam. Today, the Association
serves as an important welcoming support group for new immigrants from
Korea. Through the continued efforts and
[[Page 27997]]
contributions of Korean Americans, our nation's ties with Korea will be
strengthened in the years to come. I urge passage of House Resolution
487 in honor of the story and contributions of Korean Americans.
Mr. GARRETT of New Jersey. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to express my
support for H. Res. 487, supporting the goals and ideals for Korean
American Day.
On January 13th, we will celebrate the 103rd Anniversary of Korean
American Day. It was on that day, 103 years ago, that a boat carrying
102 Korean immigrants arrived in Hawaii. According to the 2000 census,
there are now more than 1 million Korean Americans. Over that time,
Korean Americans have made an untold number of contributions to
American society.
Whether in education, science, business, or the arts, Korean
Americans have played and continue to play a vital role in shaping
communities throughout New Jersey and the entire country.
For instance, there are over 4,000 Korean Americans currently serving
in our Armed Forces and a large number of them are deployed overseas
keeping our nation safe from terrorism. Furthermore, Korean Americans
own more than 135,500 businesses across the U.S., employing nearly
334,000 individuals and generating gross receipts and sales of $46
billion.
Many of to day's Korean Americans came to this nation in the 1950s
fleeing the war and poverty that followed the invasion of South Korea
by North Korea. Today, that region continues to face threats to its
overall security. I promise to continue to work with my colleagues and
Korean officials to find a long term solution to the nuclear crisis on
the Korean peninsula. Ensuring safety in the region and seeking a
diplomatic resolution to the conflict are two of my top priorities.
Korean American Day is an excellent opportunity for Americans to
remember the many contributions that Korean Americans have made to our
society and I urge all of my colleagues to support H. Res. 487,
supporting the goals and ideals of Korean American Day.
Mr. HONDA. Mr. Speaker, I rise today in support of H. Res. 487, which
supports the goals and ideals of Korean American Day.
I would like to recognize my colleagues Representatives Davis,
Rangel, Capuano and Royce for their leadership on this bill.
As Chair of the Congressional Asian Pacific American Caucus (CAPAC),
I am proud to stand here to honor the accomplishments and contributions
of the Korean American community.
On January 13, 1903, the first wave of Korean immigrants arrived in
Hawaii. Like all immigrants, they arrived in this country with hope
that they would find opportunities and a better life for themselves and
their children. After World War II and the Korean War, two separate
streams of Korean immigration took place. The first included those
searching for political and educational freedom from the war. The
larger stream occurred after the 1965 Immigration Act, which abolished
the ``national origins'' quota system and allowed for family
reunification provisions. After being hardened through years of war in
Korea, these immigrants felt determined to build better lives and
thrive in the United States.
For Korean immigrants, the American dream of building a better future
for their families is alive and well. Korean Americans make this dream
a reality through a focus on entrepreneurship. Korean American
entrepreneurs have successfully developed businesses in all parts of
our cities and suburbs.
The path to the American dream has not been easy for Korean
Americans. The community has faced language and cultural barriers,
discrimination and racism. Despite these obstacles, the Korean American
community--like so many other immigrants who arrive in this country--
are helping to make and keep America strong.
The Korean American community has made lasting contributions to our
society through a variety of professions including business, education,
and the military. They have made significant contributions in medicine
and the sciences such as the South Korean researcher Hwang Woo-Suk, a
national hero in Korea for back-to-back world firsts in embryonic stem
cell (ESC) research. Additionally, the Korean American community
provides a bridge for the U.S. in building a stronger relationship with
Korea. As a nation, we are benefiting from the knowledge and talent
from their contributions.
Today, there are over 2 million Korean Americans living in the United
States and Korean immigration remains an important part of our nation's
history. The contributions through their culture, talents and knowledge
continue to add to the diversity of this great nation.
Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to join me in supporting this
important piece of legislation.
Mr. CARDIN. Mr. Speaker, I rise in support and as a cosponsor of H.
Res. 487, supporting the goals and ideals of Korean American Day. This
resolution marks the upcoming 103rd anniversary, on January 13, 2006,
of the day that the first Korean immigrants arrived in the United
States.
Today we acknowledge and celebrate the economic, academic and
cultural contributions made by the immigrant Korean community to the
United States. Korean Americans have made a significant and positive
impact in this country, in the proud tradition of immigrants that for
generations have traveled to come to the United States.
I am pleased to work with various Korean American groups in my State
of Maryland that have helped new immigrants gain access to social
services, health care, and continuing education programs that allow
them to prosper in America. I am also pleased that many groups are
working to assist qualified legal permanent residents to become U.S.
citizens and to participate in local, State, and national elections.
I call on my colleagues to recognize the contributions made by Korean
Americans and to support this resolution.
Mrs. MALONEY. Mr. Speaker, I rise today in support of H. Res. 487,
supporting the goals and ideals of Korean-American Day. This important
resolution also recognizes the 103rd anniversary of the arrival of the
first Korean immigrants to the United States.
In January 1903 the first Korean immigrants came to the United
States. Since then, Korean-Americans have raised families, participated
in their communities, and contributed to the economy.
I am proud to represent the thousands of Korean-Americans living in
my congressional district. These hard-working individuals have started
numerous businesses which help to strengthen the economy of New York
City.
Our nation's diversity is one of its greatest strengths, and I am
pleased that this resolution honors the achievements of this vibrant
community.
Ms. PELOSI. Mr. Speaker, it is with pride that I rise to join my
colleagues in recognizing the 103rd anniversary of Korean American
immigration to the United States, and honoring the contributions of the
Korean American community to our country.
On January 13, 1903, the S.S. Gaelic docked in Hawaii, carrying with
it the first wave of immigrants from Korea, and ushering in a new
chapter in our nation's heritage. These pioneering individuals--56 men,
21 women, and 25 children--would blaze a trail for more than two
million Korean American immigrants and their descendents who live
throughout our nation today.
Following World War II and the Korean War, a second wave of thousands
of Korean immigrants came to the United States. Like all immigrants,
they sacrificed everything they knew to answer the calls of freedom and
new opportunity, with the hopes of building brighter futures for
themselves in America.
Over the course of one hundred years of immigration, Korean Americans
have worked hard to achieve the American dream through their resolve,
determination, and an abiding belief in the greatness of this country
that we love. While well known and celebrated for its entrepreneurial
spirit, the contributions made by the Korean American community to our
society extends to all areas of the American fabric and have profoundly
enriched our national heritage. Korean Americans have broken down
language and social barriers, and fought back against the obstacles of
racism and discrimination to succeed in and contribute to all aspects
of American life--all.
As Representative of California's 8th Congressional District, it is
my privilege to represent a diverse Asian American and Pacific Islander
community, including a vibrant and active Korean American community.
In marking the 100 year anniversary of Korean American immigration,
the Centennial Committee on Korean Immigration designated January 13 of
each year as Korean American Day. By honoring this day, we celebrate
the extraordinary contributions of this unique community to our
country, and rededicate ourselves to making the American dream a
reality for all.
This legislation has my strong support, and I urge my colleagues to
join me in honoring this vibrant community.
Ms. SCHAKOWSKY. Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of H. Res. 487, which
would establish January 13 of each year as Korean American Day to
celebrate the anniversary of the arrival of the first Korean-American
immigrants to the United States (January 13, 1903). The Korean American
community has added so much to the vibrant culture of Chicago and our
country. Illinois has the 4th largest Korean population in the United
States, and Chicago alone has close to 12,000 Korean residents.
[[Page 27998]]
Korean-Americans have taken root and thrived in the United States
through strong family ties and community support. Through hard work,
Koreans have invigorated businesses, churches, and academic communities
in the United States.
My constituents like Mr. Jin Lee, have made tremendous contributions
to my city of Chicago. At the age of fourteen, Mr. Lee arrived in this
country and has since been actively serving the Korean-American
community. He co-founded the Keumsil Cultural Society, which promotes
Korean American culture. He was Executive Director of the Chicago
Korean American Chamber of Commerce, a member of the Village of
Skokie's Immigrant Advisory Task Force and a committee member of the
Skokie Festival of Cultures. He works hard on behalf of the community
and has been recognized and honored by the Korean Ministry of Foreign
Affairs and Trade, the Republic of Korea and Mayor Richard M. Daley's
office. He also served as goodwill ambassador for ``Visit Korea 2001''
and served as Vice President of the Korean American Association of
Chicago. He recognizes the importance of promoting cultural diversity
and supporting the immigrant community.
As a first generation American and as a Congresswoman who is honored
to represent one of the most richly diverse districts in the country, I
have a deep appreciation for the invaluable contributions Korean-
Americans have made to the United States. Korean-Americans, like Mr.
Lee, contribute so much to and are an inspiration to others seeking to
share in the American dream. This resolution provides much needed and
deserved recognition to the Korean-American community for the
invaluable mark they have had on the diversity and prominence of our
great nation.
Mr. CANNON. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.
The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Petri). The question is on the motion
offered by the gentleman from Utah (Mr. Cannon) that the House suspend
the rules and agree to the resolution, H. Res. 487.
The question was taken.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. In the opinion of the Chair, two-thirds of
those present have voted in the affirmative.
Mr. CANNON. Mr. Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.
The yeas and nays were ordered.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Pursuant to clause 8 of rule XX and the
Chair's prior announcement, further proceedings on this question will
be postponed.
____________________
MONT AND MARK STEPHENSEN VETERANS MEMORIAL POST OFFICE BUILDING
Mr. CANNON. Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and pass the
bill (H.R. 4295) to designate the facility of the United States Postal
Service located at 12760 South Park Avenue in Riverton, Utah, as the
``Mont and Mark Stephensen Veterans Memorial Post Office Building''.
The Clerk read as follows:
H.R. 4295
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of
the United States of America in Congress assembled,
SECTION 1. MONT AND MARK STEPHENSEN VETERANS MEMORIAL POST
OFFICE BUILDING.
(a) Designation.--The facility of the United States Postal
Service located at 12760 South Park Avenue in Riverton, Utah,
shall be known and designated as the ``Mont and Mark
Stephensen Veterans Memorial Post Office Building''.
(b) References.--Any reference in a law, map, regulation,
document, paper, or other record of the United States to the
facility referred to in subsection (a) shall be deemed to be
a reference to the ``Mont and Mark Stephensen Veterans
Memorial Post Office Building''.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Pursuant to the rule, the gentleman from
Utah (Mr. Cannon) and the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Davis) each will
control 20 minutes.
The Chair recognizes the gentleman from Utah.
General Leave
Mr. CANNON. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may
have 5 legislative days in which to revise and extend their remarks and
include extraneous material on the bill under consideration.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Is there objection to the request of the
gentleman from Utah?
There was no objection.
{time} 1430
Mr. CANNON. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
Mr. Speaker, I introduced H.R. 4295 to honor two individuals for
their patriotic service and ultimate sacrifice for their country. All
members of the Utah congressional delegation have cosponsored this
legislation to pay homage to these brave and capable soldiers.
Mont and Mark Stevenson were brothers who shared many things. Both
were born in Riverton, Utah; both attended Brigham Young University;
and most importantly, both answered their country's call to war.
Mont joined the Army Air Corps and served during World War II, while
Mark joined the Air Force and served during Vietnam. Mont achieved the
rank of captain, while his brother achieved the rank of lieutenant
colonel.
Sadly, both of these brave men were killed serving their country. In
a bombing mission over Germany on December 23, 1944, Mont's plane was
shot down, and he was reported as being killed in action. He was
initially buried in Luxemburg, but was moved and buried in Riverton
with full honors after the war's end.
During Vietnam, Mark was shot down on his 94th combat mission, a
recon flight over Hanoi. He went down with the plane and was reported
missing in action or killed in action on April 29, 1967. Mark was
declared dead by the government in 1978, and in 1988 his remains were
discovered. Mark was also buried in Riverton with full military honors.
This legislation is not the first honor that these heroes have
received. In 1982, Hill Air Force Base renamed their base theater in
honor of these two men. Passage of this legislation will allow two
brothers that lost their lives while defending our great Nation to
receive the honor of having their names placed on their hometown's post
office building.
I want to thank Chairman Davis for his support and work on this
legislation.
Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
Mr. DAVIS of Illinois. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may
consume.
Mr. Speaker, as a member of the House Government Reform Committee, I
am pleased to join my colleague in consideration of H.R. 4295,
legislation naming a postal facility in Riverton, Utah, after Mont and
Mark Stevenson. This measure, which was introduced by Representative
Chris Cannon of Utah on November 10, 2005, and unanimously reported by
our committee on November 16, 2005, enjoys the support and close
sponsorship of the entire Utah delegation.
Mont Stevenson, a native of Riverton, Utah, joined the United States
Army Air Corps, where he served as a flight commander in the 559th
Bombardment Squadron. Sadly, while on a bombing mission over Germany,
Captain Stevenson's plane was shot down, and he was reported as being
killed in action. Later, his remains were found and brought to the
United States, where he was buried in Riverton with full military
honors.
Mont's brother, Mark Stevenson, also served in the military. He
joined the U.S. Air Force and served in Vietnam. While on his 94th
combat mission, Lieutenant Colonel Stevenson was shot down, captured as
a prisoner of war and reported MIA/KIA, or missing in action, killed in
action. On April 29, 1967, he was declared dead; and in 1988, 21 years
later, his remains were found, and he too was buried in Riverton with
full military honors.
Mr. Speaker, it is indeed a great honor to recognize the enormous
sacrifice of the Stevenson family. Two brothers, one who served in
World War II, the other in the Vietnam war, both died while defending
our Nation. These soldiers are more than deserving of a memorial in
their hometown of Riverton, Utah.
I commend my colleague for seeking to honor the service of Captain
Mont F. Stevenson and Lieutenant Colonel Mark Lane Stevenson, two
heroic men who gave their lives for this country; and I urge swift
passage of this bill.
Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.
[[Page 27999]]
Mr. CANNON. Mr. Speaker, I urge all Members to support the passage of
H.R. 4295.
Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. The question is on the motion offered by the
gentleman from Utah (Mr. Cannon) that the House suspend the rules and
pass the bill, H.R. 4295.
The question was taken; and (two-thirds having voted in favor
thereof) the rules were suspended and the bill was passed.
A motion to reconsider was laid on the table.
____________________
MARYLAND STATE DELEGATE LENA K. LEE POST OFFICE BUILDING
Mr. CANNON. Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and pass the
bill (H.R. 4107) to designate the facility of the United States Postal
Service located at 1826 Pennsylvania Avenue in Baltimore, Maryland, as
the ``Maryland State Delegate Lena K. Lee Post Office Building''.
The Clerk read as follows:
H.R. 4107
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of
the United States of America in Congress assembled,
SECTION 1. MARYLAND STATE DELEGATE LENA K. LEE POST OFFICE
BUILDING.
(a) Designation.--The facility of the United States Postal
Service located at 1826 Pennsylvania Avenue in Baltimore,
Maryland, shall be known and designated as the ``Maryland
State Delegate Lena K. Lee Post Office Building''.
(b) References.--Any reference in a law, map, regulation,
document, paper, or other record of the United States to the
facility referred to in subsection (a) shall be deemed to be
a reference to the ``Maryland State Delegate Lena K. Lee Post
Office Building''.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Pursuant to the rule, the gentleman from
Utah (Mr. Cannon) and the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Davis) each will
control 20 minutes.
The Chair recognizes the gentleman from Utah.
General Leave
Mr. CANNON. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may
have 5 legislative days within which to revise and extend their remarks
and include extraneous material on the bill under consideration.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Is there objection to the request of the
gentleman from Utah?
There was no objection.
Mr. CANNON. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of H.R. 4107, legislation authored by
the distinguished gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Cummings). The bill
would designate this post office in Baltimore, Maryland, as the Lena K.
Lee Post Office Building. All Members of the Maryland delegation have
cosponsored this legislation.
A woman with undying ambition and an unstoppable desire to help
others, the Honorable Lena K. Lee, was often referred to as a master
teacher, union leader, lawyer, and legislator. Her leadership example
through the years has provided countless opportunities for young and
determined African Americans in Maryland.
Delegate Lee received her bachelor's degree from Morgan State
University in 1939 and her master's from New York University in 1947.
Before her days in politics, Delegate Lee was a teacher and eventually
a principal in the Baltimore City public school system. In 1952, she
became the third woman to receive her law degree from the University of
Maryland School of Law.
In 1967, she began a 16-year term as the first African American
female lawyer to serve in the House of Delegates. During her tenure,
she fought to eradicate social inequality and advocated tirelessly for
women's rights. In addition, Delegate Lee was instrumental in helping
Morgan State College achieve university status and in saving the
Orchard Street Church, a site of the Underground Railroad, from
destruction. She has also served as an advocate for the health of
Maryland prisoners as well as a supporter in the reconstruction of the
new Provident Hospital.
She served as a member of numerous organizations, such as the NAACP,
the Urban League, the League of Women Voters. Most notably, she was the
first African American woman to serve as the vice-chair of the
Baltimore City delegation to the general assembly, and one of the
founders of the Women Legislators of Maryland and the Maryland
Legislative Black Caucus.
She has been the recipient of numerous awards, honors, and citations,
including the Presidential Citation from the National Association for
Equal Opportunity in Higher Education and membership into the Maryland
Women's Hall of Fame.
I encourage all Members to come together to pass H.R. 4107 to honor
Delegate Lena K. Lee for her constant perseverance and courage in her
quest for equality.
Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
Mr. DAVIS of Illinois. Mr. Speaker, it is now my pleasure to yield
such time as he may consume to the gentleman from Maryland (Mr.
Cummings), the sponsor of this legislation.
Mr. CUMMINGS. Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the gentleman for yielding
me this time, and I want to thank our chairman and the ranking member
of the full committee. I certainly want to thank the chairman of the
subcommittee and Mr. Davis, our ranking member, and the gentleman from
Utah.
I rise today, Mr. Speaker, to urge my colleagues to support H.R.
4107, legislation I introduced to honor a great woman, Lena K. Lee.
H.R. 4107 would designate the facility of the United States Postal
Service located at Druid Station in Baltimore, Maryland, the Maryland
State Delegate Lena K. Lee Post Office Building. It is very interesting
to note, Mr. Speaker, that this post office is actually located within
about three blocks from where Delegate Lena K. Lee lives.
As an individual whose intellect, generous spirit, and rare devotion
aided her in making momentous contributions to the great State of
Maryland, the Honorable Lena K. Lee is worthy of this exceptional
distinction. Born a coal miner's daughter, Delegate Lee rose to
prominence as a master legislator, teacher, union leader, and a lawyer
by blazing a trail of distinguished public service.
She received her B.S. degree from Morgan State College in 1939, and
her master's degree from New York University in 1947. Before entering
the political arena, Delegate Lee served as a teacher, and a very good
one at that, and a elementary school principal in the Baltimore City
public school system. In 1952, she became the third woman to receive
her law degree from the University of Maryland Law School.
In 1967, Delegate Lee went on to serve her community on a much larger
scale when she began a 15-year term as the first African American
female lawyer in the House of Delegates. During her tenure, she
dedicated her energy and talents towards eradicating social
inequalities and advocating for women's rights.
Mr. Speaker, Delegate Lee, like the great Rosa Parks, was an
individual who demonstrated the power of one. She was a champion of
justice and a dynamic legislator who used her skills to selflessly
better the world around her. Among her many accomplishments, she
succeeded in assisting Morgan State College achieve university status
and in saving the Orchard Street Church, a site of the Underground
Railroad, from destruction. It is also interesting to note that that
same building now is used to house the Baltimore branch of the Urban
League. She also successfully fought for the construction of a new
Provident Hospital, now called Liberty Medical Center, and the creation
of no-fault divorce in the State of Maryland.
As one of the founders of the Women Legislators of Maryland and the
Maryland Legislative Black Caucus, Delegate Lee further displayed her
resolve to lead and not follow.
Because of her tireless efforts, she has been the recipient of
numerous honors, including the Presidential Citation from the National
Association For Equal Opportunity in Higher Education, as well as
membership in the Maryland Women's Hall of Fame, a very, very high
honor.
Though Delegate Lee is now in the winter years of her life at age 99,
her
[[Page 28000]]
legacy will live on in the lives of those she has touched. She cleared
the path to opportunities previously inaccessible to many bright and
talented African Americans.
On a more personal note, in the summer of 1982, I received a call
from this woman, known only to me by her reputation. Delegate Lee said
something that would change the course of my life. She said, ``I'm
going to retire from the House of Delegates. I'm looking for someone to
take my place. I'm looking for a female lawyer, so that we will still
have one in the House.'' And then she went on to say that I have
decided to choose you. She said, ``I know you're a lawyer and I know
you're not a female, but'' in her words, ``you will do.''
In the days that followed, although she was not feeling very well
physically, Delegate Lee walked door to door with me, introducing me to
voters and helping to raise campaign funds. The first 1982 campaign for
the Maryland House of Delegates was not an easy one, and I often
expressed my doubts to Delegate Lee. The question is not whether
opportunities will come in life, she often said. The question is
whether you are prepared to take advantage of them; and I think that
you are prepared.
While her eloquent words resonated in my heart, the way she lived her
life was her most compelling lesson. In no uncertain terms, Delegate
Lena K. Lee was my first and my very best teacher in public life, and
for that I will go to my grave being grateful.
Mr. Speaker, the postal facility named in honor of this distinguished
lady will serve to signify to the citizens of Maryland and of this
great country and generations yet unborn that the leadership and
noteworthy achievements of even one committed citizen can enrich and
empower our communities and indeed our Nation. I urge my colleagues to
join me in offering their support to this important legislation.
Mr. CANNON. Mr. Speaker, I have no further requests for time and I
reserve the balance of my time.
Mr. DAVIS of Illinois. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may
consume.
I am indeed delighted that Delegate Lee was willing to accept our
esteemed colleague, even though he was not a woman. And I think that
she has been vindicated.
As a member of the House Government Reform Committee, I am pleased to
join my colleague in consideration of H.R. 4107, legislation naming a
postal facility in Baltimore, Maryland, after Lena K. Lee.
{time} 1445
This measure, which was introduced by my good friend and colleague
Representative Elijah Cummings on October 20, 2005, and unanimously
reported by our committee on November 16, 2005, enjoys the support and
cosponsorship of the entire Maryland delegation.
Prior to entering State politics, Lena Lee was a teacher and
elementary school principal in the Baltimore City public school system.
In 1967, she began a 16-year term as the first African-American female
lawyer to serve in the House of delegates. During her term in the House
of Delegates, Delegate Lee worked hard on eradicating social inequities
and stood strong in support of women's rights. Delegate Lee also
assisted Morgan State College achieve university status and saved the
Orchard Street Church, an underground railroad site, from destruction.
She advocated for the health of Maryland prisoners and aided in the
reconstruction of the New Provident Hospital.
Delegate Lee's incredible leadership in improving the lives of
Baltimore citizens and preserving cultural and educational landmarks
made her the recipient of numerous awards, honors and citations,
including the Presidential citation from the National Association For
Equal Opportunity in Higher Education and the membership in the
Maryland Women's Hall of Fame.
Mr. Speaker, I commend Representative Cummings for seeking to honor
this very accomplished citizen. Naming the Druid Station in Baltimore
is a fine way to recognize the legacy of the Honorable Lena K. Lee, and
I urge swift passage of this bill.
Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.
Mr. CANNON. Mr. Speaker, I urge all Members to support passage of
H.R. 4107, and I yield back the balance of my time.
The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Petri). The question is on the motion
offered by the gentleman from Utah (Mr. Cannon) that the House suspend
the rules and pass the bill, H.R. 4107.
The question was taken; and (two-thirds having voted in favor
thereof) the rules were suspended and the bill was passed.
A motion to reconsider was laid on the table.
____________________
RECOGNIZING CENTENNIAL OF SUSTAINED IMMIGRATION FROM PHILIPPINES TO
UNITED STATES AND ACKNOWLEDGING CONTRIBUTIONS OF FILIPINO-AMERICAN
COMMUNITY
Mr. CANNON. Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and agree to the
concurrent resolution (H. Con. Res. 218) recognizing the centennial of
sustained immigration from the Philippines to the United States and
acknowledging the contributions of our Filipino-American community to
our country over the last century.
The Clerk read as follows:
H. Con. Res. 218
Whereas the peoples of the Philippine archipelago have a
long and proud history, and today, as the Republic of the
Philippines, embrace democracy, occupy a central strategic
position in Asia and the Pacific, and nurture a rich and
diverse cultural heritage;
Whereas the United States and the Philippines have enjoyed
a long and productive relationship, including the period of
United States governance between 1898 and 1946, and the
period post-independence starting in 1946, during which the
Philippines has taken its place among the community of
nations and has been one of our country's most loyal and
reliable allies internationally;
Whereas the bonds between our two countries have been
strengthened through sustained immigration from the
Philippines to the United States;
Whereas the 2000 census counted almost 2.4 million
Americans of Filipino ancestry living in all parts of our
country, including the top two States: California, with
almost 1.1 million Filipino Americans, and Hawaii, with some
275,000;
Whereas the contributions of Filipino Americans to the
United States include achievement in all segments of our
society, including, to name a few, labor, business, politics,
medicine, media and the arts;
Whereas Filipino Americans have especially served with
distinction in the Armed Forces of the United States
throughout the history of our long relationship, from World
Wars I and II through the Korean War, the Vietnam War, the
Gulf War, and today in Afghanistan and Iraq;
Whereas within the United States, Filipino Americans
retained many of their country's proud cultural traditions
and contribute immeasurably to the diverse tapestry of
today's American experience;
Whereas Filipino Americans have also maintained close ties
to their friends and relatives in the Philippines and in
doing so play an indispensable role in maintaining the
strength and vitality of the U.S.-Philippines relationship;
Whereas both the Filipino experience in the United States
and the resultant ties between our two great countries began
in earnest in 1906, when 15 Filipino contract laborers
arrived in the then-Territory of Hawaii to work on the
islands' sugar plantations, the beginnings of an emigration
from the Philippines to Hawaii which, during the subsequent
century, has sometimes exceeded 60,000 a year, making
Filipinos the largest immigrant group from the Asia-Pacific
region;
Whereas 1906 also saw the first class of two hundred
``pensionados'' arrive from the Philippines to obtain United
States educations with the intent of returning, although many
later became United States citizens and helped form the
foundation of today's Filipino-American community;
Whereas the story of America's Filipino-American community
is little known and rarely told, yet is the quintessential
immigrant story of early struggle, pain, sacrifice, and
broken dreams, leading eventually to success in overcoming
ethnic, social, economic, political, and legal barriers to
win a well-deserved place in American society;
Whereas our Filipino-American community will recognize a
century of achievement in the United States in 2006 through a
series of nationwide celebrations and memorials honoring the
centennial of sustained immigration from the Philippines; and
Whereas this centennial is for all Americans of whatever
ethnic origin to celebrate
[[Page 28001]]
both with and in order to understand and appreciate our
Filipino-American community, but also as a remembrance of the
struggles and triumphs of all of our predecessors and in
honor of our common national experience: Now, therefore, be
it
Resolved by the House of Representatives (the Senate
concurring), That the Congress--
(1) recognizes the centennial of sustained immigration from
the Philippines to the United States;
(2) acknowledges the achievements and contributions of
Filipino Americans over the past century; and
(3) requests that the President issue a proclamation
calling on the people of the United States to observe this
milestone with appropriate celebratory and educational
programs, ceremonies and other activities.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Pursuant to the rule, the gentleman from
Utah (Mr. Cannon) and the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Davis) each will
control 20 minutes.
The Chair recognizes the gentleman from Utah.
General Leave
Mr. CANNON. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may
have 5 legislative days within which to revise and extend their remarks
and include extraneous material on the resolution under consideration.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Is there objection to the request of the
gentleman from Utah?
There was no objection.
Mr. CANNON. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
I rise in support of House Concurrent Resolution 218 introduced by
the gentleman from Hawaii (Mr. Case). This resolution would recognize
the centennial of sustained immigration from the Philippines to the
United States and acknowledge the contributions of our Filipino-
American community to our country over the last century.
According to the 2000 census, there are 2.4 million Filipino-
Americans currently residing in the United States. Two of the most
concentrated States being California with 1.1 million Filipino-
Americans and the State of Hawaii with over 250,000. The United States
and the Philippines have built a lasting relationship starting with the
period of United States governance between 1898 and 1946. After its
independence in 1946, the Philippines have proven to be one of this
country's most local international allies.
The contributions to the United States of Filipino-Americans are seen
in all facets of our society. They have served in the armed forces, in
World War I, World War II, the Korean War, the Vietnam War, the Gulf
War, and the current fight against terrorism in both Iraq and
Afghanistan. Their rich culture and ideals have also surfaced in our
society by their contributions to the arts, politics, medicine and many
other areas.
In December 2005, the Filipino Centennial Celebration Commission in
Hawaii will begin a year-long observance of the 100th anniversary of
the first Filipino arrivals in the State. The first 15 Filipino
immigrants arrived in Honolulu on December 6, 1906, and presently, the
Filipino and part-Filipino component of the State population is now
roughly 23 percent.
More and more, Filipinos and Americans of Filipino ancestry are
assuming positions of power and responsibility in the State and in the
private sector. Filipinos have made their mark on United States soil
since they started arriving 100 years ago, and the momentum continues
to make that mark even greater and will continue to do so in the years
to come.
I urge all Members to join me in recognizing the numerous
contributions that the Filipino-American population has made in the
United States and celebrate the centennial of sustained immigration
from the Philippines to the United States.
Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
Mr. DAVIS of Illinois. Mr. Speaker, I yield such time as he may
consume to the gentleman from Hawaii (Mr. Case), the sponsor of this
legislation.
Mr. CASE. Mr. Speaker, colleagues and fellow Americans, aloha and
mabuhay.
I rise today to provide richly deserved recognition in the Halls of
our Nation's Congress for a great people and culture whose century-old
journey on our shores has personified the very essence of our American
experience. I speak in strong support of H. Con. Res. 218 which I
introduced with the co-sponsorship of many like-minded colleagues to
recognize the centennial of sustained immigration from the Philippines
to our country and to acknowledge the incredible contributions of
Filipino-Americans to our country over the last century. And I do so
with great pride and deep humility as the representative of the
congressional district with the most Filipino-Americans and the State
with the largest percentage of Filipino-Americans nationally and with
sincere gratitude to my cosponsors, to Government Reform Chair Davis
and Ranking Member Waxman, to the gentlemen from Utah and Illinois, and
to our collective leadership for bringing this measure to this floor
expeditiously.
Mr. Speaker, those whose heritage lies in the great archipelago of
the Philippines have journeyed to our country and lived among us for
centuries. But the modern day Filipino-American immigrant experience
which has given rise to our current day Filipino-American community
traces its roots to December 1906 when 15 Filipino contract laborers,
or sakadas, arrived from Luzon aboard the ship Doric and began work in
the sugar cane fields of Keaau on the Island of Hawaii.
In the same year, the first class of pensionados arrived from the
Philippines to gain an education with the intent of returning home,
although many stayed on.
These early sakada and pensionado roots sparked a sustained
emigration from the Philippines to the United States which, over the
last century, has numbered upwards of 60,000 a year, marking Filipinos
as our second largest immigrant group from the Asia-Pacific region.
Many continued to emigrate to Hawaii to work in the sugar fields. The
Hawaii Sugar Planters Association records reflect over 125,000
immigrants from the Philippines up to the year 1946 alone, and they
form the base of today's 275,000 Filipino-Americans living in Hawaii,
well over 20 percent of our total population. As previously noted, it
is not just my State which has benefited from the growth and maturity
of our Filipino-American community, which now numbers 2.4 million
nationwide, including 1.1 million in California alone.
But it is in Hawaii where the full extent of the trials and
tribulations and accomplishments and successes of Filipino-Americans
has played out over the past century. Early generations worked long and
back-breaking hours to bring the means to bring their families to
Hawaii. And then those generations fought for basic rights and benefits
on the plantations of Hawaii. And then they began to move beyond the
plantations into other aspects of Hawaii society and to take advantage
of the equalizing opportunity of education. And then those generations
who benefited from the foundation of their forefathers built a broader
base in the political, economic and social fabric of Hawaii until, a
century later, the successes, both individually and collectively, are
everywhere.
Just some of the past few decades in Hawaii alone: Benjamin Cayetano,
Governor; Benjamin Menor, Mario Ramil, and Simeon Acoba, justices of
the Hawaii Supreme Court; Daniel Kihano and Robert Bunda, speaker of
the Hawaii State House and Senate, respectively; Angela Baraquio, Miss
America; Antonio Taguba, general, United States Army; Eduardo Malapit
and Lorraine Rodero-Inouye, mayors; Emme Tomimbang, TV news anchor;
Benny Agbayani, professional baseball player.
These are just some of the more recognizable names, for Hawaii's
Filipino-Americans are succeeding like their mainland counterparts
throughout the full range of our society, from our military where
Filipino-Americans have demonstrated decades of bravery and loyalty to
our country and have one of the highest enlistment rates, to the
professions, entertainment, business and well beyond.
Last weekend, Hawaii's Filipino-American community and its many
admirers and friends kicked off a yearlong celebration of its
centennial under
[[Page 28002]]
the leadership of the Filipino Centennial Celebration Commission, Elias
Beniga, chair. This weekend, we will dedicate a marker to the original
sakadas at Keaau, where it all began. And nationally, our Smithsonian
is undertaking a yearly celebration as well, titled the Filipino
American Story, a Century of Challenge and Change, with commemorative
events, exhibits and educational opportunities here in Washington,
D.C., and at other sites nationally.
Mr. Speaker, I am sure that neither the original sakadas nor many who
followed them here could have envisioned what the last century reaped
for them and theirs, nor that we would all stand here today and over
the next year to commemorate an incredible century, nor that we would
collectively look forward with such eager anticipation to the story our
Filipino-American community will write over the next century. Yet that
is exactly what we are doing and should do for this is the story not
just of Filipino-Americans, but the story of our America. Mahalo, dios
ti agnina, and salamat po.
Mr. DAVIS of Illinois. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may
consume.
Mr. Speaker, 2006 marks the centennial anniversary of sustained
immigration from the Philippines which demonstrates a warm friendship
between the two nations on opposite ends of the world. The Philippines
and the United States have enjoyed a long history of friendship and
cooperation, including nearly a half century of American control of the
archipelago which came to a close in 1947.
Now independent, the Philippines remain one of our strongest allies
in the Asian-Pacific region. In 1906, a handful of sugar cane workers
immigrated from the Philippines to the then U.S. territory of Hawaii.
Later that year, the first group of pensionados arrived to earn degrees
from American institutions. Some pensionados returned home to the
Philippines to apply their knowledge, but many remained in the United
States. Combined with the influx of sugar cane workers, these Filipino
immigrants established a vibrant Filipino-American community.
A century of sustained immigration has persisted since 1906, and in
some years, more than 60,000 Filipinos have immigrated to the United
States. Hawaii and California house the majority of the nearly 2.5
million Filipinos who live in the United States, although strong
communities thrive in other parts of our Nation, such as New York, New
Jersey and Chicago.
Filipino-Americans now represent the largest immigrant community from
the Asia-Pacific region who live in the United States. Filipino-
Americans have made major contributions to the arts, labor, business,
politics, medicine, media and other areas.
In addition, Filipino-Americans have served with honor in the United
States Armed Forces in every war since World War I. They are a valued
part of American society.
So I ask my colleagues to join me in recognition of the centennial
anniversary of sustained immigration of Filipinos to the United States.
Let us also recognize the vibrant history of the Filipino-American
community in the United States. Their sustained immigration truly marks
a century of achievement, and I commend the gentleman from Hawaii (Mr.
Case) for seeking to recognize the contributions of this great part of
our population.
Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.
Mr. LANTOS. Mr. Speaker, I rise today in strong support and as a
cosponsor of House Concurrent Resolution 218, a resolution that
recognizes the centennial of sustained immigration from the Philippines
to the United States and acknowledges the contributions of our
Filipino-American community to our country over the last century. The
mark that the Filipino-American community has made on my district is
immeasurable. It is a privilege to live with and to serve such a
culturally rich and vibrant community.
As the premier gateway from Asia, the Bay Area has been the starting
point for many Filipino immigrants in America. I am truly proud that
many Filipino-Americans decided to make the Bay Area their permanent
home. I represent one of the largest populations of Filipino-Americans
in the United States, and I would like to recognize two of the many
shining lights from our community.
Mr. Speaker, my dear friend Alice Bulos has worked tirelessly in the
community at large and with the Filipino-American community in
particular. After immigrating to the United States in the late 1970's,
Alice became an outspoken leader among Filipino-Americans. She
tirelessly worked to urge Filipino-Americans to become politically
active. With her husband, she founded the Filipino American Grassroots
Movement, a voter registration drive that sought to involve Filipinos
in the political process.
Alice became one of the most visible members of the community when
she was appointed by President Clinton to serve on the Federal Council
on Aging in 1993. In 1998, she was again called upon to serve on the
Commission on the Status of Women by the San Mateo County board of
Supervisors. Earlier this year, the board appointed her to another
term.
I am proud to count Alice as a friend, and her work has made the
Peninsula a better place and strengthened the Filipino-American
community throughout the United States.
Alex Esclamado left his homeland to pursue a better life and has been
inspirational in my district and across America with his newspaper, the
Philippine News. Mr. Esclamado began publishing the paper out of his
garage, and from the beginning has worked to publish original content
with staff-written reports. His operation has grown by leaps and
bounds. He no longer drives across the country handing out his
newspaper; the Philippine News is now available for delivery in 47
states and is distributed through retailers in many of the largest
cities in the nation. I am proud to say that the newspaper calls my
district home.
Mr. Speaker, these are but two of the many extraordinary individuals
in the Filipino-American community. The vibrancy of my district can be
directly attributed to our diversity, and I am proud to celebrate 100
years of sustained immigration that has so influenced the Bay Area and
all of the United States. I urge all of my colleagues to join me in
stridently supporting this legislation.
Ms. BORDALLO. Mr. Speaker, I rise today in support of House
Concurrent Resolution 218, which recognizes the centennial of sustained
immigration from the Philippines to the United States and acknowledges
the contributions of our Filipino-American community to our country
over the last century. What started out as a few hundred migrant farm
workers in California and Hawaii has grown into the second largest Asia
Pacific American ethnic group in the United States today, and a
cornerstone of the foundation of our nation.
Since they first set foot in the United States in 1587, Filipinos
have made extraordinary contributions to our nation's economy, history,
politics, and culture. Larry Itliong and the often overlooked Filipino
farm workers worked hand-in-hand with Cesar Chavez to form the United
Farm Workers. Together, they were responsible for the movement that
improved working conditions for farm workers in California, and indeed
throughout our nation. Former Los Angeles Rams Quarterback, Roman
Gabriel, actor Rob Schneider, and Allan Pineda Lindo, better known as
Apl of the Black Eyed Peas, are just some of the Filipino-Americans who
continue to raise the profile of Filipino-Americans in the fields of
athletics, arts and entertainment. On my home island of Guam, Filipino-
Americans are important leaders in our business community, several have
served in our local legislature, and countless others have served in
the U.S. Armed Forces.
Today, the contributions of the Filipino-American community remain
strong throughout the United States, and are particularly evident in
the Pacific Islands that are a part of the American family. Filipino-
Americans have made the most out of the last 100 years since their
ancestors arrived in Hawaii. They have moved up from the sugarcane
plantations to assume prominent positions in public office. They have,
at various times, served as Members of the Hawaii House of
Representatives, State Senators, Cabinet Members, an even Governors.
However, perhaps the most significant Filipino-Americans are the
working professionals who continue to provide for their families while
[[Page 28003]]
lending their strength to the community at large. They are teachers and
farmers, lawyers and medical professionals whose work ethic and
determination truly embody the spirit of the American dream.
At a time when we are proud to stand up and say that we are American,
we must not overlook the individual pieces upon which our nation
stands. The contributions of the Filipino-American community to our
country are significant, and it is right that we salute all that they
have done for our nation.
On this occasion, let us recognize the historical significance of
sustained immigration from the Philippines to the United States. On
Guam, I want to say ``Maraming Salmat Po'' to our Filipino-American
community. Today, the Filipino Community of Guam (FCG) is an
organization comprised of over 70 individual community groups through
which several thousand Filipino-Americans contribute to our island. I
join my colleagues in recognizing and honoring their accomplishments,
and those of their Kababayan throughout the United States.
Mr. GARRETT of New Jersey. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to express my
support for H. Con. Res. 218, recognizing the centennial of sustained
immigration from the Philippines to the United States and acknowledging
the contributions of our Filipino-American community to our country
over the last century.
The United States and the Philippines have a relationship full of
tradition and history and both countries have a shared commitment to
global peace, security, and prosperity. Currently, there are over 2
million Filipino-Americans, the second largest Asian-American community
in the U.S. These Filipino-Americans have made significant
contributions in many areas including education, religion, business,
labor, and the arts.
Dating back to World War II, when the United States and the
Philippines fought side by side against Japan in the Pacific, Filipino-
Americans have served with dignity and bravery in the United States
Armed Forces. Today, many Filipino-American soldiers are fighting
overseas in Afghanistan and Iraq.
The Philippines is working closely with the United States to win the
global war on terror. Ongoing Philippines initiatives to improve and
expand international counterterrorism cooperation encourage even better
levels of communication between our two countries.
I will continue to work with leaders in the Filipino-American
community to ensure that relations between the United States and the
Philippines continue to grow and prosper in the 21st Century. I urge
all of my colleagues to support H. Con. Res. 218.
Mr. HONDA. Mr. Speaker, I rise today in support of H. Con. Res. 218,
a resolution recognizing the centennial of sustained immigration from
the Philippines to the United States and acknowledging the
contributions of our Filipino-American community to our country over
the last century.
Filipinos, as part of the Spanish galleons, first reached America as
early as 1587, landing in Morro Bay, California. In 1763, the first
permanent Filipino settlement was established in Southern Louisiana
near Barataria Bay.
A mass emigration of Filipinos to the United States began in 1906.
Some Filipinos known as pensionados or government scholars came for the
purpose of furthering their education and training in the United
States, but most were poor Filipinos who came to work for Hawaii
sugarcane and pineapple plantations, California and Washington
asparagus farms, Washington lumber and Alaska salmon canneries.
Today there are over 2,300,000 Filipino Americans living in the
United States. They and their forebears have made countless economic,
cultural, social and other notable contributions to our nation.
They, for example, played pivotal roles as labor leaders organizing
unions and strategic strikes to improve working and living conditions
in the 1920's. Filipinos have influenced the corporate landscape as
CEOs and computer software engineers. Filipinos have won Olympic gold
medals as members of U.S. Olympic teams and served as Miss America.
Furthermore, Filipinos have made strides politically, helping to
increase the diversity of America's leadership. Benjamin J. Cayetano,
in 1994, became the first Filipino American and only the second Asian
Pacific Islander American elected Governor of a state of the Union.
In addition to these contributions, we should also recognize
Filipinos who answered President Franklin D. Roosevelt's call to arms
in World War II. At the war's outbreak, Filipino Americans were barred
from joining the armed forces. But in 1942, President Franklin D.
Roosevelt issued a military order calling all organized military forces
of the government of the Philippines into the service of the armed
forces of the United States. Filipinos responded, serving under
direction of the United States' Military and fighting side by side with
the Americans in Europe and Asia. Other Filipinos contributed as
civilians involved in the mobilization efforts during the war. At the
end of the war, Filipinos had earned the acceptance and admiration of
the American public.
The Filipino veterans fought with gallantry under the most difficult
conditions during the war and played a heroic role in defending freedom
under the American Flag. However, the Recession Act of 1946 diverted
Filipino soldiers of the veteran status and, consequently, the
veterans' benefits. The Immigration Act of 1990 gave 150,000 Filipino
veterans of World War II the opportunity to migrate to the United
States and a chance to fulfill an American Dream as promised by
President Roosevelt. Although this is a step in the right direction,
granting equitable benefits for Filipinos that fought with America in
World War II would be an excellent way to recognize contributions
Filipino-Americans have made to our country, since we all benefit from
the freedom won in that war.
Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to join me in supporting this
important piece of legislation.
Mr. FARR. I rise in strong support of H. Con. Res. 218 that
commemorates the substantial achievements of Filipino-Americans to our
nation's history. My district, comprised of Santa Cruz, Monterey and
San Benito counties in California, owes a particularly large debt to
the Filipino-American community.
Starting in the late 1890's, Chinese, Japanese and Filipino farm
laborers were the engine for the development and growth of the Salinas
Valley agricultural industry. Farm labor work on strawberry and peach
farms was often back-breaking; laborers rose at dawn and worked until
dusk, and were generally paid very poorly.
Additionally, Filipino immigrants were often treated horribly and
harshly discriminated against. Filipino farm workers formed the first
organized group in the early history of the United Farm Workers Union.
Despite these deplorable working conditions and societal obstacles,
over the last hundred years, Filipino-Americans on the Central Coast of
California have enriched the quality of life for all Californians and
for our nation as a whole. For example, the Filipino Community Club of
the Monterey Peninsula is an energetic non-profit community based
centers in my district and serves as a cultural and civic hub for
Filipinos living on the Central Coast.
I am proud to represent a large and vibrant Filipino population and
commend their centennial of accomplishments to the United States.
Mabuhay!
Ms. SCHAKOWSKY. Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of H. Con. Res. 218, a
resolution to recognize 2006 as the centennial of sustained immigration
from the Philippines to the United States and to celebrate the
achievements and contributions of Filipino Americans over the past
century.
Immigration from the Philippines to the United States began in 1906
when the first significant numbers of Filipino immigrants arrived in
Hawaii to work on the island's sugar plantations. Today, a century
later, the Filipino-American community's numbers increase by nearly
60,000 new immigrants per year, making Filipinos the largest immigrant
group from the Asia-Pacific region.
The Filipino-American community has added so much to the vibrant
culture of Chicago and our country. The 9th Congressional District
boasts about 17,000 Filipino residents, which makes it home to the 36th
largest number of Filipino-Americans among Congressional districts.
I am particularly proud of the achievements by my constituents like
Ms. Aurora Abella-Austriaco, a lawyer, who immigrated here from the
Philippines. She was just appointed a member of the Committee on
Character and Fitness, First District, by the State of Illinois Supreme
Court on October 26, 2005. In addition to being partner of a Chicago
law firm, she served as a member of the Filipino American Voters League
from 1996-98. She is the current Chair of the Cook County States
Attorney's Asian Advisory Council and member of the Attorney General's
Asian Advisory Council and Clerk of the Circuit Court's Asian Advisory
Council. She is the past Treasurer of the League of Women Voters of
Chicago and past Chair of the Chicago Bar Association. She also is Vice
President of the Asian American Institute's 2005 Board of Directors.
The history of America's Filipino-American community is the
quintessential American immigrant story of early struggle, pain and
sacrifice, leading to success in overcoming ethnic, social, economic,
political, and legal barriers to win a well-deserved place in our
national fabric. Filipino-Americans, like Ms. Abella-Austriaco, have
made incredible contributions in all parts of our society, including
business,
[[Page 28004]]
labor, politics, medicine, media and the arts. Filipino-Americans have
served and are serving with special distinction in our Armed Forces,
from World Wars I and II through the Korean War, the Vietnam War, the
Gulf War, and today in Afghanistan and Iraq.
The Smithsonian Institution will be conducting the Filipino-American
Centennial Commemoration 2006 with five public programs and at least
six more in cities including the city of Chicago, which I represent.
The programs will range from scholarly discussions and film showings to
cultural performances providing historical overviews of Filipino-
Americans in the United States.
This centennial celebration will provide every American an
opportunity to celebrate a century of Filipino immigration to the
United States.
{time} 1500
Mr. CANNON. Mr. Speaker, I have no further speakers, and I yield back
the balance of my time.
The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Petri). The question is on the motion
offered by the gentleman from Utah (Mr. Cannon) that the House suspend
the rules and agree to the concurrent resolution, H. Con. Res. 218.
The question was taken; and (two-thirds having voted in favor
thereof) the rules were suspended and the concurrent resolution was
agreed to.
A motion to reconsider was laid on the table.
____________________
CONGRATULATING THE LOS ANGELES GALAXY ON THEIR VICTORY IN THE 2005
MAJOR LEAGUE SOCCER CHAMPIONSHIP
Mr. CANNON. Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and agree to the
resolution (H. Res. 574) congratulating the Los Angeles Galaxy on their
victory in the 2005 Major League Soccer championship.
The Clerk read as follows:
H. Res. 574
Whereas on November 13, 2005, the Los Angeles Galaxy won
the 2005 Major League Soccer (MLS) championship by defeating
the New England Revolution 1-0 in MLS Cup 2005, in Frisco,
Texas;
Whereas the Galaxy's victory in MLS Cup 2005 was the team's
second MLS championship in the last four years, the first
also won over the New England Revolution in a 1-0 victory in
MLS Cup 2002;
Whereas the victory in the MLS Cup gave the Galaxy their
second major championship of 2005, the first won by defeating
FC Dallas in the Lamar Hunt U.S. Open Cup championship game
in September;
Whereas the owner of the Los Angeles Galaxy, Anschutz
Entertainment Group, has made the Galaxy the model MLS club
through sound management and by instilling a team-first
philosophy;
Whereas Galaxy's success is a result of contributions by
the entire team, including players Chris Albright, Benjamin
Benditson, Pablo Chinchilla, Mubarike Chisoni, Steve Cronin,
Ednaldo da Conceicao, Landon Donovan, Todd Dunivant, Michael
Enfield, Josh Gardner, Herculez Gomez, Guillermo Gonzalez,
Alan Gordon, Ned Grabavoy, Kevin Hartman, Ugo Ihemelu, David
Johnson, Cobi Jones, Quavas Kirk, Tyrone Marshall, Paulo
Nagamura, Joseph Ngwenya, Michael Nsien, Guillermo Ramirez,
Troy Roberts, Marcelo Saragosa, Josh Saunders, Michael Umana,
and Peter Vagenas;
Whereas head coach Steve Sampson, and assistant coaches
Afshin Ghotbi, Billy McNicol, and Ignacio Hernandez, Head
Athletic Trainer Ivan Pierra, Team Administrator Anthony
Garcia, and Equipment Manager Raul Vargas led the Galaxy to
their second MLS championship by stressing teamwork and
determination;
Whereas the Galaxy went undefeated during the 2005 MLS
playoffs, advancing to the MLS Cup by defeating the top-
seeded San Jose Earthquakes and the Colorado Rapids in the
Western Conference playoffs and scoring seven goals and
allowing just one over the span of four games, which included
three shutouts;
Whereas the Galaxy's ability to win this season despite
several player absences due to call-ups by the United States
men's national team is a testament to the skill of the
coaching staff and the desire of the team to play with pride
for the city of Los Angeles;
Whereas midfielder Guillermo Ramirez, who scored the game-
winning goal of MLS Cup 2005 in overtime, was selected as the
game's Most Valuable Player, joining fellow Guatemalan and
2002 MLS Cup MVP Carlos Ruiz as the only Galaxy players ever
to win this prestigious award;
Whereas the Galaxy have the most devoted and spirited fans
who contributed to eight sold out home games and brought the
average home game attendance to 24,000 people this season;
Whereas the Galaxy continue to captivate a growing and
diverse audience from across Southern California; and
Whereas all of Southern California is proud of the
accomplishments of the Los Angeles Galaxy team, the entire
Galaxy organization, and the dedicated and faithful Galaxy
fans throughout the 2005 MLS season: Now, therefore, be it
Resolved, That the House of Representatives--
(1) congratulates the Los Angeles Galaxy on their victory
in the 2005 Major League Soccer championship; and
(2) recognizes the dedication and teamwork of all the
players, coaches, and staff of the Galaxy, all of whom were
instrumental in helping the Galaxy win their second MLS Cup
championship.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Pursuant to the rule, the gentleman from
Utah (Mr. Cannon) and the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Davis) each will
control 20 minutes.
The Chair recognizes the gentleman from Utah.
General Leave
Mr. CANNON. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may
have 5 legislative days within which to revise and extend their remarks
and include extraneous material on the resolution under consideration.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Is there objection to the request of the
gentleman from Utah?
There was no objection.
Mr. CANNON. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
Mr. Speaker, I rise with some jealousy in support of House Resolution
574, introduced by the distinguished gentleman from California (Mr.
Becerra). This resolution would congratulate the Los Angeles Galaxy on
their victory in the 2005 Major League Soccer championship. It is my
hope that the Salt Lake Real may someday emulate the Galaxy.
The second MLS title for the club, the 1-0 win over the New England
Revolution in extra time, marked the dominance of one of the most
experienced and talented teams in Major League Soccer. Although a
veteran squad, the beginning of the season was plagued with
inconsistent play in which the team fought to recover. The ups and
downs of the season, however, did not stop the Galaxy from
concentrating on reaching the title contest.
After a loss in the regular season finale, the Galaxy made one of the
most impressive runs in playoff history. They knocked off the number
one seed in the West in the first round and then took the road to beat
Colorado. Finally, when reaching the championship, they took out the
number one seeded team in the East with a thrilling goal from Guillermo
Ramirez in the first overtime period. Now qualified for two
international tournaments next season, the Galaxy has a chance to
repeat as MLS champions, as well as a chance to give their fans and
supporters an even more exciting and satisfying season.
I urge all Members to join me in congratulating the Los Angeles
Galaxy in their successful and momentous season by adopting House
Resolution 574.
Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
Mr. DAVIS of Illinois. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may
consume.
Mr. Speaker, on November 13, 2005, the Los Angeles Galaxy of Major
League Soccer became only the third team in Major League Soccer history
to win the MLS cup more than once. The storied history of the Galaxy
has included an impressive five appearances in the MLS cup,
championship and two victories. The Galaxy is one of the premier teams
in Major League Soccer and has made the playoffs in all nine seasons of
MLS history.
The Galaxy is beloved by their fans and boasts one of the strongest
fan bases in the league. Over 88,000 fans jammed the stadium and hills
around the stadium to watch their team in an exhibition match with
Mexican League team Chivas USA in what is being dubbed as the Super
Classico. The Galaxy not only came away victorious but showed the crowd
that professional soccer has come into its own in the United States.
The Galaxy overcame significant odds to win this title. They lost
players to injury and to the U.S. national team, but the team
persevered. The Galaxy recorded an amazing three
[[Page 28005]]
shut-out victories on the way to their second MLS cup, and they
outscored their opponents in the playoffs by a margin of seven goals to
just one. This was truly a dominating performance by the Galaxy. They
represented the City of Los Angeles and their fans with honor, and so I
encourage this body to recognize their accomplishments by supporting
this resolution.
Mr. Speaker, I do not believe that I am going to have any other
requests for time, and I yield back the balance of my time.
Mr. CANNON. Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the gentleman from
California (Mr. Becerra) for having introduced this bill, and I urge
Members to support adoption of House Resolution 574.
Mr. BECERRA. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to congratulate the players,
coaches, staff, and owners of the Los Angeles Galaxy for winning the
2005 Major League Soccer (MLS) Cup Championship and to pay tribute to
this historic feat.
On November 13, 2005 in Frisco, Texas, the Galaxy became the 10th MLS
Champion by defeating the New England Revolution by a score of 1-0 in
extra time. This is the Galaxy's second MLS championship and represents
only the third time in league history that a team has won the
``domestic double''--the Lamar Hunt U.S. Open Cup and the MLS Cup
Championship in the same year.
The team was challenged throughout the entire season both from
sustaining several injuries and also player absences due to call-ups by
the United States Men's National Team The Galaxy's ability to overcome
these adversities is a testament to the skill of the coaching staff and
the talent of players who never once compromised team cohesiveness for
individual glory.
Mr. Speaker, I would like to take a moment to recognize the
individual players for their role in developing this championship team.
This year's superb squad was led by team captain Peter Vagenas and a
terrific line up that included Chris Albright, Benjamin Benditson,
Pablo Chinchilla, Mubarike Chisoni, Steve Cronin, Ednaldo da Conceicao,
Landon Donovan, Todd Dunivant, Michael Enfield, Josh Gardner, Herculez
Gomez, Guillermo Gonzalez, Alan Gordon, Ned Grabavoy, Kevin Hartman,
Ugo Ihemelu, David Johnson, Cobi Jones, Quavas Kirk, Tyrone Marshall,
Paulo Nagamura, Joseph Ngwenya, Michael Nsien, Troy Roberts, Marcelo
Saragosa, Josh Saunders, Michael Umana, and the 2005 MLS Cup's Most
Valuable Player, midfielder Guillermo ``Pando'' Ramirez.
The coaching crew was also instrumental in cultivating this
triumphant team. The fantastic staff was led by head coach Steve
Sampson; assistant coaches Afshin Ghotbi, Billy McNicol, and Ignacio
Hernandez; Head Athletic Trainer Ivan Pierra; Team Administrator
Anthony Garcia; and Equipment Manager Raul Vargas.
Mr. Speaker, my hometown of Los Angeles has the best fans any team
can ask for. They are more than just spectators, they are the 12th
player on the field--building momentum and inspiring their team to
fight on to victory. These devoted and spirited fans contributed to
eight sold out home games and brought the average home game attendance
to 24,000 people this season.
The Los Angeles Galaxy deserves as many accolades for their heroic
work off the field as they do for their gallant efforts on the field.
During the past several years, the Galaxy Foundation has hosted the
Foundation's Feast, which provides Thanksgiving dinner for 200 needy
children and families. The Foundation also hosts a special holiday
shopping spree for children selected by several local Salvation Army
chapters.
Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank Chairman Tom Davis, Ranking Member
Henry Waxman, Congressman Chris Cannon, and Congressman Danny Davis for
their help in bringing H. Res. 574 to the floor today.
The Los Angeles Galaxy is a truly remarkable team whose high
standards of excellence, professionalism, demonstrated courage,
sacrifice, and teamwork should be commended. Their passion continues to
captivate a growing and diverse fan base from all across Southern
California.
Mr. Speaker and fellow colleagues, please join me and all soccer fans
from across the country and the around world in congratulating the 2005
Major League Soccer Cup Champions Los Angeles Galaxy.
Mr. CANNON. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. The question is on the motion offered by the
gentleman from Utah (Mr. Cannon) that the House suspend the rules and
agree to the House resolution, H. Res. 574.
The question was taken; and (two-thirds having voted in favor
thereof) the rules were suspended and the resolution was agreed to.
A motion to reconsider was laid on the table.
____________________
FURTHER CONFERENCE REPORT ON H.R. 3010, DEPARTMENTS OF LABOR, HEALTH
AND HUMAN SERVICES, AND EDUCATION, AND RELATED AGENCIES APPROPRIATIONS
ACT, 2006
Mr. REGULA submitted the following further conference report and
statement on the bill (H.R. 3010) making appropriations for the
Departments of Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education, and
related agencies for the fiscal year ending September 30, 2006, and for
other purposes:
Conference Report (H. Rept. 109-337)
The committee of conference on the disagreeing votes of the
two Houses on the amendment of the Senate to the bill (H.R.
3010) ``making appropriations for the Departments of Labor,
Health and Human Services, and Education, and Related
Agencies for the fiscal year ending September 30, 2006, and
for other purposes'', having met, after further full and free
conference, have agreed to recommend and do recommend to
their respective Houses as follows:
That the House recede from its disagreement to the
amendment of the Senate, and agree to the same with an
amendment, as follows:
In lieu of the matter stricken and inserted by said
amendment, insert:
That the following sums are appropriated, out of any money in
the Treasury not otherwise appropriated, for the Departments
of Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education, and
Related Agencies for the fiscal year ending September 30,
2006, and for other purposes, namely:
TITLE I--DEPARTMENT OF LABOR
Employment and Training Administration
Training and Employment Services
(including rescissions)
For necessary expenses of the Workforce Investment Act of
1998, the Denali Commission Act of 1998, and the Women in
Apprenticeship and Non-Traditional Occupations Act of 1992,
including the purchase and hire of passenger motor vehicles,
the construction, alteration, and repair of buildings and
other facilities, and the purchase of real property for
training centers as authorized by the Workforce Investment
Act of 1998; $2,652,411,000 plus reimbursements, of which
$1,688,411,000 is available for obligation for the period
July 1, 2006 through June 30, 2007; except that amounts
determined by the Secretary of Labor to be necessary pursuant
to sections 173(a)(4)(A) and 174(c) of the Workforce
Investment Act of 1998 shall be available from October 1,
2005 until expended; and of which $950,000,000 is available
for obligation for the period April 1, 2006 through June 30,
2007, to carry out chapter 4 of the Workforce Investment Act
of 1998; and of which $8,000,000 is available for the period
July 1, 2006 through June 30, 2009 for necessary expenses of
construction, rehabilitation, and acquisition of Job Corps
centers: Provided, That notwithstanding any other provision
of law, of the funds provided herein under section 137(c) of
the Workforce Investment Act of 1998, $282,800,000 shall be
for activities described in section 132(a)(2)(A) of such Act
and $1,193,264,000 shall be for activities described in
section 132(a)(2)(B) of such Act: Provided further, That
$125,000,000 shall be available for Community-Based Job
Training Grants, which shall be from funds reserved under
section 132(a)(2)(A) of the Workforce Investment Act of 1998
and shall be used to carry out such grants under section
171(d) of such Act, except that the 10 percent limitation
otherwise applicable to the amount of funds that may be used
to carry out section 171(d) shall not be applicable to funds
used for Community-Based Job Training grants: Provided
further, That funds provided to carry out section
132(a)(2)(A) of the Workforce Investment Act of 1998 may be
used to provide assistance to a State for State-wide or local
use in order to address cases where there have been worker
dislocations across multiple sectors or across multiple local
areas and such workers remain dislocated; coordinate the
State workforce development plan with emerging economic
development needs; and train such eligible dislocated
workers: Provided further, That $7,936,000 shall be for
carrying out section 172 of the Workforce Investment Act of
1998: Provided further, That $982,000 shall be for carrying
out Public Law 102-530: Provided further, That,
notwithstanding any other provision of law or related
regulation, $80,557,000 shall be for carrying out section 167
of the Workforce Investment Act of 1998, including
$75,053,000 for formula grants, $5,000,000 for migrant and
seasonal housing (of which not less than 70 percent shall be
for permanent housing), and $504,000 for other discretionary
purposes, and that the Department shall take no action
limiting the number or proportion of eligible participants
receiving related assistance services or discouraging
grantees from providing such services: Provided further, That
notwithstanding the transfer limitation under section
133(b)(4) of such Act, up to 30 percent of such funds may be
transferred by a local board if approved by the Governor:
Provided further, That funds provided to carry out
[[Page 28006]]
section 171(d) of the Workforce Investment Act of 1998 may be
used for demonstration projects that provide assistance to
new entrants in the workforce and incumbent workers: Provided
further, That no funds from any other appropriation shall be
used to provide meal services at or for Job Corps centers.
For necessary expenses of the Workforce Investment Act of
1998, including the purchase and hire of passenger motor
vehicles, the construction, alteration, and repair of
buildings and other facilities, and the purchase of real
property for training centers as authorized by the Act;
$2,463,000,000 plus reimbursements, of which $2,363,000,000
is available for obligation for the period October 1, 2006
through June 30, 2007, and of which $100,000,000 is available
for the period October 1, 2006 through June 30, 2009, for
necessary expenses of construction, rehabilitation, and
acquisition of Job Corps centers.
Of the funds provided under this heading in Public Law 108-
7 to carry out section 173(a)(4)(A) of the Workforce
Investment Act of 1998, $20,000,000 are rescinded.
Of the funds provided under this heading in Public Law 107-
117, $5,000,000 are rescinded.
Of the funds provided under this heading in division F of
Public Law 108-447 for Community-Based Job Training Grants,
$125,000,000 is rescinded.
The Secretary of Labor shall take no action to amend,
through regulatory or administration action, the definition
established in 20 CFR 667.220 for functions and activities
under title I of the Workforce Investment Act of 1998, or to
modify, through regulatory or administrative action, the
procedure for redesignation of local areas as specified in
subtitle B of title I of that Act (including applying the
standards specified in section 116(a)(3)(B) of that Act, but
notwithstanding the time limits specified in section
116(a)(3)(B) of that Act), until such time as legislation
reauthorizing the Act is enacted. Nothing in the preceding
sentence shall permit or require the Secretary of Labor to
withdraw approval for such redesignation from a State that
received the approval not later than October 12, 2005, or to
revise action taken or modify the redesignation procedure
being used by the Secretary in order to complete such
redesignation for a State that initiated the process of such
redesignation by submitting any request for such
redesignation not later than October 26, 2005.
Community Service Employment for Older Americans
To carry out title V of the Older Americans Act of 1965, as
amended, $436,678,000.
Federal Unemployment Benefits and Allowances
For payments during the current fiscal year of trade
adjustment benefit payments and allowances under part I and
section 246; and for training, allowances for job search and
relocation, and related State administrative expenses under
part II of chapter 2, title II of the Trade Act of 1974
(including the benefits and services described under sections
123(c)(2) and 151(b) and (c) of the Trade Adjustment
Assistance Reform Act of 2002, Public Law 107-210),
$966,400,000, together with such amounts as may be necessary
to be charged to the subsequent appropriation for payments
for any period subsequent to September 15 of the current
year.
State Unemployment Insurance and Employment Service Operations
For authorized administrative expenses, $125,312,000,
together with not to exceed $3,266,766,000 (including not to
exceed $1,228,000 which may be used for amortization payments
to States which had independent retirement plans in their
State employment service agencies prior to 1980), which may
be expended from the Employment Security Administration
Account in the Unemployment Trust Fund including the cost of
administering section 51 of the Internal Revenue Code of
1986, as amended, section 7(d) of the Wagner-Peyser Act, as
amended, the Trade Act of 1974, as amended, the Immigration
Act of 1990, and the Immigration and Nationality Act, as
amended, and of which the sums available in the allocation
for activities authorized by title III of the Social Security
Act, as amended (42 U.S.C. 502-504), and the sums available
in the allocation for necessary administrative expenses for
carrying out 5 U.S.C. 8501-8523, shall be available for
obligation by the States through December 31, 2006, except
that funds used for automation acquisitions shall be
available for obligation by the States through September 30,
2008; of which $125,312,000, together with not to exceed
$700,000,000 of the amount which may be expended from said
trust fund, shall be available for obligation for the period
July 1, 2006 through June 30, 2007, to fund activities under
the Act of June 6, 1933, as amended, including the cost of
penalty mail authorized under 39 U.S.C. 3202(a)(1)(E) made
available to States in lieu of allotments for such purpose:
Provided, That to the extent that the Average Weekly Insured
Unemployment (AWIU) for fiscal year 2006 is projected by the
Department of Labor to exceed 2,800,000, an additional
$28,600,000 shall be available for obligation for every
100,000 increase in the AWIU level (including a pro rata
amount for any increment less than 100,000) from the
Employment Security Administration Account of the
Unemployment Trust Fund: Provided further, That funds
appropriated in this Act which are used to establish a
national one-stop career center system, or which are used to
support the national activities of the Federal-State
unemployment insurance or immigration programs, may be
obligated in contracts, grants or agreements with non-State
entities: Provided further, That funds appropriated in this
Act for activities authorized under the Wagner-Peyser Act, as
amended, and title III of the Social Security Act, may be
used by the States to fund integrated Employment Service and
Unemployment Insurance automation efforts, notwithstanding
cost allocation principles prescribed under Office of
Management and Budget Circular A-87.
Advances to the Unemployment Trust Fund and Other Funds
For repayable advances to the Unemployment Trust Fund as
authorized by sections 905(d) and 1203 of the Social Security
Act, as amended, and to the Black Lung Disability Trust Fund
as authorized by section 9501(c)(1) of the Internal Revenue
Code of 1954, as amended; and for nonrepayable advances to
the Unemployment Trust Fund as authorized by section 8509 of
title 5, United States Code, and to the ``Federal
unemployment benefits and allowances'' account, to remain
available until September 30, 2007, $465,000,000.
In addition, for making repayable advances to the Black
Lung Disability Trust Fund in the current fiscal year after
September 15, 2006, for costs incurred by the Black Lung
Disability Trust Fund in the current fiscal year, such sums
as may be necessary.
Program Administration
For expenses of administering employment and training
programs, $117,123,000, together with not to exceed
$82,877,000, which may be expended from the Employment
Security Administration Account in the Unemployment Trust
Fund.
Workers Compensation Programs
(rescission)
Of funds provided under this heading in the Emergency
Supplemental Appropriations Act, 2002 (Public Law 107-117,
division B), $120,000,000 are rescinded.
Employee Benefits Security Administration
Salaries and Expenses
For necessary expenses for the Employee Benefits Security
Administration, $134,900,000.
Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation
Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation Fund
The Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation is authorized to
make such expenditures, including financial assistance
authorized by section 104 of Public Law 96-364, within limits
of funds and borrowing authority available to such
Corporation, and in accord with law, and to make such
contracts and commitments without regard to fiscal year
limitations as provided by section 104 of the Government
Corporation Control Act, as amended (31 U.S.C. 9104), as may
be necessary in carrying out the program, including
associated administrative expenses, through September 30,
2006 for such Corporation: Provided, That none of the funds
available to the Corporation for fiscal year 2006 shall be
available for obligations for administrative expenses in
excess of $296,978,000: Provided further, That obligations in
excess of such amount may be incurred after approval by the
Office of Management and Budget and the Committees on
Appropriations of the House and Senate.
Employment Standards Administration
Salaries and Expenses
For necessary expenses for the Employment Standards
Administration, including reimbursement to State, Federal,
and local agencies and their employees for inspection
services rendered, $413,168,000, together with $2,048,000
which may be expended from the Special Fund in accordance
with sections 39(c), 44(d) and 44(j) of the Longshore and
Harbor Workers' Compensation Act: Provided, That the
Secretary of Labor is authorized to establish and, in
accordance with 31 U.S.C. 3302, collect and deposit in the
Treasury fees for processing applications and issuing
certificates under sections 11(d) and 14 of the Fair Labor
Standards Act of 1938, as amended (29 U.S.C. 211(d) and 214)
and for processing applications and issuing registrations
under title I of the Migrant and Seasonal Agricultural Worker
Protection Act (29 U.S.C. 1801 et seq.).
Special Benefits
(including transfer of funds)
For the payment of compensation, benefits, and expenses
(except administrative expenses) accruing during the current
or any prior fiscal year authorized by title 5, chapter 81 of
the United States Code; continuation of benefits as provided
for under the heading ``Civilian War Benefits'' in the
Federal Security Agency Appropriation Act, 1947; the
Employees' Compensation Commission Appropriation Act, 1944;
sections 4(c) and 5(f) of the War Claims Act of 1948 (50
U.S.C. App. 2012); and 50 percent of the additional
compensation and benefits required by section 10(h) of the
Longshore and Harbor Workers' Compensation Act, as amended,
$237,000,000, together with such amounts as may be necessary
to be charged to the subsequent year appropriation for the
payment of compensation and other benefits for any period
subsequent to August 15 of the current year: Provided, That
amounts appropriated may be used under section 8104 of title
5, United States Code, by the Secretary of Labor to reimburse
an employer, who is not the employer at the time of injury,
for portions of the salary of a reemployed, disabled
beneficiary: Provided further, That balances of
reimbursements unobligated on September 30, 2005, shall
remain available until expended for the payment of
compensation, benefits, and expenses: Provided further, That
in addition there shall be transferred to this appropriation
from the Postal Service and from any other corporation or
instrumentality required under section 8147(c) of title 5,
United States
[[Page 28007]]
Code, to pay an amount for its fair share of the cost of
administration, such sums as the Secretary determines to be
the cost of administration for employees of such fair share
entities through September 30, 2006: Provided further, That
of those funds transferred to this account from the fair
share entities to pay the cost of administration of the
Federal Employees' Compensation Act, $53,695,000 shall be
made available to the Secretary as follows:
(1) for enhancement and maintenance of automated data
processing systems and telecommunications systems,
$13,305,000;
(2) for automated workload processing operations, including
document imaging, centralized mail intake and medical bill
processing, $27,148,000;
(3) for periodic roll management and medical review,
$13,242,000; and
(4) the remaining funds shall be paid into the Treasury as
miscellaneous receipts:
Provided further, That the Secretary may require that any
person filing a notice of injury or a claim for benefits
under chapter 81 of title 5, United States Code, or 33 U.S.C.
901 et seq., provide as part of such notice and claim, such
identifying information (including Social Security account
number) as such regulations may prescribe.
Special Benefits for Disabled Coal Miners
For carrying out title IV of the Federal Mine Safety and
Health Act of 1977, as amended by Public Law 107-275, (the
``Act''), $232,250,000, to remain available until expended.
For making after July 31 of the current fiscal year,
benefit payments to individuals under title IV of the Act,
for costs incurred in the current fiscal year, such amounts
as may be necessary.
For making benefit payments under title IV for the first
quarter of fiscal year 2007, $74,000,000, to remain available
until expended.
Administrative Expenses, Energy Employees Occupational Illness
Compensation Fund
(including transfer of funds)
For necessary expenses to administer the Energy Employees
Occupational Illness Compensation Act, $96,081,000, to remain
available until expended: Provided, That the Secretary of
Labor is authorized to transfer to any executive agency with
authority under the Energy Employees Occupational Illness
Compensation Act, including within the Department of Labor,
such sums as may be necessary in fiscal year 2006 to carry
out those authorities: Provided further, That the Secretary
may require that any person filing a claim for benefits under
the Act provide as part of such claim, such identifying
information (including Social Security account number) as may
be prescribed: Provided further, That not later than 30 days
after enactment, in addition to other sums transferred by the
Secretary of Labor to the National Institute for Occupational
Safety and Health (``NIOSH'') for the administration of the
Energy Employees Occupational Illness Compensation Program
(``EEOICPA''), the Secretary of Labor shall transfer
$4,500,000 to NIOSH from the funds appropriated to the Energy
Employees Occupational Illness Compensation Fund (42 U.S.C.
7384e), for use by or in support of the Advisory Board on
Radiation and Worker Health (``the Board'') to carry out its
statutory responsibilities under EEOICPA (42 U.S.C. 7384n-q),
including obtaining audits, technical assistance and other
support from the Board's audit contractor with regard to
radiation dose estimation and reconstruction efforts, site
profiles, procedures, and review of Special Exposure Cohort
petitions and evaluation reports.
Black Lung Disability Trust Fund
(including transfer of funds)
In fiscal year 2006 and thereafter, such sums as may be
necessary from the Black Lung Disability Trust Fund, to
remain available until expended, for payment of all benefits
authorized by section 9501(d)(1), (2), (4), and (7) of the
Internal Revenue Code of 1954, as amended; and interest on
advances, as authorized by section 9501(c)(2) of that Act. In
addition, the following amounts shall be available from the
Fund for fiscal year 2006 for expenses of operation and
administration of the Black Lung Benefits program, as
authorized by section 9501(d)(5): $33,050,000 for transfer to
the Employment Standards Administration ``Salaries and
Expenses''; $24,239,000 for transfer to Departmental
Management, ``Salaries and Expenses''; $344,000 for transfer
to Departmental Management, ``Office of Inspector General'';
and $356,000 for payments into miscellaneous receipts for the
expenses of the Department of the Treasury.
Occupational Safety and Health Administration
Salaries and Expenses
For necessary expenses for the Occupational Safety and
Health Administration, $477,199,000, including not to exceed
$92,013,000 which shall be the maximum amount available for
grants to States under section 23(g) of the Occupational
Safety and Health Act (the ``Act''), which grants shall be no
less than 50 percent of the costs of State occupational
safety and health programs required to be incurred under
plans approved by the Secretary under section 18 of the Act;
and, in addition, notwithstanding 31 U.S.C. 3302, the
Occupational Safety and Health Administration may retain up
to $750,000 per fiscal year of training institute course
tuition fees, otherwise authorized by law to be collected,
and may utilize such sums for occupational safety and health
training and education grants: Provided, That,
notwithstanding 31 U.S.C. 3302, the Secretary of Labor is
authorized, during the fiscal year ending September 30, 2006,
to collect and retain fees for services provided to
Nationally Recognized Testing Laboratories, and may utilize
such sums, in accordance with the provisions of 29 U.S.C. 9a,
to administer national and international laboratory
recognition programs that ensure the safety of equipment and
products used by workers in the workplace: Provided further,
That none of the funds appropriated under this paragraph
shall be obligated or expended to prescribe, issue,
administer, or enforce any standard, rule, regulation, or
order under the Act which is applicable to any person who is
engaged in a farming operation which does not maintain a
temporary labor camp and employs 10 or fewer employees:
Provided further, That no funds appropriated under this
paragraph shall be obligated or expended to administer or
enforce any standard, rule, regulation, or order under the
Act with respect to any employer of 10 or fewer employees who
is included within a category having a Days Away, Restricted,
or Transferred (DART) occupational injury and illness rate,
at the most precise industrial classification code for which
such data are published, less than the national average rate
as such rates are most recently published by the Secretary,
acting through the Bureau of Labor Statistics, in accordance
with section 24 of that Act (29 U.S.C. 673), except--
(1) to provide, as authorized by such Act, consultation,
technical assistance, educational and training services, and
to conduct surveys and studies;
(2) to conduct an inspection or investigation in response
to an employee complaint, to issue a citation for violations
found during such inspection, and to assess a penalty for
violations which are not corrected within a reasonable
abatement period and for any willful violations found;
(3) to take any action authorized by such Act with respect
to imminent dangers;
(4) to take any action authorized by such Act with respect
to health hazards;
(5) to take any action authorized by such Act with respect
to a report of an employment accident which is fatal to one
or more employees or which results in hospitalization of two
or more employees, and to take any action pursuant to such
investigation authorized by such Act; and
(6) to take any action authorized by such Act with respect
to complaints of discrimination against employees for
exercising rights under such Act:
Provided further, That the foregoing proviso shall not apply
to any person who is engaged in a farming operation which
does not maintain a temporary labor camp and employs 10 or
fewer employees: Provided further, That not less than
$3,200,000 shall be used to extend funding for the
Institutional Competency Building training grants which
commenced in September 2000, for program activities for the
period of September 30, 2006, to September 30, 2007, provided
that a grantee has demonstrated satisfactory performance:
Provided further, That none of the funds appropriated under
this paragraph shall be obligated or expended to administer
or enforce the provisions of 29 CFR 1910.134(f)(2) (General
Industry Respiratory Protection Standard) to the extent that
such provisions require the annual fit testing (after the
initial fit testing) of respirators for occupational exposure
to tuberculosis.
Mine Safety and Health Administration
Salaries and Expenses
For necessary expenses for the Mine Safety and Health
Administration, $280,490,000, including purchase and bestowal
of certificates and trophies in connection with mine rescue
and first-aid work, and the hire of passenger motor vehicles,
including up to $2,000,000 for mine rescue and recovery
activities; in addition, not to exceed $750,000 may be
collected by the National Mine Health and Safety Academy for
room, board, tuition, and the sale of training materials,
otherwise authorized by law to be collected, to be available
for mine safety and health education and training activities,
notwithstanding 31 U.S.C. 3302; and, in addition, the Mine
Safety and Health Administration may retain up to $1,000,000
from fees collected for the approval and certification of
equipment, materials, and explosives for use in mines, and
may utilize such sums for such activities; the Secretary is
authorized to accept lands, buildings, equipment, and other
contributions from public and private sources and to
prosecute projects in cooperation with other agencies,
Federal, State, or private; the Mine Safety and Health
Administration is authorized to promote health and safety
education and training in the mining community through
cooperative programs with States, industry, and safety
associations; the Secretary is authorized to recognize the
Joseph A. Holmes Safety Association as a principal safety
association and, notwithstanding any other provision of law,
may provide funds and, with or without reimbursement,
personnel, including service of Mine Safety and Health
Administration officials as officers in local chapters or in
the national organization; and any funds available to the
department may be used, with the approval of the Secretary,
to provide for the costs of mine rescue and survival
operations in the event of a major disaster.
Bureau of Labor Statistics
Salaries and Expenses
For necessary expenses for the Bureau of Labor Statistics,
including advances or reimbursements to State, Federal, and
local agencies and their employees for services rendered,
$464,678,000, together with not to exceed $77,845,000, which
may be expended from the Employment Security Administration
Account in
[[Page 28008]]
the Unemployment Trust Fund, of which $5,000,000 may be used
to fund the mass layoff statistics program under section 15
of the Wagner-Peyser Act (29 U.S.C. 49l-2): Provided, That
the Current Employment Survey shall maintain the content of
the survey issued prior to June 2005 with respect to the
collection of data for the women worker series.
Office of Disability Employment Policy
salaries and expenses
For necessary expenses for the Office of Disability
Employment Policy to provide leadership, develop policy and
initiatives, and award grants furthering the objective of
eliminating barriers to the training and employment of people
with disabilities, $27,934,000.
Departmental Management
Salaries and Expenses
For necessary expenses for Departmental Management,
including the hire of three sedans, and including the
management or operation, through contracts, grants or other
arrangements of Departmental activities conducted by or
through the Bureau of International Labor Affairs, including
bilateral and multilateral technical assistance and other
international labor activities, $300,275,000, of which
$6,944,000, to remain available until September 30, 2007, is
for Frances Perkins Building Security Enhancements, and
$29,760,000 is for the acquisition of Departmental
information technology, architecture, infrastructure,
equipment, software and related needs, which will be
allocated by the Department's Chief Information Officer in
accordance with the Department's capital investment
management process to assure a sound investment strategy;
together with not to exceed $311,000, which may be expended
from the Employment Security Administration Account in the
Unemployment Trust Fund.
Veterans Employment and Training
Not to exceed $194,834,000 may be derived from the
Employment Security Administration Account in the
Unemployment Trust Fund to carry out the provisions of 38
U.S.C. 4100-4113, 4211-4215, and 4321-4327, and Public Law
103-353, and which shall be available for obligation by the
States through December 31, 2006, of which $1,984,000 is for
the National Veterans' Employment and Training Services
Institute. To carry out the Homeless Veterans Reintegration
Programs (38 U.S.C. 2021) and the Veterans Workforce
Investment Programs (29 U.S.C. 2913), $29,500,000, of which
$7,500,000 shall be available for obligation for the period
July 1, 2006 through June 30, 2007.
Office of Inspector General
For salaries and expenses of the Office of Inspector
General in carrying out the provisions of the Inspector
General Act of 1978, as amended, $66,211,000, together with
not to exceed $5,608,000, which may be expended from the
Employment Security Administration Account in the
Unemployment Trust Fund.
Working Capital Fund
For the acquisition of a new core accounting system for the
Department of Labor, including hardware and software
infrastructure and the costs associated with implementation
thereof, $6,230,000.
General Provisions
Sec. 101. None of the funds appropriated in this title for
the Job Corps shall be used to pay the salary of an
individual, either as direct costs or any proration as an
indirect cost, at a rate in excess of Executive Level I.
Sec. 102. Not later than 90 days after the date of
enactment of this Act, the Secretary of Labor shall
permanently establish and maintain an Office of Job Corps
within the Office of the Secretary, in the Department of
Labor, to carry out the functions (including duties,
responsibilities, and procedures) of subtitle C of title I of
the Workforce Investment Act of 1998 (29 U.S.C. 2881 et
seq.). The Secretary shall appoint a senior member of the
civil service to head that Office of Job Corps and carry out
subtitle C. The Secretary shall transfer funds appropriated
for the program carried out under that subtitle C, including
the administration of such program, to the head of that
Office of Job Corps. The head of that Office of Job Corps
shall have contracting authority and shall receive support as
necessary from the Assistant Secretary for Administration and
Management with respect to contracting functions and the
Assistant Secretary for Policy with respect to research and
evaluation functions.
(transfer of funds)
Sec. 103. Not to exceed 1 percent of any discretionary
funds (pursuant to the Balanced Budget and Emergency Deficit
Control Act of 1985, as amended) which are appropriated for
the current fiscal year for the Department of Labor in this
Act may be transferred between a program, project, or
activity, but no such program, project, or activity shall be
increased by more than 3 percent by any such transfer:
Provided, That a program, project, or activity may be
increased by up to an additional 2 percent subject to
approval by the House and Senate Committees on
Appropriations: Provided further, That the transfer authority
granted by this section shall be available only to meet
emergency needs and shall not be used to create any new
program or to fund any project or activity for which no funds
are provided in this Act: Provided further, That the
Appropriations Committees of both Houses of Congress are
notified at least 15 days in advance of any transfer.
Sec. 104. In accordance with Executive Order No. 13126,
none of the funds appropriated or otherwise made available
pursuant to this Act shall be obligated or expended for the
procurement of goods mined, produced, manufactured, or
harvested or services rendered, whole or in part, by forced
or indentured child labor in industries and host countries
already identified by the United States Department of Labor
prior to enactment of this Act.
Sec. 105. There is authorized to be appropriated such sums
as may be necessary to the Denali Commission through the
Department of Labor to conduct job training of the local
workforce where Denali Commission projects will be
constructed.
Sec. 106. For purposes of chapter 8 of division B of the
Department of Defense and Emergency Supplemental
Appropriations for Recovery from and Response to Terrorist
Attacks on the United States Act, 2002 (Public Law 107-117),
payments made by the New York Workers' Compensation Board to
the New York Crime Victims Board and the New York State
Insurance Fund before the date of the enactment of this Act
shall be deemed to have been made for workers compensation
programs.
Sec. 107. The Department of Labor shall submit its fiscal
year 2007 congressional budget justifications to the
Committees on Appropriations of the House of Representatives
and the Senate in the format and level of detail used by the
Department of Education in its fiscal year 2006 congressional
budget justifications.
Sec. 108. The Secretary shall prepare and submit not later
than July 1, 2006 to the Committees on Appropriations of the
Senate and of the House an operating plan that outlines the
planned allocation by major project and activity of fiscal
year 2006 funds made available for section 171 of the
Workforce Investment Act.
This title may be cited as the ``Department of Labor
Appropriations Act, 2006''.
TITLE II--DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES
Health Resources and Services Administration
Health Resources and Services
For carrying out titles II, III, IV, VII, VIII, X, XII,
XIX, and XXVI of the Public Health Service Act, section
427(a) of the Federal Coal Mine Health and Safety Act, title
V and sections 1128E, and 711, and 1820 of the Social
Security Act, the Health Care Quality Improvement Act of
1986, as amended, the Native Hawaiian Health Care Act of
1988, as amended, the Cardiac Arrest Survival Act of 2000,
section 712 of the American Jobs Creation Act of 2004, and
for expenses necessary to support activities related to
countering potential biological, disease, nuclear,
radiological and chemical threats to civilian populations,
$6,629,661,000 of which $64,180,000 from general revenues,
notwithstanding section 1820(j) of the Social Security Act,
shall be available for carrying out the Medicare rural
hospital flexibility grants program under section 1820 of
such Act (of which $25,000,000 is for a Delta health
initiative Rural Health, Education, and Workforce
Infrastructure Demonstration Program which shall solicit and
fund proposals from local governments, hospitals,
universities, and rural public health-related entities and
organizations for research development, educational programs,
job training, and construction of public health-related
facilities): Provided, That of the funds made available under
this heading, $222,000 shall be available until expended for
facilities renovations at the Gillis W. Long Hansen's Disease
Center: Provided further, That in addition to fees authorized
by section 427(b) of the Health Care Quality Improvement Act
of 1986, fees shall be collected for the full disclosure of
information under the Act sufficient to recover the full
costs of operating the National Practitioner Data Bank, and
shall remain available until expended to carry out that Act:
Provided further, That fees collected for the full disclosure
of information under the ``Health Care Fraud and Abuse Data
Collection Program'', authorized by section 1128E(d)(2) of
the Social Security Act, shall be sufficient to recover the
full costs of operating the program, and shall remain
available until expended to carry out that Act: Provided
further, That no more than $40,000 is available until
expended for carrying out the provisions of 42 U.S.C. 233(o)
including associated administrative expenses: Provided
further, That no more than $45,000,000 is available until
expended for carrying out the provisions of Public Law 104-73
and for expenses incurred by the Department of Health and
Human Services pertaining to administrative claims made under
such law: Provided further, That $4,000,000 is available
until expended for the National Cord Blood Stem Cell Bank
Program as described in House Report 108-401: Provided
further, That of the funds made available under this heading,
$285,963,000 shall be for the program under title X of the
Public Health Service Act to provide for voluntary family
planning projects: Provided further, That amounts provided to
said projects under such title shall not be expended for
abortions, that all pregnancy counseling shall be
nondirective, and that such amounts shall not be expended for
any activity (including the publication or distribution of
literature) that in any way tends to promote public support
or opposition to any legislative proposal or candidate for
public office: Provided further, That $797,521,000 shall be
for State AIDS Drug Assistance Programs authorized by section
2616 of the Public Health Service Act: Provided further, That
in addition to amounts provided herein, $25,000,000 shall be
available from amounts available under section 241 of the
Public Health Service Act to carry out Parts A, B, C, and D
of title XXVI of
[[Page 28009]]
the Public Health Service Act to fund section 2691 Special
Projects of National Significance: Provided further, That,
notwithstanding section 502(a)(1) of the Social Security Act,
not to exceed $117,108,000 is available for carrying out
special projects of regional and national significance
pursuant to section 501(a)(2) of such Act: Provided further,
That of the funds provided, $39,680,000 shall be provided to
the Denali Commission as a direct lump payment pursuant to
Public Law 106-113.
Health Education Assistance Loans Program Account
Such sums as may be necessary to carry out the purpose of
the program, as authorized by title VII of the Public Health
Service Act, as amended. For administrative expenses to carry
out the guaranteed loan program, including section 709 of the
Public Health Service Act, $2,916,000.
Vaccine Injury Compensation Program Trust Fund
For payments from the Vaccine Injury Compensation Program
Trust Fund, such sums as may be necessary for claims
associated with vaccine-related injury or death with respect
to vaccines administered after September 30, 1988, pursuant
to subtitle 2 of title XXI of the Public Health Service Act,
to remain available until expended: Provided, That for
necessary administrative expenses, not to exceed $3,600,000
shall be available from the Trust Fund to the Secretary of
Health and Human Services.
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
Disease Control, Research, and Training
To carry out titles II, III, VII, XI, XV, XVII, XIX, XXI,
and XXVI of the Public Health Service Act, sections 101, 102,
103, 201, 202, 203, 301, and 501 of the Federal Mine Safety
and Health Act of 1977, sections 20, 21, and 22 of the
Occupational Safety and Health Act of 1970, title IV of the
Immigration and Nationality Act, section 501 of the Refugee
Education Assistance Act of 1980, and for expenses necessary
to support activities related to countering potential
biological, disease, nuclear, radiological, and chemical
threats to civilian populations; including purchase and
insurance of official motor vehicles in foreign countries;
and purchase, hire, maintenance, and operation of aircraft,
$5,884,934,000, of which $160,000,000 shall remain available
until expended for equipment, construction and renovation of
facilities; of which $30,000,000 of the amounts available for
immunization activities shall remain available until
expended; of which $530,000,000 shall remain available until
expended for the Strategic National Stockpile; and of which
$123,883,000 for international HIV/AIDS shall remain
available until September 30, 2007. In addition, such sums as
may be derived from authorized user fees, which shall be
credited to this account: Provided, That in addition to
amounts provided herein, the following amounts shall be
available from amounts available under section 241 of the
Public Health Service Act: (1) $12,794,000 to carry out the
National Immunization Surveys; (2) $109,021,000 to carry out
the National Center for Health Statistics surveys; (3)
$24,751,000 to carry out information systems standards
development and architecture and applications-based research
used at local public health levels; (4) $463,000 for Health
Marketing evaluations; (5) $31,000,000 to carry out Public
Health Research; and (6) $87,071,000 to carry out research
activities within the National Occupational Research Agenda:
Provided further, That none of the funds made available for
injury prevention and control at the Centers for Disease
Control and Prevention may be used, in whole or in part, to
advocate or promote gun control: Provided further, That up to
$31,800,000 shall be made available until expended for
Individual Learning Accounts for full-time equivalent
employees of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention:
Provided further, That the Director may redirect the total
amount made available under authority of Public Law 101-502,
section 3, dated November 3, 1990, to activities the Director
may so designate: Provided further, That the Congress is to
be notified promptly of any such transfer: Provided further,
That not to exceed $12,500,000 may be available for making
grants under section 1509 of the Public Health Service Act to
not more than 15 States, tribes, or tribal organizations:
Provided further, That notwithstanding any other provision of
law, a single contract or related contracts for development
and construction of facilities may be employed which
collectively include the full scope of the project: Provided
further, That the solicitation and contract shall contain the
clause ``availability of funds'' found at 48 CFR 52.232-18:
Provided further, That of the funds appropriated, $10,000 is
for official reception and representation expenses when
specifically approved by the Director of the Centers for
Disease Control and Prevention: Provided further, That
employees of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
or the Public Health Service, both civilian and Commissioned
Officers, detailed to States, municipalities, or other
organizations under authority of section 214 of the Public
Health Service Act, shall be treated as non-Federal employees
for reporting purposes only and shall not be included within
any personnel ceiling applicable to the Agency, Service, or
the Department of Health and Human Services during the period
of detail or assignment.
National Institutes of Health
National Cancer Institute
For carrying out section 301 and title IV of the Public
Health Service Act with respect to cancer, $4,841,774,000, of
which up to $8,000,000 may be used for facilities repairs and
improvements at the NCI-Frederick Federally Funded Research
and Development Center in Frederick, Maryland.
National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute
For carrying out section 301 and title IV of the Public
Health Service Act with respect to cardiovascular, lung, and
blood diseases, and blood and blood products, $2,951,270,000.
National Institute of Dental and Craniofacial Research
For carrying out section 301 and title IV of the Public
Health Service Act with respect to dental disease,
$393,269,000.
National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases
For carrying out section 301 and title IV of the Public
Health Service Act with respect to diabetes and digestive and
kidney disease, $1,722,146,000.
National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke
For carrying out section 301 and title IV of the Public
Health Service Act with respect to neurological disorders and
stroke, $1,550,260,000.
National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases
(including transfer of funds)
For carrying out section 301 and title IV of the Public
Health Service Act with respect to allergy and infectious
diseases, $4,459,395,000: Provided, That $100,000,000 may be
made available to International Assistance Programs ``Global
Fund to Fight HIV/AIDS, Malaria, and Tuberculosis'', to
remain available until expended: Provided further, That up to
$30,000,000 shall be for extramural facilities construction
grants to enhance the Nation's capability to do research on
biological and other agents.
National Institute of General Medical Sciences
For carrying out section 301 and title IV of the Public
Health Service Act with respect to general medical sciences,
$1,955,170,000.
National Institute of Child Health and Human Development
For carrying out section 301 and title IV of the Public
Health Service Act with respect to child health and human
development, $1,277,544,000.
National Eye Institute
For carrying out section 301 and title IV of the Public
Health Service Act with respect to eye diseases and visual
disorders, $673,491,000.
National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences
For carrying out sections 301 and 311 and title IV of the
Public Health Service Act with respect to environmental
health sciences, $647,608,000.
National Institute on Aging
For carrying out section 301 and title IV of the Public
Health Service Act with respect to aging, $1,057,203,000.
National Institute of Arthritis and Musculoskeletal and Skin Diseases
For carrying out section 301 and title IV of the Public
Health Service Act with respect to arthritis and
musculoskeletal and skin diseases, $513,063,000.
National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders
For carrying out section 301 and title IV of the Public
Health Service Act with respect to deafness and other
communication disorders, $397,432,000.
National Institute of Nursing Research
For carrying out section 301 and title IV of the Public
Health Service Act with respect to nursing research,
$138,729,000.
National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism
For carrying out section 301 and title IV of the Public
Health Service Act with respect to alcohol abuse and
alcoholism, $440,333,000.
National Institute on Drug Abuse
For carrying out section 301 and title IV of the Public
Health Service Act with respect to drug abuse,
$1,010,130,000.
National Institute of Mental Health
For carrying out section 301 and title IV of the Public
Health Service Act with respect to mental health,
$1,417,692,000.
National Human Genome Research Institute
For carrying out section 301 and title IV of the Public
Health Service Act with respect to human genome research,
$490,959,000.
National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering
For carrying out section 301 and title IV of the Public
Health Service Act with respect to biomedical imaging and
bioengineering research, $299,808,000.
National Center for Research Resources
For carrying out section 301 and title IV of the Public
Health Service Act with respect to research resources and
general research support grants, $1,110,203,000: Provided,
That none of these funds shall be used to pay recipients of
the general research support grants program any amount for
indirect expenses in connection with such grants.
National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine
For carrying out section 301 and title IV of the Public
Health Service Act with respect to complementary and
alternative medicine, $122,692,000.
[[Page 28010]]
National Center on Minority Health and Health Disparities
For carrying out section 301 and title IV of the Public
Health Service Act with respect to minority health and health
disparities research, $197,379,000.
John E. Fogarty International Center
For carrying out the activities at the John E. Fogarty
International Center, $67,048,000.
National Library of Medicine
For carrying out section 301 and title IV of the Public
Health Service Act with respect to health information
communications, $318,091,000, of which $4,000,000 shall be
available until expended for improvement of information
systems: Provided, That in fiscal year 2006, the Library may
enter into personal services contracts for the provision of
services in facilities owned, operated, or constructed under
the jurisdiction of the National Institutes of Health:
Provided further, That in addition to amounts provided
herein, $8,200,000 shall be available from amounts available
under section 241 of the Public Health Service Act to carry
out National Information Center on Health Services Research
and Health Care Technology and related health services.
Office of the Director
(including transfer of funds)
For carrying out the responsibilities of the Office of the
Director, National Institutes of Health, $482,895,000, of
which up to $10,000,000 shall be used to carry out section
217 of this Act: Provided, That funding shall be available
for the purchase of not to exceed 29 passenger motor vehicles
for replacement only: Provided further, That the Director may
direct up to 1 percent of the total amount made available in
this or any other Act to all National Institutes of Health
appropriations to activities the Director may so designate:
Provided further, That no such appropriation shall be
decreased by more than 1 percent by any such transfers and
that the Congress is promptly notified of the transfer:
Provided further, That the National Institutes of Health is
authorized to collect third party payments for the cost of
clinical services that are incurred in National Institutes of
Health research facilities and that such payments shall be
credited to the National Institutes of Health Management
Fund: Provided further, That all funds credited to the
National Institutes of Health Management Fund shall remain
available for one fiscal year after the fiscal year in which
they are deposited: Provided further, That up to $500,000
shall be available to carry out section 499 of the Public
Health Service Act: Provided further, That in addition to the
transfer authority provided above, a uniform percentage of
the amounts appropriated in this Act to each Institute and
Center may be transferred and utilized for the National
Institutes of Health Roadmap for Medical Research: Provided
further, That the amount utilized under the preceding proviso
shall not exceed $250,000,000 without prior notification to
the Committees on Appropriations of the House of
Representatives and the Senate: Provided further, That
amounts transferred and utilized under the preceding two
provisos shall be in addition to amounts made available for
the Roadmap for Medical Research from the Director's
Discretionary Fund and to any amounts allocated to activities
related to the Roadmap through the normal research priority-
setting process of individual Institutes and Centers:
Provided further, That of the funds provided $10,000 shall be
for official reception and representation expenses when
specifically approved by the Director of NIH: Provided
further, That the Office of AIDS Research within the Office
of the Director, NIH may spend up to $4,000,000 to make
grants for construction or renovation of facilities as
provided for in section 2354(a)(5)(B) of the Public Health
Service Act: Provided further, That of the funds provided
$97,000,000 shall be for expenses necessary to support
activities related to countering potential nuclear,
radiological and chemical threats to civilian populations.
Buildings and Facilities
For the study of, construction of, renovation of, and
acquisition of equipment for, facilities of or used by the
National Institutes of Health, including the acquisition of
real property, $81,900,000, to remain available until
expended.
Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration
Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services
For carrying out titles V and XIX of the Public Health
Service Act (``PHS Act'') with respect to substance abuse and
mental health services, the Protection and Advocacy for
Individuals with Mental Illness Act, and section 301 of the
PHS Act with respect to program management, $3,237,813,000:
Provided, That notwithstanding section 520A(f)(2) of the PHS
Act, no funds appropriated for carrying out section 520A are
available for carrying out section 1971 of the PHS Act:
Provided further, That in addition to amounts provided
herein, the following amounts shall be available under
section 241 of the PHS Act: (1) $79,200,000 to carry out
subpart II of part B of title XIX of the PHS Act to fund
section 1935(b) technical assistance, national data, data
collection and evaluation activities, and further that the
total available under this Act for section 1935(b) activities
shall not exceed 5 percent of the amounts appropriated for
subpart II of part B of title XIX; (2) $21,803,000 to carry
out subpart I of part B of title XIX of the PHS Act to fund
section 1920(b) technical assistance, national data, data
collection and evaluation activities, and further that the
total available under this Act for section 1920(b) activities
shall not exceed 5 percent of the amounts appropriated for
subpart I of part B of title XIX; (3) $16,000,000 to carry
out national surveys on drug abuse; and (4) $4,300,000 to
evaluate substance abuse treatment programs.
Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality
Healthcare Research and Quality
For carrying out titles III and IX of the Public Health
Service Act, and part A of title XI of the Social Security
Act, amounts received from Freedom of Information Act fees,
reimbursable and interagency agreements, and the sale of data
shall be credited to this appropriation and shall remain
available until expended: Provided, That the amount made
available pursuant to section 927(c) of the Public Health
Service Act shall not exceed $318,695,000: Provided further,
That not more than $50,000,000 of these funds shall be for
the development of scientific evidence that supports the
implementation and evaluation of health care information
technology systems.
Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services
Grants to States for Medicaid
For carrying out, except as otherwise provided, titles XI
and XIX of the Social Security Act, $156,954,419,000, to
remain available until expended.
For making, after May 31, 2006, payments to States under
title XIX of the Social Security Act for the last quarter of
fiscal year 2006 for unanticipated costs, incurred for the
current fiscal year, such sums as may be necessary.
For making payments to States or in the case of section
1928 on behalf of States under title XIX of the Social
Security Act for the first quarter of fiscal year 2007,
$62,783,825,000, to remain available until expended.
Payment under title XIX may be made for any quarter with
respect to a State plan or plan amendment in effect during
such quarter, if submitted in or prior to such quarter and
approved in that or any subsequent quarter.
Payments to Health Care Trust Funds
For payment to the Federal Hospital Insurance and the
Federal Supplementary Medical Insurance Trust Funds, as
provided under section 1844, 1860D-16, and 1860D-31 of the
Social Security Act, sections 103(c) and 111(d) of the Social
Security Amendments of 1965, section 278(d) of Public Law 97-
248, and for administrative expenses incurred pursuant to
section 201(g) of the Social Security Act, $177,742,200,000.
In addition, for making matching payments under section
1844, and benefit payments under 1860D-16 and 1860D-31, of
the Social Security Act, not anticipated in budget estimates,
such sums as may be necessary.
Program Management
For carrying out, except as otherwise provided, titles XI,
XVIII, XIX, and XXI of the Social Security Act, titles XIII
and XXVII of the Public Health Service Act, and the Clinical
Laboratory Improvement Amendments of 1988, not to exceed
$3,170,927,000, to be transferred from the Federal Hospital
Insurance and the Federal Supplementary Medical Insurance
Trust Funds, as authorized by section 201(g) of the Social
Security Act; together with all funds collected in accordance
with section 353 of the Public Health Service Act and section
1857(e)(2) of the Social Security Act, and such sums as may
be collected from authorized user fees and the sale of data,
which shall remain available until expended: Provided, That
all funds derived in accordance with 31 U.S.C. 9701 from
organizations established under title XIII of the Public
Health Service Act shall be credited to and available for
carrying out the purposes of this appropriation: Provided
further, That $24,205,000, to remain available until
September 30, 2007, is for contract costs for the Centers for
Medicare and Medicaid Services Systems Revitalization Plan:
Provided further, That $79,934,000, to remain available until
September 30, 2007, is for contract costs for the Healthcare
Integrated General Ledger Accounting System: Provided
further, That funds appropriated under this heading are
available for the Healthy Start, Grow Smart program under
which the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services may,
directly or through grants, contracts, or cooperative
agreements, produce and distribute informational materials
including, but not limited to, pamphlets and brochures on
infant and toddler health care to expectant parents enrolled
in the Medicaid program and to parents and guardians enrolled
in such program with infants and children: Provided further,
That the Secretary of Health and Human Services is directed
to collect fees in fiscal year 2006 from Medicare Advantage
organizations pursuant to section 1857(e)(2) of the Social
Security Act and from eligible organizations with risk-
sharing contracts under section 1876 of that Act pursuant to
section 1876(k)(4)(D) of that Act: Provided further, That to
the extent Medicare claims volume is projected by the Centers
for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) to exceed
200,000,000 Part A claims and/or 1,022,100,000 Part B claims,
an additional $32,500,000 shall be available for obligation
for every 50,000,000 increase in Medicare claims volume
(including a pro rata amount for any increment less than
50,000,000) from the Federal Hospital Insurance and the
Federal Supplementary Medical Insurance Trust Funds.
Health Maintenance Organization Loan and Loan Guarantee Fund
For carrying out subsections (d) and (e) of section 1308 of
the Public Health Service Act, any amounts received by the
Secretary in connection with loans and loan guarantees under
title XIII of the Public Health Service Act, to be available
without fiscal year limitation for the
[[Page 28011]]
payment of outstanding obligations. During fiscal year 2006,
no commitments for direct loans or loan guarantees shall be
made.
Administration for Children and Families
Payments to States for Child Support Enforcement and Family Support
Programs
For making payments to States or other non-Federal entities
under titles I, IV-D, X, XI, XIV, and XVI of the Social
Security Act and the Act of July 5, 1960 (24 U.S.C. ch. 9),
$2,121,643,000, to remain available until expended; and for
such purposes for the first quarter of fiscal year 2007,
$1,200,000,000, to remain available until expended.
For making payments to each State for carrying out the
program of Aid to Families with Dependent Children under
title IV-A of the Social Security Act before the effective
date of the program of Temporary Assistance for Needy
Families (TANF) with respect to such State, such sums as may
be necessary: Provided, That the sum of the amounts available
to a State with respect to expenditures under such title IV-A
in fiscal year 1997 under this appropriation and under such
title IV-A as amended by the Personal Responsibility and Work
Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996 shall not exceed the
limitations under section 116(b) of such Act.
For making, after May 31 of the current fiscal year,
payments to States or other non-Federal entities under titles
I, IV-D, X, XI, XIV, and XVI of the Social Security Act and
the Act of July 5, 1960 (24 U.S.C. ch. 9), for the last 3
months of the current fiscal year for unanticipated costs,
incurred for the current fiscal year, such sums as may be
necessary.
low-income home energy assistance
For making payments under title XXVI of the Omnibus Budget
Reconciliation Act of 1981, $2,000,000,000.
For making payments under title XXVI of the Omnibus Budget
Reconciliation Act of 1981, $183,000,000, to remain available
until September 30, 2006: Provided, That these funds are for
the unanticipated home energy assistance needs of one or more
States, as authorized by section 2604(e) of such Act, and
notwithstanding the designation requirement of section
2602(e) of such Act.
Refugee and Entrant Assistance
For necessary expenses for refugee and entrant assistance
activities and for costs associated with the care and
placement of unaccompanied alien children authorized by title
IV of the Immigration and Nationality Act and section 501 of
the Refugee Education Assistance Act of 1980 (Public Law 96-
422), for carrying out section 462 of the Homeland Security
Act of 2002 (Public Law 107-296), and for carrying out the
Torture Victims Relief Act of 2003 (Public Law 108-179),
$575,579,000, of which up to $9,915,000 shall be available to
carry out the Trafficking Victims Protection Act of 2003
(Public Law 108-193): Provided, That funds appropriated under
this heading pursuant to section 414(a) of the Immigration
and Nationality Act and section 462 of the Homeland Security
Act of 2002 for fiscal year 2006 shall be available for the
costs of assistance provided and other activities to remain
available through September 30, 2008.
Payments to States for the Child Care and Development Block Grant
For carrying out sections 658A through 658R of the Omnibus
Budget Reconciliation Act of 1981 (The Child Care and
Development Block Grant Act of 1990), $2,082,910,000 shall be
used to supplement, not supplant State general revenue funds
for child care assistance for low-income families: Provided,
That $18,967,040 shall be available for child care resource
and referral and school-aged child care activities, of which
$992,000 shall be for the Child Care Aware toll-free hotline:
Provided further, That, in addition to the amounts required
to be reserved by the States under section 658G, $270,490,624
shall be reserved by the States for activities authorized
under section 658G, of which $99,200,000 shall be for
activities that improve the quality of infant and toddler
care: Provided further, That $9,920,000 shall be for use by
the Secretary for child care research, demonstration, and
evaluation activities.
Social Services Block Grant
For making grants to States pursuant to section 2002 of the
Social Security Act, $1,700,000,000: Provided, That
notwithstanding subparagraph (B) of section 404(d)(2) of such
Act, the applicable percent specified under such subparagraph
for a State to carry out State programs pursuant to title XX
of such Act shall be 10 percent.
Children and Families Services Programs
(including rescission of funds)
For carrying out, except as otherwise provided, the Runaway
and Homeless Youth Act, the Developmental Disabilities
Assistance and Bill of Rights Act, the Head Start Act, the
Child Abuse Prevention and Treatment Act, sections 310 and
316 of the Family Violence Prevention and Services Act, as
amended, the Native American Programs Act of 1974, title II
of Public Law 95-266 (adoption opportunities), the Adoption
and Safe Families Act of 1997 (Public Law 105-89), sections
1201 and 1211 of the Children's Health Act of 2000, the
Abandoned Infants Assistance Act of 1988, sections 261 and
291 of the Help America Vote Act of 2002, part B(1) of title
IV and sections 413, 429A, 1110, and 1115 of the Social
Security Act, and sections 40155, 40211, and 40241 of Public
Law 103-322; for making payments under the Community Services
Block Grant Act, sections 439(h), 473A, and 477(i) of the
Social Security Act, and title IV of Public Law 105-285, and
for necessary administrative expenses to carry out said Acts
and titles I, IV, V, X, XI, XIV, XVI, and XX of the Social
Security Act, the Act of July 5, 1960 (24 U.S.C. ch. 9), the
Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act of 1981, title IV of the
Immigration and Nationality Act, section 501 of the Refugee
Education Assistance Act of 1980, sections 40155, 40211, and
40241 of Public Law 103-322, and section 126 and titles IV
and V of Public Law 100-485, $8,922,213,000, of which
$18,000,000, to remain available until September 30, 2007,
shall be for grants to States for adoption incentive
payments, as authorized by section 473A of title IV of the
Social Security Act (42 U.S.C. 670-679) and may be made for
adoptions completed before September 30, 2006: Provided, That
$6,843,114,000 shall be for making payments under the Head
Start Act, of which $1,388,800,000 shall become available
October 1, 2006, and remain available through September 30,
2007: Provided further, That $701,590,000 shall be for making
payments under the Community Services Block Grant Act:
Provided further, That not less than $7,367,000 shall be for
section 680(3)(B) of the Community Services Block Grant Act:
Provided further, That in addition to amounts provided
herein, $6,000,000 shall be available from amounts available
under section 241 of the Public Health Service Act to carry
out the provisions of section 1110 of the Social Security
Act: Provided further, That to the extent Community Services
Block Grant funds are distributed as grant funds by a State
to an eligible entity as provided under the Act, and have not
been expended by such entity, they shall remain with such
entity for carryover into the next fiscal year for
expenditure by such entity consistent with program purposes:
Provided further, That the Secretary shall establish
procedures regarding the disposition of intangible property
which permits grant funds, or intangible assets acquired with
funds authorized under section 680 of the Community Services
Block Grant Act, as amended, to become the sole property of
such grantees after a period of not more than 12 years after
the end of the grant for purposes and uses consistent with
the original grant: Provided further, That funds appropriated
for section 680(a)(2) of the Community Services Block Grant
Act, as amended, shall be available for financing
construction and rehabilitation and loans or investments in
private business enterprises owned by community development
corporations: Provided further, That $65,000,000 is for a
compassion capital fund to provide grants to charitable
organizations to emulate model social service programs and to
encourage research on the best practices of social service
organizations: Provided further, That $15,879,000 shall be
for activities authorized by the Help America Vote Act of
2002, of which $11,000,000 shall be for payments to States to
promote access for voters with disabilities, and of which
$4,879,000 shall be for payments to States for protection and
advocacy systems for voters with disabilities: Provided
further, That $110,000,000 shall be for making competitive
grants to provide abstinence education (as defined by section
510(b)(2) of the Social Security Act) to adolescents, and for
Federal costs of administering the grant: Provided further,
That grants under the immediately preceding proviso shall be
made only to public and private entities which agree that,
with respect to an adolescent to whom the entities provide
abstinence education under such grant, the entities will not
provide to that adolescent any other education regarding
sexual conduct, except that, in the case of an entity
expressly required by law to provide health information or
services the adolescent shall not be precluded from seeking
health information or services from the entity in a different
setting than the setting in which abstinence education was
provided: Provided further, That within amounts provided
herein for abstinence education for adolescents, up to
$10,000,000 may be available for a national abstinence
education campaign: Provided further, That in addition to
amounts provided herein for abstinence education for
adolescents, $4,500,000 shall be available from amounts
available under section 241 of the Public Health Service Act
to carry out evaluations (including longitudinal evaluations)
of adolescent pregnancy prevention approaches: Provided
further, That $2,000,000 shall be for improving the Public
Assistance Reporting Information System, including grants to
States to support data collection for a study of the system's
effectiveness.
Of the funds provided under this heading in Public Law 108-
447 to carry out section 473A of title IV of the Social
Security Act (42 U.S.C. 670-679), $22,500,000 are rescinded.
Promoting Safe and Stable Families
For carrying out section 436 of the Social Security Act,
$305,000,000 and for section 437, $90,000,000.
Payments to States for Foster Care and Adoption Assistance
For making payments to States or other non-Federal entities
under title IV-E of the Social Security Act, $4,852,800,000.
For making payments to States or other non-Federal entities
under title IV-E of the Act, for the first quarter of fiscal
year 2007, $1,730,000,000.
For making, after May 31 of the current fiscal year,
payments to States or other non-Federal entities under
section 474 of title IV-E, for the last 3 months of the
current fiscal year for unanticipated costs, incurred for the
current fiscal year, such sums as may be necessary.
Administration on Aging
Aging Services Programs
For carrying out, to the extent not otherwise provided, the
Older Americans Act of 1965, as amended, and section 398 of
the Public Health
[[Page 28012]]
Service Act, $1,376,624,000, of which $5,500,000 shall be
available for activities regarding medication management,
screening, and education to prevent incorrect medication and
adverse drug reactions.
Office of the Secretary
General Departmental Management
For necessary expenses, not otherwise provided, for general
departmental management, including hire of six sedans, and
for carrying out titles III, XVII, XX, and XXI of the Public
Health Service Act, the United States-Mexico Border Health
Commission Act, and research studies under section 1110 of
the Social Security Act, $352,703,000, together with
$5,851,000 to be transferred and expended as authorized by
section 201(g)(1) of the Social Security Act from the
Hospital Insurance Trust Fund and the Supplemental Medical
Insurance Trust Fund, and $39,552,000 from the amounts
available under section 241 of the Public Health Service Act
to carry out national health or human services research and
evaluation activities: Provided, That of the funds made
available under this heading for carrying out title XX of the
Public Health Service Act, $13,120,000 shall be for
activities specified under section 2003(b)(2), all of which
shall be for prevention service demonstration grants under
section 510(b)(2) of title V of the Social Security Act, as
amended, without application of the limitation of section
2010(c) of said title XX: Provided further, That of this
amount, $52,415,000 shall be for minority AIDS prevention and
treatment activities; and $5,952,000 shall be to assist
Afghanistan in the development of maternal and child health
clinics, consistent with section 103(a)(4)(H) of the
Afghanistan Freedom Support Act of 2002: Provided further,
That specific information requests from the chairmen and
ranking members of the Subcommittees on Labor, Health and
Human Services, and Education, and Related Agencies, on
scientific research or any other matter, shall be transmitted
to the Committees on Appropriations in a prompt professional
manner and within the time frame specified in the request:
Provided further, That scientific information requested by
the Committees on Appropriations and prepared by government
researchers and scientists shall be transmitted to the
Committees on Appropriations, uncensored and without delay.
Office of Medicare Hearings and Appeals
For expenses necessary for administrative law judges
responsible for hearing cases under title XVIII of the Social
Security Act (and related provisions of title XI of such
Act), $60,000,000, to be transferred in appropriate part from
the Federal Hospital Insurance and the Federal Supplementary
Medical Insurance Trust Funds.
Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology
For expenses necessary for the Office of the National
Coordinator for Health Information Technology, including
grants, contracts and cooperative agreements for the
development and advancement of an interoperable national
health information technology infrastructure, $42,800,000:
Provided, That in addition to amounts provided herein,
$18,900,000 shall be available from amounts available under
section 241 of the Public Health Service Act to carry out
health information technology network development.
Office of Inspector General
For expenses necessary for the Office of Inspector General,
including the hire of passenger motor vehicles for
investigations, in carrying out the provisions of the
Inspector General Act of 1978, as amended, $39,813,000:
Provided, That of such amount, necessary sums are available
for providing protective services to the Secretary and
investigating non-payment of child support cases for which
non-payment is a Federal offense under 18 U.S.C. 228.
Office for Civil Rights
For expenses necessary for the Office for Civil Rights,
$31,682,000, together with not to exceed $3,314,000 to be
transferred and expended as authorized by section 201(g)(1)
of the Social Security Act from the Hospital Insurance Trust
Fund and the Supplemental Medical Insurance Trust Fund.
Retirement Pay and Medical Benefits for Commissioned Officers
For retirement pay and medical benefits of Public Health
Service Commissioned Officers as authorized by law, for
payments under the Retired Serviceman's Family Protection
Plan and Survivor Benefit Plan, for medical care of
dependents and retired personnel under the Dependents'
Medical Care Act (10 U.S.C. chapter 55), such amounts as may
be required during the current fiscal year.
Public Health and Social Services Emergency Fund
For expenses necessary to support activities related to
countering potential biological, disease, nuclear,
radiological and chemical threats to civilian populations,
and to ensure a year-round influenza vaccine production
capacity, the development and implementation of rapidly
expandable influenza vaccine production technologies, and if
determined necessary by the Secretary, the purchase of
influenza vaccine, $63,589,000.
General Provisions
Sec. 201. Funds appropriated in this title shall be
available for not to exceed $50,000 for official reception
and representation expenses when specifically approved by the
Secretary.
Sec. 202. The Secretary shall make available through
assignment not more than 60 employees of the Public Health
Service to assist in child survival activities and to work in
AIDS programs through and with funds provided by the Agency
for International Development, the United Nations
International Children's Emergency Fund or the World Health
Organization.
Sec. 203. None of the funds appropriated in this Act may be
used to implement section 399F(b) of the Public Health
Service Act or section 1503 of the National Institutes of
Health Revitalization Act of 1993, Public Law 103-43.
Sec. 204. None of the funds appropriated in this Act for
the National Institutes of Health, the Agency for Healthcare
Research and Quality, and the Substance Abuse and Mental
Health Services Administration shall be used to pay the
salary of an individual, through a grant or other extramural
mechanism, at a rate in excess of Executive Level I.
Sec. 205. None of the funds appropriated in this title for
Head Start shall be used to pay the compensation of an
individual, either as direct costs or any proration as an
indirect cost, at a rate in excess of Executive Level II.
Sec. 206. None of the funds appropriated in this Act may be
expended pursuant to section 241 of the Public Health Service
Act, except for funds specifically provided for in this Act,
or for other taps and assessments made by any office located
in the Department of Health and Human Services, prior to the
Secretary's preparation and submission of a report to the
Committee on Appropriations of the Senate and of the House
detailing the planned uses of such funds.
Sec. 207. Notwithstanding section 241(a) of the Public
Health Service Act, such portion as the Secretary shall
determine, but not more than 2.4 percent, of any amounts
appropriated for programs authorized under said Act shall be
made available for the evaluation (directly, or by grants or
contracts) of the implementation and effectiveness of such
programs.
(transfer of funds)
Sec. 208. Not to exceed 1 percent of any discretionary
funds (pursuant to the Balanced Budget and Emergency Deficit
Control Act of 1985, as amended) which are appropriated for
the current fiscal year for the Department of Health and
Human Services in this Act may be transferred between a
program, project, or activity, but no such program, project,
or activity shall be increased by more than 3 percent by any
such transfer: Provided, That a program, project, or activity
may be increased by up to an additional 2 percent subject to
approval by the House and Senate Committees on
Appropriations: Provided further, That the transfer authority
granted by this section shall be available only to meet
emergency needs and shall not be used to create any new
program or to fund any project or activity for which no funds
are provided in this Act: Provided further, That the
Appropriations Committees of both Houses of Congress are
notified at least 15 days in advance of any transfer.
(transfer of funds)
Sec. 209. The Director of the National Institutes of
Health, jointly with the Director of the Office of AIDS
Research, may transfer up to 3 percent among institutes and
centers from the total amounts identified by these two
Directors as funding for research pertaining to the human
immunodeficiency virus: Provided, That the Congress is
promptly notified of the transfer.
(transfer of funds)
Sec. 210. Of the amounts made available in this Act for the
National Institutes of Health, the amount for research
related to the human immunodeficiency virus, as jointly
determined by the Director of the National Institutes of
Health and the Director of the Office of AIDS Research, shall
be made available to the ``Office of AIDS Research'' account.
The Director of the Office of AIDS Research shall transfer
from such account amounts necessary to carry out section
2353(d)(3) of the Public Health Service Act.
Sec. 211. None of the funds appropriated in this Act may be
made available to any entity under title X of the Public
Health Service Act unless the applicant for the award
certifies to the Secretary that it encourages family
participation in the decision of minors to seek family
planning services and that it provides counseling to minors
on how to resist attempts to coerce minors into engaging in
sexual activities.
Sec. 212. None of the funds appropriated by this Act
(including funds appropriated to any trust fund) may be used
to carry out the Medicare Advantage program if the Secretary
denies participation in such program to an otherwise eligible
entity (including a Provider Sponsored Organization) because
the entity informs the Secretary that it will not provide,
pay for, provide coverage of, or provide referrals for
abortions: Provided, That the Secretary shall make
appropriate prospective adjustments to the capitation payment
to such an entity (based on an actuarially sound estimate of
the expected costs of providing the service to such entity's
enrollees): Provided further, That nothing in this section
shall be construed to change the Medicare program's coverage
for such services and a Medicare Advantage organization
described in this section shall be responsible for informing
enrollees where to obtain information about all Medicare
covered services.
Sec. 213. Notwithstanding any other provision of law, no
provider of services under title X of the Public Health
Service Act shall be exempt from any State law requiring
notification or the reporting of child abuse, child
molestation, sexual abuse, rape, or incest.
Sec. 214. (a) Except as provided by subsection (e) none of
the funds appropriated by this Act may be used to withhold
substance abuse funding from a State pursuant to section 1926
of the
[[Page 28013]]
Public Health Service Act (42 U.S.C. 300x-26) if such State
certifies to the Secretary of Health and Human Services by
May 1, 2006, that the State will commit additional State
funds, in accordance with subsection (b), to ensure
compliance with State laws prohibiting the sale of tobacco
products to individuals under 18 years of age.
(b) The amount of funds to be committed by a State under
subsection (a) shall be equal to 1 percent of such State's
substance abuse block grant allocation for each percentage
point by which the State misses the retailer compliance rate
goal established by the Secretary of Health and Human
Services under section 1926 of such Act.
(c) The State is to maintain State expenditures in fiscal
year 2006 for tobacco prevention programs and for compliance
activities at a level that is not less than the level of such
expenditures maintained by the State for fiscal year 2005,
and adding to that level the additional funds for tobacco
compliance activities required under subsection (a). The
State is to submit a report to the Secretary on all fiscal
year 2005 State expenditures and all fiscal year 2006
obligations for tobacco prevention and compliance activities
by program activity by July 31, 2006.
(d) The Secretary shall exercise discretion in enforcing
the timing of the State obligation of the additional funds
required by the certification described in subsection (a) as
late as July 31, 2006.
(e) None of the funds appropriated by this Act may be used
to withhold substance abuse funding pursuant to section 1926
from a territory that receives less than $1,000,000.
Sec. 215. In order for the Centers for Disease Control and
Prevention to carry out international health activities,
including HIV/AIDS and other infectious disease, chronic and
environmental disease, and other health activities abroad
during fiscal year 2006, the Secretary of Health and Human
Services--
(1) may exercise authority equivalent to that available to
the Secretary of State in section 2(c) of the State
Department Basic Authorities Act of 1956 (22 U.S.C. 2669(c)).
The Secretary of Health and Human Services shall consult with
the Secretary of State and relevant Chief of Mission to
ensure that the authority provided in this section is
exercised in a manner consistent with section 207 of the
Foreign Service Act of 1980 (22 U.S.C. 3927) and other
applicable statutes administered by the Department of State,
and
(2) is authorized to provide such funds by advance or
reimbursement to the Secretary of State as may be necessary
to pay the costs of acquisition, lease, alteration,
renovation, and management of facilities outside of the
United States for the use of the Department of Health and
Human Services. The Department of State shall cooperate fully
with the Secretary of Health and Human Services to ensure
that the Department of Health and Human Services has secure,
safe, functional facilities that comply with applicable
regulation governing location, setback, and other facilities
requirements and serve the purposes established by this Act.
The Secretary of Health and Human Services is authorized, in
consultation with the Secretary of State, through grant or
cooperative agreement, to make available to public or
nonprofit private institutions or agencies in participating
foreign countries, funds to acquire, lease, alter, or
renovate facilities in those countries as necessary to
conduct programs of assistance for international health
activities, including activities relating to HIV/AIDS and
other infectious diseases, chronic and environmental
diseases, and other health activities abroad.
Sec. 216. The Division of Federal Occupational Health
hereafter may utilize personal services contracting to employ
professional management/administrative and occupational
health professionals.
Sec. 217. (a) Authority.--Notwithstanding any other
provision of law, the Director of the National Institutes of
Health may use funds available under section 402(i) of the
Public Health Service Act (42 U.S.C. 282(i)) to enter into
transactions (other than contracts, cooperative agreements,
or grants) to carry out research in support of the NIH
Roadmap for Medical Research.
(b) Peer Review.--In entering into transactions under
subsection (a), the Director of the National Institutes of
Health may utilize such peer review procedures (including
consultation with appropriate scientific experts) as the
Director determines to be appropriate to obtain assessments
of scientific and technical merit. Such procedures shall
apply to such transactions in lieu of the peer review and
advisory council review procedures that would otherwise be
required under sections 301(a)(3), 405(b)(1)(B), 405(b)(2),
406(a)(3)(A), 492, and 494 of the Public Health Service Act
(42 U.S.C. 241, 284(b)(1)(B), 284(b)(2), 284a(a)(3)(A), 289a,
and 289c).
Sec. 218. Funds which are available for Individual Learning
Accounts for employees of the Centers for Disease Control and
Prevention and the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease
Registry may be transferred to ``Disease Control, Research,
and Training,'' to be available only for Individual Learning
Accounts: Provided, That such funds may be used for any
individual full-time equivalent employee while such employee
is employed either by CDC or ATSDR.
Sec. 219. Notwithstanding any other provisions of law,
funds made available in this Act may be used to continue
operating the Council on Graduate Medical Education
established by section 301 of Public Law 102-408.
(rescission of funds)
Sec. 220. The unobligated balance in the amount of
$10,000,000 appropriated by Public Law 108-11 under the
heading ``Public Health and Social Services Emergency Fund''
are rescinded.
Sec. 221. (a) The Headquarters and Emergency Operations
Center Building (Building 21) at the Centers for Disease
Control and Prevention is hereby renamed as the Arlen Specter
Headquarters and Emergency Operations Center.
(b) The Global Communications Center Building (Building 19)
at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is hereby
renamed as the Thomas R. Harkin Global Communications Center.
Sec. 222. None of the funds made available under this Act
may be used to implement or enforce the interim final rule
published in the Federal Register by the Centers for Medicare
& Medicaid Services on August 26, 2005 (70 Fed. Reg. 50940)
prior to April 1, 2006.
Sec. 223. (a) For fiscal year 2006 and subject to
subsection (b), the Secretary of Health and Human Services
may waive the requirements of regulations promulgated under
the Head Start Act (42 U.S.C. 9831 et seq.), for one or more
vehicles used by a Head Start agency or an Early Head Start
entity (or the designee of either) in transporting children
enrolled in a Head Start program or an Early Head Start
program if--
(1) such requirements pertain to child restraint systems or
vehicle monitors;
(2) the agency or entity demonstrates that compliance with
such requirements will result in a significant disruption to
the Head Start program or the Early Head Start program; and
(3) waiving such requirements is in the best interest of
the children involved.
(b) The Secretary of Health and Human Services may not
issue any waiver under subsection (a) after September 30,
2006, or the date of the enactment of a statute that
authorizes appropriations for fiscal year 2006 to carry out
the Head Start Act, whichever date is earlier.
Sec. 224. Section 1310.12(a) of title 45 of the Code of
Federal Regulations (October 1, 2004) shall not be effective
until June 30, 2006 or 60 days after the date of the
enactment of a statute that authorizes appropriations for
fiscal year 2006 to carry out the Head Start Act, whichever
date is earlier.
(rescission)
Sec. 225. The unobligated balance of the Health Professions
Student Loan program authorized in Subpart II, Federally-
Supported Student Loan Funds, of title VII of the Public
Health Services Act is rescinded.
(rescission)
Sec. 226. The unobligated balance of the Nursing Student
Loan program authorized by section 835 of the Public Health
Services Act is rescinded.
Sec. 227. In addition to any other amounts available for
such travel, and notwithstanding any other provision of law,
amounts available from this or any other appropriation for
the purchase, hire, maintenance, or operation of aircraft by
the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention shall be
available for travel by the Secretary of Health and Human
Services, the Director of the Centers for Disease Control and
Prevention, and employees of the Department of Health and
Human Services accompanying the Secretary or the Director
during such travel.
This title may be cited as the ``Department of Health and
Human Services Appropriations Act, 2006''.
TITLE III--DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION
Education for the Disadvantaged
For carrying out title I of the Elementary and Secondary
Education Act of 1965 (``ESEA'') and section 418A of the
Higher Education Act of 1965, $14,627,435,000, of which
$7,073,126,000 shall become available on July 1, 2006, and
shall remain available through September 30, 2007, and of
which $7,383,301,000 shall become available on October 1,
2006, and shall remain available through September 30, 2007
for academic year 2006-2007: Provided, That $6,934,854,000
shall be for basic grants under section 1124: Provided
further, That up to $3,472,000 of these funds shall be
available to the Secretary of Education on October 1, 2005,
to obtain annually updated educational-agency-level census
poverty data from the Bureau of the Census: Provided further,
That $1,365,031,000 shall be for concentration grants under
section 1124A: Provided further, That $2,269,843,000 shall be
for targeted grants under section 1125: Provided further,
That $2,269,843,000 shall be for education finance incentive
grants under section 1125A: Provided further, That $9,424,000
shall be to carry out part E of title I: Provided further,
That $8,000,000 shall be available for section 1608 of the
ESEA, of which $1,465,000 shall be available for a
continuation award for the comprehensive school reform
clearinghouse previously funded under the heading
``Innovation and Improvement'' in title III of division F of
Public Law 108-447.
Impact Aid
For carrying out programs of financial assistance to
federally affected schools authorized by title VIII of the
Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965,
$1,240,862,000, of which $1,102,896,000 shall be for basic
support payments under section 8003(b), $49,966,000 shall be
for payments for children with disabilities under section
8003(d), $18,000,000 shall be for construction under section
8007(a), $65,000,000 shall be for Federal property payments
under section 8002, and $5,000,000, to remain available until
expended, shall be for facilities maintenance under section
8008: Provided, That for purposes of computing the amount of
a payment for an
[[Page 28014]]
eligible local educational agency under section 8003(a) of
the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (20 U.S.C.
7703(a)) for school year 2005-2006, children enrolled in a
school of such agency that would otherwise be eligible for
payment under section 8003(a)(1)(B) of such Act, but due to
the deployment of both parents or legal guardians, or a
parent or legal guardian having sole custody of such
children, or due to the death of a military parent or legal
guardian while on active duty (so long as such children
reside on Federal property as described in section
8003(a)(1)(B)), are no longer eligible under such section,
shall be considered as eligible students under such section,
provided such students remain in average daily attendance at
a school in the same local educational agency they attended
prior to their change in eligibility status.
School Improvement Programs
For carrying out school improvement activities authorized
by title II, part B of title IV, part A and subparts 6 and 9
of part D of title V, parts A and B of title VI, and parts B
and C of title VII of the Elementary and Secondary Education
Act of 1965 (``ESEA''); the McKinney-Vento Homeless
Assistance Act; section 203 of the Educational Technical
Assistance Act of 2002; the Compact of Free Association
Amendments Act of 2003; and the Civil Rights Act of 1964,
$5,308,564,000, of which $3,676,482,000 shall become
available on July 1, 2006, and remain available through
September 30, 2007, and of which $1,435,000,000 shall become
available on October 1, 2006, and shall remain available
through September 30, 2007, for academic year 2006-2007:
Provided, That funds made available to carry out part B of
title VII of the ESEA may be used for construction,
renovation and modernization of any elementary school,
secondary school, or structure related to an elementary
school or secondary school, run by the Department of
Education of the State of Hawaii, that serves a predominantly
Native Hawaiian student body: Provided further, That from the
funds referred to in the preceding proviso, not less than
$1,250,000 shall be for a grant to the Department of
Education of the State of Hawaii for the activities described
in such proviso, and $1,250,000 shall be for a grant to the
University of Hawaii School of Law for a Center of Excellence
in Native Hawaiian law: Provided further, That funds made
available to carry out part C of title VII of the ESEA may be
used for constructions: Provided further, That up to 100
percent of the funds available to a State educational agency
under part D of title II of the ESEA may be used for
subgrants described in section 2412(a)(2)(B) of such Act:
Provided further, That $411,680,000 shall be for State
assessments and related activities authorized under sections
6111 and 6112 of the ESEA: Provided further, That $56,825,000
shall be available to carry out section 203 of the
Educational Technical Assistance Act of 2002: Provided
further, That $31,693,000 shall be available to carry out
part D of title V of the ESEA: Provided further, That no
funds appropriated under this heading may be used to carry
out section 5494 under the ESEA: Provided further, That
$12,132,000 shall be available to carry out the Supplemental
Education Grants program for the Federated States of
Micronesia, and $6,051,000 shall be available to carry out
the Supplemental Education Grants program for the Republic of
the Marshall Islands: Provided further, That up to 5 percent
of these amounts may be reserved by the Federated States of
Micronesia and the Republic of the Marshall Islands to
administer the Supplemental Education Grants programs and to
obtain technical assistance, oversight and consultancy
services in the administration of these grants and to
reimburse the United States Departments of Labor, Health and
Human Services, and Education for such services.
Indian Education
For expenses necessary to carry out, to the extent not
otherwise provided, title VII, part A of the Elementary and
Secondary Education Act of 1965, $119,889,000.
Innovation and Improvement
For carrying out activities authorized by parts G and H of
title I, subpart 5 of part A and parts C and D of title II,
parts B, C, and D of title V, and section 1504 of the
Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965 (``ESEA''),
$945,947,000, of which $95,000,000 shall become available on
July 1, 2006 and remain available until September 30, 2007:
Provided, That $16,864,000 shall be available to carry out
section 2151(c) of the ESEA, of which not less than
$9,920,000 shall be provided to the National Board for
Professional Teaching Standards, and not less than $6,944,000
shall be provided to the American Board for the Certification
of Teacher Excellence: Provided further, That from funds for
subpart 4, part C of title II, up to 3 percent shall be
available to the Secretary for technical assistance and
dissemination of information: Provided further, That
$36,981,000 shall be for subpart 2 of part B of title V:
Provided further, That $260,111,000 shall be available to
carry out part D of title V of the ESEA, of which
$100,000,000 of the funds for subpart 1 shall be for
competitive grants to local educational agencies, including
charter schools that are local educational agencies, or
States, or partnerships of (1) a local educational agency, a
State, or both and (2) at least one non-profit organization
to develop and implement performance-based teacher and
principal compensation systems in high-need schools: Provided
further, That such performance-based compensation systems
must consider gains in student academic achievement as well
as classroom evaluations conducted multiple times during each
school year among other factors and provide educators with
incentives to take on additional responsibilities and
leadership roles: Provided further, That five percent of such
funds for competitive grants shall become available on
October 1, 2005 for technical assistance, training, peer
review of applications, program outreach and evaluation
activities and that 95 percent shall become available on July
1, 2006 and remain available through September 30, 2007 for
competitive grants.
Safe Schools and Citizenship Education
For carrying out activities authorized by subpart 3 of part
C of title II, part A of title IV, and subparts 2, 3 and 10
of part D of title V of the Elementary and Secondary
Education Act of 1965 (``ESEA''), $736,886,000, of which
$350,000,000 shall become available on July 1, 2006 and
remain available through September 30, 2007: Provided, That
of the amount available for subpart 2 of part A of title IV
of the ESEA, $850,000 shall be used to continue the National
Recognition Awards program under the same guidelines outlined
by section 120(f) of Public Law 105-244: Provided further,
That $350,000,000 shall be available for subpart 1 of part A
of title IV and $224,580,000 shall be available for subpart 2
of part A of title IV, of which not less than $1,449,000, to
remain available until expended, shall be for the Project
School Emergency Response to Violence program to provide
education-related services to local educational agencies in
which the learning environment has been disrupted due to a
violent or traumatic crisis: Provided further, That
$132,901,000 shall be available to carry out part D of title
V of the ESEA: Provided further, That of the funds available
to carry out subpart 3 of part C of title II, up to
$12,194,000 may be used to carry out section 2345 and
$3,025,000 shall be used by the Center for Civic Education to
implement a comprehensive program to improve public
knowledge, understanding, and support of the Congress and the
State legislatures.
English Language Acquisition
For carrying out part A of title III of the ESEA,
$675,765,000, which shall become available on July 1, 2006,
and shall remain available through September 30, 2007, except
that 6.5 percent of such amount shall be available on October
1, 2005 and shall remain available through September 30,
2007, to carry out activities under section 3111(c)(1)(C).
Special Education
For carrying out the Individuals with Disabilities
Education Act, $11,770,607,000, of which $6,141,604,000 shall
become available on July 1, 2006, and shall remain available
through September 30, 2007, and of which $5,424,200,000 shall
become available on October 1, 2006, and shall remain
available through September 30, 2007, for academic year 2006-
2007: Provided, That $12,000,000 shall be for Recording for
the Blind and Dyslexic, Inc., to support the development,
production, and circulation of recorded educational
materials: Provided further, That $1,500,000 shall be for the
recipient of funds provided by Public Law 105-78 under
section 687(b)(2)(G) of the Act (as in effect prior to the
enactment of the Individuals with Disabilities Education
Improvement Act of 2004) to provide information on diagnosis,
intervention, and teaching strategies for children with
disabilities: Provided further, That the amount for section
611(b)(2) of the Act shall be equal to the amount available
for that activity during fiscal year 2005, increased by the
amount of inflation as specified in section 619(d)(2)(B) of
the Act.
Rehabilitation Services and Disability Research
For carrying out, to the extent not otherwise provided, the
Rehabilitation Act of 1973, the Assistive Technology Act of
1998 (``the AT Act''), and the Helen Keller National Center
Act, $3,129,638,000, of which $1,000,000 shall be awarded to
the American Academy of Orthotists and Prosthetists for
activities that further the purposes of the grant received by
the Academy for the period beginning October 1, 2003,
including activities to meet the demand for orthotic and
prosthetic provider services and improve patient care:
Provided, That $30,760,000 shall be used for carrying out the
AT Act, including $4,385,000 for State grants for protection
and advocacy under section 5 of the AT Act and $3,760,000
shall be for alternative financing programs under section
4(b)(2)(D) of the AT Act: Provided further, That the Federal
share of grants for alternative financing programs shall not
exceed 75 percent, and the requirements in section 301(c)(2)
and section 302 of the AT Act (as in effect on the day before
the date of enactment of the Assistive Technology Act of
2004) shall not apply to such grants.
Special Institutions for Persons With Disabilities
american printing house for the blind
For carrying out the Act of March 3, 1879, as amended (20
U.S.C. 101 et seq.), $17,750,000.
National Technical Institute for the Deaf
For the National Technical Institute for the Deaf under
titles I and II of the Education of the Deaf Act of 1986 (20
U.S.C. 4301 et seq.), $56,708,000, of which $800,000 shall be
for construction and shall remain available until expended:
Provided, That from the total amount available, the Institute
may at its discretion use funds for the endowment program as
authorized under section 207.
Gallaudet University
For the Kendall Demonstration Elementary School, the Model
Secondary School for the
[[Page 28015]]
Deaf, and the partial support of Gallaudet University under
titles I and II of the Education of the Deaf Act of 1986 (20
U.S.C. 4301 et seq.), $108,079,000: Provided, That from the
total amount available, the University may at its discretion
use funds for the endowment program as authorized under
section 207.
Vocational and Adult Education
For carrying out, to the extent not otherwise provided, the
Carl D. Perkins Vocational and Technical Education Act of
1998, the Adult Education and Family Literacy Act, title
VIII-D of the Higher Education Amendments of 1998, and
subpart 4 of part D of title V of the Elementary and
Secondary Education Act of 1965 (``ESEA''), $2,012,282,000,
of which $1,216,558,000 shall become available on July 1,
2006 and shall remain available through September 30, 2007
and of which $791,000,000 shall become available on October
1, 2006 and shall remain available through September 30,
2007: Provided, That of the amount provided for Adult
Education State Grants, $68,582,000 shall be made available
for integrated English literacy and civics education services
to immigrants and other limited English proficient
populations: Provided further, That of the amount reserved
for integrated English literacy and civics education,
notwithstanding section 211 of the Adult Education and Family
Literacy Act, 65 percent shall be allocated to States based
on a State's absolute need as determined by calculating each
State's share of a 10-year average of the Immigration and
Naturalization Service data for immigrants admitted for legal
permanent residence for the 10 most recent years, and 35
percent allocated to States that experienced growth as
measured by the average of the 3 most recent years for which
Immigration and Naturalization Service data for immigrants
admitted for legal permanent residence are available, except
that no State shall be allocated an amount less than $60,000:
Provided further, That of the amounts made available for the
Adult Education and Family Literacy Act, $9,096,000 shall be
for national leadership activities under section 243 and
$6,638,000 shall be for the National Institute for Literacy
under section 242: Provided further, That $94,476,000 shall
be available to support the activities authorized under
subpart 4 of part D of title V of the Elementary and
Secondary Education Act of 1965, of which up to 5 percent
shall become available October 1, 2005 and shall remain
available through September 30, 2007, for evaluation,
technical assistance, school networks, peer review of
applications, and program outreach activities, and of which
not less than 95 percent shall become available on July 1,
2006, and remain available through September 30, 2007, for
grants to local educational agencies: Provided further, That
funds made available to local educational agencies under this
subpart shall be used only for activities related to
establishing smaller learning communities within large high
schools or small high schools that provide alternatives for
students enrolled in large high schools: Provided further,
That $23,000,000 shall be for Youth Offender Grants.
Student Financial Assistance
For carrying out subparts 1, 3, and 4 of part A, part C and
part E of title IV of the Higher Education Act of 1965, as
amended, $15,077,752,000, which shall remain available
through September 30, 2007.
The maximum Pell Grant for which a student shall be
eligible during award year 2006-2007 shall be $4,050.
Student Aid Administration
For Federal administrative expenses (in addition to funds
made available under section 458), to carry out part D of
title I, and subparts 1, 3, and 4 of part A, and parts B, C,
D and E of title IV of the Higher Education Act of 1965, as
amended, $120,000,000.
Higher Education
For carrying out, to the extent not otherwise provided,
titles II, III, IV, V, VI, and VII of the Higher Education
Act of 1965 (``HEA''), as amended, section 1543 of the Higher
Education Amendments of 1992, the Mutual Educational and
Cultural Exchange Act of 1961, title VIII of the Higher
Education Amendments of 1998, and section 117 of the Carl D.
Perkins Vocational and Technical Education Act,
$1,970,760,000: Provided, That $9,797,000, to remain
available through September 30, 2007, shall be available to
fund fellowships for academic year 2007-2008 under part A,
subpart 1 of title VII of said Act, under the terms and
conditions of part A, subpart 1: Provided further, That
notwithstanding any other provision of law or any regulation,
the Secretary of Education shall not require the use of a
restricted indirect cost rate for grants issued pursuant to
section 117 of the Carl D. Perkins Vocational and Technical
Education Act of 1998: Provided further, That $980,000 is for
data collection and evaluation activities for programs under
the HEA, including such activities needed to comply with the
Government Performance and Results Act of 1993: Provided
further, That notwithstanding any other provision of law,
funds made available in this Act to carry out title VI of the
HEA and section 102(b)(6) of the Mutual Educational and
Cultural Exchange Act of 1961 may be used to support visits
and study in foreign countries by individuals who are
participating in advanced foreign language training and
international studies in areas that are vital to United
States national security and who plan to apply their language
skills and knowledge of these countries in the fields of
government, the professions, or international development:
Provided further, That of the funds referred to in the
preceding proviso up to 1 percent may be used for program
evaluation, national outreach, and information dissemination
activities: Provided further, That the funds provided for
title II of the HEA shall be allocated notwithstanding
section 210 of such Act.
Howard University
For partial support of Howard University (20 U.S.C. 121 et
seq.), $239,790,000, of which not less than $3,562,000 shall
be for a matching endowment grant pursuant to the Howard
University Endowment Act (Public Law 98-480) and shall remain
available until expended.
College Housing and Academic Facilities Loans Program
For Federal administrative expenses to carry out activities
related to existing facility loans pursuant to section 121 of
the Higher Education Act of 1965, as amended $573,000.
Historically Black College and University Capital Financing Program
Account
The aggregate principal amount of outstanding bonds insured
pursuant to section 344 of title III, part D of the Higher
Education Act of 1965, shall not exceed $357,000,000, and the
cost, as defined in section 502 of the Congressional Budget
Act of 1974, of such bonds shall not exceed zero.
For administrative expenses to carry out the Historically
Black College and University Capital Financing Program
entered into pursuant to title III, part D of the Higher
Education Act of 1965, as amended, $210,000.
Institute of Education Sciences
For carrying out activities authorized by the Education
Sciences Reform Act of 2002, as amended, the National
Assessment of Educational Progress Authorization Act, section
208 of the Educational Technical Assistance Act of 2002, and
section 664 of the Individuals with Disabilities Education
Act, $522,695,000, of which $271,560,000 shall be available
until September 30, 2007: Provided, That of the amount
provided to carry out title I, parts B and D of Public Law
107-279, not less than $25,257,000 shall be for the national
research and development centers authorized under section
133(c).
Departmental Management
Program Administration
For carrying out, to the extent not otherwise provided, the
Department of Education Organization Act, including rental of
conference rooms in the District of Columbia and hire of
three passenger motor vehicles, $415,303,000.
Office for Civil Rights
For expenses necessary for the Office for Civil Rights, as
authorized by section 203 of the Department of Education
Organization Act, $91,526,000.
Office of the Inspector General
For expenses necessary for the Office of the Inspector
General, as authorized by section 212 of the Department of
Education Organization Act, $49,000,000.
General Provisions
Sec. 301. No funds appropriated in this Act may be used for
the transportation of students or teachers (or for the
purchase of equipment for such transportation) in order to
overcome racial imbalance in any school or school system, or
for the transportation of students or teachers (or for the
purchase of equipment for such transportation) in order to
carry out a plan of racial desegregation of any school or
school system.
Sec. 302. None of the funds contained in this Act shall be
used to require, directly or indirectly, the transportation
of any student to a school other than the school which is
nearest the student's home, except for a student requiring
special education, to the school offering such special
education, in order to comply with title VI of the Civil
Rights Act of 1964. For the purpose of this section an
indirect requirement of transportation of students includes
the transportation of students to carry out a plan involving
the reorganization of the grade structure of schools, the
pairing of schools, or the clustering of schools, or any
combination of grade restructuring, pairing or clustering.
The prohibition described in this section does not include
the establishment of magnet schools.
Sec. 303. No funds appropriated in this Act may be used to
prevent the implementation of programs of voluntary prayer
and meditation in the public schools.
(transfer of funds)
Sec. 304. Not to exceed 1 percent of any discretionary
funds (pursuant to the Balanced Budget and Emergency Deficit
Control Act of 1985, as amended) which are appropriated for
the Department of Education in this Act may be transferred
between appropriations, but no such appropriation shall be
increased by more than 3 percent by any such transfer:
Provided, That the Appropriations Committees of both Houses
of Congress are notified at least 15 days in advance of any
transfer.
Sec. 305. For an additional amount to carry out subpart 1
of part A of title IV of the Higher Education Act of 1965 for
the purpose of eliminating the estimated accumulated
shortfall of budget authority for such subpart,
$4,300,000,000, pursuant to section 303 of H. Con. Res. 95
(109th Congress), the concurrent resolution on the budget for
fiscal year 2006.
Sec. 306. Subpart 12 of part D of title V of the Elementary
and Secondary Education Act of 1965 (20 U.S.C. 7265 et seq.)
is amended--
(1) in section 5522(b), (20 U.S.C. 7265a(b)), by adding at
the end the following:
``(4) To authorize and develop cultural and educational
programs relating to any Federally recognized Indian tribe in
Mississippi.'';
(2) in section 5523 (20 U.S.C. 7265b)--
(A) in subsection (a)--
[[Page 28016]]
(i) by redesignating paragraphs (6) through (8) as
paragraphs (7) through (9), respectively; and
(ii) by inserting after paragraph (5) the following:
``(6) The Mississippi Band of Choctaw Indians in Choctaw,
Mississippi.''; and
(B) in subsection (b), by adding at the end the following:
``(7) Cultural and educational programs relating to any
Federally recognized Indian tribe in Mississippi.''; and
(3) in section 5525(1) (20 U.S.C. 7265d(1))--
(A) in subparagraph (a), by striking ``and'' after the
semicolon;
(B) in subparagraph (B), by striking the period and
inserting ``; and''; and
(C) by adding at the end the following:
``(C) the Mississippi Band of Choctaw Indians in Choctaw,
Mississippi.''.
This title may be cited as the ``Department of Education
Appropriations Act, 2006''.
TITLE IV--RELATED AGENCIES
Committee for Purchase From People Who Are Blind or Severely Disabled
Salaries and Expenses
For expenses necessary of the Committee for Purchase From
People Who Are Blind or Severely Disabled established by
Public Law 92-28, $4,669,000.
Corporation for National and Community Service
Domestic Volunteer Service Programs, Operating Expenses
For expenses necessary for the Corporation for National and
Community Service to carry out the provisions of the Domestic
Volunteer Service Act of 1973, as amended, $316,212,000:
Provided, That none of the funds made available to the
Corporation for National and Community Service in this Act
for activities authorized by section 122 of part C of title I
and part E of title II of the Domestic Volunteer Service Act
of 1973 shall be used to provide stipends or other monetary
incentives to volunteers or volunteer leaders whose incomes
exceed 125 percent of the national poverty level.
National and Community Service Programs, Operating Expenses
(INCLUDING TRANSFER OF FUNDS)
For necessary expenses for the Corporation for National and
Community Service (the ``Corporation'') in carrying out
programs, activities, and initiatives under the National and
Community Service Act of 1990 (the ``Act'') (42 U.S.C. 12501
et seq.), $520,087,000, to remain available until September
30, 2007: Provided, That not more than $267,500,000 of the
amount provided under this heading shall be available for
grants under the National Service Trust Program authorized
under subtitle C of title I of the Act (42 U.S.C. 12571 et
seq.) (relating to activities of the AmeriCorps program),
including grants to organizations operating projects under
the AmeriCorps Education Awards Program (without regard to
the requirements of sections 121(d) and (e), section 131(e),
section 132, and sections 140(a), (d), and (e) of the Act:
Provided further, That not less than $140,000,000 of the
amount provided under this heading, to remain available
without fiscal year limitation, shall be transferred to the
National Service Trust for educational awards authorized
under subtitle D of title I of the Act (42 U.S.C. 12601), of
which up to $4,000,000 shall be available to support national
service scholarships for high school students performing
community service, and of which $7,000,000 shall be held in
reserve as defined in Public Law 108-45: Provided further,
That in addition to amounts otherwise provided to the
National Service Trust under the second proviso, the
Corporation may transfer funds from the amount provided under
the first proviso, to the National Service Trust authorized
under subtitle D of title I of the Act (42 U.S.C. 12601) upon
determination that such transfer is necessary to support the
activities of national service participants and after notice
is transmitted to Congress: Provided further, That of the
amount provided under this heading for grants under the
National Service Trust program authorized under subtitle C of
title I of the Act, not more than $55,000,000 may be used to
administer, reimburse, or support any national service
program authorized under section 121(d)(2) of such Act (42
U.S.C. 12581(d)(2)): Provided further, That not more than
$16,445,000 shall be available for quality and innovation
activities authorized under subtitle H of title I of the Act
(42 U.S.C. 12853 et seq.): Provided further, That
notwithstanding subtitle H of title I of the Act (42 U.S.C.
12853), none of the funds provided under the previous proviso
shall be used to support salaries and related expenses
(including travel) attributable to Corporation employees:
Provided further, That to the maximum extent feasible, funds
appropriated under subtitle C of title I of the Act shall be
provided in a manner that is consistent with the
recommendations of peer review panels in order to ensure that
priority is given to programs that demonstrate quality,
innovation, replicability, and sustainability: Provided
further, That $27,000,000 of the funds made available under
this heading shall be available for the Civilian Community
Corps authorized under subtitle E of title I of the Act (42
U.S.C. 12611 et seq.): Provided further, That $37,500,000
shall be available for school-based and community-based
service-learning programs authorized under subtitle B of
title I of the Act (42 U.S.C. 12521 et seq.): Provided
further, That $4,000,000 shall be available for audits and
other evaluations authorized under section 179 of the Act (42
U.S.C. 12639): Provided further, That $10,000,000 of the
funds made available under this heading shall be made
available for the Points of Light Foundation for activities
authorized under title III of the Act (42 U.S.C. 12661 et
seq.), of which not more than $2,500,000 may be used to
support an endowment fund, the corpus of which shall remain
intact and the interest income from which shall be used to
support activities described in title III of the Act,
provided that the Foundation may invest the corpus and income
in federally insured bank savings accounts or comparable
interest bearing accounts, certificates of deposit, money
market funds, mutual funds, obligations of the United States,
and other market instruments and securities but not in real
estate investments: Provided further, That no funds shall be
available for national service programs run by Federal
agencies authorized under section 121(b) of such Act (42
U.S.C. 12571(b)): Provided further, That $5,000,000 of the
funds made available under this heading shall be made
available to America's Promise--The Alliance for Youth, Inc.:
Provided further, That to the maximum extent practicable, the
Corporation shall increase significantly the level of
matching funds and in-kind contributions provided by the
private sector, and shall reduce the total Federal costs per
participant in all programs: Provided further, That
notwithstanding section 501(a)(4) of the Act, of the funds
provided under this heading, not more than $12,642,000 shall
be made available to provide assistance to state commissions
on national and community service under section 126(a) of the
Act: Provided further, That the Corporation may use up to 1
percent of program grant funds made available under this
heading to defray its costs of conducting grant application
reviews, including the use of outside peer reviewers.
SALARIES AND EXPENSES
For necessary expenses of administration as provided under
section 501(a)(4) of the National and Community Service Act
of 1990 (42 U.S.C. 12501 et seq.) and under section 504(a) of
the Domestic Volunteer Service Act of 1973, including payment
of salaries, authorized travel, hire of passenger motor
vehicles, the rental of conference rooms in the District of
Columbia, the employment of experts and consultants
authorized under 5 U.S.C. 3109, and not to exceed $2,500 for
official reception and representation expenses, $66,750,000.
OFFICE OF INSPECTOR GENERAL
For necessary expenses of the Office of Inspector General
in carrying out the Inspector General Act of 1978, as
amended, $6,000,000, to remain available until September 30,
2007.
ADMINISTRATIVE PROVISIONS
Notwithstanding any other provision of law, the term
``qualified student loan'' with respect to national service
education awards shall mean any loan determined by an
institution of higher education to be necessary to cover a
student's cost of attendance at such institution and made,
insured, or guaranteed directly to a student by a State
agency, in addition to other meanings under section 148(b)(7)
of the National and Community Service Act.
Notwithstanding any other provision of law, funds made
available under section 129(d)(5)(B) of the National and
Community Service Act to assist entities in placing
applicants who are individuals with disabilities may be
provided to any entity that receives a grant under section
121 of the Act.
The Inspector General of the Corporation for National and
Community Service shall conduct random audits of the grantees
that administer activities under the AmeriCorps programs and
shall levy sanctions in accordance with standard Inspector
General audit resolution procedures which include, but are
not limited to, debarment of any grantee (or successor in
interest or any entity with substantially the same person or
persons in control) that has been determined to have
committed any substantial violations of the requirements of
the AmeriCorps programs, including any grantee that has been
determined to have violated the prohibition of using Federal
funds to lobby the Congress: Provided, That the Inspector
General shall obtain reimbursements in the amount of any
misused funds from any grantee that has been determined to
have committed any substantial violations of the requirements
of the AmeriCorps programs.
For fiscal year 2006, the Corporation shall make any
significant changes to program requirements or policy only
through public notice and comment rulemaking. For fiscal year
2006, during any grant selection process, no officer or
employee of the Corporation shall knowingly disclose any
covered grant selection information regarding such selection,
directly or indirectly, to any person other than an officer
or employee of the Corporation that is authorized by the
Corporation to receive such information.
Corporation for Public Broadcasting
For payment to the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, as
authorized by the Communications Act of 1934, an amount which
shall be available within limitations specified by that Act,
for the fiscal year 2008, $400,000,000: Provided, That no
funds made available to the Corporation for Public
Broadcasting by this Act shall be used to pay for receptions,
parties, or similar forms of entertainment for Government
officials or employees: Provided further, That none of the
funds contained in this paragraph shall be available or used
to aid or support any program or activity from which any
person is excluded, or is denied benefits, or is
discriminated against, on the basis of race, color, national
origin, religion, or sex: Provided further,
[[Page 28017]]
That for fiscal year 2006, in addition to the amounts
provided above, $30,000,000 shall be for costs related to
digital program production, development, and distribution,
associated with the transition of public broadcasting to
digital broadcasting, to be awarded as determined by the
Corporation in consultation with public radio and television
licensees or permittees, or their designated representatives:
Provided further, That for fiscal year 2006, in addition to
the amounts provided above, $35,000,000 shall be for the
costs associated with replacement and upgrade of the public
television interconnection system: Provided further, That
none of the funds made available to the Corporation for
Public Broadcasting by this Act, Public Law 108-199 or Public
Law 108-7, shall be used to support the Television Future
Fund or any similar purpose.
Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service
Salaries and Expenses
For expenses necessary for the Federal Mediation and
Conciliation Service to carry out the functions vested in it
by the Labor Management Relations Act, 1947 (29 U.S.C. 171-
180, 182-183), including hire of passenger motor vehicles;
for expenses necessary for the Labor-Management Cooperation
Act of 1978 (29 U.S.C. 175a); and for expenses necessary for
the Service to carry out the functions vested in it by the
Civil Service Reform Act, Public Law 95-454 (5 U.S.C. ch.
71), $43,031,000, including $400,000, to remain available
through September 30, 2007, for activities authorized by the
Labor-Management Cooperation Act of 1978 (29 U.S.C. 175a):
Provided, That notwithstanding 31 U.S.C. 3302, fees charged,
up to full-cost recovery, for special training activities and
other conflict resolution services and technical assistance,
including those provided to foreign governments and
international organizations, and for arbitration services
shall be credited to and merged with this account, and shall
remain available until expended: Provided further, That fees
for arbitration services shall be available only for
education, training, and professional development of the
agency workforce: Provided further, That the Director of the
Service is authorized to accept and use on behalf of the
United States gifts of services and real, personal, or other
property in the aid of any projects or functions within the
Director's jurisdiction.
Federal Mine Safety and Health Review Commission
Salaries and Expenses
For expenses necessary for the Federal Mine Safety and
Health Review Commission (30 U.S.C. 801 et seq.), $7,809,000.
Institute of Museum and Library Services
Office of Museum and Library Services: Grants and Administration
For carrying out the Museum and Library Services Act of
1996, $249,640,000, to remain available until expended.
Medicare Payment Advisory Commission
salaries and expenses
For expenses necessary to carry out section 1805 of the
Social Security Act, $10,168,000, to be transferred to this
appropriation from the Federal Hospital Insurance and the
Federal Supplementary Medical Insurance Trust Funds.
National Commission on Libraries and Information Science
Salaries and Expenses
For necessary expenses for the National Commission on
Libraries and Information Science, established by the Act of
July 20, 1970 (Public Law 91-345, as amended), $993,000.
National Council on Disability
Salaries and Expenses
For expenses necessary for the National Council on
Disability as authorized by title IV of the Rehabilitation
Act of 1973, as amended, $3,144,000.
National Labor Relations Board
Salaries and Expenses
For expenses necessary for the National Labor Relations
Board to carry out the functions vested in it by the Labor-
Management Relations Act, 1947, as amended (29 U.S.C. 141-
167), and other laws, $252,268,000: Provided, That no part of
this appropriation shall be available to organize or assist
in organizing agricultural laborers or used in connection
with investigations, hearings, directives, or orders
concerning bargaining units composed of agricultural laborers
as referred to in section 2(3) of the Act of July 5, 1935 (29
U.S.C. 152), and as amended by the Labor-Management Relations
Act, 1947, as amended, and as defined in section 3(f) of the
Act of June 25, 1938 (29 U.S.C. 203), and including in said
definition employees engaged in the maintenance and operation
of ditches, canals, reservoirs, and waterways when maintained
or operated on a mutual, nonprofit basis and at least 95
percent of the water stored or supplied thereby is used for
farming purposes.
National Mediation Board
Salaries and Expenses
For expenses necessary to carry out the provisions of the
Railway Labor Act, as amended (45 U.S.C. 151-188), including
emergency boards appointed by the President, $11,628,000.
Occupational Safety and Health Review Commission
Salaries and Expenses
For expenses necessary for the Occupational Safety and
Health Review Commission (29 U.S.C. 661), $10,510,000.
Railroad Retirement Board
Dual Benefits Payments Account
For payment to the Dual Benefits Payments Account,
authorized under section 15(d) of the Railroad Retirement Act
of 1974, $97,000,000, which shall include amounts becoming
available in fiscal year 2006 pursuant to section
224(c)(1)(B) of Public Law 98-76; and in addition, an amount,
not to exceed 2 percent of the amount provided herein, shall
be available proportional to the amount by which the product
of recipients and the average benefit received exceeds
$97,000,000: Provided, That the total amount provided herein
shall be credited in 12 approximately equal amounts on the
first day of each month in the fiscal year.
Federal Payments to the Railroad Retirement Accounts
For payment to the accounts established in the Treasury for
the payment of benefits under the Railroad Retirement Act for
interest earned on unnegotiated checks, $150,000, to remain
available through September 30, 2007, which shall be the
maximum amount available for payment pursuant to section 417
of Public Law 98-76.
Limitation on Administration
For necessary expenses for the Railroad Retirement Board
for administration of the Railroad Retirement Act and the
Railroad Unemployment Insurance Act, $102,543,000, to be
derived in such amounts as determined by the Board from the
railroad retirement accounts and from moneys credited to the
railroad unemployment insurance administration fund.
Limitation on the Office of Inspector General
For expenses necessary for the Office of Inspector General
for audit, investigatory and review activities, as authorized
by the Inspector General Act of 1978, as amended, not more
than $7,196,000, to be derived from the railroad retirement
accounts and railroad unemployment insurance account:
Provided, That none of the funds made available in any other
paragraph of this Act may be transferred to the Office; used
to carry out any such transfer; used to provide any office
space, equipment, office supplies, communications facilities
or services, maintenance services, or administrative services
for the Office; used to pay any salary, benefit, or award for
any personnel of the Office; used to pay any other operating
expense of the Office; or used to reimburse the Office for
any service provided, or expense incurred, by the Office.
Social Security Administration
Payments to Social Security Trust Funds
For payment to the Federal Old-Age and Survivors Insurance
and the Federal Disability Insurance trust funds, as provided
under sections 201(m), 228(g), and 1131(b)(2) of the Social
Security Act, $20,470,000.
Supplemental Security Income Program
For carrying out titles XI and XVI of the Social Security
Act, section 401 of Public Law 92-603, section 212 of Public
Law 93-66, as amended, and section 405 of Public Law 95-216,
including payment to the Social Security trust funds for
administrative expenses incurred pursuant to section
201(g)(1) of the Social Security Act, $29,369,174,000, to
remain available until expended: Provided, That any portion
of the funds provided to a State in the current fiscal year
and not obligated by the State during that year shall be
returned to the Treasury.
For making, after June 15 of the current fiscal year,
benefit payments to individuals under title XVI of the Social
Security Act, for unanticipated costs incurred for the
current fiscal year, such sums as may be necessary.
For making benefit payments under title XVI of the Social
Security Act for the first quarter of fiscal year 2007,
$11,110,000,000, to remain available until expended.
limitation on administrative expenses
For necessary expenses, including the hire of two passenger
motor vehicles, and not to exceed $15,000 for official
reception and representation expenses, not more than
$9,079,400,000 may be expended, as authorized by section
201(g)(1) of the Social Security Act, from any one or all of
the trust funds referred to therein: Provided, That not less
than $2,000,000 shall be for the Social Security Advisory
Board: Provided further, That unobligated balances of funds
provided under this paragraph at the end of fiscal year 2006
not needed for fiscal year 2006 shall remain available until
expended to invest in the Social Security Administration
information technology and telecommunications hardware and
software infrastructure, including related equipment and non-
payroll administrative expenses associated solely with this
information technology and telecommunications infrastructure:
Provided further, That reimbursement to the trust funds under
this heading for expenditures for official time for employees
of the Social Security Administration pursuant to section
7131 of title 5, United States Code, and for facilities or
support services for labor organizations pursuant to
policies, regulations, or procedures referred to in section
7135(b) of such title shall be made by the Secretary of the
Treasury, with interest, from amounts in the general fund not
otherwise appropriated, as soon as possible after such
expenditures are made.
In addition, $119,000,000 to be derived from administration
fees in excess of $5.00 per supplementary payment collected
pursuant to section 1616(d) of the Social Security Act or
section 212(b)(3) of Public Law 93-66, which shall remain
available until expended. To the extent that the amounts
collected pursuant to such section 1616(d) or 212(b)(3) in
fiscal year 2006 exceed $119,000,000, the amounts shall be
available in fiscal year 2007 only to the extent provided in
advance in appropriations Acts.
[[Page 28018]]
In addition, up to $1,000,000 to be derived from fees
collected pursuant to section 303(c) of the Social Security
Protection Act (Public Law 108-203), which shall remain
available until expended.
Office of Inspector General
(including transfer of funds)
For expenses necessary for the Office of Inspector General
in carrying out the provisions of the Inspector General Act
of 1978, as amended, $26,000,000, together with not to exceed
$66,400,000, to be transferred and expended as authorized by
section 201(g)(1) of the Social Security Act from the Federal
Old-Age and Survivors Insurance Trust Fund and the Federal
Disability Insurance Trust Fund.
In addition, an amount not to exceed 3 percent of the total
provided in this appropriation may be transferred from the
``Limitation on Administrative Expenses'', Social Security
Administration, to be merged with this account, to be
available for the time and purposes for which this account is
available: Provided, That notice of such transfers shall be
transmitted promptly to the Committees on Appropriations of
the House and Senate.
TITLE V--GENERAL PROVISIONS
Sec. 501. The Secretaries of Labor, Health and Human
Services, and Education are authorized to transfer unexpended
balances of prior appropriations to accounts corresponding to
current appropriations provided in this Act: Provided, That
such transferred balances are used for the same purpose, and
for the same periods of time, for which they were originally
appropriated.
Sec. 502. No part of any appropriation contained in this
Act shall remain available for obligation beyond the current
fiscal year unless expressly so provided herein.
Sec. 503. (a) No part of any appropriation contained in
this Act shall be used, other than for normal and recognized
executive-legislative relationships, for publicity or
propaganda purposes, for the preparation, distribution, or
use of any kit, pamphlet, booklet, publication, radio,
television, or video presentation designed to support or
defeat legislation pending before the Congress or any State
legislature, except in presentation to the Congress or any
State legislature itself.
(b) No part of any appropriation contained in this Act
shall be used to pay the salary or expenses of any grant or
contract recipient, or agent acting for such recipient,
related to any activity designed to influence legislation or
appropriations pending before the Congress or any State
legislature.
Sec. 504. The Secretaries of Labor and Education are
authorized to make available not to exceed $28,000 and
$20,000, respectively, from funds available for salaries and
expenses under titles I and III, respectively, for official
reception and representation expenses; the Director of the
Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service is authorized to
make available for official reception and representation
expenses not to exceed $5,000 from the funds available for
``Salaries and expenses, Federal Mediation and Conciliation
Service''; and the Chairman of the National Mediation Board
is authorized to make available for official reception and
representation expenses not to exceed $5,000 from funds
available for ``Salaries and expenses, National Mediation
Board''.
Sec. 505. Notwithstanding any other provision of this Act,
no funds appropriated in this Act shall be used to carry out
any program of distributing sterile needles or syringes for
the hypodermic injection of any illegal drug.
Sec. 506. When issuing statements, press releases, requests
for proposals, bid solicitations and other documents
describing projects or programs funded in whole or in part
with Federal money, all grantees receiving Federal funds
included in this Act, including but not limited to State and
local governments and recipients of Federal research grants,
shall clearly state--
(1) the percentage of the total costs of the program or
project which will be financed with Federal money;
(2) the dollar amount of Federal funds for the project or
program; and
(3) percentage and dollar amount of the total costs of the
project or program that will be financed by non-governmental
sources.
Sec. 507. (a) None of the funds appropriated in this Act,
and none of the funds in any trust fund to which funds are
appropriated in this Act, shall be expended for any abortion.
(b) None of the funds appropriated in this Act, and none of
the funds in any trust fund to which funds are appropriated
in this Act, shall be expended for health benefits coverage
that includes coverage of abortion.
(c) The term ``health benefits coverage'' means the package
of services covered by a managed care provider or
organization pursuant to a contract or other arrangement.
Sec. 508. (a) The limitations established in the preceding
section shall not apply to an abortion--
(1) if the pregnancy is the result of an act of rape or
incest; or
(2) in the case where a woman suffers from a physical
disorder, physical injury, or physical illness, including a
life-endangering physical condition caused by or arising from
the pregnancy itself, that would, as certified by a
physician, place the woman in danger of death unless an
abortion is performed.
(b) Nothing in the preceding section shall be construed as
prohibiting the expenditure by a State, locality, entity, or
private person of State, local, or private funds (other than
a State's or locality's contribution of Medicaid matching
funds).
(c) Nothing in the preceding section shall be construed as
restricting the ability of any managed care provider from
offering abortion coverage or the ability of a State or
locality to contract separately with such a provider for such
coverage with State funds (other than a State's or locality's
contribution of Medicaid matching funds).
(d)(1) None of the funds made available in this Act may be
made available to a Federal agency or program, or to a State
or local government, if such agency, program, or government
subjects any institutional or individual health care entity
to discrimination on the basis that the health care entity
does not provide, pay for, provide coverage of, or refer for
abortions.
(2) In this subsection, the term ``health care entity''
includes an individual physician or other health care
professional, a hospital, a provider-sponsored organization,
a health maintenance organization, a health insurance plan,
or any other kind of health care facility, organization, or
plan.
Sec. 509. (a) None of the funds made available in this Act
may be used for--
(1) the creation of a human embryo or embryos for research
purposes; or
(2) research in which a human embryo or embryos are
destroyed, discarded, or knowingly subjected to risk of
injury or death greater than that allowed for research on
fetuses in utero under 45 CFR 46.204(b) and section 498(b) of
the Public Health Service Act (42 U.S.C. 289g(b)).
(b) For purposes of this section, the term ``human embryo
or embryos'' includes any organism, not protected as a human
subject under 45 CFR 46 as of the date of the enactment of
this Act, that is derived by fertilization, parthenogenesis,
cloning, or any other means from one or more human gametes or
human diploid cells.
Sec. 510. (a) None of the funds made available in this Act
may be used for any activity that promotes the legalization
of any drug or other substance included in schedule I of the
schedules of controlled substances established by section 202
of the Controlled Substances Act (21 U.S.C. 812).
(b) The limitation in subsection (a) shall not apply when
there is significant medical evidence of a therapeutic
advantage to the use of such drug or other substance or that
federally sponsored clinical trials are being conducted to
determine therapeutic advantage.
Sec. 511. None of the funds made available in this Act may
be used to promulgate or adopt any final standard under
section 1173(b) of the Social Security Act (42 U.S.C. 1320d-
2(b)) providing for, or providing for the assignment of, a
unique health identifier for an individual (except in an
individual's capacity as an employer or a health care
provider), until legislation is enacted specifically
approving the standard.
Sec. 512. None of the funds made available in this Act may
be obligated or expended to enter into or renew a contract
with an entity if--
(1) such entity is otherwise a contractor with the United
States and is subject to the requirement in section 4212(d)
of title 38, United States Code, regarding submission of an
annual report to the Secretary of Labor concerning employment
of certain veterans; and
(2) such entity has not submitted a report as required by
that section for the most recent year for which such
requirement was applicable to such entity.
Sec. 513. None of the funds made available in this Act may
be transferred to any department, agency, or instrumentality
of the United States Government, except pursuant to a
transfer made by, or transfer authority provided in, this Act
or any other appropriation Act.
Sec. 514. None of the funds made available by this Act to
carry out the Library Services and Technology Act may be made
available to any library covered by paragraph (1) of section
224(f) of such Act (20 U.S.C. 9134(f)), as amended by the
Children's Internet Protections Act, unless such library has
made the certifications required by paragraph (4) of such
section.
Sec. 515. None of the funds made available by this Act to
carry out part D of title II of the Elementary and Secondary
Education Act of 1965 may be made available to any elementary
or secondary school covered by paragraph (1) of section
2441(a) of such Act (20 U.S.C. 6777(a)), as amended by the
Children's Internet Protections Act and the No Child Left
Behind Act, unless the local educational agency with
responsibility for such covered school has made the
certifications required by paragraph (2) of such section.
Sec. 516. None of the funds appropriated in this Act may be
used to enter into an arrangement under section 7(b)(4) of
the Railroad Retirement Act of 1974 (45 U.S.C. 231f(b)(4))
with a nongovernmental financial institution to serve as
disbursing agent for benefits payable under the Railroad
Retirement Act of 1974.
Sec. 517. (a) None of the funds provided under this Act, or
provided under previous appropriations Acts to the agencies
funded by this Act that remain available for obligation or
expenditure in fiscal year 2006, or provided from any
accounts in the Treasury of the United States derived by the
collection of fees available to the agencies funded by this
Act, shall be available for obligation or expenditure through
a reprogramming of funds that--
(1) creates new programs;
(2) eliminates a program, project, or activity;
(3) increases funds or personnel by any means for any
project or activity for which funds have been denied or
restricted;
(4) relocates an office or employees;
[[Page 28019]]
(5) reorganizes or renames offices;
(6) reorganizes programs or activities; or
(7) contracts out or privatizes any functions or activities
presently performed by Federal employees;
unless the Appropriations Committees of both Houses of
Congress are notified 15 days in advance of such
reprogramming or of an announcement of intent relating to
such reprogramming, whichever occurs earlier.
(b) None of the funds provided under this Act, or provided
under previous appropriations Acts to the agencies funded by
this Act that remain available for obligation or expenditure
in fiscal year 2006, or provided from any accounts in the
Treasury of the United States derived by the collection of
fees available to the agencies funded by this Act, shall be
available for obligation or expenditure through a
reprogramming of funds in excess of $500,000 or 10 percent,
whichever is less, that--
(1) augments existing programs, projects (including
construction projects), or activities;
(2) reduces by 10 percent funding for any existing program,
project, or activity, or numbers of personnel by 10 percent
as approved by Congress; or
(3) results from any general savings from a reduction in
personnel which would result in a change in existing
programs, activities, or projects as approved by Congress;
unless the Appropriations Committees of both Houses of
Congress are notified 15 days in advance of such
reprogramming or of an announcement of intent relating to
such reprogramming, whichever occurs earlier.
Sec. 518. (a) Section 316 of the Immigration and
Nationality Act (8 U.S.C. 1427), is amended by adding at the
end the following:
``(g)(1) The continuous residency requirement under
subsection (a) may be reduced to 3 years for an applicant for
naturalization if--
``(A) the applicant is the beneficiary of an approved
petition for classification under section 204(a)(1)(E);
``(B) the applicant has been approved for adjustment of
status under section 245(a); and
``(C) such reduction is necessary for the applicant to
represent the United States at an international event.
``(2) The Secretary of Homeland Security shall adjudicate
an application for naturalization under this section not
later than 30 days after the submission of such application
if the applicant--
``(A) requests such expedited adjudication in order to
represent the United States at an international event; and
``(B) demonstrates that such expedited adjudication is
related to such representation.
``(3) An applicant is ineligible for expedited adjudication
under paragraph (2) if the Secretary of Homeland Security
determines that such expedited adjudication poses a risk to
national security. Such a determination by the Secretary
shall not be subject to review.
``(4)(A) In addition to any other fee authorized by law,
the Secretary of Homeland Security shall charge and collect a
$1,000 premium processing fee from each applicant described
in this subsection to offset the additional costs incurred to
expedite the processing of applications under this
subsection.
``(B) The fee collected under subparagraph (A) shall be
deposited as offsetting collections in the Immigration
Examinations Fee Account.''.
(b) The amendment made by subsection (a) is repealed on
January 1, 2006.
Sec. 519. (a) None of the funds made available in this Act
may be used to request that a candidate for appointment to a
Federal scientific advisory committee disclose the political
affiliation or voting history of the candidate or the
position that the candidate holds with respect to political
issues not directly related to and necessary for the work of
the committee involved.
(b) None of the funds made available in this Act may be
used to disseminate scientific information that is
deliberately false or misleading.
Sec. 520. The $3,170,927,000 made available under this Act
under the heading Program Management under the heading
Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services shall be reduced
by $60,000,000: Provided, That none of the reduction shall be
taken from research, demonstration, and evaluation activities
or from State survey and certification activities: Provided
further, That notwithstanding the amounts specified under
such heading for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid
Services System Revitalization Plan and for contract costs
for the Healthcare Integrated General Ledger Accounting
System, such amounts may be reduced by the Secretary.
This Act may be cited as the ``Departments of Labor, Health
and Human Services, and Education, and Related Agencies
Appropriations Act, 2006''.
And the Senate agree to the same.
Ralph Regula,
Ernest Istook, Jr.,
Roger F. Wicker,
Anne M. Northup,
Kay Granger,
John E. Peterson,
Don Sherwood,
Dave Weldon,
James T. Walsh,
Jerry Lewis,
Managers on the Part of the House.
Arlen Specter,
Thad Cochran,
Judd Gregg,
Larry E. Craig,
Kay Bailey Hutchison,
Ted Stevens,
Mike DeWine,
Richard C. Shelby,
Pete V. Domenici,
Managers on the Part of the Senate.
JOINT EXPLANATORY STATEMENT OF THE COMMITTEE OF CONFERENCE
The managers on the part of the House and Senate at the
conference on the disagreeing votes of the two Houses on the
amendment of the Senate to the bill (H.R. 3010) making
appropriations for the Departments of Labor, Health and Human
Services, and Education, and Related Agencies for the fiscal
year ending September 30, 2006, and for other purposes,
submit the following joint statement of the House and Senate
in explanation of the effect of the action agreed upon by the
managers and recommended in the accompanying conference
report.
In implementing this agreement, the Departments and
agencies should be guided by the language and instructions
set forth in House Report 109-143 and Senate Report 109-103
accompanying the bill, H.R. 3010.
In the cases where the language and instructions in either
report specifically address the allocation of funds, each has
been reviewed by the conferees and those that are jointly
concurred in have been endorsed in this joint statement.
In the cases in which the House or the Senate reports
request or direct the submission of a report, such report is
to be submitted to both the House and Senate Committees on
Appropriations.
The conferees note that section 517 sets forth the
reprogramming requirements and limitations for the
Departments and agencies funded through this Act, including
the requirement to make a written request to the chairmen of
the Committees 15 days prior to reprogramming, or to the
announcement of intent to reprogram, funds in excess of 10
percent, or $500,000, whichever is less, between programs,
projects and activities.
Finally, the conferees request that statements on the
effect of this appropriation Act on the Departments and
agencies funded in this Act be submitted to the Committees
within 45 days of enactment of this Act. The conferees expect
that these statements will provide sufficient detail to show
the allocation of funds among programs, projects and
activities, particularly in accounts where the final
appropriation is different than that of the budget request.
Furthermore, the conferees request the statements to also
include the effect of the appropriation on any new activities
or major initiatives discussed in the budget justifications
accompanying the fiscal year 2006 budget.
The Departments of Labor, Health and Human Services, and
Education, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 2006, put
in place by this bill, incorporates the following agreements
of the managers:
TITLE I--DEPARTMENT OF LABOR
Employment and Training Administration
Training and Employment Services
(including rescissions)
The conference agreement includes $5,115,411,000 for
training and employment services, instead of $5,121,792,000
as proposed by the House and $5,250,806,000 as proposed by
the Senate. Of the amount appropriated, $2,463,000,000 is an
advance appropriation for fiscal year 2007, as proposed by
the House and the Senate.
The conference agreement includes bill language as proposed
by the Senate requiring that the Secretary of Labor take no
action to amend the definition established in 20 CFR 667.220
for functions and activities under title I of the Workforce
Investment Act of 1998, or to modify the procedure for
designation of local areas as specified in that Act until
such time as legislation reauthorizing the Act is enacted.
The House bill contained a similar provision.
For Adult Employment and Training Activities, the
conference agreement includes $865,736,000 as proposed by the
House, instead of $893,618,000 as proposed by the Senate.
For Youth Training, the conference agreement includes
$950,000,000 as proposed by the House instead of $986,288,000
as proposed by the Senate.
The conference agreement includes $1,476,064,000 for the
Dislocated Worker program, as proposed by the Senate, instead
of $1,405,264,000 as proposed by the House. The conferees
override the formula that provides that 80 percent of the
funds provided will be used for State formula grants and 20
percent in a National Reserve Account. For program year 2006
the conferees provide $1,193,264,000 for the State formula
grants and $282,800,000 for the National Reserve Account.
The conferees direct that the Department submit a quarterly
report beginning in January, 2006 to the House and Senate
Appropriations Committees on the status of H-1B and National
Emergency Grant awards. This quarterly report shall be
submitted to the House and Senate Committees on
Appropriations no later than 15 days after the end of each
quarter and shall summarize the following information: total
available funds for the current program year, funding
requests made, funding comments made, and amounts actually
awarded for the quarter and for the current program year,
total outstanding funding commitments from all program years,
and total unpaid funding commitments from all program years.
The report
[[Page 28020]]
shall also include a list of each award (both new awards and
modifications to existing awards) made during the quarter,
including the grantee, funding commitment, amount released,
and unpaid commitment for each award, and the number of
workers to be trained.
The conferees direct that the Department submit a quarterly
report beginning in January 2006 to the House and Senate
Appropriations Committees on the status of awards made under
the High-Growth Job Training Initiative. This quarterly
report shall be submitted to the House and Senate Committees
on Appropriations no later than 15 days after the end of each
quarter and shall summarize by funding source (dislocated
worker demonstration funds, community college initiative, H-
1B fees, pilots and demonstrations, etc.) the total amount
allocated to the High-Growth Job Training Initiative for the
quarter and the program year. This report shall also include
a list of all awards made during the quarter and for each
award shall include the grantee, the amount of the award, the
funding source of the award, whether the award was made
competitively or by sole source and, if sole source, the
justification, the purpose of the award, the number of
workers to be trained, and other expected outcomes.
The conference agreement includes bill language as proposed
by the Senate giving the Secretary of Labor authority to use
dislocated worker national reserve funds to provide
assistance to a State for statewide or local use in order to
address cases where there have been worker dislocations
across multiple sectors or across multiple local areas. The
House bill contained no similar provision. The conferees urge
the Secretary, when determining competitive awards under this
authority, to give favorable consideration to the
applications of assistance to States that have sustained
worker dislocation in such a manner and can demonstrate the
capacity to respond effectively in a coordinated fashion
across multiple sectors or local areas.
The conference agreement includes $1,573,000,000 for Job
Corps, instead of $1,542,019,000 as proposed by the House and
$1,582,000,000 as proposed by the Senate. Within the total,
$1,465,000,000 is provided for continuing operations of the
program and $108,000,000 is for renovation and construction
of Job Corps centers. The conference agreement includes
$8,000,000 for second year funding of Job Corps expansion.
This is in addition to $10,000,000 previously appropriated.
In the selection process to award these and the previously
appropriated funds for incremental expansion of Job Corps,
the Department is directed to follow guidance provided in
Senate Report 109-103 and in the report accompanying Public
Law 108-199 regarding the priority for States that currently
do not have a center and for a new site that can be quickly
launched as a satellite (residential or non-residential) of a
Job Corps center that is serving an entire State or region,
and then later be converted to a stand-alone facility.
The conferees strongly urge the Director of Job Corps to
extend the work of the Appalachian Council for career
transition support services, and implement through the NJCA
Foundation for Youth Opportunities, foundation initiated and
nationally coordinated programs and services that raise
public awareness and support for at-risk youth. The conferees
expect the Director of Job Corps to implement these awards by
no later than January 31, 2006, or as soon thereafter that
the new independent Office of Job Corps is established.
For Migrant and Seasonal Farmworkers, the conference
agreement includes a total of $80,557,000 as proposed by the
Senate, instead of $75,795,000 as proposed by the House.
Within the total, $75,053,000 is for State service area
grants, including $3,840,000 to fund grantees in States
impacted by formula reductions below the amount they were
allotted in program year 2004. The conference also includes
$5,000,000 for housing grants. The agreement also includes
bill language not contained in House or Senate bills which
prohibits the Department from restricting the provision of
``related assistance'' services by grantees. Such services
are often critical to the stabilization and availability of
the farm labor workforce.
The conference agreement provides $2,000,000 for other
National Activities as proposed by the House, instead of
$3,458,000 as proposed by the Senate. Of this amount,
$982,000 is for carrying out Public Law 102-530, the Women in
Apprenticeship and Non-Traditional Occupations Act of 1992,
and $504,000 is to be used for training, technical assistance
and related activities, including migrant rest center
activities, authorized under section 167 of the Workforce
Investment Act of 1998.
For Pilots, Demonstrations and Research, the conference
agreement includes $30,000,000, instead of $74,000,000 as
proposed by the House and $90,367,000 as proposed by the
Senate.
The conferees encourage the Department of Labor to
establish a pilot grant program under 171(b) of the Workforce
Investment Act of 1998 to award competitive placement and
retention grants to qualified nonprofit organizations that
offer low income individuals' intensive assessment, education
and training, placement, and retention services, including
job coaching. The employment should provide the low income
individuals with an annual salary at least twice the poverty
line applicable to the individual. After placement, such
organizations shall be eligible for retention grants once low
income individuals remain with the same employer for a period
of one year, taking into account the benefits received by the
federal government and the community from the individuals'
employment.
The conference agreement includes $49,600,000 for
Responsible Reintegration of Youthful Offenders, instead of
$50,000,000 as proposed by the Senate. The House did not
recommend funds for this activity.
The conference agreement includes $125,000,000 to carry out
the Community College/Community-Based Job Training Grant
initiative. The conference agreement includes bill language
as proposed by the Senate which provides that this amount is
to be allocated from National Emergency Grant funds available
under section 132(a)(2)(A) of the Workforce Investment Act of
1998, overriding the limitation otherwise imposed under
section 171(d). The House bill contained no similar
provision. The conferees expect the Secretary to initially
use resources from the National Emergency Grants account for
these awards that are designated for non-emergencies under
sections 171(d) and 170(b) of the Workforce Investment Act of
1998. Community-Based Job Training Grant awards will also be
subject to the limitations of sections 171(c)(4)(A) through
171(c)(4)(C) of the Workforce Investment Act of 1998 to
ensure that these grants are awarded competitively. The
conferees direct that future solicitations for grant
applications for the Community-Based Job Training initiative
include One Stop Career Centers as eligible applicants. The
conference agreement rescinds $125,000,000 in funds provided
in fiscal year 2005 for this program, as proposed by the
House; the Senate bill contained no similar provision.
For the Denali Commission, the conference agreement
provides $6,944,000 as proposed by the Senate for job
training services. The House recommendation did not include
funds for this activity.
State Unemployment Insurance and Employment Service Operations
The conference agreement includes $3,392,078,000 for State
Unemployment Insurance and Employment Service Operations,
instead of $3,470,366,000 as proposed by the House and
$3,361,779,000 as proposed by the Senate. For unemployment
insurance services, the bill provides $2,533,000,000 instead
of $2,632,915,000 as proposed by the House and $2,485,000,000
as proposed by the Senate. The conference agreement includes
$2,523,000,000 for UI State Operations instead of
$2,622,499,000 as proposed by the House and $2,475,000,000 as
proposed by the Senate. The agreement includes a contingency
reserve amount should the unemployment workload exceed an
average weekly insured claims volume of 2,800,000 instead of
2,984,000 as proposed by the House. The conference agreement
does not include language, similar in both House and Senate
bills, providing $40,000,000 for new unemployment insurance
administrative activities.
For the Employment Service grants to States, the agreement
includes $723,114,000 instead of $696,000,000 as proposed by
the House and $746,302,000 as proposed by the Senate. This
includes $23,114,000 in general funds as proposed by the
Senate instead of $23,300,000 as proposed by the House and
$700,000,000 from the ``Employment Security Administration''
account of the unemployment trust fund instead of
$672,700,000 as proposed by the House and $723,188,000 as
proposed by the Senate. The conference agreement does not
include funding to continue Reemployment Services Grants.
The conference agreement includes $17,856,000 for the work
opportunity tax credit program as proposed by the Senate. The
House report contained no similar provision.
Program Administration
The conference agreement includes $200,000,000 for Program
Administration as proposed by the Senate, instead of
$206,111,000 as proposed by the House. The detailed table at
the end of this joint statement reflects the activity
distribution agreed to by the conferees.
The conference agreement deletes language proposed by the
House specifying that not to exceed $3,000,000 shall be
available for contracts that are not competitively bid. The
Senate bill contained no similar provision.
Employee Benefits Security Administration
Salaries and Expenses
The conference agreement includes $134,900,000 as proposed
by the Senate, instead of $137,000,000 as proposed by the
House. The detailed table at the end of this joint statement
reflects the activity distribution agreed to by the
conferees.
Employment Standards Administration
Salaries and Expenses
The conference agreement includes $415,216,000 for the
Employment Standards Administration, salaries and expenses,
instead of $416,332,000 as proposed by the House
[[Page 28021]]
and $412,616,000 as proposed by the Senate. Within the amount
for Program Direction and Support the conference agreement
includes $2,000,000 as proposed by the Senate to make
available personnel and other resources to facilitate the
expeditious startup of a system to resolve the claims of
injury caused by asbestos exposure. The detailed table at the
end of this joint statement reflects the activity
distribution agreed to by the conferees.
The conference agreement deletes language proposed by the
Senate authorizing the Secretary of Labor to accept, retain,
and spend all sums of money ordered to be paid in accordance
with the Consent Judgment in the case with the Northern
Mariana Islands. This provision, carried in the bill in prior
years, is no longer necessary. The House bill contained no
similar provision.
The conferees note that the Employment Standards
Administration's most recent regulatory plan indicates that
the Employment Standards Administration plans to issue in
December 2005 a notice of proposed rulemaking on the Family
and Medical Leave Act (FMLA). The conferees urge that the
Employment Standards Administration consider providing ample
time (more than the 60 days indicated in the regulatory plan)
for careful consideration of any proposed changes to the FMLA
regulations.
Special Benefits
(Including Transfer of Funds)
Within the total transferred to this account from fair
share entities to pay the cost of administration of the
Federal Employees' Compensation Act, the conference agreement
provides that $27,148,000 shall be made available for
automated workload processing operations, including document
imaging, centralized mail intake and medical bill processing,
as proposed by the Senate, instead of $18,454,000 as proposed
by the House.
Administrative Expenses, Energy Employees
Occupational Illness Compensation Fund
(Including Transfer of Funds)
Within the total, the conference agreement includes a
proviso transferring $4,500,000 to the National Institute for
Occupational Safety and Health for use by the Advisory Board
on Radiation and Worker Health, as proposed by the Senate.
The House bill contained no similar provision.
Occupational Safety and Health Administration
Salaries and Expenses
The conference agreement includes $477,199,000 for the
Occupational Safety and Health Administration as proposed by
the House instead of $477,491,000 as proposed by the Senate.
The detailed table at the end of this joint statement
reflects the activity distribution agreed to by the
conferees.
The conference agreement includes a limitation regarding
OSHA's enforcement of the Respiratory Standard as it applies
to tuberculosis, as proposed by the House. The Senate bill
contained no similar provision.
Mine Safety and Health Administration
Salaries and Expenses
The conference agreement includes a provision that
authorizes the Secretary to recognize the Joseph A. Holmes
Safety Association as a principal safety association and to
provide funds and personnel to the organization, as proposed
by the House. The Senate bill contained no similar provision.
Bureau of Labor Statistics
Salaries and Expenses
The conference agreement includes a provision maintaining
the women worker series from the Current Employment Survey as
proposed by the Senate. The House bill contained no similar
provision.
Office of Disability Employment Policy
Salaries and Expenses
The conference agreement includes $27,934,000 for the
Office of Disability Employment Policy as proposed by the
House, instead of $47,164,000 as proposed by the Senate.
Within the total, the conferees have included $5,000,000
for a national initiative focusing on self-employment as an
option for persons with disabilities, to be allocated
according to the conditions in Senate Report 109-103. In
addition, the conferees concur with the Senate in directing
that the existing, structured ``Public Service Internship
Program for Students with Disabilities'' be continued through
fiscal year 2006 at no less than current appropriations
levels. The House recommendation contained no similar
provisions.
Departmental Management
Salaries and Expenses
The conference agreement includes $300,586,000 for
Departmental Management, salaries and expenses, instead of
$239,783,000 as proposed by the House and $320,561,000 as
proposed by the Senate. The detailed table at the end of this
joint statement reflects the activity distribution agreed to
by the conferees.
The conference agreement includes $73,248,000 for the
Bureau of International Labor Affairs (ILAB), instead of
$12,419,000 as proposed by the House and $93,248,000 as
proposed by the Senate. Of this amount, the conferees'
recommendation includes $38,000,000 for the U.S. contribution
to the ILO's International Program for the Elimination of
Child Labor [IPEC] and $23,000,000 for bilateral assistance
to improve access to basic education in international areas
with a high rate of abusive and exploitative child labor. The
conferees concur with the Senate directive that $4,500,000 of
the basic education funds be distributed in a 3-year grant to
a human rights center at a major university with expertise in
African studies, child labor and business ethics to provide
critical oversight of both the public and private investment.
The conferees expect that any grant or contract to provide
this oversight will include annual reporting requirements to
both the Congress and the Department by the end of each
federal fiscal year. That report should cite progress made on
key points of the protocol including: development of a child
labor monitoring system by industry, the elimination of the
worst forms of child labor in the supply chain, and the
development of an industry-wide, public, transparent
certification system covering at least 50 percent of the
growing area in the Ivory Coast and Ghana.
For other ILAB programs, including 125 FTE for Federal
Administration, the conferees have included $12,248,000.
Within this amount, the conferees have included sufficient
funding for the compilation of the statutorily required
report tracking the progress of countries that are designated
as beneficiaries under the U.S. Generalized System of
Preferences [GSP] or former GSP recipients who achieved a
free trade agreement over the preceding two years. The
conferees concur with a Senate mandate that the 2006 report
shall be transmitted to the Congress no later than September
1, 2006.
The conference agreement does not include provisos in the
Senate bill intended to ensure that decisions on appeals of
Longshore and Harbor Worker's Compensation Act claims are
reached in a timely manner. The House bill did not include
similar provisions. Carried in previous years, the provisos
are no longer considered necessary to avoid delays.
The conferees do not retain language in the House report
regarding employee benefit products covered by the Employee
Retirement Income Security Act.
Veterans Employment and Training
The conference agreement includes $224,334,000 for Veterans
Employment and Training as proposed by the Senate, instead of
$229,334,000 as proposed by the House. The detailed table at
the end of this joint statement reflects the activity
distribution agreed to by the conferees.
The conferees are pleased by the number of programs being
undertaken by a variety of federal agencies, including the
Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services and the Internal
Revenue Service, to employ persons with disabilities in
telework occupations. With a significant number of veterans
coming home with physical impairments, the conferees urge the
department to pursue interagency efforts to help disabled
veterans achieve employment in the federal government through
telework and other innovative programs.
Office of Inspector General
The conference agreement includes $71,819,000 for the
Office of Inspector General, instead of $70,819,000 as
proposed by the House and $72,819,000 as proposed by the
Senate.
GENERAL PROVISIONS
Job Corps
The conference agreement includes language that prohibits
the use of funds for the Job Corps to pay the salary of any
individual, either as direct costs or any pro-ration as an
indirect cost, at a rate in excess of Executive Level I,
instead of Executive Level II as proposed by the House. The
Senate bill did not contain a similar provision.
The conference agreement includes language not contained in
House or Senate bills directing the Secretary to establish
and maintain an Office of Job Corps within the Office of the
Secretary of Labor. The Secretary is directed to transfer
current Job Corps functions and staff from the Employment and
Training Administration to the Job Corps office established
in the Office of the Secretary. To ensure continuity, the
Secretary is further directed to staff the new agency with
the staff in place as of October 1, 2005 and at a level of
FTE approved as of October 31, 2005.
One Percent Transfer Authority
The conference agreement includes a provision as proposed
by the Senate limiting the authority to transfer or reprogram
funds between a program, project or activity and requiring a
15 day notification of any reprogramming request or
announcement of such transfer or reprogramming request. The
House bill contained a similar provision.
Denali Commission
The conference agreement includes a provision as proposed
by the Senate that authorizes to be appropriated such sums as
may be necessary to the Denali Commission to conduct job
training where Denali Commission projects will be
constructed. The House bill contained no similar provision.
Congressional Justifications
The conference agreement includes bill language proposed by
the Senate requiring the Department of Labor to submit its
fiscal
[[Page 28022]]
year 2007 congressional budget justifications in the format
and level of detail used by the Department of Education in
its fiscal year 2006 congressional budget justifications. The
House bill contained no similar provision.
New York Rescission
The conference agreement does not include language as
proposed by the Senate making $125,000,000 available to the
New York State Uninsured Employers Fund and to the Centers
for Disease Control and Prevention for purposes related to
the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks. The House bill
contained no similar provision.
Operating Plan
The conferees note that the Department failed to submit a
fiscal year 2005 operating plan for pilots, demonstrations
and research activities as requested last year in House
Report 108-792. This plan is nearly six months late.
Accordingly, the conferees have included bill language
directing the Department to provide not later than July 1,
2006 an operating plan that outlines the planned allocation
by major project and activity of fiscal year 2006 funds for
pilot, demonstration, multi-service, research and multi-state
projects. The conferees direct that the Department submit a
quarterly report beginning in January 2006 to the House and
Senate Appropriations Committees on the status of awards made
for pilot, demonstration, multi-service, research, and multi-
state projects under section 171 of the Workforce Investment
Act. This quarterly report shall be submitted to the House
and Senate Committees on Appropriations no later than 45 days
after the end of each quarter and shall include the following
information: a list of all awards made during the quarter and
for each award shall include the grantee or contractor, the
amount of the award, the funding source for the award,
whether the award was made competitively or by sole source
and, if sole source, the justification, the purpose of the
award, and expected outcomes.
TITLE II--DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES
Health Resources and Services Administration
Health Resources and Services
The conference agreement includes $6,654,661,000 for health
resources and services, of which $6,629,661,000 is provided
as budget authority and $25,000,000 is made available from
the Public Health Service policy evaluation set-aside,
instead of $6,468,437,000 as proposed by the House and
$7,396,534,000 as proposed by the Senate. Funds for the
individual HRSA programs are displayed in the table at the
end of the statement of the managers. Funding levels that
were in disagreement but not displayed on the table are
discussed in this statement.
The conference agreement includes a technical bill language
change to eliminate an unnecessary citation of the Poison
Control Center Act which was included in both bills.
The conference agreement includes a citation for section
712 of the American Jobs Creation Act of 2004 for authority
for the sickle cell demonstration program. The House bill did
not include a similar citation.
The conference agreement does not include bill language
proposed by the Senate providing $393,051,000 for
construction and renovation of health care and other
facilities and other health-related activities. The House
bill included no similar language.
The conference agreement includes bill language identifying
$64,180,000 for the rural hospital flexibility grants
program, as provided by the Senate. The House bill provided
$39,180,000. Within the total provided, the conferees have
included bill language similar to that contained in the
Senate bill creating the authority and identifying
$25,000,000 for a Delta health initiative rural health,
education, and workforce infrastructure program. The House
bill had no similar provision. The conferees urge HRSA to
implement this program by a competitive grant to a non-
Federal, not-for-profit alliance of no less than four
academic institutions who have a history of collaboration,
along with their State Medical Association and State Hospital
Association, for the purpose of addressing longstanding,
unmet health needs in the Mississippi Delta, including health
education, access and research, and job training. Alliance
partners should include an academic health center, at least
two regional universities, a school of nursing, and a
relationship with a strong economic development entity. The
alliance should have experience working with Federally
qualified health centers and local health departments. The
alliance should have experience in diabetes education and
management, promoting healthy communities, health education
and wellness.
The conferees have not included either bill language
proposed by the Senate identifying $20,000,000 for base grant
adjustments for existing community health centers or a
similar directive included in the House report.
The conference agreement includes bill language identifying
$40,000 for malpractice insurance for volunteer physicians
who practice at free clinics, including administrative
expenses, instead of $99,000 as proposed by the Senate. The
House did not provide funding for this program. The conferees
understand that claims against the Federal malpractice
insurance are not likely to appear until at least fiscal year
2007, but want to signal the intent to continue the program.
The conference agreement does not include bill language
identifying funding for community health centers in high-need
counties. The Senate bill identified $13,000,000 for this
purpose; the House bill identified $26,000,000.
The conferees direct that the increase in funding provided
for community health centers be allocated for the center
applications that have already been approved and announced in
April 2005. The House and Senate reports had similar
references to pre-approved awards.
The conference agreement includes bill language contained
in the Senate bill permitting funding appropriated for the
community health centers Federal malpractice claims program
to be used for administrative expenses. The House bill
included no similar provision.
The conference agreement includes bill language providing
$4,000,000 to remain available until expended for the
National Cord Blood Stem Cell Bank Program. The Senate bill
provided $9,859,000. The House did not provide funding for
this program.
The conference agreement includes bill language designating
$117,108,000 out of the funds provided for the maternal and
child health block grant to be for special projects of
regional and national significance (SPRANS). The Senate bill
provided $121,396,250 for this purpose; the House provided
$116,124,000. It is intended that $3,880,000 of the SPRANS
amount will be used to continue the sickle cell newborn
screening program and its locally based outreach and
counseling efforts. The House and Senate both proposed
$4,000,000 for this program. In addition, $4,850,000 of the
SPRANS amount will be used to continue the oral health
demonstration programs and activities in the States. The
House and Senate both proposed $5,000,000 for this program.
The conference agreement also includes within the SPRANS set-
aside $1,552,000 to continue mental health programs and
activities in the States, $2,910,000 to continue the epilepsy
demonstration, and $1,940,000 to continue newborn and child
screening for heritable disorders. The conferees provide
$1,000,000 for a fetal alcohol syndrome demonstration program
as described in the Senate report. The House and Senate had
both proposed $3,000,000 for the epilepsy demonstration. The
House had proposed $3,000,000 for the heritable disorders
screening program; the Senate had proposed $2,000,000. The
Senate proposed $3,000,000 for the mental health programs,
while the House had not proposed funding for this program.
The Senate proposed $1,000,000 for the fetal alcohol syndrome
demonstration, while the House had not proposed funding for
this program.
The conference agreement includes bill language as proposed
by the Senate providing $39,680,000 to the Denali Commission
as a direct lump payment pursuant to P.L. 106-113. The House
did not include funding for the Commission. The conferees
concur with the Senate report language regarding the
allocation of Denali funds to a mix of facilities.
The conference agreement provides $14,100,000 for Native
Hawaiian health care activities within the consolidated
health centers program as proposed by the Senate. The House
did not identify specific funding for Native Hawaiian
activities.
The conference agreement provides $4,000,000 for allied
health training programs, of which $2,000,000 is allocated to
the chiropractic-medical school demonstration grant and
$2,000,000 is designated for the graduate psychology training
program. The Senate provided $11,753,000 for allied health
programs. The House did not provide funding.
The conferees concur in the Senate report language
identifying $3,000,000 within traumatic brain injury funding
for protection and advocacy services. The House report did
not have similar language.
The conferees concur with the Senate report language
regarding the recompetition of Healthy Start programs.
Within funds provided to the Office of the Advancement of
Telehealth, $3,000,000 has been included to carry out
programs and activities under the Health Care Safety Net
Amendments of 2002 (Public Law 107-251). Of that amount, the
conferees intend that $1,500,000 be used to fund telehealth
resource centers that provide assistance with respect to
technical, legal, regulatory service delivery or other
related barriers to the development of telehealth
technologies. The conferees intend that HRSA place a high
priority on the needs of rural States with populations of
less than 1,500,000 individuals in the award and geographical
placement of the telehealth resource grants. The conferees
intend that $750,000 will be used for network grants and
demonstration or pilot projects for telehomecare and that
$750,000 will be used for grants to carry out the licensure
provisions in Section 102 of Public Law 107-251.
The conferees agree that family planning funds should be
distributed to regional offices in the same manner and time
frame as in fiscal year 2005. In addition, conferees intend
that the same percentage of appropriated family planning
funds be used for clinical services as in fiscal year 2005.
[[Page 28023]]
Within the funds provided for bioterrorism grants to
States, the conference agreement includes $475,000,000 for
State grants, $21,000,000 for education incentives for
medical school curriculum, and $4,000,000 to continue the
credentialing emergency system for advance registration of
volunteer health professionals. The conferees do not provide
funding for a medical surge capacity demonstration as
requested by the Administration. The House provided
$464,479,000 for State grants; $8,000,000 for credentialing;
$27,521,000 for training; and no funding for a surge capacity
demonstration. The Senate provided $458,000,000 for State
grants, indicating that credentialing, deployable mass
casualty units and increases to the medical reserve corps
could be supported within that total; $27,500,000 for
training; and $25,000,000 for a national surge capacity
demonstration.
The conference agreement includes $145,992,000 for program
management instead of $143,992,000 as provided by the Senate
and $143,072,000 as provided by the House. The conference
agreement includes $2,000,000 within this activity for dental
workforce programs authorized in section 340G of the Public
Health Service Act. The Senate provided $5,000,000 for this
activity; the House did not propose funding for the program.
Vaccine Injury Compensation Program Trust Fund
The conference agreement provides $3,600,000 for
administration for the Trust Fund as proposed by the Senate
instead of $3,500,000 as proposed by the House.
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
disease control, research, and training
The conference agreement includes $5,884,934,000 for
disease control, research, and training at the Centers for
Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), instead of
$5,945,991,000 as proposed by the House and $6,064,115,000 as
proposed by the Senate. In addition, $265,100,000 is made
available under section 241 of the Public Health Service Act.
The House bill proposed that $159,595,000 and the Senate bill
proposed that $265,100,000 be derived from section 241
authority.
The conference agreement includes bill language earmarking
$160,000,000 for equipment, construction, and renovation of
facilities, including the new data center and recovery site
to ensure availability of critical systems and data
supporting CDC's homeland security and public health
emergency responsibilities, instead of $30,000,000 as
proposed by the House and $225,000,000 as proposed by the
Senate. Within this total, $136,000,000 is for continuation
of CDC's program to upgrade and replace facilities in Atlanta
and $24,000,000 is to continue construction and purchase
equipment for the replacement of CDC's infectious disease
laboratory in Fort Collins, Colorado.
The conference agreement includes bill language providing
that within the amount available, $530,000,000 shall remain
available until expended for the Strategic National
Stockpile, the same as proposed by the House. The Senate bill
included $542,000,000 for this purpose.
The conference agreement includes bill language to earmark
$123,883,000 for international HIV/AIDS, the same as proposed
by both the House and the Senate.
The conference agreement includes bill language as proposed
by the Senate, and similar to language proposed by the House,
designating that the following amounts shall be available
under section 241 (Public Health Service Act evaluation set-
aside) for the specified activities:
$12,794,000--National Immunization Surveys;
$109,021,000--National Center for Health Statistics
Surveys;
$24,751,000--Information systems standards development and
architecture and applications-based research used at local
public health levels;
$463,000--Health Marketing evaluations;
$31,000,000--Public Health Research; and
$87,071,000--Research Tools and Approaches within the
National Occupational Research Agenda.
The conference agreement includes bill language providing
that up to $31,800,000 is available until expended for
individual learning accounts, as proposed by the Senate. The
House bill had included $30,000,000 for the same purpose.
The conference agreement includes bill language carried in
prior years to allow the CDC to enter into a single contract
or related contracts for the full scope of development and
construction of facilities as proposed by both the House and
the Senate. The agreement does not include language proposed
by the Senate to allow funds appropriated to the CDC to be
used to enter into a long-term ground lease for construction
on non-Federal land. The conferees understand that this
language is no longer necessary for the completion of the
laboratory in the Fort Collins, Colorado area.
Given the full-scope contract authority, the conferees
understand that sufficient funds are available from within
amounts provided for buildings and facilities for unabated
progress on the B&F Master Plan and to support the new data
center recovery site, including the center's operations and
maintenance services.
The conference agreement includes bill language providing
that employees of the CDC or the Public Health Service,
detailed to States, municipalities, or other organizations
under authority of section 214 of the Public Health Service
Act shall be treated as non-Federal employees for reporting
purposes only and shall not be included within any personnel
ceiling applicable to the Agency. The House bill included
similar language but limited to employees detailed for
purposes related to homeland security.
Infectious Diseases
The conference agreement includes $1,697,397,000 for
Infectious Diseases, instead of $1,704,529,000 as proposed by
the House and $1,696,567,000 as proposed by the Senate. In
addition, $12,794,000 is available to carry out National
Immunization Surveys to be derived from section 241
evaluation set-aside funds.
The conferees note that unless otherwise specified, the
sub-budget activity amounts provided are at the levels
recommended in the budget request.
Infectious Disease Control
Within the total for Infectious Diseases, the conference
agreement includes $229,059,000 for infectious disease
control activities instead of $229,471,000 as proposed by the
House and $229,010,000 as proposed by the Senate.
Within the total, $102,650,000 is for areas of highest
scientific and programmatic priority for preparing and
responding to present and emerging infectious disease
threats.
Within the total provided, $5,500,000 is to expand and
improve surveillance, research, and prevention activities on
prion disease, including the work of the National Prion
Disease Pathology Surveillance Center.
HIV/AIDS, STD and TB Prevention
Within the total for Infectious Diseases the conference
agreement includes $956,138,000 for HIV/AIDS, STD and TB
prevention, the same as proposed by the House and $713,000
below the amount proposed by the Senate.
Included is $657,694,000 for domestic HIV/AIDS activities;
$159,633,000 for STD activities; and $138,811,000 for TB
activities.
Within the total for HIV/AIDS, the conferees intend that
the activities that are targeted to address the growing HIV/
AIDS epidemic and its disparate impact on communities of
color, including African Americans, Latinos, Native
Americans, Asian Americans, Native Hawaiians, and Pacific
Islanders be supported at not less than the fiscal year 2005
level, as proposed by the House. The conferees intend that
CDC follow the report accompanying the Labor, HHS and
Education and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 2002
regarding the disbursement of these funds, including
continuing support for the Directly Funded Minority
Community-Based Organization Program.
Immunization
Within the total for Infectious Diseases, the conference
agreement includes a discretionary program level of
$524,994,000 for immunization, instead of $526,500,000 as
proposed by the House and $523,500,000 as proposed by the
Senate. Of the amount provided, $12,794,000 is for national
immunization surveys to be derived from section 241
evaluation set-aside funds, the same as proposed by both the
House and Senate.
The conferees note, that subsequent to House action,
$5,214,000 was reallocated to Global Immunization activities
within Global Health to more accurately reflect immunization
program levels prior to CDC's recent reorganization.
In addition, the Vaccines for Children (VFC) program funded
through the Medicaid program includes $1,502,333,000 in
vaccine purchases and distribution support for fiscal year
2006, yielding a total domestic immunization program level of
$2,027,327,000.
Included in the amount provided is $461,478,000 for
immunization assistance to states and localities under the
section 317 immunization program, $4,960,000 for vaccine
tracking, and $58,556,000 for prevention activities. The
conferees intend that the $1,494,000 provided above the
request for prevention activities support expanded vaccine
safety research as outlined in the House Report.
Health Promotion
The conference agreement includes $971,157,000 for Health
Promotion, instead of $983,647,000 as proposed by the House
and $974,080,000 as proposed by the Senate.
The conferees note that unless otherwise specified, the
sub-budget activity amounts provided for Health Promotion are
at the levels recommended in the budget request.
The conference agreement does not include $2,421,000 for a
new program to award grants to organizations in the area of
chronic disease prevention and birth defects and
developmental disabilities as proposed by the Senate.
Chronic Disease Prevention, Health Promotion, and Genomics
Within the amount for Health Promotion, the conference
agreement includes $845,135,000 for chronic disease
prevention and health promotion instead of $856,468,000 as
proposed by the House and $845,845,000 as proposed by the
Senate.
The conference agreement includes the following amounts:
------------------------------------------------------------------------
($ in
Budget activity thousands)
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Heart Disease and Stroke................................... 44,918
[[Page 28024]]
Diabetes................................................... 63,757
Cancer Prevention and Control.............................. 311,023
Arthritis and Other Chronic Diseases....................... 22,693
Tobacco.................................................... 105,858
Nutrition, Physical Activity, and Obesity.................. 41,939
Health Promotion........................................... 27,721
School Health.............................................. 56,760
Safe Motherhood/Infant Health.............................. 44,740
Oral Health................................................ 11,800
Prevention Centers......................................... 30,000
Steps to a Healthier U.S................................... 44,300
Racial and Ethnic Approach to Community Health (REACH)..... 34,605
Genomics................................................... 5,022
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Within the amount provided for Cancer Prevention and
Control the conference agreement includes $17,113,000 for
comprehensive cancer activities, including $100,000 for a
national education campaign concerning gynecologic cancer.
The conferees urge that the CDC coordinate this effort both
with the Office of Women's Health, within the Office of the
Secretary, and qualified non-profit private sector
organizations.
The conferees also reiterate their support for the CDC's
partnership with the Lance Armstrong Foundation and have
provided sufficient funds to continue support of the National
Cancer Survivorship Resource Center at not less than the
fiscal year 2005 level.
Within the amount provided for Arthritis and Other Chronic
Diseases, $7,762,000 is available for epilepsy activities.
The conferees concur that the increase provided for tobacco
activities is for an enhanced counter-marketing program to
reduce underage tobacco use, as proposed by the Senate. The
conferees expect that this effort will be carried out by a
private sector organization that will match federal dollars
at least equally and has demonstrated effectiveness in this
area.
The conferees understand that the Centers for Disease
Control and Prevention (CDC) is now the lead federal agency
for the National 5 A Day Program and that funding will be
transferred for fiscal year 2006 from the previous lead
federal agency, the National Cancer Institute, to CDC.
The conferees urge CDC to set up a 5 A Day Program with a
distinct program identity within its Division of Nutrition
and Physical Activity, and that this program receive the
necessary resources, both fiscal and designated full time
equivalents (FTEs), to ensure that the CDC provides national
leadership, strong technical assistance and training to State
5 A Day programs, effective communications, and other
activities to encourage Americans to eat more fruits and
vegetables and move closer to meeting the recommendations of
the 2005 Dietary Guidelines for Americans.
The conferees encourage CDC to collaborate with the West
Virginia Department of Health and Human Resources to develop
a model obesity prevention program that could be replicated
nationwide.
The conferees provide the following amounts from within
funds provided for Community Health Promotion:
------------------------------------------------------------------------
($ in
Budget activity thousands)
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Mind-Body Institute........................................ 1,800
Glaucoma................................................... 3,500
Visual Screening Education................................. 2,500
Alzheimer's Disease........................................ 1,650
Inflammatory Bowel Disease................................. 700
Interstitial Cystitis...................................... 690
Pioneering Healthier Communities (YMCA).................... 1,450
Kidney Disease............................................. 1,800
------------------------------------------------------------------------
The conferees concur with language in the Senate report
providing that $50,000 from within Oral Health be used to
develop an instructional video for school age children on the
harmful effects of excessive consumption of soft drinks.
Within the funds for Genomics, $2,546,000 is provided to
support and expand activities related to Primary Immune
Deficiency Syndrome implemented in the same manner as in
fiscal year 2005 and as outlined in the Senate report.
Birth defects
Within the amount available for Health Promotion, the
conference agreement includes $126,022,000 for birth defects,
developmental disabilities, disability and health instead of
$127,179,000 as proposed by the House and $125,815,000 as
proposed by the Senate.
Within the total, the following amounts are provided for
the specified activities:
------------------------------------------------------------------------
($ in
Budget activity thousands)
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Folic Acid................................................. 2,300
Tourette Syndrome.......................................... 1,800
Early Hearing Detection and Intervention................... 6,600
Muscular Dystrophy......................................... 6,500
Special Olympics Healthy Athletes.......................... 5,700
Paralysis Resource Center (Christopher Reeve).............. 6,000
Spina Bifida............................................... 5,100
Autism..................................................... 15,300
------------------------------------------------------------------------
The conferees strongly support the activities of both the
National Folic Acid Education and Prevention Program and
National Spina Bifida Program and believe the activities are
complementary. The National Folic Acid Education Program's
goal is primary prevention through the promotion of the
consumption of folic acid to prevent Spina Bifida and other
neural tube defects. The National Spina Bifida Program works
to improve the quality of life for individuals affected by
Spina Bifida and reduce and prevent the occurrence of, and
suffering from this birth defect. The conferees have provided
$7,400,000 for these activities. In order to achieve budget
transparency, prevent any overlap of effort, ensure the
continued proper balance between primary prevention and
quality of life activities, and to maximize the effectiveness
of these funds, the conferees request that CDC develop a
comprehensive strategic plan whose goal is to establish a
unified program to be housed in the Human Development and
Disability Division and to be prepared to report on the
feasibility of such a unified program during fiscal year 2007
budget hearings.
Within the amount for activities related to Duchenne and
Becker Muscular Dystrophy, $750,000 is to enhance the
coordinated education and outreach initiative through the
Parent Project Muscular Dystrophy. In addition, the conferees
concur in the directive in the Senate report for CDC to
develop and submit a strategic plan for the Duchenne and
Becker Muscular Dystrophy program by May 1, 2006.
Within the amount for Autism activities, $14,750,000 is for
surveillance and research and $550,000 is to continue and
expand the national autism awareness campaign.
Health Information and Service
The conference agreement includes $89,564,000 for Health
Information and Service, the same as proposed by the Senate.
The House had included $195,069,000. In addition,
$134,235,000, to be derived from section 241 evaluation set-
aside funds, is included to carry out National Center for
Health Statistics surveys, Public Health Informatics
evaluations, and health marketing evaluations.
Environmental Health and Injury Prevention
The conference agreement includes $287,733,000 for
Environmental Health and Injury Prevention activities,
instead of $285,721,000 as proposed by the House and
$288,982,000 as proposed by the Senate.
The conferees note that unless otherwise specified, the
sub-budget activity amounts provided for Environment Health
and Injury Prevention are at the levels recommended in the
budget request.
Environmental health
Within the funds available for Environmental Health and
Injury Prevention, the conference agreement includes
$147,293,000 for environmental health instead of $147,483,000
as proposed by the House and $147,417,000 as proposed by the
Senate.
Within the total, $900,000 is provided to begin a
nationwide Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS) registry as
recommended in the Senate report.
The conferees also urge the CDC to maintain support for the
Environmental and Health Outcome Tracking Network and the
Landmine Survivor Network at not less than the fiscal year
2005 level.
Injury prevention and control
Within the funds provided for Environmental Health and
Injury Prevention, the conference agreement includes
$140,440,000 for injury control, instead of $138,237,000 as
proposed by the House and $141,565,000 as proposed by the
Senate.
Within the total for injury prevention and control,
$105,083,000 is for intentional injury prevention activities,
including $24,379,000 for Youth Violence Prevention as
outlined in the Senate report (of which $12,028,000 is for
youth violence base funding), and not less than the fiscal
year 2005 level is for the National Violent Death Reporting
System.
In addition, $35,357,000 of the amounts for injury
prevention and control is for unintentional injury. The
conferees are agreed that sufficient funds are provided to
support the existing Injury Control Research Centers at not
less than the fiscal year 2005 level.
Occupational Safety and Health
The conference agreement provides a total program level of
$256,971,000 for occupational safety and health, instead of
$251,241,000 as proposed by the House and $257,121,000 as
proposed by the Senate. Within that amount, $87,071,000 is
available to carry out research tools and approaches
activities within the National Occupational Research Agenda
(NORA) to be derived from section 241 evaluation set-aside
funds.
The conference agreement includes sufficient funds to
maintain staffing levels at the Morgantown facility as
proposed by the Senate.
Within the amount provided, $1,000,000 is for the
establishment of a National Mesothelioma Registry and Tissue
Bank as described in the Senate report. The conferees
strongly encourage NIOSH to work closely with the
mesothelioma research and patient community in developing the
registry and tissue bank to maximize the effectiveness of
data collection and allow researchers real time access to
clinical data associated with tissue specimens from the
registry.
Organizations eligible to implement the registry and tissue
bank should have a demonstrated history of collaborative
mesothelioma research and experience working with, and access
to, the patient population. Eligible applicants should share
the goal of developing a cost-effective infrastructure and
have a data-sharing plan that will ensure the registry and
tissue bank will be used to expand scientific discovery and
effective treatments to benefit the mesothelioma research and
patient community.
The agreement also includes $150,000 above the budget
request to expand support for the
[[Page 28025]]
existing NIOSH Education and Research Centers.
In addition, the conferees have included sufficient funds
for implementation of the Miners' Choice Health Screening
Program at two or more sites in fiscal year 2006. This
program was initiated in the Department of Labor to encourage
all miners to obtain free and confidential chest x-rays to
obtain more data on the prevalence of Coal Workers'
Pneumonconiosis in support of development of new respirable
coal dust rules.
Global Health
The conference agreement provides $313,340,000 for Global
Health activities, instead of $309,076,000 as proposed by the
House and $313,227,000 as proposed by the Senate.
Within the total:
$123,883,000 is for Global HIV/AIDS;
$144,455,000 is for Global Immunization, including
$101,254,000 for Polio Eradication and $43,201,000 for other
global immunization activities;
$9,113,000 is for Global Malaria; and
$33,503,000 is for Global Disease Detection.
The conferees note, that subsequent to House action,
$5,214,000 was reallocated from the domestic immunization
program to Global Immunization activities. This reallocation
more accurately reflects immunization program levels prior to
CDC's recent reorganization.
Public Health Research
The conference agreement includes $31,000,000, to be
derived from section 241 evaluation set-aside funds, for
Public Health Research.
Public Health Improvement and Leadership
The conference agreement includes $206,535,000 for Public
Health Improvement and Leadership instead of $258,541,000 as
proposed by the House and $344,055,000 as proposed by the
Senate.
Within the total, $7,930,000 is included for a Director's
Discretionary Fund to support activities deemed by the
Director as having high scientific and programmatic priority
and to respond to emergency public health requirements. The
conferees concur with language in the Senate report regarding
the Director's authority to reallocate management savings to
the Director's Discretionary Fund upon notification of the
Committees on Appropriations in the House and Senate.
Preventive Health Services Block Grant
The conference agreement includes $100,000,000 for the
Preventive Health Services Block Grant, the same as proposed
by the Senate and the House.
Terrorism and Public Health Preparedness
The conference agreement includes $1,593,189,000 for
activities related to terrorism and public health
preparedness, instead of $1,616,723,000 as proposed by the
House and $1,566,471,000 as proposed by the Senate.
Within the total, $831,994,000 is for Upgrading State and
Local Capacity; $137,972,000 is for Upgrading CDC Capacity;
$14,000,000 is for Anthrax Studies; $79,223,000 is for the
Biosurveillance Initiative; and $530,000,000 is for the
Strategic National Stockpile.
Of the funds available for Upgrading State and Local
Capacity, the conference agreement includes: $768,695,000 for
bioterrorism cooperative agreements; $31,000,000 for Centers
for Public Health Preparedness; and $5,400,000 for Advanced
Practice Centers.
Business Services Support
The conference agreement includes $296,119,000 for Business
Services Support, as proposed by the Senate. The House had
provided $298,515,000 for this purpose.
The conferees concur with language in the Senate report
regarding the Director's authority to reallocate savings that
result from efficiencies gained in business services support
to the Director's Discretionary Fund upon notification of the
Committees on Appropriations in the House and Senate.
The conferees also request that CDC continue to include at
least the level of detail provided in past years in the
Justification of Estimates for the Appropriations Committees,
including the functional tables for each budget activity, the
mechanism table by activity, and the crosswalks of funding
between programs and CDC organizations.
The conferees also request that the CDC prepare and submit
a report to the House and Senate Committees on Appropriations
detailing intramural and extramural funding splits by sub-
budget activity by no later than March 1, 2006. The report
should include actual splits for fiscal years 2004 and 2005,
as well as estimates for fiscal years 2006 and 2007.
The conferees continue to support partnerships between CDC
and the minority health professions community.
National Institutes of Health
National Cancer Institute
The conference agreement includes $4,841,774,000 for the
National Cancer Institute as proposed by the House instead of
$4,960,828,000 as proposed by the Senate.
The conferees urge the NCI to respond to the Bladder and
Kidney Research Progress Review Group report and encourage
appropriate funding for bladder and kidney cancer research.
National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute
The conference agreement includes $2,951,270,000 for the
National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute as proposed by the
House instead of $3,023,381,000 as proposed by the Senate.
National Institute of Dental and Craniofacial Research
The conference agreement includes $393,269,000 for the
National Institute of Dental and Craniofacial Research as
proposed by the House instead of $405,269,000 as proposed by
the Senate.
National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases
The conference agreement includes $1,722,146,000 for the
National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney
Diseases as proposed by the House instead of $1,767,919,000
as proposed by the Senate. An amount of $150,000,000 is also
available to the Institute through a permanent appropriation
for juvenile diabetes.
The conferees urge NIDDK to continue to support and develop
the ``Urologic Diseases in America'' report and to include
urological complications as well as diabetes and obesity
research initiatives. The conferees further encourage the
Institute to continue the Urinary Incontinence Treatment
Network and to convene an external strategic planning group
to develop future urology clinical trials. The conferees also
encourage the Institute to convene a Strategic Planning Group
to make recommendations on basic and clinical research in
men's health, including the development of biomarkers to
distinguish benign prostatic hyperplasia from prostate
cancer.
National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke
The conference agreement includes $1,550,260,000 for the
National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke as
proposed by the House instead of $1,591,924,000 as proposed
by the Senate.
National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases
(Including Transfer of Funds)
The conference agreement includes $4,459,395,000 for the
National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases instead
of $4,359,395,000 as proposed by the House and $4,547,136,000
as proposed by the Senate.
The conference agreement includes bill language permitting
the transfer of $100,000,000 to International Assistance
Programs, Global Fund to Fight HIV/AIDS, Malaria, and
Tuberculosis as proposed by the Senate. The House bill did
not permit a transfer.
National Institute of General Medical Sciences
The conference agreement includes $1,955,170,000 for the
National Institute of General Medical Sciences as proposed by
the House instead of $2,002,622,000 as proposed by the
Senate.
National Institute of Child Health and Human Development
The conference agreement includes $1,277,544,000 for the
National Institute of Child Health and Human Development as
proposed by the House instead of $1,310,989,000 as proposed
by the Senate.
National Eye Institute
The conference agreement includes $673,491,000 for the
National Eye Institute as proposed by the House instead of
$693,559,000 as proposed by the Senate.
National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences
The conference agreement includes $647,608,000 for the
National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences as
proposed by the House instead of $667,372,000 as proposed by
the Senate.
The conferees urge NIEHS to work with CDC and expert
independent researchers on research that could identify or
rule out any association between thimerosal exposure in
pediatric vaccines and increased rates of autism. The
conferees believe that the Vaccine Safety Datalink (VSD), a
CDC-constructed database that follows 7 million immunized
children from 1990 to present, could be helpful in the
research, especially regarding pre-2001 VSD data and post-
2000 VSD data, since thimerosal was removed from most
childhood vaccines in 2001. The conferees urge NIEHS and CDC
to organize a workshop by May 2006 to explore the research
possibilities and scientific feasibility of such a study and
report back to the House and Senate Appropriations Committees
soon after.
National Institute on Aging
The conference agreement includes $1,057,203,000 for the
National Institute on Aging as proposed by the House instead
of $1,090,600,000 as proposed by the Senate.
national institute of arthritis and musculoskeletal and skin diseases
The conference agreement includes $513,063,000 for the
National Institute of Arthritis and Musculoskeletal and Skin
Diseases as proposed by the House instead of $525,758,000 as
proposed by the Senate.
national institute on deafness and other communication disorders
The conference agreement includes $397,432,000 for the
National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication
Disorders as proposed by the House instead of $409,432,000 as
proposed by the Senate.
[[Page 28026]]
national institute of nursing research
The conference agreement includes $138,729,000 for the
National Institute of Nursing Research as proposed by the
House instead of $142,549,000 as proposed by the Senate.
national institute on alcohol abuse and alcoholism
The conference agreement includes $440,333,000 for the
National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism as
proposed by the House instead of $452,271,000 as proposed by
the Senate.
national institute on drug abuse
The conference agreement includes $1,010,130,000 for the
National Institute on Drug Abuse as proposed by the House
instead of $1,035,167,000 as proposed by the Senate.
The conferees encourage NIDA to move expeditiously on a
cooperative research and development agreement (CRADA)
regarding the use of vigabatrin for the treatment of cocaine
and methamphetamine addiction.
national institute of mental health
The conference agreement includes $1,417,692,000 for the
National Institute of Mental Health as proposed by the House
instead of $1,460,393,000 as proposed by the Senate.
national human genome research institute
The conference agreement includes $490,959,000 for the
National Human Genome Research Institute as proposed by the
House instead of $502,804,000 as proposed by the Senate.
national institute of biomedical imaging and bioengineering
The conference agreement includes $299,808,000 for the
National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering
as proposed by the House instead of $309,091,000 as proposed
by the Senate.
national center for research resources
The conference agreement includes $1,110,203,000 for the
National Center for Research Resources instead of
$1,100,203,000 as proposed by the House and $1,188,079,000 as
proposed by the Senate.
The conference agreement does not include bill language to
earmark extramural facilities construction grants, as
proposed by the House. The Senate bill proposed $30,000,000
for this purpose.
The conference agreement provides $326,000,000 from NCRR
and Roadmap funds for general clinical research centers and
the clinical and translational science awards (CTSA)
combined. The Senate provided $327,000,000 for the combined
awards; the House did not include similar language. As
indicated in the Senate report, the total number of awards
for the combined programs should remain at 79 in fiscal year
2006. When making the CTSA awards, consideration must be
given to the units and functions currently carried out
through the MO1 mechanism.
The conference agreement provides $222,208,000 for the
Institutional Development Award (IdeA) program, as proposed
by the House. The Senate had included $230,000,000 for this
program.
national center for complementary and alternative medicine
The conference agreement includes $122,692,000 for the
National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine as
proposed by the House instead of $126,978,000 as proposed by
the Senate.
national center on minority health and health disparities
The conference agreement includes $197,379,000 for the
National Center on Minority Health and Health Disparities as
proposed by the House instead of $203,367,000 as proposed by
the Senate.
john e. fogarty international center
The conference agreement includes $67,048,000 for the John
E. Fogarty International Center as proposed by the House
instead of $68,745,000 as proposed by the Senate.
National Library of Medicine
The conference agreement provides $318,091,000 for the
National Library of Medicine as proposed by the House instead
of $327,222,000 as proposed by the Senate. In addition,
$8,200,000 is provided from section 241 authority as proposed
by both the House and Senate.
Office of the Director
(Including Transfer of Funds)
The conference agreement includes $482,895,000 for the
Office of the Director instead of $482,216,000 as proposed by
the House and $487,434,000 as proposed by the Senate.
The conference agreement includes bill language permitting
the Office of AIDS Research (OAR) to use its funding to make
grants for construction or renovation of facilities, as
provided for in section 2354(a)(5)(B) of the Public Health
Service Act. This language was not included in either the
House or Senate bill. The conferees support the efforts of
OAR to expand a breeding colony that will serve as a new
national resource to breed non-human primates for AIDS
research. The conferees understand that this breeding colony
is designed to represent a collaboration of several National
Primate Research Centers (NPRCs). These resources will
further the progress in identifying approaches to halt the
transmission of HIV, slow disease progression, and treat
those who are HIV-infected both in the United States and
globally.
The conference agreement includes bill language identifying
$97,000,000 for biodefense countermeasures that was not
included in either the House or Senate bill. The House and
Senate both included report language identifying $97,021,000
for this purpose.
The conferees believe, that to the extent resources allow,
NIH should follow its cost management plan principles, which
will help NIH continue to maintain the purchasing power of
the research in which it invests. The Senate indicated that
sufficient funds were included to fully pay committed levels
on existing grants and to provide a 3.2 percent increase in
the average cost of new grants. The House did not include a
similar provision.
The conferees encourage NCI, NIDDK and NIBIB to conduct a
multi-institute study focusing on: developing information on
the history of polyps, including size and other
histopathologic characteristics, which may serve as
indicators of future colorectal cancer; the extent to which
polyps can be monitored including colonoscopic and
colonography or other screening techniques; and the optimal
time in the course of polyp development when removal becomes
essential to minimize the onset of colorectal cancer.
The conferees are disappointed that the director of NIH has
not yet responded to the recommendations of the ACD working
group on research opportunities in the basic behavioral
sciences. The conferees urge the director of NIH, in
consultation with senior IC leadership and the OBSSR, to
develop a structural framework for managing support of NIH
basic behavioral science research. This framework should
include a division of portfolio and funding responsibility
among the affected ICs, and should encourage co-funded trans-
Institute research initiatives. The conferees request a
report to the House and Senate Appropriations Committees
describing the new framework and its relationship to the
Office of Portfolio Analysis and Strategic Initiatives by May
1, 2006.
Buildings and Facilities
The conference agreement includes $81,900,000 for buildings
and facilities as proposed by the House instead of
$113,626,000 as proposed by the Senate.
The conference agreement does not include bill language
granting full scope authority for the contracting of
construction of the first and second phases of the John E.
Porter Neurosciences Building as proposed by the Senate. The
House bill contained no similar provision.
Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration
substance abuse and mental health services
The conference agreement includes $3,359,116,000 for
substance abuse and mental health services, of which
$3,237,813,000 is provided through budget authority and
$121,303,000 is provided through the evaluation set-aside.
The House bill proposed $3,352,047,000 for SAMHSA, of which
$121,303,000 was from the evaluation set-aside and the Senate
bill proposed $3,398,086,000, of which $123,303,000 was from
the evaluation set-aside. The detailed table at the end of
this joint statement reflects the activity distribution
agreed to by the conferees.
Within the total provided, the conference agreement
includes funding at no less than the fiscal year 2005 level,
as proposed by the House, for activities throughout SAMHSA
that are targeted to address the growing HIV/AIDS epidemic
and its disparate impact on communities of color, including
African Americans, Latinos, Native Americans, Asian
Americans, Native Hawaiians, and Pacific Islanders. The
Senate did not include similar language.
Within the total provided, the conference agreement also
includes funding at no less than the fiscal year 2005 level
for activities throughout SAMHSA addressing the needs of the
homeless as proposed by the Senate. The House did not include
similar language. Specifically, the conference agreement has
provided funding at last year's level for programs directed
at chronic homelessness and for programs directed at
providing mental health and substance abuse treatment
services to homeless individuals.
Center for Mental Health Services
The conference agreement includes $265,922,000 for programs
of regional and national significance instead of $253,257,000
as proposed by the House and $287,297,000 as proposed by the
Senate.
Within the total provided, the conference agreement
provides no less than last year's level of funding,
$94,240,000, for programs for prevention of youth violence,
including the Safe Schools/Healthy Students interdepartmental
program, as proposed by the Senate. The House included
$84,000,000 for these programs. The conferees expect the
Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration to
collaborate with the Departments of Education and Justice to
continue a coordinated approach.
For programs addressing youth suicide prevention, the
conference agreement includes $23,000,000 for State and
campus-based programs as proposed by the Senate rather than
$8,444,000 as proposed by the House, and
[[Page 28027]]
$4,000,000 for the National Suicide Prevention Resource
Center rather than $2,976,000 as proposed by the House and
$3,976,000 as proposed by the Senate. In addition, no less
than the amount provided in fiscal year 2005 should be
allocated for the Suicide Prevention Hotline program and
mental health screening demonstrations, as proposed by the
Senate. The House report did not contain similar language.
The conference agreement includes $29,760,000 for the
National Child Traumatic Stress Initiative as proposed by the
House. The Senate did not include similar language.
The conference agreement provides $26,000,000 for the State
incentive grants for transformation as proposed by both the
House and Senate. These competitive grants will support the
development of comprehensive State mental health plans and
improve the mental health services infrastructure.
The conference agreement provides no less than the level
allocated in fiscal year 2005 for grants for jail diversion
programs as proposed by the House. The Senate did not include
similar language.
The conference agreement provides the current level of
funding for the consumer and consumer-supporter national
technical assistance centers as proposed by the Senate. The
conferees direct the Center for Mental Health Services to
support multi-year grants to fund five such national
technical assistance centers. The House did not include
similar language.
The conferees request the Substance Abuse and Mental Health
Services Administration to provide a report by May 1, 2006 on
efforts to strengthen parenting and enhance child resilience
in the face of adversity, as described in the Senate report.
The House did not include similar language.
The conference agreement provides the same level of funding
as was provided in fiscal year 2005 for the elderly treatment
and outreach program as proposed by both the House and
Senate.
The conference agreement includes $432,756,000 for the
mental health block grant, which includes $21,803,000 from
the evaluation set-aside, the same levels as proposed by both
the House and the Senate. Included in the agreement is bill
language transferring the State Infrastructure Planning
Grants activity from the mental health programs of regional
and national significance to the mental health block grant
set-aside, as proposed by the House. The Senate proposed to
continue to fund this activity through the programs of
regional and national significance.
Center for Substance Abuse Treatment
The conference agreement includes $402,935,000 for programs
of regional and national significance, which includes
$4,300,000 from the evaluation set-aside, instead of
$409,431,000 as proposed by the House and $412,091,000 as
proposed by the Senate. Both the House and Senate bills
included the evaluation set-aside at $4,300,000.
Within funds provided, $99,200,000 is for the Access to
Recovery program as proposed by the House rather than
$100,000,000 as proposed by the Senate. The conferees expect
that addictive disorder clinical treatment providers
participating in the Access to Recovery program meet the
certification, accreditation, and/or licensing standards
recognized in their respective States as proposed by the
House. The Senate included similar language, but added the
phrase, ``and their respective staff.''
The conference agreement provides $10,500,000 for treatment
programs for pregnant, postpartum and residential women and
their children rather than $11,000,000 as proposed by the
Senate. Within these funds, no less than last year's level
shall be used for the residential treatment program for
pregnant and postpartum women in fiscal year 2006 authorized
under section 508 of the Public Health Service Act. The House
did not include similar language.
The conference agreement includes $8,166,000 to maintain
the funding at the fiscal year 2005 level for the Addiction
Technology Transfer Centers as proposed by both the House and
Senate.
The conferees understand that the National Institute for
Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism recently published an updated
2005 edition of its clinician's guide for treating patients
who have alcohol abuse problems, titled ``Helping Patients
Who Drink Too Much.'' The guide includes new information on
expanded options for treating alcohol dependent patients,
including a section on approved medications. The conferees
urge the Center for Substance Abuse Treatment, in conjunction
with its Science to Services agenda, to launch a counselor
education initiative to inform physicians and program staff
in the substance abuse community about the guide's treatment
recommendations for alcohol dependence, including
pharmacotherapy options.
As part of the $4,300,000 set-aside to evaluate substance
abuse treatment programs, the conferees encourage the
Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration to
determine the most effective way to maximize the number of
qualified doctors who utilize buprenorphine in the office-
based treatment of their opiate-addicted patients, as
authorized by the Drug Addiction Treatment Act of 2000.
Center for Substance Abuse Prevention
The conference agreement includes $194,850,000 for programs
of regional and national significance instead of $194,950,000
as proposed by the House and $202,289,000 as proposed by the
Senate.
Within the funds provided, the conference agreement
includes $4,000,000, as proposed by the Senate, for the
Center for Substance Abuse Prevention (CSAP) to continue to
fund grants aimed at expanding the capacity of health care
and community organizations to address methamphetamine abuse.
The House did not include similar language.
The conference agreement provides $850,000 for the third
year of funding for the Advertising Council's parent-oriented
media campaign to combat underage drinking as proposed by the
Senate. The House proposed to fund the third year of this
campaign through the Office of the Secretary.
The conferees expect the Substance Abuse and Mental Health
Services Administration (SAMHSA) to ensure that grantees
within the strategic prevention framework State incentive
grant program do not fund duplicative sub-State anti-drug
coalition infrastructures, but utilize those already
functioning and funded by programs such as the Drug Free
Communities program.
The conferees are concerned that consolidating the
successful efforts that were pioneered by CSAP across all
three of the Centers at SAMHSA will result in a dilution of
the funding and emphasis on substance abuse prevention. The
conferees expect SAMHSA to maintain substance abuse
prevention as its highest priority for emphasis in both the
National Registry of Effective Programs and Practices (NREPP)
and the SAMHSA Health Information Network (SHIN). The
conferees expect SAMHSA to report in its fiscal year 2007
congressional justification on how substance abuse prevention
is being maintained as the highest priority for emphasis in
both NREPP and SHIN.
Program Management
The conference agreement includes $92,817,000 for program
management, of which $16,000,000 is provided through the
evaluation set-aside. The House bill proposed $91,817,000
with a $16,000,000 evaluation set-aside and the Senate bill
proposed $93,817,000 with an $18,000,000 evaluation set-
aside.
The conference agreement includes $1,000,000 to expand on
the collaborative effort by the Substance Abuse and Mental
Health Services Administration and the Centers for Disease
Control and Prevention to establish a population-based source
of data on the mental and behavioral health needs in this
country, rather than $2,000,000 as proposed by the Senate.
The House did not provide funding for this activity.
Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality
Healthcare Research and Quality
The conference agreement includes $318,695,000 as proposed
by the House instead of $323,695,000 as proposed by the
Senate. The agreement makes these funds available through the
policy evaluation set-aside as proposed by the Senate. The
House had provided budget authority.
The conference agreement includes bill language proposed by
the Senate limiting the funds to be spent on health care
information technology to no more than $50,000,000. The House
bill did not contain similar language. The conferees note
that AHRQ has planned activities relating to patient safety,
such as clinical terminology and messaging standards that
have a large health information technology component. The
conferees do not intend these activities as counting toward
the $50,000,000 for the Health Care Information Technology
program.
The conferees provide $15,000,000 within the total provided
for AHRQ for clinical effectiveness research as proposed by
the House. The Senate included $20,000,000 for this purpose.
This type of research can help improve the quality,
effectiveness and efficiency of health care, thereby reducing
costs while still improving quality of care. The conferees
urge AHRQ to ensure broad access to its findings in this
research. In addition, the conferees encourage AHRQ to
continue conducting high quality, comprehensive research
studies in this area, building upon the priority list of
conditions it identified in fiscal year 2005 and conducting
research in additional areas such as organization, delivery
and management of health care items and services.
The conferees are pleased with AHRQ's efforts to include
bedside medication bar-coding as a component of its health
information technology grants, particularly for those grants
in rural areas. The conferees understand that almost ten
percent of the funding for health information technology
grants is allocated to rural projects with a bar-coding
component. The conferees encourage AHRQ to increase its
awards in this area since bar-coding has been shown to have a
substantial effect on preventable errors in adverse drug
events.
Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services
Payments to the Health Care Trust Funds
The conference agreement provides $177,742,200,000 for the
payment to the Health Care Trust Funds as proposed by the
House
[[Page 28028]]
rather than $177,822,200,000 as proposed by the Senate.
Program Management
The conference agreement includes $3,170,927,000 for
program management instead of $3,180,284,000 as proposed by
the House and $3,181,418,000 as proposed by the Senate. An
additional appropriation of $720,000,000 has been provided
for the Medicare Integrity Program through the Health
Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996. The
conferees include a general provision (section 520) that
reduces these funds by $60,000,000. CMS has the discretion to
choose how to allocate this reduction except that research,
demonstration and evaluation and State survey and
certification may not be reduced. As a result, some of the
funding levels identified in the Program Management
conference report language may be changed.
The conferees encourage CMS to consider using $3,000,000 of
the funds provided through the Medicare Integrity Program to
study and demonstrate the use of data fusion technology that
enables accurate linkages between data records across large,
disparate databases in near-real time using public records,
commercial data and complete CMS data sets to help prevent,
and determine instances of, fraud, waste and abuse.
The conference agreement includes $58,000,000 for research,
demonstration, and evaluation instead of $65,000,000 as
proposed by the House and $83,494,000 as proposed by the
Senate. Within the total provided, the conference agreement
provides $25,000,000 for Real Choice Systems Change Grants to
States. The Senate provided $40,000,000 for these grants. The
House did not provide funding for them.
The conferees are pleased with the demonstration project at
participating sites licensed by the Program for Reversing
Heart Disease and encourage its continuation. The conferees
further urge CMS to continue the demonstration project being
conducted at the Mind Body Institute of Boston,
Massachusetts.
The conferees are very pleased with the ongoing efforts of
CMS to address the seriously adverse health status of Native
Hawaiians and American Samoans residing in the geographical
area of the Waimanalo Health Center. The conferees urge CMS
to consider waivers for rural or isolated area demonstration
projects when calculating such requirements as population
density in the State of Hawaii and are particularly pleased
with the University of Hawaii's efforts to provide necessary
health care in rural Hilo.
The conferees encourage CMS to conduct a national, three-
year demonstration project to identify effective Medication
Therapy Management Program (MTMP) models for Medicare Part D
enrollees. The demonstration project should emphasize
evidence-based prescribing, prospective medication
management, technological innovation and outcomes reporting
and should be capable of implementation on a large scale.
The conference agreement includes $2,172,987,000 for
Medicare operations as proposed by the House instead of
$2,184,984,000 as proposed by the Senate.
The conference agreement includes bill language proposed by
the Senate making up to an additional $32,500,000 available
to CMS for Medicare claims processing if the volume of claims
exceeds particular thresholds. The House bill did not contain
similar language.
The conference agreement does not include bill language
proposed by the Senate directing the Secretary to send a
notice to Medicare beneficiaries by January 1, 2006,
notifying them of an error in the annual notice that had
previously been mailed to them. The House bill did not
contain similar language. The conferees are very concerned
about the incorrect information on the new Medicare
prescription drug plan that was inadvertently sent to
beneficiaries. The conferees request that by no later than
March 1, 2006, CMS report to the House and Senate
Appropriations Committees a comprehensive summary of the
actions taken to correct errors in the ``Medicare & You
2006'' handbook that was mailed to beneficiaries in October
2005. The conferees further direct that any notices to
beneficiaries regarding the handbook error clearly state that
the guidebook's tables on the levels of premium assistance
were in error and that beneficiaries have until May 15, 2006
to enroll in a plan.
The conference agreement does not include general provision
language proposed by the House that would prohibit funds
being used to place social security numbers on ID cards
issued to Medicare beneficiaries. The agreement also does not
include general provision language proposed by the Senate
that directs the Secretary to issue a report by June 30, 2006
describing plans to change the numerical identifier used for
Medicare beneficiaries. The conferees consider this issue to
be one of the utmost urgency and expect the Secretary to
accelerate ongoing plans to convert the beneficiary
identifiers.
The conference agreement provides $655,000,000 for Federal
administration instead of $657,357,000 as proposed by the
House and $628,000,000 as proposed by the Senate.
The conferees urge CMS to carefully review its decision to
cut Medicare funding for second-year, specialized pharmacy
residency programs, which provide specialized training to
medication use experts in areas like geriatrics, oncology,
and critical care. CMS should take into account new data
submitted by national pharmacist associations and provide a
full report to the House and Senate Committees within three
months describing the agency's rationale for any decision
that results in these programs remaining unfunded.
The conferees are concerned about the recent data published
by CMS showing that less than one-third of Medicare
beneficiaries eligible for diabetes self-management training
(DSMT) are receiving the care and instruction they need. The
conferees urge CMS to consider removing barriers for
certified diabetes educators to providing DSMT to Medicare
beneficiaries, including but not limited to the addition of
Medicare coverage for the provision of such services, and to
identify strategies for evaluating the effectiveness of
diabetes education in improving the self-care of people with
diabetes and in reducing risk factors for diabetes.
The conferees are concerned with the unprecedented increase
in autism diagnoses over the past two decades and its effect
on the Medicaid program. As more young children reach
adolescence and adulthood, the need for home-based as well as
out-of-home, residential services will increase. The
conferees encourage CMS to facilitate the expansion and
availability of respite care to families with autism. The
conferees also encourage CMS to work with States to design
geographically-based demonstrations allowing for greater
concentration of resources for home-based assistance and
respite care.
The conferees request from CMS a determination as to the
current legal authority to permit direct access to licensed
audiologists under similar terms and conditions used by the
Department of Veterans Affairs and the Office of Personnel
Management. A report shall be submitted to the House and
Senate Appropriations Committees by April 2006.
Health Care Fraud and Abuse Control
The conference agreement does not include funding for this
new account as proposed by the House. The Senate had provided
$80,000,000 for this activity.
Administration for Children and Families
Low-Income Home Energy Assistance
The conference agreement provides $2,183,000,000 for low-
income home energy assistance as proposed by the Senate
instead of $2,006,799,000 as proposed by the House. Of the
amount provided $2,000,000,000 is provided for formula grants
to States. The House bill proposed the full amount for State
formula grants and the Senate bill proposed $1,883,000,000.
Within the funds available, $27,500,000 is included for the
leveraging incentive fund as proposed by the Senate. The
House did not include funding for the leveraging incentive
fund. As proposed by the House, the conference agreement does
not include funding within State formula grants for a
feasibility study. The Senate proposed $500,000 for this
activity.
The conference agreement includes $183,000,000 for the
contingency fund to be available through September 30, 2006.
The Senate bill proposed $300,000,000 for the emergency fund
and designated those funds as an emergency. The House did not
propose funding for either the contingency or emergency fund.
Together with the $20,350,000 still available in the
emergency fund appropriated in fiscal year 2005, the total
amount available in fiscal year 2006 to respond to heating
and cooling emergencies is $203,350,000.
The conferees expect the appropriation provided for the
contingency fund to be released, in full, prior to September
30, 2006. Given the forecasts of the costs associated with
home heating this winter, the conferees anticipate that
States will experience energy emergency conditions that will
require additional Federal support that is available through
the contingency fund.
Refugee and Entrant Assistance
The conference agreement includes $575,579,000 for the
refugee and entrant assistance programs rather than
$560,919,000 as proposed by the House and $571,140,000 as
proposed by the Senate. The conference agreement does not
include funds for any of these activities through emergency
funding. The Senate bill provided $19,100,000 within the
total as emergency funding; the House bill did not include
emergency funding for these activities. The detailed table at
the end of this joint statement reflects the activity
distribution agreed to by the conferees.
The conference agreement includes $268,229,000 for the
transitional and medical services program. The House included
$264,129,000 for this program. The Senate provided
$264,129,000 through regular appropriations and $4,100,000 as
an emergency for this program. The conference agreement does
not include emergency funding for this program. It is the
intention of the conferees that the level provided would
allow for assistance to eligible individuals during their
first eight months in the United States.
The conference agreement provides $155,560,000 for social
services, rather than $160,000,000 as proposed in the House
and $151,121,000 as proposed by the Senate. Within the funds
provided, the conference agreement includes $19,000,000 as
outlined in the House report. The Senate did not include
similar language. The conferees intend that
[[Page 28029]]
funds provided above the request for social services shall be
used for refugee school impact grants and for additional
assistance in resettling and meeting the needs of the Hmong
refugees expected to arrive during 2006 and 2007 or for other
urgent needs.
The conference agreement provides $78,083,000 for the
unaccompanied minors program. The House bill proposed
$63,083,000 for this program. The Senate provided $63,083,000
through regular appropriations and $15,000,000 as an
emergency for this program. The conference agreement does not
include emergency funding for this program. The conferees
direct the Secretary of Health and Human Services to issue a
report by no later than one year after the date of enactment
of this Act on progress made by the Office of Refugee
Resettlement and programs funded under this Act to shift
children to more child-centered, age-appropriate, small
group, home-like environments for unaccompanied children in
its custody.
Payments to States for the Child Care and Development Block Grant
The conference agreement includes $2,082,910,000 for the
child care and development block grant, the same level as
both the House and Senate bills. The conference agreement
includes several specified funding recommendations within the
total at levels proposed by the House rather than at the
funding levels proposed by the Senate.
Children and Families Services Programs
(including rescission of funds)
The conference agreement includes $8,932,713,000 for
children and families services programs, of which $10,500,000
is provided through the evaluation set-aside. The House bill
proposed $8,701,207,000 for these programs with $12,500,000
from the evaluation set-aside and the Senate proposed
$9,036,453,000 with $10,500,000 from the evaluation set-
aside. The detailed table at the end of this joint statement
reflects the activity distribution agreed to by the
conferees.
Head Start
The conference agreement includes $6,843,114,000 for Head
Start rather than $6,899,000,000 as proposed by the House and
$6,863,114,000 as proposed by the Senate. The agreement
includes $1,388,800,000 in advance funding, the same level as
proposed by the Senate. The House bill proposed
$1,400,000,000 for advance funding.
To enable the establishment of a panel of independent
experts under the National Academy of Sciences to review and
provide guidance on appropriate outcomes and assessments for
young children, the conferees provide $1,000,000, within the
total for Head Start, for the National Academy of Sciences.
The conference agreement includes, as a general provision,
a limitation against the use of funds for Head Start to pay
the compensation of an individual, either as direct costs or
any proration as an indirect cost, at a rate in excess of
Executive Level II, as proposed by the House. The Senate did
not include a similar provision.
The conference agreement includes two general provisions
relating to waiving requirements of regulations promulgated
under the Head Start Act for transporting children enrolled
in either Head Start or Early Head Start. The Senate bill
included one general provision regarding this issue, but used
different language than is included in the conference
agreement. The House included report language pertaining to
transportation waivers for this program.
Consolidated runaway and homeless youth program
The conference agreement includes $88,724,000 for the
consolidated runaway and homeless youth program, the same
level as proposed by the Senate, rather than $88,728,000 as
proposed by the House.
Child abuse discretionary activities
The conference agreement includes $26,040,000 for child
abuse discretionary programs instead of $31,645,000 as
proposed by the House and $31,640,000 as proposed by the
Senate.
Adoption incentive
The conference agreement includes $18,000,000 for the
adoption incentive program rather than $31,846,000 as
proposed by the House and $22,846,000 as proposed by the
Senate. Actual bonus payments to States for fiscal year 2005
were less than amounts previously estimated, therefore, of
the funds provided in fiscal year 2005 and made available
through fiscal year 2006, the conference agreement rescinds
$22,500,000. Neither the House nor the Senate proposed
rescinding funds from this program.
Compassion capital fund
The conference agreement includes $65,000,000 for the
compassion capital fund rather than $75,000,000 as proposed
by the House and $95,000,000 as proposed by the Senate. Prior
to advertising the availability of funds for any grant for
the youth gang prevention initiative, the conferees request
that the Department of Health and Human Services brief the
House and Senate Committees on Appropriations regarding the
planned use of these funds.
Social services and income maintenance research
The conference agreement includes $11,927,000 for social
services and income maintenance research, of which $6,000,000
is provided through the evaluation set-aside. The House
proposed $10,621,000 for this program, of which $8,000,000
was funded through the evaluation set-aside and the Senate
proposed $32,012,000, of which $6,000,000 was from the
evaluation set-aside.
The conferees note that efforts undertaken through the
State information technology consortium have led to greatly
improved systems communications and compliance in both the
TANF and child support enforcement (CSE) programs. For TANF,
the conferees have provided $2,000,000 to permit States to
utilize uniquely designed web-based technology to improve
benefit delivery and fulfill new Federal reporting
requirements. For CSE, the conferees have provided $3,000,000
to continue the consortium's efforts to improve data exchange
between CSE and the courts in ways that will significantly
reduce the time lag between court orders and enforcement/
collections activities.
Developmental disabilities
Within developmental disabilities programs, the conference
agreement includes $39,109,000 for protection and advocacy
services as proposed by the Senate instead of $38,109,000 as
proposed by the House.
The conference agreement also includes $15,879,000 for
voting access for individuals with disabilities rather than
$14,879,000 as proposed by the House and $30,000,000 as
proposed by the Senate. Within the funds provided,
$11,000,000 is for payments to States to promote access for
voters with disabilities and $4,879,000 is for State
protection and advocacy systems.
As proposed by both the House and Senate, the conference
agreement provides $11,529,000 for the developmental
disabilities projects of national significance. Within this
amount, $4,000,000 is to expand activities of the Family
Support Program, as proposed by the Senate. The House did not
include similar language.
Community services
The conference agreement includes $636,793,000 for the
community services block grant (CSBG) as proposed by the
Senate rather than $320,000,000 as proposed by the House. The
conferees concur with language included in the Senate report
that the Office of Community Services (OCS) release funding
to States in the timeliest manner and that States make funds
available promptly to local eligible entities. In addition,
the conferees expect OCS to inform State CSBG grantees of any
policy changes affecting carryover funds within a reasonable
time after the beginning of the Federal fiscal year. The
House did not include similar language.
As proposed by both the House and Senate, the conference
agreement includes $32,731,000 for community economic
development. The conferees concur with language included in
the Senate report that appropriated funds be allocated, to
the maximum extent possible, in the form of grants to
qualified community development corporations in order to
maximize the leveraging power of the Federal investment and
the number and the amount of set-asides should be reduced to
the most minimal levels. The House did not include similar
language.
The conference agreement includes $7,367,000 for rural
community facilities instead of $7,242,000 as proposed by the
House and $7,492,000 as proposed by the Senate. The conferees
intend that the increase provided for the Rural Community
Facilities program be used to provide additional funding to
the six regional RCAPs.
The conference agreement does not include funding for the
National Youth Sports program as proposed by the House. The
Senate proposed $10,000,000 for this program.
The conference agreement does not include funding for
community food and nutrition as proposed by the House. The
Senate proposed $7,180,000 for this program.
Independent living training vouchers
The conference agreement includes $46,623,000 for
independent living training vouchers as proposed by the
Senate instead of $50,000,000 as proposed by the House.
Community-based abstinence education
The conference agreement includes $114,500,000 for
community-based abstinence education as proposed by the House
rather than $105,500,000 as proposed by the Senate. The
conference agreement includes $4,500,000 in program
evaluation funds for the abstinence education program and
$110,000,000 in budget authority. The conferees concur with
language included in the House report regarding technical
assistance and capacity-building support to grantees. The
Senate report did not include similar language.
Within the total for community-based abstinence education,
up to $10,000,000 may be used to carry out a national
abstinence education campaign as proposed by both the House
and the Senate. The conferees concur with language included
in the Senate report that the Administration for Children and
Families use available funds to continue support for an
independent group to conduct a thorough and rigorous
evaluation of this campaign. The House did not include
similar language.
Program direction
The conference agreement includes $185,217,000 for program
direction as proposed
[[Page 28030]]
by the House instead of $186,000,000 as proposed by the
Senate.
promoting safe and stable families
The conference agreement includes $90,000,000 for the
discretionary grant program of promoting safe and stable
families as proposed by the Senate rather than $99,000,000 as
proposed by the House.
Administration on Aging
aging services programs
The conference agreement includes $1,376,624,000 for aging
services programs instead of $1,376,217,000 as proposed by
the House and $1,391,699,000 as proposed by the Senate. The
detailed table at the end of this joint statement reflects
the activity distribution agreed to by the conferees.
The conference agreement includes $20,360,000 for
activities for the protection of vulnerable older Americans
as proposed by the Senate instead of $19,360,000 as proposed
by the House. Within the funds provided $15,162,000 is for
the ombudsman services program as proposed by the Senate.
Included in the conference agreement is $157,744,000 for
the family caregivers program rather than $155,744,000 as
proposed by the House and $160,744,000 as proposed by the
Senate.
The conference agreement includes $722,292,000 for
nutrition programs rather than $725,885,000 as proposed by
the House and $718,697,000 as proposed by the Senate. Within
the total, $389,211,000 is provided for congregate meals
rather than $391,147,000 as proposed by the House and
$387,274,000 as proposed by the Senate; $183,742,000 is
provided for home delivered meals rather than $184,656,000 as
proposed by the House and $182,827,000 as proposed by the
Senate; and, $149,339,000 is provided for the nutrition
services incentives program rather than $150,082,000 as
proposed by the House and $148,596,000 as proposed by the
Senate.
The conference agreement includes $24,843,000 for program
innovations instead of $23,843,000 as proposed by the House
and $40,513,000 as proposed by the Senate. The conferees
continue to support funding at no less than last year's level
for national programs scheduled to be refunded in fiscal year
2006 as proposed by the Senate that address a variety of
issues, including elder abuse, Native American issues and
legal services. The House report did not include similar
language.
Within the funding provided, the conference agreement
includes $3,000,000, as proposed by the House, for social
research into Alzheimer's disease care options, best
practices and other Alzheimer's research priorities that
include research into cause, cure and care, as well as
respite care, assisted living, the impact of intervention by
social service agencies on victims, and related needs. The
agreement recommends this research utilize and give
discretion to area agencies on aging and their non-profit
divisions in municipalities with aged populations (over the
age of 60) of over 1,000,000, with preference given to the
largest population. The conferees also recommend that unique
partnerships to affect this research be considered for the
selected area agency on aging. The Senate did not include
funding for this activity.
Given the enormous demands on Alzheimer's family
caregivers, the conferees have included $1,000,000, as
proposed by the Senate, to support an Alzheimer's family
contact center for round-the-clock help to Alzheimer's
families in crisis. The House did not include funding for
this activity.
Office of the Secretary
general departmental management
The conference agreement includes $352,703,000 for general
departmental management instead of $338,695,000 as proposed
by the House and $363,614,000 as proposed by the Senate,
along with $5,851,000 from Medicare trust funds, which was
provided by both the House and Senate. In addition,
$39,552,000 in program evaluation funding is provided, which
was proposed by both the House and Senate.
The conference agreement includes bill language proposed by
the Senate directing that specific information requests from
the chairmen and ranking members of the Subcommittees on
Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education, and Related
Agencies, on scientific research or any other matter, be
transmitted to the Committees on Appropriations in a prompt
professional manner and within the time frame specified in
the request. The bill language further directs that
scientific information requested by the Committees on
Appropriations and prepared by government researchers and
scientists be transmitted to the Committees on
Appropriations, uncensored and without delay. The House did
not include such a provision.
The conference report does not include a general provision
proposed by the Senate related to compliance with section 2
of the Improper Payments Information Act of 2002 (IPIA) for
the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families Program, the
Foster Care and Adoption Assistance program, the Medicaid
program, the State Children's Health Insurance Program, and
the Child Care and Development Block Grant program. The House
bill did not contain similar language. The conferees request
that not later than sixty days after the date of enactment of
the Act the Secretary of Health and Human Services provides a
report on this topic to the Appropriations Committees. In
addition to the actions that have been taken to date, this
report should include HHS's plans and the specific steps that
are necessary to achieve compliance with section 2 in these
programs.
The conference agreement includes $2,500,000 to support the
last year of the Citizens' Health Care Working Group
established in the Medicare Modernization Act. The Senate
proposed $3,000,000 for this activity; the House report did
not contain a similar provision.
The conference agreement includes $500,000 with which the
Secretary is directed to conduct a study to determine the
best way to promote the use of advance directives among
competent adults as a means of specifying their wishes about
end of life care. The Senate report had a similar provision.
The House report did not request such a study.
The conferees intend that, of the funding provided to the
Office of Minority Health, no less than the fiscal year 2005
funding level be allocated to a culturally competent and
linguistically appropriate public health response to the HIV/
AIDS epidemic. The House report had a similar provision; the
Senate report did not have such a provision.
The conference report does not include funding within the
Office of the Secretary for the third year of the Ad
Council's underage drinking media campaign as proposed by the
House. The conferees have instead provided funding for this
effort within the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services
Administration as proposed by the Senate.
The conferees are concerned about the diminished
partnership between OMH and the nation's historically black
medical schools. Despite repeated urging by the Committees,
OMH has not maintained and cultivated cooperative agreements
and other mechanisms of support with Meharry Medical College,
Morehouse School of Medicine, and Charles R. Drew University
of Medicine and Science. The conferees encourage OMH to: (1)
re-establish its unique cooperative agreement with Meharry
Medical College, (2) develop a formal partnership with the
Morehouse School of Medicine and its National Center for
Primary Care, and (3) coordinate a Public Health Service-wide
response to the challenges facing the Charles R. Drew
University of Medicine and Science, including expanded
opportunities for biomedical research and support for
residency training faculty.
The conferees recognize that gynecological cancers are
treatable if diagnosed at an early stage, and are concerned
about the low level of awareness among women concerning the
early warning signs of gynecologic cancers. The conferees
recognize that there are many activities undertaken by the
Secretary to raise awareness about gynecologic cancers, but
are concerned that a lack of coordination of these activities
among the agencies may limit the effectiveness and outreach
of these programs. The conferees encourage the Secretary to
examine these programs, and coordinate their activities
through the Office of Women's Health. The Secretary is also
encouraged to consider developing a national education
campaign.
office of medicare hearings and appeals
The conference agreement includes $60,000,000 for this
activity as proposed by the House instead of $75,000,000 as
proposed by the Senate.
office of the national coordinator for health information technology
The conference agreement includes $61,700,000 for this
activity, of which $42,800,000 is provided in budget
authority and $18,900,000 is made available through the
Public Health Service program evaluation set-aside. The House
had provided a combined total of $75,000,000 for this
activity; the Senate provided a combined total of
$45,150,000.
The conference agreement does not include general provision
language proposed by the Senate or similar language proposed
by the House prohibiting the use of funds provided in the Act
to implement any strategic plan that does not require a
patient whose information is maintained by the Department to
be given notice if it is lost, stolen or used for another
purpose. The conferees underscore the importance of consumer
confidence in the privacy and security of their personal
health information as a fundamental principle in all actions
taken to carry out the HHS Health Information Technology
(HIT) strategic plan. The conferees understand that HHS has
funded a ``Privacy and Security Solutions for Interoperable
Health Information Exchange'' contract to study and address
variations in State law and business practices related to
privacy and security that may pose challenges to
interoperable health information exchange. Funds are included
for the Office of the National Coordinator for Health
Information Technology to continue its work to evaluate and
initiate solutions, including those that will maintain the
security and privacy protections for personal health
information, as part of the Department's activities in
carrying out its HIT strategic plan. The conferees request a
report within 90 days describing how HHS plans to address
privacy issues in the information technology program.
[[Page 28031]]
Office of Inspector General
The conference agreement includes $39,813,000 for the
Office of Inspector General (OIG) as proposed by both the
House and the Senate. The conferees expect that the OIG will
utilize funds provided in section 121 of H.J. Res. 68 to
provide continued oversight of Medicare Modernization Act
implementation and the Medicare program.
public health and social services emergency fund
The conference agreement includes $63,589,000 for the
Public Health and Social Services Emergency Fund (PHSSEF) to
enhance Federal, State, and local preparedness to counter
potential biological, disease, chemical, and radiological
threats to civilian populations, instead of $183,589,000 as
proposed by the House. The Senate had provided
$8,158,589,000, with $8,095,000,000 designated as an
emergency requirement pursuant to the concurrent resolution
on the budget for fiscal year 2006.
The conference agreement does not include the $120,000,000
proposed by the House for activities to ensure year-round
production capacity of influenza vaccine. The Senate had
incorporated this funding within the $8,095,000,000
designated as emergency spending.
General Provisions
Head Start Compensation
The conference agreement includes a general provision that
prohibits the use of funds for Head Start to pay the
compensation of an individual, either as direct costs or any
proration as an indirect cost, at a rate in excess of
Executive Level II, as proposed by the House. The Senate bill
did not contain a similar provision.
Evaluation Tap Authority
The conference agreement includes a provision to allow for
a 2.4 percent evaluation tap pursuant to section 241 of the
Public Health Service Act. This tap is to be applied to
programs authorized under the Public Health Service Act. The
House bill contained a provision to allow for a 1.3 percent
evaluation tap and the Senate bill allowed for a 2.5 percent
evaluation tap.
One Percent Transfer Authority
The conference agreement includes language proposed by the
Senate providing the Secretary of HHS with the authority to
transfer up to 1 percent of discretionary funds between a
program, project, or activity, but no such program, project
or activity shall be increased by more than 3 percent by any
such transfer. Additionally, a program, project or activity
may be increased up to an additional 2 percent subject to
written approval of the House and Senate Appropriations
Committees. The House bill included a similar provision, but
allowed the authority to transfer between appropriations.
HIV Research Funds Transfer
The conference agreement includes a general provision as
proposed by the House allowing the Director of the National
Institutes of Health, jointly with the Director of the Office
of AIDS Research, to transfer up to 3 percent of funding
identified by these two directors as funding pertaining to
HIV research among institutes and centers. The Senate
included similar language.
Council on Graduate Medical Education
The conference agreement includes a general provision
proposed by the Senate allowing for the continued operation
of the Council on Graduate Medical Education. The House bill
contained no similar provision.
Smallpox Vaccine Injury Compensation Rescission
The conference agreement includes a general provision
rescinding $10,000,000 from the smallpox vaccine injury
compensation fund as proposed by the Senate. The House bill
contained no similar provision.
Naming of CDC Buildings
The conference agreement includes a general provision
proposed by the Senate naming two Centers for Disease Control
and Prevention buildings. The House did not include a similar
provision.
Power Wheelchair Regulations
The conference agreement modifies a general provision
proposed by the Senate prohibiting funds to be used to
implement or enforce Medicare regulations on power mobility
devices prior to April 1, 2006. The conference agreement
includes limitation language prohibiting the implementation
of a regulation until April 1, 2006 and deletes the portions
of the Senate provision that reduced payments for power
mobility devices and established deadlines for future
rulemaking. The House bill contained no similar provision.
The conferees concur in the intent of the Senate language
that a proposed rule be published by January 1, 2006,
followed by a 45-day period to comment on the proposed rule,
and that by not later than February 14, 2006, a final rule be
published, followed by a 45-day transition period for
implementation.
Head Start Transportation Waiver
The conference agreement modifies general provision
language proposed by the Senate pertaining to waivers for the
transportation of children enrolled in either Head Start or
Early Head Start. The House included report language dealing
with this issue.
Head Start Transportation Regulation
The conference agreement includes a general provision that
the regulation pertaining to Head Start transportation shall
not be effective until June 30, 2006, or 60 days after the
date of enactment of a statute that authorizes appropriations
for fiscal year 2006 to carry out the Head Start Act,
whichever date is earlier. This clarifying provision was not
included in either the House or Senate bills.
Health Professions Student Loan Rescissions
The conference agreement includes two general provisions
rescinding unobligated balances of the Health Professions
Student Loan Program and the Nursing Student Loan Program.
The House and Senate included similar provisions for the
Health Professions Student Loan Program.
Department of Health and Human Services Travel
The conference agreement includes a new provision granting
authority to the Secretary to use, at his discretion, charter
aircraft under contract with the Centers for Disease Control
and Prevention (CDC). The Secretary has significant
operational responsibilities in times of emergencies and in
the days following such emergencies. The Department is the
primary agency for directing public health and medical
services in response to significant events. Due to the
unpredictable nature of such events, the conferees believe
the Secretary must be in a posture to respond and communicate
as an event is unfolding. Yet, existing travel limitations on
the Secretary make this extremely difficult. The availability
of CDC's charter aircraft will allow the Secretary to
immediately return to Washington or rapidly move to another
location as the situation dictates, at the same time being
able to securely communicate with and direct the Department.
The conference agreement also extends this authority to the
Director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The conferees understand that, due to existing restrictions,
the Director on a number of occasions has not been able to
accompany employees of the Agency responding to public health
emergencies.
The conferees expect the Secretary and the Director of CDC
to exercise this authority in an economical and judicious
manner. The conferees request that the Secretary report to
the Committees on Appropriations of the House and Senate
regarding the use of this authority in the annual
justification of estimates for the Appropriations Committees
and at the end of the third quarter of each fiscal year.
State Pharmaceutical Assistance Programs
The conference agreement does not include a general
provision proposed by the Senate to extend the availability
of fiscal year 2005 funding appropriated for State
Pharmaceutical Assistance Programs in the Medicare
Modernization Act through fiscal year 2006. The House bill
did not include a similar provision.
Use of Social Security Numbers on Medicare ID Cards
The conference agreement deletes without prejudice general
provisions proposed by both the House and Senate relating to
the use of Social Security numbers on Medicare ID cards.
Language is included within the Centers for Medicare and
Medicaid Services section of the statement of the managers.
Rapid Oral HIV Tests
The conference agreement does not include a general
provision proposed by the Senate directing the Secretary of
HHS to use funds appropriated in Title II of this Act to
purchase not less than one million rapid oral HIV tests. The
House did not include a similar provision.
Telehealth Appropriation
The conference agreement deletes without prejudice a
general provision proposed by the Senate relating to
increased funding for telehealth programs. Funding for
telehealth programs is included within HRSA. The House did
not include a similar provision.
Dental Workforce Program
The conference agreement does not include a general
provision proposed by the Senate earmarking, within funds
appropriated to HRSA, grants for programs to address dental
workforce needs. Funding for this program is included within
HRSA program management. The House did not include a similar
provision.
Medically Accurate Information in Abstinence Programs
The conference agreement does not include a general
provision proposed by the Senate that none of the funds made
available in the Act may be used to provide abstinence
education that includes information that is medically
inaccurate, which is defined by information that is
unsupported or contradicted by peer-reviewed research by
leading medical, psychological, psychiatric, and public
health publications, organizations, and agencies. The House
did not include a similar provision.
Low-Vision Rehabilitation Services Demonstration
The conference agreement deletes without prejudice a
general provision proposed by the
[[Page 28032]]
Senate appropriating funding for a low-vision rehabilitation
services demonstration. The House bill contained no similar
provision. The Secretary of HHS is strongly urged to
implement the Low-Vision Rehabilitation Services
Demonstration Project, which was originally requested in the
fiscal year 2004 appropriations conference report. The
demonstration is to examine the impact of standardized
national coverage for vision rehabilitation services provided
in the home by vision rehabilitation professionals under the
Medicare program. The conferees expect the Secretary of HHS
and CMS to take the necessary steps to finalize the design
and structure of the demonstration project no later than
January 1, 2006. The conferees intend the Secretary to expend
from available funds appropriated to him, including transfers
authorized under existing authorities from the Federal
Supplementary Insurance Trust Fund, an amount not to exceed
$2,000,000 in fiscal year 2006. The conferees expect the
Secretary to take steps to update the design and expand the
size of the Low-Vision Rehabilitation Services Demonstration
Project in fiscal year 2007.
DSH Medicaid Payments to the State of Virginia
The conference agreement deletes without prejudice a
general provision proposed by the Senate containing a sense
of the Senate resolution expressing awareness of the issue of
defining ``hospital costs'' incurred by the State of Virginia
for purposes of Medicaid reimbursement and urging CMS to work
with the State to resolve the pending issue. The House did
not include a similar provision.
Defibrillation Devices
The conference agreement deletes without prejudice a
general provision proposed by the Senate appropriating funds
for the Automatic Defibrillation in Adam's Memory Act.
Funding for this program is included within HRSA. The House
did not include a similar provision.
Office of Minority Health
The conference agreement does not include a general
provision proposed by the Senate shifting funding to the
Office of Minority Health from the Program Management account
within CMS. Funding for the Office of Minority Health and CMS
Program Management are included within those specific
accounts. The House did not include a similar provision.
Mosquito Abatement
The conference agreement does not include a general
provision proposed by the Senate earmarking funds within CDC
for mosquito abatement for safety and health. The House did
not include a similar provision.
Community Health Centers
The conference agreement does not include a general
provision proposed by the Senate increasing funding for the
Community Health Centers program. Funding for the Community
Health Centers program is included within HRSA. The House did
not include a similar provision.
Health Information Security
The conference agreement deletes without prejudice a
general provision proposed by the Senate prohibiting the use
of funds provided in the Act to implement any strategic plan
that does not require a patient whose information is
maintained by the Department to be given notice if it is
lost, stolen or used for another purpose. The House bill
contained a similar provision. Language is included within
the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information
Technology section of the statement of the managers.
Limitation on Travel and Conferences
The conference agreement does not include a general
provision proposed by the Senate reducing the appropriations
for travel, conference programs and related expenses for the
Department of Health and Human Services. The House did not
include a similar provision.
Help America Vote Act
The conference agreement does not include a general
provision proposed by the Senate providing additional funding
for the Help America Vote Act. Funding for programs
authorized by the Help America Vote Act and administered by
HHS are included within the Children and Families Services
section of the Administration for Children and Families. The
House did not include a similar provision.
TITLE III--DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION
Education for the Disadvantaged
The conference agreement includes $14,627,435,000 for the
Education for the Disadvantaged account instead of
$14,728,735,000 as proposed by the House and $14,532,785,000
as proposed by the Senate. The agreement provides
$7,244,134,000 in fiscal year 2006 and $7,383,301,000 in
fiscal year 2007 funding for this account.
The conference agreement includes $100,000,000 for the Even
Start program instead of $200,000,000 as proposed by the
House. The Senate bill did not include funding for this
program.
The conferees intend for funds available under the Reading
First program to be used for reading programs with the
strongest possible scientific evidence of effectiveness. The
conferees strongly urge the Department to provide clear
guidance to its technical assistance centers and the States
to: fully consider scientific evidence of effectiveness in
rating programs for use under Reading First; contemplate
expanded lists of allowable programs that include innovative
programs with scientific evidence of effectiveness; when
awarding new grants, consider giving preference to those
schools that select programs with strong, scientific evidence
of effectiveness; and ensure that comprehensive reading
programs that have scientific evidence of effectiveness will
be implemented in full, as they have been researched, without
modification to conform to other models of instruction. The
conferees also are concerned that certain practices under the
Reading First program may unduly interfere with local control
of curriculum. The conferees note that Reading First
materials decisions are to be made at the school level,
subject to the approval of the State.
The conference agreement includes $30,000,000 for the
Striving Readers program as proposed by the House instead of
$35,000,000 as proposed by the Senate.
The conference agreement also includes $390,428,000 for the
State Agency Migrant Education program as proposed by the
House instead of $395,228,000 as proposed by the Senate.
The conference agreement includes $50,300,000 for the
Neglected and Delinquent program instead of $49,600,000 as
proposed by the House and $51,000,000 as proposed by the
Senate.
The conference agreement includes $8,000,000 for
Comprehensive School Reform quality initiatives. The House
bill provided $10,000,000 for the Comprehensive School Reform
Demonstration program and the Senate bill did not include any
funding related to Comprehensive School Reform. The conferees
concur that comprehensive school reform (CSR) models provide
an exemplary approach to raising academic achievement,
particularly for schools that do not make adequate yearly
progress under the No Child Left Behind Act. The conferees
believe that States should utilize their four percent school
improvement set-aside funds to support implementation of
comprehensive school reform models with demonstrated success.
The conferees strongly urge States to examine methods for
distributing school improvement funds that will result in
awards of sufficient size and scope to support the initial
costs of comprehensive school reforms and to limit funding to
programs that include each of the reform components described
in section 1606(a) of the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001
and have the capacity to improve the academic achievement of
all students in core academic subjects within participating
schools. Further, the conferees intend that the Secretary
shall notify States that schools currently receiving CSR
subgrants shall receive priority for targeted grants and/or
technical assistance under section 1003(a) of ESEA.
The conference agreement also includes $18,737,000 for the
Migrant Education High School Equivalency program as proposed
by the House instead of $21,587,000 as proposed by the
Senate.
Impact Aid
The conference agreement includes bill language not
included in either the House or Senate bill that restricts
the release of impact aid construction funds to a formula
distribution.
School Improvement Programs
The conference agreement includes $5,308,564,000 for the
School Improvement Programs account instead of $5,393,765,000
as proposed by the House and $5,457,953,000 as proposed by
the Senate. The agreement provides $3,873,564,000 in fiscal
year 2006 and $1,435,000,000 in fiscal year 2007 funding for
this account.
The conference agreement includes $184,000,000 for the
Mathematics and Science Partnerships (MSP) program instead of
$190,000,000 as proposed by the House and $178,560,000 as
proposed by the Senate. The conferees urge the Secretary to
encourage MSP grantees to incorporate advanced placement (AP)
or pre-advanced placement (PRE-AP) staff development training
into their math and science partnership projects to help
teachers meet the highly qualified criteria under the No
Child Left Behind Act. The AP and PRE-AP professional
development initiatives support teachers' content and
pedagogical knowledge development so that all students,
regardless of whether or not they take AP, will receive
rigorous, challenging math and science instruction. The AP
math and science initiative has the primary objective of
increasing the number of AP opportunities, AP participation
rates, and postsecondary acceptance and success rates for
disadvantaged students.
The conference agreement includes $100,000,000 for State
Grants for Innovative Education as proposed by the Senate
instead of $198,400,000 as proposed by the House. The
agreement also includes $275,000,000 for Educational
Technology State Grants instead of $300,000,000 as proposed
by the House and $425,000,000 as proposed by the Senate. The
conference agreement includes bill language, not included in
either House or Senate bill, which allows up to 100 percent
of funds available under the Educational Technology
[[Page 28033]]
State Grants program to be allocated by States through
competitive subgrants. The conferees encourage the Secretary
to notify States of their intent that funds continue to be
provided to small, rural school districts.
The conferees are concerned that many schools are unable to
properly assess the performance of students with disabilities
and students with limited English proficiency. Therefore, the
conferees urge the Department to continue to place a high
priority on grant applications for funds available from the
enhanced assessments instruments program that aim to improve
the quality of state assessments for these two groups of
students and to ensure the most accurate means of measuring
their performance on these assessments.
The conference agreement includes $9,693,000 for the Javits
Gifted and Talented program instead of $11,022,000 as
proposed by the Senate. The House did not propose funding for
this program.
The agreement also includes $22,000,000 for the Foreign
Language Assistance program instead of $25,000,000 as
proposed by the Senate. The House did not propose funding for
this program. The conferees concur with all of the language
contained in the Senate report related to the use of these
funds and administration of this program. The conference
agreement includes language in the Senate bill that prohibits
funds from being used for the Foreign Language Incentive Fund
program. The House bill did not include a similar provision.
The conference agreement includes $34,250,000 for the
Education of Native Hawaiians program instead of $24,770,000
as proposed by the House and $34,500,000 as proposed by the
Senate. The agreement includes bill language that allows
funds under this program to be used for construction,
renovation and modernization of any elementary school,
secondary school, or structure related to an elementary
school or secondary school run by the Department of Education
of the State of Hawaii that serves a predominantly Native
Hawaiian student body as proposed by the Senate. The House
bill did not include a similar provision.
The conference agreement also includes bill language, as
proposed by the Senate, which provides not less than
$1,250,000 to the Hawaii Department of Education for school
construction/renovation activities, and $1,250,000 for the
University of Hawaii's Center of Excellence in Native
Hawaiian Law. The House bill did not include a similar
provision.
The conference agreement includes $34,250,000 for the
Alaska Native Educational Equity program instead of
$31,224,000 as proposed by the House and $34,500,000 as
proposed by the Senate. The conference agreement includes
bill language which allows funds available through this
program to be used for construction, as proposed by the
Senate. The House bill did not include a similar provision.
The conferees direct the Department to use at least a portion
of these funds to address the construction needs of rural
schools.
The conferees are aware that the Department recently
awarded a grant for a California Comprehensive Center, which
will provide technical assistance to state and local
educational agencies in California. This new Center will have
to establish and develop a strong relationship to serve
schools in Southern California, which has a majority of
California's students and schools identified as in need of
improvement as well as the highest number of English Language
Learners and schools targeted for restructuring. The
conferees encourage the Department of Education to ensure
that this Center adequately addresses the needs of Southern
California's local school districts.
Innovation and Improvement
The conference agreement includes $945,947,000 for programs
in the Innovation and Improvement account, instead of
$708,522,000 as proposed by the House and $1,038,785,000 as
proposed by the Senate.
The conference agreement includes $21,750,000 for the
National Writing Project program instead of $20,336,000 as
proposed by the House and $23,000,000 as proposed by the
Senate.
The conference agreement includes $121,000,000 for the
Teaching of Traditional American History program as proposed
by the Senate. The House bill proposed $50,000,000 for this
program. The conferees direct the Department to continue its
current policy of awarding 3-year grants. The conference
agreement also includes bill language proposed by the Senate
that allows not more than 3 percent of the funds available
for this program to be used for technical assistance. The
House bill did not include a similar provision.
The conference agreement includes $14,880,000 for the
School Leadership program as proposed by the House instead of
$15,000,000 as proposed by the Senate.
The conference agreement includes $16,864,000 for the
Advanced Credentialing program as proposed by the House
instead of $10,000,000 as proposed by the Senate. The
conference agreement includes bill language that provides
$9,920,000 of these funds to the National Board for
Professional Teaching Standards and $6,944,000 to the
American Board for the Certification of Teacher Excellence.
The Senate bill included language that provided $10,000,000
to the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards and
the House bill did not include a similar provision.
The conference agreement includes $36,981,000 for the
Credit Enhancement for Charter Schools program as proposed by
the House. The Senate did not propose funding for this
program.
Fund for the Improvement of Education (FIE)
The conference agreement includes $160,111,000 for the Fund
for the Improvement of Education instead of $27,000,000 as
proposed by the House and $387,424,000 as proposed by the
Senate. The amount included in bill language for the Fund for
the Improvement of Education provides an additional
$100,000,000 for the Teacher Incentive Fund, which is
described later in this section.
The conference agreement includes funding for the following
activities authorized under section 5411 of the Elementary
and Secondary Education Act:
National Institute of Building Sciences for the National
Clearinghouse for Educational Facilities.....................$694,000
Presidential and Congressional American History and Civics Aca2,000,000
Evaluation and data quality initiative........................2,000,000
Reach out and Read, peer review, teacher quality and other
activities..................................................9,092,000
The conference agreement includes $2,000,000 to carry out
the American History and Civics Education Act of 2004,
instead of $10,000,000 as proposed by the Senate. The House
bill did not include funding for this program. The conferees
concur in the language contained in the Senate Report
regarding the use of funds for this activity. The conferees
intend $1,265,000 will be used for Presidential Academies for
Teaching of American History and Civics and the remaining
funds will support the establishment of Congressional
Academies for Students of American History and Civics.
The conferees direct the Department to implement the Act
consistent with their intent, as reflected above, and request
an implementation plan to be submitted to the House and
Senate Committees on Appropriations within 30 days of
enactment of the Department of Education Appropriations Act,
2006.
Within the total amount provided for FIE, the conference
agreement also includes funding for separately authorized
programs in the following amounts:
Reading is Fundamental......................................$25,296,000
Star Schools.................................................15,000,000
Ready to Teach...............................................11,000,000
Education through Cultural and Historical Organizations.......9,000,000
Arts in Education............................................35,633,000
Parental Information and Resource Centers....................40,000,000
Excellence in Economic Education..............................1,488,000
Women's Educational Equity....................................2,956,000
Foundations for Learning Grants.................................992,000
Mental Health Integration Grants..............................4,960,000
For Arts in Education, the conferees intend that within
this total, $7,440,000 is for Very Special Arts and
$6,369,000 is for the John F. Kennedy Center for the
Performing Arts. In addition, $7,936,000 is for model
professional development programs for music, drama, dance and
visual arts educators and $496,000 is for evaluation
activities, as outlined by the Senate. The remaining
$13,392,000 is available to continue model arts programs.
While the conferees applaud the Department's efforts to
help students learn foreign languages, they remain concerned
that the Department, using data provided by the e-Language
Learning System (eLLS), is developing web-based learning
products that could be used in direct competition with the
private sector. The conferees understand that, based on the
President's budget request, the Department had no plans to
continue this project in fiscal year 2006 using Star School
funds. However, the conference agreement includes funds for
the Star Schools program, which has been the primary source
of funds for this activity. Therefore, the conferees direct
the Department not to fund any grant that will compete
directly with the private sector and further direct the
Secretary to notify the House and Senate Appropriations
Committees 15 days prior to any Department expenditures
related to the eLLS project.
The conference agreement includes $100,000,000 for a pilot
program to develop and implement innovative ways to provide
financial incentives for teachers and principals who raise
student achievement and close the achievement gap in some of
our Nation's highest-need schools, as proposed in the House
bill. The Senate bill did not propose funding for this
program.
The conferees intend that the Secretary use not less than
95 percent of these funds to award competitive grants to
local educational agencies (LEAs), including charter
[[Page 28034]]
schools that are LEAs, States, or partnerships of (1) a local
educational agency, a State, or both and (2) at least one
non-profit organization to design and implement fair,
differentiated compensation systems for public school
teachers and principals based primarily on measures of gains
in student academic achievement, in addition to other
factors, for teachers and principals in high-need schools.
The conferees intend high-need schools to have the same
meaning as the term is defined in section 2312 of the
Elementary and Secondary Education Act. The conferees further
intend that each applicant demonstrate a significant
investment in, and ensure the sustainability of, its project
by committing to pay for an increasing share of the total
cost of the project, for each year of the grant, with State,
local, or other non-Federal funds.
The conference agreement includes bill language, modified
from the House bill, which requires the Secretary to use
funds for performance-based compensation systems that:
consider gains in student academic achievement as well as
classroom evaluations conducted multiple times during each
school year and provide educators with incentives to take on
additional responsibilities and leadership roles. In
addition, the conferees urge the Secretary to give priority
to applications that demonstrate the majority support of
educators for such compensation systems.
The conference agreement also includes bill language, not
included in either House or Senate bill, which allows not
more than $5,000,000 to be used to provide schools with
assistance in implementing this program. The conferees intend
that the Secretary use these funds for one or more grants to
an organization or organizations with expertise in providing
research-based expert advice to support schools initiating
and implementing differentiated compensation systems,
training school personnel, disseminating information on
effective teacher compensation systems, and providing program
outreach through a clearinghouse of best practices. The
conferees also urge the Secretary to design an appropriate,
long-term and rigorous evaluation, using randomized
controlled trials to the extent practicable, of this program
which will be used to inform Congress on the results achieved
under this program.
Other programs
The conference agreement includes $24,500,000 for the Ready
to Learn program instead of $25,000,000 as proposed by the
Senate. The House bill did not include funding for this
program. The conferees note that the original intent for the
Ready to Learn program consisted of two distinct but
coordinated elements: development of national educational
programming that supports emergent literacy and other school
readiness skills and community-based local outreach. The
purpose of local outreach has been to extend the educational
impact of the programming as well as to provide practical
training for parents and educators on how to promote early
learning and literacy and make responsible choices about
television viewing. Given the demonstrated track record of
the outreach component of the Ready to Learn program, the
conferees believe that broad-based outreach, which
capitalizes on the strength and reach of public television
stations and includes local adult training workshops, should
continue to be a central feature of this program. Therefore,
the conference agreement includes an increase of $1,188,000
over last year for additional support of the outreach project
funded during the fiscal year 2005 competition.
The conference agreement includes $4,900,000 for the
Dropout Prevention program as proposed by the Senate. The
House did not propose funding for this program.
The conference agreement includes $32,500,000 for Advanced
Placement programs instead of $30,000,000 as proposed by the
House and $40,000,000 as proposed by the Senate.
The conference agreement does not include language proposed
in the House bill related to the evaluation of the D.C.
School Choice Incentive Act of 2003. The Senate bill did not
include a similar provision.
Safe Schools and Citizenship Education
The conference agreement includes $736,886,000 for programs
in the Safe Schools and Citizenship Education account instead
of $763,870,000 as proposed by the House and $697,300,000 as
proposed by the Senate.
The conference agreement includes $350,000,000 for Safe and
Drug-Free Schools State Grants instead of $400,000,000 as
proposed by the House and $300,000,000 as proposed by the
Senate.
The conferees are concerned that the Department of
Education has neglected to report specific data to Congress
as required under Section 4122(c) of Title IV, Part A of the
No Child Left Behind Act. This data is required to be
included in the State report under Section 4116 of the Safe
and Drug-Free Schools and Communities program. The report
specifically requires all States to collect and report to the
Secretary, in a form specified by the Secretary, the
following data: incidence and prevalence, age of onset,
perception of health risk and perception of social
disapproval of drug use and violence by youth in schools and
communities. The conferees expect the Department to develop a
plan for how it will collect the specified data from the
States and report it to Congress in a timely manner. The plan
should be submitted to the House and Senate authorizing,
appropriations and oversight committees within 60 days of
enactment of this bill.
The conference agreement includes $142,537,000 for National
Programs instead of $152,537,000 as proposed by the House and
$150,000,000 as proposed by the Senate. The conference
agreement includes funding for the following activities:
School Safety Initiatives...................................$27,000,000
Planning/Needs Assessment/Data for State Grants...............8,257,000
Safe Schools/Healthy Students................................80,000,000
Drug Testing Initiative.......................................9,180,000
Postsecondary Ed Drug and Violence Prevention (including $850,000 for
the recognition program)....................................7,500,000
Violence prevention impact evaluation.........................1,551,000
National Institute of Building Sciences for the National Clearinghouse
for Educational Facilities....................................300,000
Project SERV..................................................1,449,000
Other activities..............................................7,300,000
The conferees direct the Department to implement the Act
consistent with their intent, as reflected in the table
above, and request an implementation plan to be submitted to
the House and Senate Committees on Appropriations within 30
days of enactment of the Department of Education
Appropriations Act, 2006.
The conference agreement includes bill language requiring
the Department to spend $850,000 for the National Recognition
Awards program under the guidelines described in section
120(f) of Public Law 105-244 as proposed in the Senate bill.
The House bill did not include a similar provision.
The conference agreement includes $32,736,000 for Grants to
Reduce Alcohol Abuse instead of $33,500,000 as proposed by
the Senate. The House did not propose funding for this
activity.
The conference agreement includes $35,000,000 for the
Elementary and Secondary School Counseling program instead of
$34,720,000 as proposed by the House and $36,000,000 as
proposed by the Senate.
The conference agreement includes $73,408,000 for the
Physical Education program as proposed by the House instead
of $74,000,000 as proposed by the Senate.
The conference agreement includes $29,405,000 for the Civic
Education program to support both the We the People programs
and the Cooperative Education Exchange as proposed by the
House instead of $30,000,000 as proposed by the Senate. The
conferees intend that $17,211,000 will be provided to the
nonprofit Center for Civic Education to support We the People
programs. Within the total for the We the People program, the
conferees intend that $3,025,000 be reserved to continue the
comprehensive program to improve public knowledge,
understanding, and support of American democratic
institutions, which is a cooperative project among the Center
for Civic Education, the Center on Congress at Indiana
University, and the Trust for Representative Democracy at the
National Conference of State Legislatures, and that
$1,513,000 be used for continuation of the school violence
prevention demonstration program, including $500,000 for the
Native American initiative.
The conference agreement also includes $12,194,000 for the
Cooperative Education Exchange program. Within this amount,
the conferees intend that $4,573,000 is for the Center for
Civic Education and $4,573,000 is for the National Council on
Economic Education, while the remaining $3,048,000 should be
used to continue the existing grants funded under the
authorizing statute for civics and government education, and
for economic education.
English Language Acquisition
The conference agreement includes $675,765,000 for the
English Language Acquisition account as proposed by the House
instead of $683,415,000 as proposed by the Senate.
Special Education
The conference agreement includes $11,770,607,000 for the
Special Education account instead of $11,813,783,000 as
proposed by the House and $11,775,107,000 as proposed by the
Senate. The agreement provides $6,346,407,000 in fiscal year
2006 and $5,424,200,000 in fiscal year 2007 funding for this
account.
The conference agreement includes $10,689,746,000 for
Grants to States Part B as proposed by the Senate instead of
$10,739,746,000 as proposed by the House. The agreement also
includes $440,808,000 for Grants for Infants and Families as
proposed by the House instead of $444,308,000 as proposed by
the Senate.
The conference agreement includes $49,397,000 for Technical
Assistance and Dissemination as proposed by the House instead
of $50,397,000 as proposed by the Senate.
The agreement also includes $38,816,000 for Technology and
Media Services as proposed by the Senate instead of
$31,992,000 as proposed by the House. Within this amount,
[[Page 28035]]
$1,500,000 is available for Public Telecommunications
Information and Training Dissemination as proposed by the
Senate. The House did not include funding for this activity.
Also within this amount, the conference agreement includes
$12,000,000 for Recording for the Blind and Dyslexic, Inc. as
proposed by the Senate instead of $11,400,000 as proposed by
the House.
Rehabilitation Services and Disability Research
The conference agreement includes $3,129,638,000 for
Rehabilitation Services and Disability Research instead of
$3,128,638,000 as proposed by the House and $3,133,638,000 as
proposed by the Senate.
The conference agreement includes $1,000,000 to continue an
award to the American Academy of Orthotists and Prosthetists
(AAOP) for activities that further the purposes of the grant
received by the Academy for the period beginning October 1,
2003 as proposed by the Senate. The House bill did not
include a similar provision.
The conference agreement includes $30,760,000 for assistive
technology instead of $29,760,000 as proposed by the House
and $34,760,000 as proposed by the Senate. Within this
amount, the conferees intend that $21,552,000 shall be for
the state grant program, $4,385,000 for grants for protection
and advocacy, $1,063,000 for national activities and
$3,760,000 for alternative financing programs.
Special Institutions for Persons With Disabilities
american printing house for the blind
The conference agreement includes $17,750,000 for the
American Printing House for the Blind instead of $17,000,000
as proposed by the House and $18,500,000 as proposed by the
Senate.
national technical institute for the deaf
The conference agreement includes $56,708,000 for the
National Technical Institute for the Deaf instead of
$56,137,000 as proposed by the House and $57,279,000 as
proposed by the Senate.
gallaudet university
The conference agreement includes $108,079,000 for
Gallaudet University instead of $107,657,000 as proposed by
the House and $108,500,000 as proposed by the Senate.
Vocational and Adult Education
The conference agreement includes $2,012,282,000 for
Vocational and Adult Education instead of $1,991,782,000 as
proposed by the House and $1,927,016,000 as proposed by the
Senate. The agreement provides $1,221,282,000 in fiscal year
2006 and $791,000,000 in fiscal year 2007 funding for this
account.
The conference agreement includes $9,257,000 for Vocational
Education National programs, as proposed by the Senate. The
House included $11,757,000 for National programs.
The conference agreement includes $569,672,000 for Adult
Education State Grants as proposed by the House, instead of
$572,922,000 as proposed by the Senate.
The conference agreement includes $94,476,000 for the
Smaller Learning Communities program as proposed by the
House. The Senate bill did not include funding for this
program. The conferees agree that these funds shall be used
only for activities related to establishing smaller learning
communities within large high schools or small high schools
that provide alternatives for students enrolled in large high
schools. The conferees again direct that the Department
consult with the House and Senate Committees on
Appropriations prior to the release of program guidance for
the fiscal years 2005 and 2006 Smaller Learning Communities
grant competitions. The conferees urge that a greater share
of the 5 percent set-aside for national activities be used to
support direct technical assistance to grantees through
regional laboratories, university-based organizations, and
other entities with expertise in high school reform, and
request a report not later than January 1, 2006 on its
planned use of this set-aside in fiscal year 2005. Further,
the conferees strongly encourage the Department to enter into
a jointly funded program with a private or public foundation
with expertise in designing and implementing small schools in
order to further leverage the Federal investment in smaller
learning communities.
The conference agreement includes $23,000,000 for State
Grants for Incarcerated Youth Offenders, instead of
$24,000,000 as proposed by the Senate. The House did not
include funding for this program. The conferees concur with
the language included in the Senate Report regarding the
administration of this program.
The conference agreement does not include funding for
Community Technology Centers, as proposed by the House. The
Senate included $4,960,000 for this activity.
Student Financial Assistance
The conference agreement includes $15,077,752,000 for
Student Financial Assistance instead of $15,283,752,000 as
proposed by the House and $15,103,795,000 as proposed by the
Senate.
The agreement provides a program level of $13,177,000,000
for Pell Grants as proposed by the Senate instead of
$13,383,000,000 as proposed by the House. The agreement
maintains the maximum Pell Grant at $4,050 as proposed by the
Senate rather than $4,100 as proposed by the House.
Additional funds are included in section 305 of this Act to
completely pay down the shortfall that has been accumulating
in the Pell Grant program over the last several fiscal years
as proposed by both the House and Senate.
The conferees believe it is essential for Congress to have
the most accurate and reliable information available to make
decisions regarding the allocation of limited discretionary
funding. Therefore, the conferees direct the Department of
Education to provide to the House and Senate Committees on
Appropriations, on a quarterly basis, updated estimates of
the cost of the Pell Grant program, based on current law and
the most current data related to valid applications,
applicant type, and other information incorporated into the
Department's Pell Grant forecasting model.
The conference agreement also includes $778,720,000 for the
supplemental educational opportunity grant program as
proposed by the House instead of $804,763,000 as proposed by
the Senate.
The conference agreement provides $990,257,000 for Federal
work-study programs as proposed by both the House and Senate.
Within this total, the conference agreement includes
$6,000,000, as proposed by the Senate, for the work colleges
program. The House report did not include similar language.
Student Aid Administration
The conference agreement includes $120,000,000 for student
aid administration as proposed by the Senate instead of
$124,084,000 as proposed by the House.
Higher Education
The conference agreement includes $1,970,760,000 for Higher
Education instead of $1,936,936,000 as proposed by the House
and $2,112,958,000 as proposed by the Senate. The conference
agreement does not include bill language as proposed by the
Senate regarding the use of funds to develop a strategic plan
for foreign student access to American colleges and
universities. The House bill did not include similar
language.
Aid for institutional development
The conference agreement includes $95,873,000 for Hispanic
Serving Institutions as proposed by the House instead of
$100,823,000 as proposed by the Senate. The conference
agreement also includes $11,904,000 for Alaska and Native
Hawaiian Institutions as proposed by the Senate instead of
$6,500,000 as proposed by the House.
Fund for the improvement of postsecondary education
The conference agreement includes $22,211,000 for the Fund
for the Improvement of Postsecondary Education instead of
$49,211,000 as proposed by the House and $157,211,000 as
proposed by the Senate.
Other programs
The conference agreement includes $836,543,000 for TRIO as
proposed by the House instead of $841,543,000 as proposed by
the Senate.
The conference agreement includes $306,488,000 for the GEAR
UP program, the same level proposed by both the House and the
Senate. The conferees intend that funds be awarded on an
annual basis and that the Department consult with
Congressional committees of jurisdiction prior to new grant
competition announcements. The conference agreement provides
a sixth and final year award to grantees first funded in
2001, while continuing all other funded projects. The
conferees also intend that these funds are available to
eligible 2000 grantees that opt to apply for new grant awards
servicing a cohort no later than seventh grade, and are
allowed to continue assisting students who have not yet
completed the program through high school graduation.
The conference agreement includes sufficient funds for a
GEAR UP competition in fiscal year 2006 for new partnership
awards. The twin goals of GEAR UP are to ensure that low-
income students are academically prepared for college and
that they receive scholarships to enable them to actually
attend college. Accordingly, the conferees encourage the
Department to give consideration in the 2006 GEAR UP
competition to partnerships that, in addition to providing
early intervention services, guarantee college scholarships
to GEAR UP students.
The conference agreement includes $41,000,000 for Byrd
Honors Scholarships and $6,944,000 for demonstrations in
disabilities as proposed by the Senate. The House did not
propose funding for these activities.
The conference agreement includes $60,500,000 for the
Teacher Quality Enhancement Grants program. The House and
Senate proposed $58,000,000 for this program.
The conference agreement includes $2,000,000 for the
Underground Railroad program instead of $2,204,000 as
proposed by the Senate and $2,976,000 for Thurgood Marshall
Scholarships instead of $3,500,000 as proposed by the Senate.
The House did not propose funding these activities.
The conference agreement also includes $980,000 for Olympic
Scholarships as proposed by the House. The Senate bill did
not provide funding for this program.
Howard University
The conference agreement includes $239,790,000 for Howard
University instead of
[[Page 28036]]
$240,790,000 as proposed by the House and $238,789,000 as
proposed by the Senate.
Institute of Education Sciences
The conference agreement includes $522,695,000 for the
Institute of Education Sciences (IES) instead of $522,696,000
as proposed by the House and $529,695,000 as proposed by the
Senate.
The conferees concur with the language included in the
House report that a key purpose of public education is being
neglected: the civic mission of schools to educate our young
people for democracy and to prepare them to be engaged
citizens. The National Assessments of Educational Progress in
civics and history are the best way we have to measure how
well schools are doing in fulfilling this purpose. Therefore,
the conferees request that the National Assessment Governing
Board, in consultation with the Commissioner, National Center
for Education Statistics, prepare a report on the feasibility
of the National Assessment of Educational Progress conducting
State level assessments in the subjects of U.S. history and
civics at grades 8 and 12 and, if feasible, the earliest
schedule under which such assessments could be administered.
The Governing Board shall, within 180 days of enactment of
this Act, submit the feasibility report to the House and
Senate Appropriations Committees, the House Education and the
Workforce Committee, the Senate Health, Education, Labor and
Pensions Committee, and the Secretary of Education. The
Senate report did not include similar language.
The conferees are very concerned with the funding levels
directed to the Research and Development Centers. The current
levels, which are $10,000,000 less than the amount outlined
in the fiscal year 2005 and fiscal year 2006 budget
justifications, are inadequate to create long-term
comprehensive interdisciplinary programs. The conferees have
therefore included bill language requiring IES to provide
$25,257,000 for Research and Development Centers. The
conferees direct that these funds be used to support not less
than eight Research and Development Centers, as authorized by
law.
The conferees expect, as stated in the fiscal year 2005
statement of the managers and the fiscal year 2006 budget
justification, that funds in excess of those amounts needed
to maintain or establish new centers, be used for
supplemental awards to Research and Development Centers. The
conferees further expect that funds be used to make
adjustments to studies or services as needs arise. The
conferees believe that current funding levels provide for
inflexible, narrowly focused research rather than work that
is of sufficient size and scope to be effective. The
conferees also believe it is essential that centers not be
restricted to particular research methodologies but instead
use rigorous methods to address areas of high priority. The
conferees request the IES to submit a report within 45 days
of enactment of this Act on the steps it will take to comply
with Congressional intent.
The conferees urge the Department's National Center for
Education Statistics to use the Fast Response Survey System
to collect data for the report of Arts Education in Public
Elementary and Secondary Schools during the 2006-2007 school
year. The conferees expect this survey and reporting to have
the comprehensive quality of the 2002 report and include
national samples of elementary and secondary school
principals, as well as surveys of elementary and secondary
classroom teachers and arts specialists.
Departmental Management
The conference agreement includes $415,303,000 for
Departmental program administration instead of $410,612,000
as proposed by the House and $411,992,000 as proposed by the
Senate. The agreement also includes $49,000,000 for the
Office of the Inspector General as proposed by the House
instead of $49,408,000 as proposed by the Senate.
The conferees concur with the views expressed in the House
report with regard to the Communities Can program and its
role in enhancing integrated and coordinated services for
children with disabilities and their families. The conferees
request that the plan of action for carrying forward this
activity be provided to both the House and Senate
Appropriations Committees. The Senate did not include similar
language.
The conference agreement concurs with language contained in
the Senate report regarding the proposed reorganization of
the regional office structure within the Rehabilitation
Services Administration. Therefore, the conferees request a
report that describes the steps taken to reach out to
stakeholder groups on this issue; a detailed plan for
ensuring that policy guidance, technical assistance and
program monitoring will be of higher quality and more timely
than currently available; and the specific performance goals
under the proposed reorganization for frequency of monitoring
visits, and timeliness and relevancy of technical assistance,
compared to the actual performance under the current
administrative structure. The conferees expect to receive
this report not later than 60 days after enactment of this
Act, but encourage the Department to make it available as
soon as possible. The House report expressed similar
concerns, but used different language.
The conferees are concerned that the Department, in
implementing Reading First and other programs authorized by
the No Child Left Behind Act, which are required to implement
activities that are backed by scientifically based research,
may not be effectively helping States and local educational
agencies implement program studies. The conferees therefore
request the Secretary to submit a report to the House and
Senate Committees on Appropriations within 30 days of the
enactment of this Act, on the actions that program offices
have taken or will take, effective this fiscal year, in the
selection, oversight, and evaluation of grantees, to ensure
that grantees effectively implement such research-based
programs, including close replication of the specific
elements of these programs.
TITLE III--GENERAL PROVISIONS
Pell Grant Shortfall
The conference agreement includes a general provision as
proposed by the Senate providing $4,300,000,000 for the
purpose of eliminating the estimated accumulated shortfall of
budget authority for the Pell Grant program. The House bill
contained the same provision, but used slightly different
language.
Mississippi Band of Choctaw Indians
The conference agreement includes a general provision
similar to that proposed by the Senate to authorize
educational and cultural programs relating to the Mississippi
Band of Choctaw Indians. The House bill contained no similar
provision.
Impact Aid
The conference agreement does not include a general
provision proposed by the Senate relating to applications
filed by two school districts in Colorado and Arizona. The
House bill contained no similar provision.
Violence Prevention
The conference agreement does not include a provision
proposed by the Senate relating to a study to evaluate the
effectiveness of violence prevention programs. The House did
not include a similar provision.
Assessment of Education Progress Tests in U.S. History
The conference agreement does not include a general
provision as proposed by the Senate providing additional
funding for a national assessment of education progress tests
in United States history. The House bill contained no similar
provision.
Dropout Prevention Programs
The conference agreement does not include a general
provision as proposed by the Senate providing additional
funding for school dropout prevention programs. Funding for
this program is included under the heading, ``Innovation and
Improvement.'' The House bill contained no similar provision.
Advanced Placement Programs
The conference agreement does not include a general
provision as proposed by the Senate providing additional
funding for advanced placement programs. Funding for this
program is included under the heading, ``Innovation and
Improvement.'' The House bill contained no similar provision.
Thurgood Marshall and Office of Special Education Programs
The conference agreement does not include a general
provision as proposed by the Senate providing additional
funding for the Thurgood Marshall Legal Education Opportunity
Program and the Office of Special Education Programs. Funding
for these activities is included under the headings, ``Higher
Education'' and ``Special Education'' respectively. The House
bill contained no similar provision.
Federal Trio Programs
The conference agreement does not include a general
provision as proposed by the Senate providing additional
funding for Federal TRIO programs. Funding for this program
is included under the heading, ``Higher Education.'' The
House bill contained no similar provision.
Education Programs Serving Hispanic Students
The conference agreement does not include a general
provision as proposed by the Senate providing additional
funding for education programs to improve Hispanic
educational opportunities. Funding for these programs is
included elsewhere in Title III. The House bill contained no
similar provision.
TITLE IV--RELATED AGENCIES
Corporation for National and Community Service
The conference agreement includes $909,049,000 for the
Corporation for National and Community Service, the same as
the House, instead of $935,205,000 as proposed by the Senate.
Domestic Volunteer Service Programs, Operating Expenses
The conference agreement includes $316,212,000 for the
Domestic Volunteer Service programs as proposed by the Senate
instead of $357,962,000 as proposed by the House.
National Senior Volunteer Corps
The conference agreement includes $219,784,000 for fiscal
year 2006 for the National Senior Volunteer Corps programs,
as
[[Page 28037]]
proposed by the House and the Senate. The conferees concur
with language in the Senate report that directs that the
Corporation shall comply with the directive that use of PNS
funding increases in the Foster Grandparents Program, Retired
Senior Volunteer Program, Senior Companion Program, and
Volunteers in Service to America shall not be restricted to
any particular activity and further direct that the
Corporation shall not stipulate a minimum or maximum for PNS
grant augmentation.
Program administration
The conference agreement includes funds for the
administration of the Domestic Volunteer Service of America
program administration in the NCSA account as proposed by the
Senate.
National and Community Service Programs, Operating Expenses
(including transfer of funds)
The conference agreement includes $520,087,000 for the
programs authorized under the National Community Service Act
of 1990, instead of $518,087,000 as proposed by the House and
$546,243,000 as proposed by the Senate. The conference
agreement includes $267,500,000 for AmeriCorps State and
National operating grants, as proposed by the House instead
of $280,000,000 as proposed by the Senate. The conference
agreement includes $140,000,000 for the National Service
Trust instead of $146,000,000 as proposed by the House and
$149,000,000 as proposed by the Senate. The conference
agreement includes $16,445,000 for subtitle H fund activities
instead of $9,945,000 as proposed by the House and
$15,945,000 as proposed by the Senate. The conference
agreement includes $27,000,000 for AmeriCorps National
Civilian Community Corps as proposed by the Senate instead of
$25,500,000 as proposed by the House. The conference
agreement includes $37,500,000 for Learn and Serve as
proposed by the House instead of $42,656,000 as proposed by
the Senate.
AmeriCorps Grants Program
The conferees concur with language proposed by the Senate
to keep the Committees better informed of the recipients
receiving AmeriCorps funding. The conferees direct the
Corporation to publish in its fiscal year 2007 budget
justifications a list of recipients that have received more
than $500,000 from the Corporation, delineated by program,
and the amount and source of both Federal and non-Federal
funds that were received by each recipient.
Innovation, assistance and other activities
Within the $16,445,000 for innovation, demonstration, and
assistance activities, the conference agreement includes
$4,000,000 for Teach for America and $2,000,000 for
Communities in Schools, Inc., as proposed by the Senate.
AmeriCorps National Civilian Community Corps
The conference agreement includes $27,000,000 for the NCCC
and within this amount, $1,500,000, as proposed by the
Senate, is to conduct an evaluation of current NCCC site
placement and expansion of new sites in the Southern and
Midwestern United States, in accordance with the report
issued on March 1, 2005.
Salaries and Expenses
The conference agreement includes $66,750,000 for the
Corporation's salaries and expenses, as proposed by the
Senate. This includes $39,750,000 for administration of the
DVSA programs. The House bill had provided salaries and
expenses in two separate accounts, but for the same total
amount. The conferees reiterate that Subtitle H funds for
Innovation, Assistance and Other Activities shall not be used
to pay Corporation staff.
Office of Inspector General
The conference agreement includes $6,000,000 for the Office
of Inspector General (OIG) as proposed by the House and
Senate. The conferees concur with language proposed by the
Senate directing the OIG to continue reviewing the
Corporation's management of the National Service Trust fund.
The conferees direct the OIG to review the monthly Trust
reports and to notify the Committees on Appropriations on the
accuracy of the reports.
Corporation for Public Broadcasting
The conference agreement includes $30,000,000 for digital
conversion, instead of $35,000,000 as proposed by the Senate.
The House had proposed providing authority for CPB to utilize
previously appropriated funds for this purpose.
The conference agreement also includes $35,000,000 for the
replacement project of the satellite interconnection system,
instead of $40,000,000 as proposed by the Senate. The House
had proposed providing authority for CPB to utilize
previously appropriated funds for this purpose.
The conferees request that the Corporation for Public
Broadcasting (CPB) Inspector General submit a status report
to the House and Senate Committees on Appropriations not
later than June 1, 2006 on actions CPB management and its
Board of Directors have taken in response to the Inspector
General's November 15, 2005 report and any outstanding issues
or recommendations in the report that may remain unaddressed.
Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service
The conference agreement includes $43,031,000 for the
Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service (FMCS) instead of
$42,331,000 as proposed by the House and $43,439,000 as
proposed by the Senate.
The conference agreement includes $400,000 for FMCS Labor-
Management Grants Program instead of $500,000 as proposed by
the Senate. The House bill did not include funding for this
program. The 1978 Labor-Management Cooperation Act authorized
the Agency to encourage and support joint labor-management
committees. This program awards grants to encourage these
committees to develop innovative joint approaches to
workplace problems and solutions.
The conference agreement includes $300,000 for the FMCS
program to prevent youth violence.
Institute of Museum and Library Services
The conference agreement provides $249,640,000 for the
Institute of Museum and Library Services as proposed by the
House instead of $290,129,000 as proposed by the Senate.
Within the total for the Institute, the conference
agreement includes funding for the following activities in
the following amounts.
(Dollars in thousands)
Program FY 2006
Museums for America.............................................$17,325
Museum Assessment...................................................446
Museum Conservation Projects......................................2,800
Museum Conservation Assessment......................................815
Museum Natl. Leadership Proj......................................8,000
Native American Museum Services.....................................920
21st Century Museum Professionals...................................992
Museum Grants, African American History and Culture.................850
Library Serv. State Grants......................................165,400
Native American Library Services..................................3,675
Library Natl. Leadership Grants..................................12,500
Laura Bush 21st Century Librarian Program........................24,000
Administration...................................................11,917
The conferees concur with language proposed by the House to
rename the Librarians for the 21st Century Program in honor
of the First Lady, the Laura Bush 21st Century Librarians
Program.
National Council on Disability
The conference agreement includes $3,144,000 for the
National Council on Disability instead of $2,800,000 as
proposed by the House and $3,344,000 as proposed by the
Senate.
National Labor Relations Board
The conferees concur with language in the Senate report
regarding the NLRB's plan to restructure its regional offices
and specifically oppose the elimination of Region 30.
Railroad Retirement Board
Limitation on Administration
The conferees are concerned about a proposal to consolidate
the financial statements and audit of the National Railroad
Retirement Investment Trust with the financial statements and
audit of the Railroad Retirement Board in the context of the
preparation of the Railroad Retirement Board's fiscal year
2006 Statement of Social Insurance. The conferees note that
the Railroad Retirement and Survivors' Improvement Act of
2001 mandates that the Trust functions independently from the
Railroad Retirement Board. Further, the Act specifically
requires a separate audit of the Trust by a nongovernmental
auditor, and requires that the results of this audit be
included in the Trust's Annual Management Report to Congress.
The conferees expect that the Trust be administered and
audited solely in conformance with the Act of 2001.
Limitation on the Office of Inspector General
The conference agreement does not include language proposed
by the Senate that allows the Office of the Inspector General
to conduct audits, investigations, and reviews of the
Medicare programs.
Social Security Administration
Supplemental Security Income Program
The conference agreement includes $29,369,174,000 for the
Supplemental Security Income Program instead of
$29,533,174,000 as proposed by the House and $29,510,574,000
as proposed by the Senate. The conference agreement also
includes an advance appropriation of $11,110,000,000, as
proposed by both the House and the Senate, for the first
quarter of fiscal year 2007, to ensure uninterrupted benefit
payments. Also within the total, $2,733,000,000 is included
for the administrative costs of the program rather than
$2,897,000,000 as proposed by the House and $2,874,400,000 as
proposed by the Senate.
The conference agreement does not include a provision
proposed by the Senate that changes the delivery date of
benefit payments from fiscal year 2006 to 2007. The House did
not include this provision.
Limitation on Administrative Expenses
The conference agreement includes $9,199,400,000 for the
limitation on administrative expenses rather than
$9,279,700,000 as
[[Page 28038]]
proposed by the House and $9,329,400,000 as proposed by the
Senate.
Office of Inspector General
(including transfer of funds)
The conference agreement includes $92,400,000 for the
Office of Inspector General rather than $92,805,000 as
proposed by the House and $93,000,000 as proposed by the
Senate.
TITLE V--GENERAL PROVISIONS
Use of Appropriated Funds for Publicity and Propaganda
The conference agreement includes a general provision as
proposed by the Senate pertaining to the use of appropriated
funds for publicity or propaganda purposes. The House bill
included a similar provision, but expanded the scope to
include private contractors.
Sterile Needle Program
The conference agreement includes a general provision as
proposed by the Senate pertaining to sterile needle programs.
The Senate bill made a minor technical change to the language
carried in prior years. The House bill included the same
provision, but without the technical modification.
Use of Federal Funds for Abortions
The conference agreement includes a general provision as
proposed by the Senate pertaining to the use of federal funds
in the Act for abortions. The Senate bill made a minor
technical change to the language carried in prior years. The
House bill included the same provision, but without the
technical modification.
Conscience Clause
The conference agreement includes a general provision as
proposed by the House regarding discrimination against those
health care providers or institutions who are opposed to
abortion. The Senate bill proposed to modify this provision.
Embryo Research Ban
The conference report includes a technical correction to
the longstanding bill language prohibiting funds to be used
for research involving the creation or destruction of human
embryos. The citation of the Code of Federal Regulations
contained in both the House and Senate versions of the bill
is corrected.
Veterans' Employment Report
The conference agreement includes a general provision as
proposed by the Senate pertaining to the availability of
funds to enter into or renew any contract with an entity that
is subject to submitting a report concerning the employment
of certain veterans. The House bill did not include this
provision.
Limitation on Libraries
The conference agreement includes a limitation, carried in
prior years, on the ability of a library to access funding
provided under this Act unless the library is in compliance
with the Children's Internet Protections Act, as proposed by
the House. The Senate bill did not include this provision.
Limitation on Schools
The conference agreement includes a limitation, carried in
prior years, on the ability of an elementary or secondary
school to access technology funding provided under this Act
unless the school is in compliance with the Children's
Internet Protections Act, as proposed by the House. The
Senate bill did not include this provision.
Reprogramming of Funds
The conference agreement includes a general provision as
proposed by the House pertaining to the reprogramming of
funds. The Senate bill included the same substantive
provision, but with minor technical differences.
Immigration and Nationality Act Amendment
The conference agreement includes a general provision
amending the Immigration and Nationality Act as proposed by
the Senate. The House bill did not include this provision.
Scientific Advisory Committee Appointments
The conference agreement includes a general provision as
proposed by the Senate pertaining to appointments to a
scientific advisory committee, instead of a similar provision
included in the House bill.
CMS General Provision
The conference agreement does not include the general
provision proposed by the Senate prohibiting the use of funds
for drugs approved to treat erectile dysfunction. The House
bill included a similar provision, but with slightly
different language. The conferees instead include a provision
that was not contained in either the House or Senate bill
which reduces CMS Program Management funding by $60,000,000.
Funding for research, demonstration and evaluation and State
survey and certification are not to be included in this
reduction.
Availability of MMA Funds
The conference agreement does not include a general
provision as proposed by the House extending the availability
of funds provided by the Medicare Modernization Act from
fiscal year 2005 to fiscal year 2006. The Senate bill did not
include this provision.
Limitation of Funds for Sexual or Erectile Dysfunction Treatment
The conference agreement does not include a general
provision as proposed by the House pertaining to the payment
for or the reimbursement of a drug for the treatment of
sexual or erectile dysfunction funded in this Act for
individuals who have been convicted for sexual abuse, sexual
assault or any other sexual offense. The Senate bill did not
include this provision.
CPB Funding Amendment
The conference agreement does not include a general
provision as proposed by the House reducing the amounts
available to certain specified programs and activities in
order to restore funding for the Corporation for Public
Broadcasting. Funding for the programs included in this
provision are specified under the relevant headings. The
Senate bill did not include this provision.
Education OIG Determination
The conference agreement does not include a general
provision as proposed by the House pertaining to a specific
Department of Education Office of the Inspector General
determination. The Senate bill did not include this
provision.
PBGC Limitation
The conference agreement does not include a general
provision proposed by the House pertaining to the Pension
Benefit Guaranty Corporation and a specific settlement
agreement. The Senate bill did not include this provision.
Immigration Limitation
The conference agreement does not include a general
provision as proposed by the House prohibiting the use of
funds by the Department of Education in contravention of
section 505 of the Illegal Immigration Reform and
Responsibility Act of 1996. The Senate bill did not include
this provision.
NIMH Grants
The conference agreement does not include a general
provision as proposed by the House regarding NIMH grants. The
Senate bill did not include this provision.
Mexican Totalization
The conference agreement does not include a general
provision proposed by the House pertaining to a totalization
agreement with Mexico. The Senate bill did not include this
provision.
Higher Education Limitation
The conference agreement does not include a general
provision proposed by the House regarding student loans. The
Senate bill did not include this provision.
Limitation, Directive, or Earmarking
The conference agreement does not include a general
provision proposed by the Senate regarding directives
contained in either the House or Senate reports accompanying
H.R. 3010. The House bill did not include this provision.
Diversity Visa Fairness Act
The conference agreement does not include a general
provision as proposed by the Senate that contains the
Diversity Visa Fairness Act. The House bill did not include
this provision.
Port of Entry Designation
The conference agreement does not include a general
provision as proposed by the Senate designating the
MidAmerica St. Louis Airport in Mascoutah, Illinois a port of
entry. The House bill did not include this provision.
Risk Assessment Estimate
The conference agreement does not include a general
provision as proposed by the Senate pertaining to improper
payments for a variety of programs administered by the
Departments of Health and Human Services and Education. The
House did not include this provision. Language regarding this
issue is included in the statement of the managers for the
Department of Health and Human Services.
Internal Revenue Service Outsourcing
The conference agreement deletes without prejudice a
general provision as proposed by the Senate expressing the
sense of the Senate on the outsourcing of IRS duties and the
effects on the employment of disabled veterans and other
persons with severe disabilities. The House did not include
this provision.
Conference Agreement
The following table displays the amounts agreed to for each
program, project or activity with appropriate comparisons:
[[Page 28039]]
TH13DE05.001
[[Page 28040]]
TH13DE05.002
[[Page 28041]]
TH13DE05.003
[[Page 28042]]
TH13DE05.004
[[Page 28043]]
TH13DE05.005
[[Page 28044]]
TH13DE05.006
[[Page 28045]]
TH13DE05.007
[[Page 28046]]
TH13DE05.008
[[Page 28047]]
TH13DE05.009
[[Page 28048]]
TH13DE05.010
[[Page 28049]]
TH13DE05.011
[[Page 28050]]
TH13DE05.012
[[Page 28051]]
TH13DE05.013
[[Page 28052]]
TH13DE05.014
[[Page 28053]]
TH13DE05.015
[[Page 28054]]
TH13DE05.016
[[Page 28055]]
TH13DE05.017
[[Page 28056]]
TH13DE05.018
[[Page 28057]]
TH13DE05.019
[[Page 28058]]
TH13DE05.020
[[Page 28059]]
TH13DE05.021
[[Page 28060]]
TH13DE05.022
[[Page 28061]]
TH13DE05.023
[[Page 28062]]
TH13DE05.024
[[Page 28063]]
TH13DE05.025
[[Page 28064]]
TH13DE05.026
[[Page 28065]]
TH13DE05.027
[[Page 28066]]
TH13DE05.028
[[Page 28067]]
TH13DE05.029
[[Page 28068]]
TH13DE05.030
[[Page 28069]]
TH13DE05.031
[[Page 28070]]
TH13DE05.032
[[Page 28071]]
TH13DE05.033
[[Page 28072]]
TH13DE05.034
[[Page 28073]]
TH13DE05.035
[[Page 28074]]
TH13DE05.036
[[Page 28075]]
TH13DE05.037
[[Page 28076]]
TH13DE05.038
[[Page 28077]]
TH13DE05.039
[[Page 28078]]
TH13DE05.040
[[Page 28079]]
TH13DE05.041
[[Page 28080]]
TH13DE05.042
[[Page 28081]]
TH13DE05.043
[[Page 28082]]
TH13DE05.044
[[Page 28083]]
TH13DE05.045
[[Page 28084]]
TH13DE05.046
[[Page 28085]]
TH13DE05.047
[[Page 28086]]
TH13DE05.048
[[Page 28087]]
TH13DE05.049
[[Page 28088]]
TH13DE05.050
[[Page 28089]]
TH13DE05.051
[[Page 28090]]
TH13DE05.052
[[Page 28091]]
TH13DE05.053
[[Page 28092]]
TH13DE05.054
[[Page 28093]]
TH13DE05.055
[[Page 28094]]
TH13DE05.056
[[Page 28095]]
TH13DE05.057
[[Page 28096]]
TH13DE05.058
[[Page 28097]]
TH13DE05.059
[[Page 28098]]
TH13DE05.060
[[Page 28099]]
Conference Total--With Comparisons
The total new budget (obligational) authority for the
fiscal year 2006 recommended by the Committee of Conference,
with comparisons to the fiscal year 2005 amount, the 2006
budget estimates, and the House and Senate bills for 2006
follow:
[In thousands of dollars]
New budget (obligational) authority, fiscal year 2005......$501,344,992
Budget estimates of new (obligational) authority, fiscal yea596,122,425
House bill, fiscal year 2006................................601,642,273
Senate bill, fiscal year 2006...............................612,406,934
Conference agreement, fiscal year 2006......................601,643,301
Conference agreement compared with:
New budget (obligational) authority, fiscal year 2005....+100,298,309
Budget estimates of new (obligational) authority, fiscal ye+5,520,876
House bill, fiscal year 2006...................................+1,028
Senate bill, fiscal year 2006.............................-10,763,633
Ralph Regula,
Ernest Istook, Jr.,
Roger F. Wicker,
Anne M. Northup,
Kay Granger,
John E. Peterson,
Don Sherwood,
Dave Weldon,
James T. Walsh,
Jerry Lewis,
Managers on the Part of the House.
Arlen Specter,
Thad Cochran,
Judd Gregg,
Larry E. Craig,
Kay Bailey Hutchison,
Ted Stevens,
Mike DeWine,
Richard C. Shelby,
Pete V. Domenici,
Managers on the Part of the Senate.
____________________
SANTA MARGARITA RIVER, CALIFORNIA, CONSTRUCTION AUTHORIZATION
Mrs. DRAKE. Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and pass the
bill (H.R. 125) to authorize the Secretary of the Interior to construct
facilities to provide water for irrigation, municipal, domestic,
military and other uses from the Santa Margarita River, California, and
for other purposes, as amended.
The Clerk read as follows:
H.R. 125
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of
the United States of America in Congress assembled,
SECTION 1. DEFINITIONS.
For the purposes of this Act, the following definitions
apply:
(1) District.--The term ``District'' means the Fallbrook
Public Utility District, San Diego County, California.
(2) Project.--The term ``Project'' means the impoundment,
recharge, treatment, and other facilities the construction,
operation, watershed management, and maintenance of which is
authorized under section 2.
(3) Secretary.--The term ``Secretary'' means the Secretary
of the Interior, unless otherwise stated.
SEC. 2. AUTHORIZATION FOR CONSTRUCTION OF SANTA MARGARITA
RIVER PROJECT.
(a) Authorization.--The Secretary, acting pursuant to the
Federal reclamation laws (Act of June 17, 1902; 32 Stat.
388), and Acts amendatory thereof or supplementary thereto,
as far as those laws are not inconsistent with the provisions
of this Act, is authorized to construct, operate, and
maintain the Project substantially in accordance with the
final feasibility report and this Act.
(b) Conditions.--The Secretary may construct the Project
only after the Secretary determines that the following
conditions have occurred:
(1) The District has entered into a contract under section
9(d) of the Reclamation Project Act of 1939 to repay to the
United States appropriate portions, as determined by the
Secretary, of the actual costs of constructing, operating,
and maintaining the Project, together with interest as
hereinafter provided.
(2) The officer or agency of the State of California
authorized by law to grant permits for the appropriation of
water has granted such permits to the Bureau of Reclamation
for the benefit of the Department of the Navy and the
District as permittees for rights to the use of water for
storage and diversion as provided in this Act, including
approval of all requisite changes in points of diversion and
storage, and purposes and places of use.
(3) The District has agreed that it will not assert against
the United States any prior appropriative right the District
may have to water in excess of the quantity deliverable to it
under this Act, and will share in the use of the waters
impounded by the Project on the basis of equal priority and
in accordance with the ratio prescribed in section 4(b). This
agreement and waiver and the changes in points of diversion
and storage under paragraph (2), shall become effective and
binding only when the Project has been completed and put into
operation.
(4) The Secretary has determined that the Project has
economic, environmental, and engineering feasibility.
SEC. 3. COSTS.
The Department of the Navy shall not be responsible for any
costs in connection with the Project, except upon completion
and then shall be charged in reasonable proportion to its use
of the Project under regulations agreed upon by the Secretary
of the Navy and Secretary of the Interior.
SEC. 4. OPERATION; YIELD ALLOTMENT; DELIVERY.
(a) Operation.--The operation of the Project, subject to a
memorandum of agreement between the Secretary, the Navy, and
the District and under regulations satisfactory to the
Secretary of the Navy with respect to the Navy's share of the
project, may be by the Secretary, the District, or a third
party consistent with section 6.
(b) Yield Allotment.--Except as otherwise agreed between
the parties, the Department of the Navy and the District
shall participate in the Project yield on the basis of equal
priority and in accordance with the following ratio:
(1) 60 percent of the Project's yield is allotted to the
Secretary of the Navy.
(2) 40 percent of the Project's yield is allotted to the
District.
(c) Contracts for Delivery of Excess Water.--
(1) Excess water available to other persons.--If the
Secretary of the Navy certifies to the official agreed upon
to administer the Project that the Department of the Navy
does not have immediate need for any portion of the 60
percent of the Project's yield allotted to the Secretary of
the Navy under subsection (b), the official may enter into
temporary contracts for the sale and delivery of the excess
water.
(2) First right for excess water.--The first right to
excess water to be made available under paragraph (1) shall
be given the District, if otherwise consistent with the laws
of the State of California.
(3) Condition of contracts.--Each contract entered into
under paragraph (1) for the sale and delivery of excess water
shall include a condition that the Secretary of the Navy has
the right to demand that water, without charge and without
obligation on the part of the United States, after 30 days
notice.
(4) Modification of rights and obligations related to water
yield.--The rights and obligations of the United States and
the District regarding the ratio or amounts of Project yield
delivered may be modified by an agreement between the
parties.
(d) Consideration.--
(1) Deposit of funds.--Moneys paid to the United States
under a contract entered into under subsection (c) shall be
deposited in the special account established for the
Department of the Navy under paragraph (1) of section 2667(d)
of title 10, United States Code, and shall be available for
the purposes specified in subparagraph (C) of such paragraph.
Subparagraph (D) of such paragraph shall not apply to moneys
deposited in the special account pursuant to this subsection.
(2) In-kind consideration.--In lieu of monetary
consideration under paragraph (1), or in addition to such
consideration, the Secretary of the Navy may accept in-kind
consideration in a form and quantity that is acceptable to
the Secretary of the Navy, including the following forms of
in-kind consideration:
(A) Maintenance, protection, alteration, repair,
improvement, or restoration (including environmental
restoration) of property or facilities of the Department of
the Navy.
(B) Construction of new facilities for the Department of
the Navy.
(C) Provision of facilities for use by the Department of
the Navy.
(D) Facilities operation support for the Department of the
Navy.
(E) Provision of such other services as the Secretary of
the Navy considers appropriate.
(3) Relation to other laws.--Sections 2662 and 2802 of
title 10, United States Code, shall not apply to any new
facilities whose construction is accepted as in-kind
consideration under this subsection.
(4) Congressional notification.--If the in-kind
consideration proposed to be provided under a contract to be
entered into under subsection (c) has a value in excess of
$500,000, the contract may not be entered into until the
earlier of the following:
(A) The end of the 30-day period beginning on the date on
which a report describing the contract and the form and
quantity of the in-kind consideration is submitted by the
Secretary of the Navy to the Committee on Armed Services of
the Senate and the Committee on Armed Services of the House
of Representatives.
(B) The end of the 14-day period beginning on the date on
which a copy of the report referred to in subparagraph (A) is
provided in an electronic medium pursuant to section 480 of
title 10, United States Code.
[[Page 28100]]
SEC. 5. REPAYMENT OBLIGATION OF THE DISTRICT.
(a) In General.--The general repayment obligation of the
District shall be determined by the Secretary of the Interior
consistent with the Water Supply Act of 1958; provided,
however, that for the purposes of calculating interest and
determining the time when the District's repayment obligation
to the United States commences, the pumping and treatment of
groundwater from the Project shall be deemed equivalent to
the first use of water from a water storage project. There
shall be no repayment obligation under this section for water
delivered to the District under a contract as provided in
section 4(c).
(b) Modification of Rights and Obligation by Agreement.--
The rights and obligations of the United States and the
District regarding the repayment obligation of the District
may be modified by an agreement between the parties.
SEC. 6. TRANSFER OF CARE, OPERATION, AND MAINTENANCE.
The Secretary may transfer to the District, or a mutually
agreed upon third party, the care, operation, and maintenance
of the Project under conditions satisfactory to the Secretary
and the District, and with respect to the portion of the
Project that is located within the boundaries of Camp
Pendleton, satisfactory also to the Secretary of the Navy. If
such a transfer takes place, the District shall be entitled
to an equitable credit for the costs associated with the
Secretary's proportionate share of the operation and
maintenance of the Project. The amount of such costs shall be
applied against the indebtedness of the District to the
United States.
SEC. 7. SCOPE OF ACT.
For the purpose of this Act, the basis, measure, and limit
of all rights of the United States pertaining to the use of
water shall be the laws of the State of California. That
nothing in this Act shall be construed--
(1) as a grant or a relinquishment by the United States of
any rights to the use of water that it acquired according to
the laws of the State of California, either as a result of
its acquisition of the lands comprising Camp Joseph H.
Pendleton and adjoining naval installations, and the rights
to the use of water as a part of that acquisition, or through
actual use or prescription or both since the date of that
acquisition, if any;
(2) to create any legal obligation to store any water in
the Project, to the use of which the United States has such
rights;
(3) to constitute a recognition of, or an admission that,
the District has any rights to the use of water in the Santa
Margarita River, which rights, if any, exist only by virtue
of the laws of the State of California; or
(4) to require the division under this Act of water to
which the United States has such rights.
SEC. 8. LIMITATIONS ON OPERATION AND ADMINISTRATION.
Unless otherwise agreed by the Secretary of the Navy, the
Project--
(1) shall be operated in a manner which allows the free
passage of all of the water to the use of which the United
States is entitled according to the laws of the State of
California either as a result of its acquisition of the lands
comprising Camp Joseph H. Pendleton and adjoining naval
installations, and the rights to the use of water as a part
of those acquisitions, or through actual use or prescription,
or both, since the date of that acquisition, if any; and
(2) shall not be administered or operated in any way which
will impair or deplete the quantities of water the use of
which the United States would be entitled under the laws of
the State of California had the Project not been built.
SEC. 9. AUTHORIZATION OF APPROPRIATIONS.
There is authorized to be appropriated, out of any money in
the Treasury of the United States not otherwise appropriated,
the following:
(1) $60,000,000 (the current estimated construction cost of
the Project, plus or minus such amounts as may be indicated
by the engineering cost indices for this type of
construction); and
(2) such sums as may be required to operate and maintain
the said project.
SEC. 10. REPORTS TO CONGRESS.
Not later than 1 year after the date of the enactment of
this Act and periodically thereafter, the Secretary and the
Secretary of the Navy shall each report to the Congress
regarding if the conditions specified in section 2(b) have
been met and if so, the details of how they were met.
SEC. 11. SUNSET.
The authority of the Secretary to complete construction of
the Project shall terminate 10 years after the date of
enactment of this Act.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Pursuant to the rule, the gentlewoman from
Virginia (Mrs. Drake) and the gentlewoman from the Virgin Islands (Mrs.
Christensen) each will control 20 minutes.
The Chair recognizes the gentlewoman from Virginia.
General Leave
Mrs. DRAKE. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may
have 5 legislative days to revise and extend their remarks and include
extraneous material on the bill under consideration.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Is there objection to the request of the
gentlewoman from Virginia?
There was no objection.
Mrs. DRAKE. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
H.R. 125, introduced by the gentleman from California (Mr. Issa),
authorizes the construction of a ground water recharge and pumping
project in the lower Santa Margarita River Basin in Southern
California. If constructed, the project could provide much-needed water
to the local water utility district and to Camp Pendleton Marine Corps
base for its military training needs.
This project would augment the local water district's water supply,
would relieve future additional demands for costly and limited imported
water supplies, and would set aside and preserve valuable environmental
habitat. This project is an excellent example of local and Federal
agencies working together to secure safe and dependable water supplies
for future generations.
This bill is good for water consumers and good for our marines. I
urge my colleagues to support this important bill.
Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
Mrs. CHRISTENSEN. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may
consume. H.R. 125 would authorize the Secretary of the Interior to
participate in the design, planning, and construction of the Santa
Margarita Conjunctive Use Water Project in San Diego County in
California. The project would provide water for irrigation, municipal,
domestic, military, and other uses.
Mr. Speaker, we have reviewed the legislation and have no objection.
A similar bill passed in the House of Representatives in the 108th
Congress.
Mr. ISSA. Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank House Resources
committee Chairman Pombo and Ranking Member Rahall for allowing this
bill to come to the floor today. I would also like to thank the
Resources committee staff for all of their hard work on this bill.
The Santa Margarita Conjunctive Use Project, authorized by this bill
will provide safe, reliable, drought-and earthquake-proof water supply
for more than 35,000 families. It will provide for enhanced recharge
and recovery from the underground basin on Camp Pendleton to provide a
constant water supply for both Camp Pendleton and the Fallbrook Public
Utility District.
While this bill passed the House in the second session of the 108th
Congress it ended up running out of time in the other body. I am
hopeful that this time around we will see quick movement of this
legislation.
Mrs. CHRISTENSEN. Mr. Speaker, I have no further speakers, and I
yield back the balance of my time.
Mrs. DRAKE. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. The question is on the motion offered by the
gentlewoman from Virginia (Mrs. Drake) that the House suspend the rules
and pass the bill, H.R. 125, as amended.
The question was taken; and (two-thirds having voted in favor
thereof) the rules were suspended and the bill, as amended, was passed.
A motion to reconsider was laid on the table.
____________________
REMOVING CERTAIN RESTRICTIONS REGARDING MAMMOTH COMMUNITY WATER
DISTRICT, CALIFORNIA
Mrs. DRAKE. Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and pass the
bill (H.R. 853) to remove certain restrictions on the Mammoth Community
Water District's ability to use certain property acquired by that
District from the United States.
The Clerk read as follows:
H.R. 853
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of
the United States of America in Congress assembled,
SECTION 1. REMOVAL OF CERTAIN RESTRICTIONS ON PROPERTY.
Notwithstanding Public Law 90-171 (16 U.S.C. 484a; 81 Stat.
531), the approximately 25 acres patented to the Mammoth
County
[[Page 28101]]
Water District (now known as the ``Mammoth Community Water
District'') by Patent No. 04-87-0038, on June 26, 1987, and
recorded in Volume 482, at page 517, of the official records
of the Recorder's Office, Mono County, California, may be
used for purposes other than the purpose for which those
lands were being used prior to the conveyance to the Mammoth
County Water District and such lands may be transferred as
authorized under State law.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Pursuant to the rule, the gentlewoman from
Virginia (Mrs. Drake) and the gentlewoman from the Virgin Islands (Mrs.
Christensen) each will control 20 minutes.
The Chair recognizes the gentlewoman from Virginia.
General Leave
Mrs. DRAKE. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may
have 5 legislative days within which to revise and extend their remarks
and include extraneous material on the bill under consideration.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Is there objection to the request of the
gentlewoman from Virginia?
There was no objection.
Mrs. DRAKE. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself as much time as I may
consume.
H.R. 853, introduced by our colleague from California (Mr. McKeon),
removes land use restrictions on property acquired from the Forest
Service by the Mammoth Community Water District in Mono County,
California.
In 1987, the U.S. Forest Service conveyed 25 acres to the water
district under land use conditions at the time. Of these lands, 12
acres are now needed for different uses, including much-needed water
utility operations. Implementation of this noncontroversial bill will
ultimately benefit the local water consumer and will adhere to all
Federal, State, and local environmental laws.
I urge my colleagues to support this commonsense legislation.
Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
Mrs. CHRISTENSEN. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may
consume.
H.R. 853 simply removes outdated restrictions on lands owned by
Mammoth County Water District in California. We have no objections to
this noncontroversial bill.
Mr. McKEON. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to speak on and offer my strong
support for HR 953, legislation I introduced earlier this year to
remove restrictions on 25 acres of land patented to the Mammoth County
Water District.
Prior to 1987, the District occupied this land through a special use
permit with the Forest Service. Of these 25 acres, 12 acres were used
for the storage of materials, and prior to 1987, for oxidation ponds,
which had become obsolete by that year.
After that time, Congress passed Public Law 97-465 that allowed these
lands to be transferred directly to the District. While the law allowed
for acquisition of these lands, it also directed that they could only
be used for those purposes prior to the time of the conveyance.
Today, however, these 12 acres are no longer needed for the storage
of materials and the community would like to utilize this land in a
more economically viable manner.
This area is a popular ski destination for many tourists during the
winter months and, every year, the town experiences more and more
visitors. The town sits in the middle of the Forest Service land and
contains limited private land for expanded commercial activities. As
such, passage of this legislation would allow the town to accommodate
for the growing economic needs of the region.
This legislation has the support of both the local community and the
Forest Service and passed through the Committee on Resources without
any objection.
I would like to express my deep appreciation to Chairman Pombo for
bringing this legislation to the floor and ask my colleagues to support
its passage here today.
Mrs. CHRISTENSEN. Mr. Speaker, I have no further speakers. I yield
back the balance of my time.
Mrs. DRAKE. Mr. Speaker, I have no additional speakers and yield back
the balance of my time.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. The question is on the motion offered by the
gentlewoman from Virginia (Mrs. Drake) that the House suspend the rules
and pass the bill, H.R. 853.
The question was taken; and (two-thirds having voted in favor
thereof) the rules were suspended and the bill was passed.
A motion to reconsider was laid on the table.
____________________
TRAIL RESPONSIBILITY AND ACCOUNTABILITY FOR THE IMPROVEMENT OF LANDS
ACT
Mrs. DRAKE. Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and pass the
bill (H.R. 975) to provide consistent enforcement authority to the
Bureau of Land Management, the National Park Service, the United States
Fish and Wildlife Service, and the Forest Service to respond to
violations of regulations regarding the management, use, and protection
of public lands under the jurisdiction of these agencies, and for other
purposes, as amended.
The Clerk read as follows:
H.R. 975
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of
the United States of America in Congress assembled,
SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.
This Act may be cited as the ``Trail Responsibility and
Accountability for the Improvement of Lands Act'' or ``TRAIL
Act''.
SEC. 2. CONSISTENT ENFORCEMENT AUTHORITY REGARDING NATIONAL
PARK SYSTEM LANDS, NATIONAL FOREST SYSTEM
LANDS, AND OTHER PUBLIC LANDS.
(a) Lands Under Jurisdiction of Bureau of Land
Management.--Section 303(a) of the Federal Land Policy and
Management Act of 1976 (43 U.S.C. 1733(a)) is amended--
(1) by inserting ``(1)'' after ``(a)'';
(2) by striking the second sentence; and
(3) by adding at the end the following new paragraphs:
``(2) Any person who knowingly violates or fails to comply
with any of the provisions of this Act or any regulation
issued under this Act shall be guilty of a Class A
misdemeanor, subject to fine as provided in section 3571 of
title 18, United States Code, or imprisonment as provided in
section 3581 of that title, or both.
``(3) Any person who otherwise violates or fails to comply
with any of the provisions of this Act or any regulation
issued under this Act shall be guilty of a Class B
misdemeanor, subject to fine or imprisonment, or both, as
provided in such sections. A person who violates any such
provision or regulation may also be adjudged to pay all costs
of the proceedings.''.
(b) National Park System Lands.--
(1) Enforcement.--Section 3 of the National Park Service
Organic Act (16 U.S.C. 3) is amended--
(A) by striking ``That the Secretary'' the first place it
appears and inserting ``(a) Regulations for Use and
Management of National Park System; Enforcement.--(1) The
Secretary'';
(B) by striking ``Service,'' and all that follows through
``proceedings.'' and inserting ``Service.''; and
(C) by inserting after the first sentence the following new
paragraphs:
``(2) Any person who knowingly violates or fails to comply
with any rule or regulation issued under this section shall
be guilty of a Class A misdemeanor, subject to fine as
provided in section 3571 of title 18, United States Code, or
imprisonment as provided in section 3581 of that title, or
both.
``(3) Any person who otherwise violates or fails to comply
with any rule or regulation issued under this section shall
be guilty of a Class B misdemeanor, subject to fine or
imprisonment, or both, as provided in such sections. A person
who violates any such rule or regulation may also be adjudged
to pay all costs of the proceedings.''.
(2) Conforming amendments.--Such section is further
amended--
(A) by striking ``He may also'' the first place it appears
and inserting the following:
``(b) Special Management Authorities.--The Secretary of the
Interior may'';
(B) by striking ``He may also'' the second place it appears
and inserting ``The Secretary may''; and
(C) by striking ``No natural,'' and inserting the
following:
``(c) Lease and Permit Authorities.--No natural''.
(c) National Wildlife Refuge System Lands.--Section 4(f) of
the National Wildlife Refuge System Administration Act of
1966 (16 U.S.C. 668dd(f)) is amended--
(1) in paragraph (1), by striking ``fined under title 18,
United States Code, or imprisoned for not more than 1 year,
or both.'' and inserting ``guilty of a Class A misdemeanor,
subject to fine as provided in section 3571 of title 18,
United States Code, or imprisonment as provided in section
3581 of that title, or both. A person who violates any such
provision or regulation may also be adjudged to pay all costs
of the proceedings.'';
(2) in paragraph (2), by striking ``fined under title 18,
United States Code, or imprisoned not more than 180 days, or
both.'' and inserting ``guilty of a Class B misdemeanor,
subject to fine as provided in section 3571 of title 18,
United States Code, or imprisonment as provided in section
3581 of that title,
[[Page 28102]]
or both. A person who violates any such provision or
regulation may also be adjudged to pay all costs of the
proceedings.''.
(d) National Forest System Lands.--The eleventh
undesignated paragraph under the heading ``surveying the
public lands'' of the Act of June 4, 1897 (16 U.S.C. 551), is
amended to read as follows:
``SEC. 551. PROTECTION OF NATIONAL FOREST SYSTEM LANDS;
REGULATIONS.
``(a) Regulations for Use and Protection of National Forest
System.--The Secretary of Agriculture shall make provisions
for the protection of the National Forest System (as defined
in section 11 of the Forest and Rangeland Renewable Resources
Planning Act of 1974 (16 U.S.C. 1609)) against destruction by
fire and depredations. The Secretary may issue such
regulations and establish such service as will insure the
objects of the National Forest System, namely, to regulate
their occupancy and use and to protect National Forest System
lands from destruction.
``(b) Violations; Penalties.--(1) Any person who knowingly
violates any regulation issued under subsection (a) shall be
guilty of a Class A misdemeanor and shall be subject to a
fine as provided in section 3571 of title 18, United States
Code, or imprisonment as provided in section 3581 of that
title, or both.
``(2) Any person who otherwise violates any regulation
issued under subsection (a) shall be guilty of a Class B
misdemeanor and shall be subject to a fine as provided in
section 3571 of title 18, United States Code, or imprisonment
as provided in section 3581 of that title, or both.
``(3) A person who violates any regulation issued under
subsection (a) may also be adjudged to pay all costs of the
proceedings.
``(c) Procedure.--Any person charged with the violation of
a regulation issued under subsection (a) may be tried and
sentenced by any United States magistrate judge specially
designated for that purpose by the court by which the
magistrate judge was appointed, in the same manner and
subject to the same conditions as provided for in subsections
(b) through (e) of section 3401 of title 18, United States
Code.''.
SEC. 3. ESTABLISHMENT OF MINIMUM FINE FOR VIOLATION OF PUBLIC
LAND FIRE REGULATIONS DURING FIRE BAN.
(a) Lands Under Jurisdiction of Bureau of Land
Management.--Section 303(a) of the Federal Land Policy and
Management Act of 1976 (43 U.S.C. 1733(a)), as amended by
section 2(a), is further amended by adding at the end the
following new paragraph:
``(4) In the case of a regulation issued under this section
regarding the use of fire by individuals on the public lands,
if the violation of the regulation was the result of reckless
conduct, occurred in an area subject to a complete ban on
open fires, and resulted in damage to public or private
property, the fine may not be less than $500.''.
(b) National Park System Lands.--Subsection (a) of section
3 of the National Park Service Organic Act (16 U.S.C. 3), as
designated and amended by section 2(b), is further amended by
adding at the end the following new paragraph:
``(4) In the case of a rule or regulation issued under this
subsection regarding the use of fire by individuals on such
lands, if the violation of the rule or regulation was the
result of reckless conduct, occurred in an area subject to a
complete ban on open fires, and resulted in damage to public
or private property, the fine may not be less than $500.''.
(c) National Forest System Lands.--Subsection (b) of
section 551 of the Act of June 4, 1897 (16 U.S.C. 551), as
designated and amended by section 2(d), which before such
designation and amendment was the eleventh undesignated
paragraph under the heading ``surveying the public lands'' of
such Act, is further amended by adding at the end the
following new paragraph:
``(4) In the case of a regulation issued under subsection
(a) regarding the use of fire by individuals on National
Forest System lands, if the violation of the regulation was
the result of reckless conduct, occurred in an area subject
to a complete ban on open fires, and resulted in damage to
public or private property, the fine may not be less than
$500.''.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Pursuant to the rule, the gentlewoman from
Virginia (Mrs. Drake) and the gentlewoman from the Virgin Islands (Mrs.
Christensen) each will control 20 minutes.
The Chair recognizes the gentlewoman from Virginia.
General Leave
Ms. DRAKE. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may
have 5 legislative days within which to revise and extend their remarks
and include extraneous material on the bill under consideration.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Is there objection to the request of the
gentlewoman from Virginia?
There was no objection.
Mrs. DRAKE. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
H.R. 975, introduced by the gentleman from Colorado (Mr. Tancredo),
would provide consistent enforcement authority to the Bureau of Land
Management, the National Park Service, the United States Fish and
Wildlife Service and the Forest Service to respond to violation of
regulations regarding the management, use, and protection of public
lands under the jurisdiction of these agencies. Additionally, this
measure includes two technical corrections to drafting errors.
I would like to recognize and thank Chairman Goodlatte and the House
Agriculture Committee for its cooperation on this bill. H.R. 975 shares
bipartisan support, and I urge its adoption.
Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
Mrs. CHRISTENSEN. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may
consume.
Mr. Speaker, H.R. 975 will lead to more uniform enforcement of the
criminal laws on our public lands. Original cosponsors of this
legislation include Representatives Mark Udall and Diana DeGette of
Colorado and Jim Matheson of Utah, all Members who understand the value
of our public lands and take seriously our responsibility as stewards
of those lands. They are to be commended for their efforts to bring
this measure to the floor today.
Mr. Speaker, we support H.R. 975.
Mr. TANCREDO. Mr. Speaker, I thank the House leadership for
scheduling action on this important legislation. It is designed to
stiffen and standardize the penalties for folks who willfully damage or
destroy our public lands. It also sets a tough minimum fine of $500 for
individuals who violate fire regulations on public lands when a
complete ban on open fires is in place.
I want to recognize and thank Chairman Pombo and Chairman Goodlatte
for their efforts on this bill. I'd also like to thank my colleague
from Colorado, Mr. Udall for his assistance.
In the last twenty years, Americans have found new ways to enjoy
their public lands and waterways beyond just hiking, horseback riding,
or powerboats. Today, mountain bikers, snowmobilers and others also use
our public lands. Many of these vehicles represent the only access to
the great outdoors available to a whole segment of our population--
folks like senior citizens and the disabled who wouldn't otherwise be
able to enjoy beautiful places like the Pike National Forest in my
district.
The economic impact for Colorado of these kinds of recreational
activities contributes more than $200 million to our economy, creating
more than 3,000 jobs. With those economic benefits however, have come
conflicts and irresponsible actors. This legislation is designed to
help ensure that those irresponsible actors pay the price for their
actions.
Recreation on our public lands and waterways will continue to grow--
and it should. This bill will help equip our land managers with the
means to appropriately and evenhandedly enforce land use regulations
against those few bad apples who spoil the whole bunch. The TRAIL Act
accomplishes this by creating consistent fines and penalties among all
of our land use agencies. In doing so, the bill also increases fines
and penalties substantially for people who knowingly engage in
inappropriate behavior.
The second section of the bill addresses the growing problem of human
caused wildfires on our public lands. Over the last ten years, human
carelessness has been responsible for the ignition of over one million
wildfires on our public lands. By comparison, lighting has caused only
about one-tenth that many fires over the same time period.
The current penalties for violating fire regulations vary from agency
to agency. In a practical sense, however, the fines are generally
assessed at a far lower level. In fact, under current law, fines are
set as low as $25--little more than the cost of a seatbelt ticket in
most states. I believe, as I think most people do, that these weak
penalties lack any real deterrent value for would-be violators. In
fact, one district ranger in Colorado related a story to me about a
would-be visitor to the Pike National Forest who called to inquire if
he could pay the puny fine in advance.
He told me that even in the midst of a fire season like the 2002
season in Colorado--where some 800 human caused wildfires destroyed
over a quarter of a million acres--that enforcing the fire ban was a
continuing problem, in large part because the fine is so small.
Enhancing the penalties for those who choose to disregard the
directives of our land managers is one way we can reduce both the
number of human caused wildfires and the terrible destruction they
leave in their wake by .
[[Page 28103]]
creating a deterrent. This bill would accomplish that by imposing a
minimum fine of $500 for individuals who violate fire bans.
I hope the House will pass the bill, and ask for your support.
Mr. UDALL of Colorado. Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of this bill,
and congratulate my Colorado colleague, Mr. Tancredo, for his
leadership in introducing it.
I joined as a cosponsor of this bill because I also want to improve
the ability of the land-managing agencies to adequately enforce the
rules that apply to uses of the federal lands.
That is why in the 108th Congress I introduced a related bill--the
Responsible Off-road Vehicle Enforcement and Response Act, or
``ROVER.'' That bill was narrow, dealing only with enforcement of the
regulations for use of vehicles on National Forest lands and public
lands managed by BLM. This bill goes much further. In addition to the
forests and BLM lands, it also applies to lands managed by the National
Park Service and the refuges managed by the Fish and Wildlife Service.
And it addresses the enforcement of all regulations, not just those
related to use of vehicles.
Last year, Mr. Tancredo and I worked with Chairman Pombo, Ranking
Member Rahall, and other Members of the Resources Committee, to develop
the broader measure.
That bill passed the House, but the Senate did not complete action on
it. So, Representative Tancredo and I joined in reintroducing it as
H.R. 975, the bill now before the House.
I urge its approval, because legislation for better and more
consistent enforcement of regulations is needed. However, we need to
recognize that it is only one part of a bigger picture.
Even more than new legislation, it seems to me, the land-managing
agencies need more resources--more money and more people--if we want
them to do a better job.
That was why I introduced a related bill--H.R. 599--which the
Resources Committee has also reported. It would allow the agencies to
use money from fines to help pay for some of the restoration work
caused by violations of regulations, as well as for offsetting the
administrative costs involved in enforcement of those regulations.
This is something that I think should be addressed in the future, and
I will seek to work with other Members to do that. Today, however, we
can take an important step forward by passing this bill, and I urge the
House to approve it.
Mrs. CHRISTENSEN. Mr. Speaker, I have no further speakers, and I
yield back the balance of my time.
Mrs. DRAKE. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. The question is on the motion offered by the
gentlewoman from Virginia (Mrs. Drake) that the House suspend the rules
and pass the bill, H.R. 975, as amended.
The question was taken; and (two-thirds having voted in favor
thereof) the rules were suspended and the bill, as amended, was passed.
A motion to reconsider was laid on the table.
____________________
NORTHERN COLORADO WATER CONSERVANCY DISTRICT FACILITIES CONVEYANCE
Mrs. DRAKE. Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and pass the
bill (H.R. 3443) to direct the Secretary of the Interior to convey
certain water distribution facilities to the Northern Colorado Water
Conservancy District, as amended.
The Clerk read as follows:
H.R. 3443
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of
the United States of America in Congress assembled,
SECTION 1. DEFINITIONS.
In this Act:
(1) Contract.--The term ``contract'' means--
(A) the contract between the United States and the Northern
Colorado Water Conservancy District providing for the
construction of the Colorado-Big Thompson Project, dated July
5, 1938; and
(B) any amendments and supplements to the contract
described in subparagraph (A).
(2) District.--The term ``District'' means the Northern
Colorado Water Conservancy District.
(3) Secretary.--The term ``Secretary'' means the Secretary
of the Interior.
(4) Transferred water distribution facilities.--The term
``transferred water distribution facilities'' means the
following facilities of the Colorado-Big Thompson Project
located in the counties of Larimer, Boulder, and Weld,
Colorado:
(A) The St. Vrain Supply Canal.
(B) The Boulder Creek Supply Canal that extends from the
St. Vrain River to Boulder Creek, including that portion that
extends from the St. Vrain River to Boulder Reservoir, which
is also known as the ``Boulder Feeder Canal''.
(C) The South Platte Supply Canal.
SEC. 2. CONVEYANCE OF TRANSFERRED WATER DISTRIBUTION
FACILITIES.
(a) In General.--The Secretary shall, as soon as
practicable after the date of the enactment of this Act and
in accordance with all applicable law, convey to the District
all right, title, and interest in and to the transferred
water distribution facilities.
(b) Consideration.--
(1) District.--
(A) Finding.--Congress finds that the District has
completed the obligation of the District to repay the capital
costs of the Colorado-Big Thompson Project under the
contract.
(B) No consideration required.--The District shall not be
required to provide additional consideration for the
conveyance of the transferred water distribution facilities
under subsection (a).
(2) Electric customers.--The Western Area Power
Administration shall continue to include the unpaid portion
of the transferred facilities in its annual power repayment
studies for the Loveland Area Projects until such facilities
are repaid in accordance with the laws and policies regarding
repayment of investment in effect on the date of enactment of
this Act.
(c) No Effect on Obligations and Rights.--Except as
expressly provided in this Act, nothing in this Act affects
or modifies the obligations and rights of the District under
the contract, including the obligation of the District to
make payments required under the contract.
SEC. 3. LIABILITY.
Except as otherwise provided by law, effective on the date
of conveyance of the transferred water distribution
facilities under this Act, the United States shall not be
liable for damages of any kind arising out of any act,
omission, or occurrence based on any prior ownership or
operation by the United States of the transferred water
distribution facilities.
SEC. 4. EFFECT.
Any actions or activities undertaken by the Secretary under
this Act shall not affect, impact, or create any additional
burdens or obligations on the New Consolidated Lower Boulder
Reservoir and Ditch Company or the New Coal Ridge Ditch
Company in the full exercise of their rights to water, water
rights, or real property rights or in the full exercise of
their rights to utilize facilities affected by this Act.
SEC. 5. REPORTS.
(a) In General.--If the transferred water distribution
facilities have not been conveyed by the Secretary to the
District by the date that is 1 year after the date of
enactment of this Act, not later than 30 days after that
date, the Secretary shall submit to the Committee on Energy
and Natural Resources of the Senate and the Committee on
Resources of the House of Representatives a report that
describes--
(1) the reasons for the failure to convey the transferred
water distribution facilities; and
(2) the schedule for completing the transfer as soon as
practicable.
(b) Annual Reports.--The Secretary shall continue to
provide annual reports that provide the information described
in subsection (a) until the date on which the transferred
water distribution facilities are conveyed in accordance with
this Act.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Pursuant to the rule, the gentlewoman from
Virginia (Mrs. Drake) and the gentlewoman from the Virgin Islands (Mrs.
Christensen) each will control 20 minutes.
The Chair recognizes the gentlewoman from Virginia.
General Leave
Mrs. DRAKE. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may
have 5 legislative days within which to revise and extend their remarks
and include extraneous material on the bill under consideration.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Is there objection to the request of the
gentlewoman from Virginia?
There was no objection.
Mrs. DRAKE. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
H.R. 3443, introduced by the gentlewoman from Colorado (Mrs.
Musgrave), will transfer ownership of three Bureau of Reclamation water
distribution facilities within the Big Thompson project in Colorado to
the Northern Colorado Water Conservancy District.
{time} 1515
This local water district has operated and maintained these canals
since 1957 and has repaid all capital costs associated with the
facilities. Transfer of these single-purpose projects creates a win-win
situation by decreasing Federal liability, allowing more cost-effective
and efficient management by the
[[Page 28104]]
water district and fostering local ownership. In light of these
benefits, the Bureau of Reclamation should be more proactive in working
with local water users to ensure that more transfers take place.
I commend Mrs. Musgrave for introducing this legislation and urge
support for this bipartisan noncontroversial bill.
Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
Mrs. CHRISTENSEN. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may
consume.
Mr. Speaker, H.R. 3443 would authorize the title transfer of specific
features of the Colorado-Big Thompson project from the United States to
the Northern Colorado Water Conservancy District. This proposed title
transfer will be similar to a bill that was enacted in the 106th
Congress, transferring other Bureau of Reclamation facilities to this
water district.
We have no objection to this legislation.
Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
Mrs. DRAKE. Mr. Speaker, I yield such time as she may consume to the
gentlewoman from Colorado (Mrs. Musgrave).
Mrs. MUSGRAVE. Mr. Speaker, in July of this year, I introduced H.R.
3443, a bill authorizing the transfer of title of three Colorado-Big
Thompson projects single-purpose water conveyance facilities from the
United States to the Northern Colorado Water Conservancy District.
The Colorado-Big Thompson project is one of the largest and most
complex natural resource developments undertaken by the Bureau of
Reclamation. The transmountain water diversion system consists of over
100 integrated structures and provides multiple benefits to the people
of my district. This project spreads over approximately 250 miles in
the State of Colorado. It stores, regulates and diverts water from the
Colorado River on the western slope of the Continental Divide to the
eastern slope of the Rocky Mountains.
The project diverts approximately 260,000-acre feet of water annually
from the Colorado River headwaters on the western slope to the Big
Thompson River, a South Platte River tributary on the eastern slope,
for distribution to farming and communities.
The water system is vital to the people of my district. It provides
drinking, irrigation and recreational waters. Without this water
system, many cities and towns in my district could not exist.
The water that the Colorado-Big Thompson project diverts from the
western slope travels through a series of storage reservoirs, pumping
plants, tunnels and hydroelectric generating plants until it enters one
of the two eastern slope terminal storage reservoirs, Horsetooth and
Carter Lake Reservoirs.
From these terminal storage reservoirs, the water is delivered to
water users through distribution facilities. These distribution
facilities consist of single-purpose water conveyance facilities
located downstream from the two terminal storage facilities.
The Northern Colorado Water Conservation District has been
responsible for these facilities since the project was operational in
1957. The District has proven to be a faithful steward of operation,
maintenance and administration of the conveyance facilities. The three
facilities that would be conveyed to the District by this legislation
are the St. Vrain Supply Canal, the Boulder Creek Supply Canal and the
South Platte Supply Canal.
This bill is very similar to legislation passed by my predecessor,
Representative Bob Schaffer, in 2000, which transferred four single-
purpose water conveyance facilities of the Colorado-Big Thompson
Project located downstream of the Horsetooth Reservoir. This
legislation would complete the transfer of all the single-purpose water
conveyance facilities within the project. This transfer would allow the
District to more cost-effectively manage the facility and reduce the
burdensome bureaucracy of the Federal Government. The District has met
its financial obligation of repayment of capital costs, and the title
transfer is now appropriate. I believe that this transfer is in the
best interest of the constituents of my district.
I would like to thank Chairman Pombo and his staff for moving this
bill so quickly through the Resources Committee, with special thanks to
Kiel Weaver for his assistance on this legislation.
Mr. Speaker, I urge the passage of this bill.
Mrs. CHRISTENSEN. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.
Mr. UDALL of Colorado. Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of this bill
and commend my Colorado colleague, Mrs. Musgrave, for its introduction.
The bill would direct the Interior Department to convey to the
Northern Colorado Water Conservation District wants the title to some
of the water-distribution facilities that are part of the Bureau of
Reclamation's Colorado-Big Thompson project.
That project, authorized by Congress in 1937 to provide water for
agricultural and other uses, consists of dams, dikes, reservoirs,
powerplants, pumping plants, pipelines, tunnels, and substations spread
over approximately 250 miles. The Northern Colorado Water Conservancy
District, the project's local government sponsor, operates and
maintains all of the water conveyance facilities.
H.R. 3443 directs the Secretary of the Interior to transfer 58 miles
of the Project's water conveyance facilities (the St. Vrain Supply
Canal, Boulder Creek Supply Canal, and South Platte Supply Canal) to
the District. The transfer will allow the District to more cost-
effectively manage the facilities, reduce paperwork requirements,
provide for local ownership and reduce the federal government's
liability. The District, which has operated and maintained these water
conveyance facilities since 1957, has repaid the appropriate capital
costs associated with the facilities. Despite this repayment, the title
of the facilities remains in the Bureau of Reclamation. This bill
directs the transfer of this title with no conditions. It is modeled on
the successful transfer (Public Law 106-376) of other single purpose
water conveyance facilities associated with the Colorado Big-Thompson
Project.
None of the affected facilities are used to generate electricity.
However, payments by electricity customers have been contributing to
the repayment for the overall project, and the electricity customers
still owe something under that repayment contract. To reflect that, the
bill provides for transfer of funds from electricity-sale collections
to complete repayment of the amount the electricity customers owe
toward repayment of the facilities to be transferred.
The bill includes language to make clear that it will not lessen the
existing responsibilities of the district or affect the rights of two
ditch companies whose ditches have been part of the distribution system
for water from the Colorado-Big Thompson project. And, to stimulate
prompt implementation, the bill says that if the transfer isn't
completed within a year Interior must send a written report to Congress
explaining why it hadn't done so and to keep reporting annually until
the transfer is complete.
I joined as a cosponsor of this legislation because I think it will
be beneficial both for the Northern Colorado Water Conservation
District and for the federal government. I urge its approval.
Mrs. DRAKE. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.
The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Petri). The question is on the motion
offered by the gentlewoman from Virginia (Mrs. Drake) that the House
suspend the rules and pass the bill, H.R. 3443, as amended.
The question was taken; and (two-thirds having voted in favor
thereof) the rules were suspended and the bill, as amended, was passed.
A motion to reconsider was laid on the table.
____________________
AUTHORIZING SUITABILITY AND FEASIBILITY STUDY OF DESIGNATING THE ST.
LOUIS SOLDIERS' MEMORIAL MILITARY MUSEUM AS A UNIT OF THE NATIONAL PARK
SYSTEM
Mrs. DRAKE. Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and pass the
bill (H.R. 452) to authorize the Secretary of the Interior to conduct a
study to determine the suitability and feasibility of designating the
Soldiers' Memorial Military Museum located in St. Louis, Missouri, as a
unit of the National Park System.
The Clerk read as follows:
[[Page 28105]]
H.R. 452
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of
the United States of America in Congress assembled,
SECTION 1. NATIONAL PARK SERVICE STUDY REGARDING THE
SOLDIERS' MEMORIAL MILITARY MUSEUM.
(a) Findings.--Congress finds as follows:
(1) The Soldiers' Memorial is a tribute to all veterans
located in the greater St. Louis area, including Southern
Illinois.
(2) The current annual budget for the memorial is $185,000
and is paid for exclusively by the City of St. Louis.
(3) In 1923, the City of St. Louis voted to spend
$6,000,000 to purchase a memorial plaza and building
dedicated to citizens of St. Louis who lost their lives in
World War I.
(4) The purchase of the 7 block site exhausted the funds
and no money remained to construct a monument.
(5) In 1933, Mayor Bernard F. Dickmann appealed to citizens
and the city government to raise $1,000,000 to construct a
memorial building and general improvement of the plaza area
and the construction of Soldiers' Memorial began on October
21, 1935.
(6) On October 14, 1936, President Franklin D. Roosevelt
officially dedicated the site.
(7) On Memorial Day in 1938, Mayor Dickmann opened the
building to the public.
(b) Study.--The Secretary of the Interior shall carry out a
study to determine the suitability and feasibility of
designating the Soldiers' Memorial Military Museum, located
at 1315 Chestnut, St. Louis, Missouri, as a unit of the
National Park System.
(c) Study Process and Completion.--Section 8(c) of Public
Law 91-383 (16 U.S.C. 1a-5(c)) shall apply to the conduct and
completion of the study required by this section.
(d) Report.--The Secretary shall submit a report describing
the results the study required by this section to the
Committee on Resources of the House of Representatives and
the Committee on Energy and Natural Resources of the Senate.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Pursuant to the rule, the gentlewoman from
Virginia (Mrs. Drake) and the gentlewoman from the Virgin Islands (Mrs.
Christensen) each will control 20 minutes.
The Chair recognizes the gentlewoman from Virginia.
General Leave
Mrs. DRAKE. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may
have 5 legislative days within which to revise and extend their remarks
and include extraneous material on the bill under consideration.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Is there objection to the request of the
gentlewoman from Virginia?
There was no objection.
Mrs. DRAKE. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
Mr. Speaker, H.R. 452 would authorize the Secretary of the Interior
to study the suitability and feasibility of designating a military
memorial in St. Louis as a unit of the National Park System.
In 1923, the City of St. Louis voted to spend $6 million to purchase
a memorial plaza and building dedicated to citizens of St. Louis who
lost their lives in World War I. The purchase of the memorial site
exhausted the funds. In 1933, the city government raised another $1
million to construct a memorial building on the site. On October 14,
1936, President Franklin D. Roosevelt officially dedicated the site,
and the building was open to the public on Memorial Day, 1938.
Currently, the memorial is administered by the City of St. Louis with
a budget of $192,000. Local officials have expressed that the memorial
faces an uncertain future without Federal assistance and would like a
Federal agency to administer the site. Again, this bill only proposes a
study of this memorial and the possibility of its becoming a unit of
the National Park System.
I urge adoption of the bill.
Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
Mrs. CHRISTENSEN. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may
consume.
Mr. Speaker, the majority has already explained the purpose of H.R.
452, which was introduced by my friend and colleague from Missouri (Mr.
Clay). The gentleman from Missouri is to be commended for his efforts
to preserve this memorial and museum, which was built to honor those
who lost their lives in service to our country.
It is our expectation that the study authorized by H.R. 452 will help
determine the most appropriate means to preserve and maintain the
Soldiers' Memorial and thus help to continue to honor the sacrifice of
those who have fought and died for our country.
Mr. Speaker, we support H.R. 452 and urge its adoption by the House
today.
Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
Mrs. DRAKE. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
Mrs. CHRISTENSEN. Mr. Speaker, I yield such time as he may consume to
the gentleman from Missouri (Mr. Clay), the sponsor of this
legislation.
Mr. CLAY. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman for yielding me this
time.
I want to take a moment to thank the Chairman Pombo and Chairman
Saxton and Ranking Members Rahall and Christensen for their willingness
to support and their generous help of their staffers who have worked
hard to bring the St. Louis Soldiers' Memorial Military Museum bill to
the floor today.
H.R. 452, which I sponsored along with Representatives Skelton and
Carnahan, will authorize the Secretary of the Interior to conduct a
study of the feasibility of including the Soldiers' Memorial Military
Museum in St. Louis among the National Park Service's inventory of
Federal monuments.
At a time when our soldiers are fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan, the
American people feel a very special connection to our military forces,
and the citizens of our Nation have a very real need to visit shrines
that honor our Nation's veterans.
The St. Louis Soldiers' Memorial Military Museum is a treasured
monument to our Nation's veterans. I believe this landmark is truly one
of the most outstanding memorials ever built in tribute to those who
have sacrificed their lives in service to our Nation.
The St. Louis Soldiers' Memorial was initiated by residents of St.
Louis in the 1920s to honor the brave Americans who lost their lives in
World War I. After several years of fundraising for land acquisition
and construction, the monument was dedicated by President Franklin
Delano Roosevelt on October 14, 1936, and officially opened to the
public on Memorial Day, 1938.
The Soldiers' Memorial was a unique place in our Nation's history as
it is the only structure in St. Louis that is known to have been
dedicated by a sitting U.S. President. The Soldiers' Monument is a
national treasure and an architectural masterpiece. Designed by one of
the 20th Century's foremost art deco sculptors, Mr. Walker Hancock, its
entrance is flanked by four limestone sculptures which symbolize the
most important virtues in a soldier's life: courage, loyalty, sacrifice
and vision, while its ceiling displays a mosaic tile in the shape of a
large gold star that is dedicated to our Nation's Gold Star Mothers.
The Soldiers' Memorial is an important cultural resource and
gathering place. It attracts nearly 48,000 visitors each year and
provides the setting for more than 20 ceremonies annually, including
changing of command and retirement ceremonies and many patriotic events
hosted by veterans groups. It is the center of an annual Veterans Day
Parade and Observance, which is the largest of its kind in the Midwest,
drawing participants from several surrounding States and presenting
more than 100 marching units.
In recent years, the memorial has received support and contributions
from active military personnel and veterans to help the city of St.
Louis maintain this cherished structure.
At this time in our history, we are engaged in a war against
terrorism. The people of our Nation are mourning more than 2,000
American service men and women who have given their lives in the Iraq
War. The American people are anxious to pay tribute to the Nation's
veterans, and they should have national shrines to commemorate their
friends and family members who have lost their lives for our Nation.
It is time for the Federal Government to consider acquiring the St.
Louis Soldiers' Memorial Military Museum in its inventory of national
monuments. I believe that a study of this monument would show that it
is an historically important structure with a national significance.
[[Page 28106]]
H.R. 452 is strongly supported by veterans groups and other civic
organizations. I hope the Members of this body will endorse this
important effort to help create a Federal monument to honor our
Nation's veterans. I urge my colleagues to support this legislation.
Mr. SKELTON. Mr. Speaker, let me take this means to share my support
for H.R. 452, a bill introduced by my good friend and Missouri
colleague, Congressman Lacy Clay. I was pleased to cosponsor this
legislation, which would authorize the Secretary of the Interior to
study the feasibility of including the St. Louis Soldiers' Memorial
Military Museum as a part of the National Park System.
Through the years, the people of St. Louis and the surrounding area
have visited the St. Louis Soldiers' Memorial to pay tribute to the
selfless sacrifices of our men and women in uniform. Originally
constructed to honor Americans who lost their lives during the first
World War, the monument was dedicated by President Franklin Roosevelt
in 1936 and opened to the public in 1938. Since that time, the memorial
has held a unique place in the history of our state and our country.
As such, it seems fitting that Congress authorize the Interior
Secretary to determine whether the St. Louis Soldiers' Memorial should
be included in America's inventory of national monuments. I hope my
colleagues agree and will support this sensible legislation offered by
the gentleman from Missouri, Mr. Clay.
Mrs. CHRISTENSEN. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.
Mrs. DRAKE. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. The question is on the motion offered by the
gentlewoman from Virginia (Mrs. Drake) that the House suspend the rules
and pass the bill, H.R. 452.
The question was taken; and (two-thirds having voted in favor
thereof) the rules were suspended and the bill was passed.
A motion to reconsider was laid on the table.
____________________
{time} 1530
PRESIDENTIAL $1 COIN ACT OF 2005
Mr. OXLEY. Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and pass the
Senate bill (S. 1047) to require the Secretary of the Treasury to mint
coins in commemoration of each of the Nation's past Presidents and
their spouses, respectively, to improve circulation of the $1 coin, to
create a new bullion coin, and for other purposes.
The Clerk read as follows:
S. 1047
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of
the United States of America in Congress assembled,
SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.
This Act may be cited as the ``Presidential $1 Coin Act of
2005''.
TITLE I--PRESIDENTIAL $1 COINS
SEC. 101. FINDINGS.
Congress finds the following:
(1) There are sectors of the United States economy,
including public transportation, parking meters, vending
machines, and low-dollar value transactions, in which the use
of a $1 coin is both useful and desirable for keeping costs
and prices down.
(2) For a variety of reasons, the new $1 coin introduced in
2000 has not been widely sought-after by the public, leading
to higher costs for merchants and thus higher prices for
consumers.
(3) The success of the 50 States Commemorative Coin Program
(31 U.S.C. 5112(l)) for circulating quarter dollars shows
that a design on a United States circulating coin that is
regularly changed in a manner similar to the systematic
change in designs in such Program radically increases demand
for the coin, rapidly pulling it through the economy.
(4) The 50 States Commemorative Coin Program also has been
an educational tool, teaching both Americans and visitors
something about each State for which a quarter has been
issued.
(5) A national survey and study by the Government
Accountability Office has indicated that many Americans who
do not seek, or who reject, the new $1 coin for use in
commerce would actively seek the coin if an attractive,
educational rotating design were to be struck on the coin.
(6) The President is the leader of our tripartite
government and the President's spouse has often set the
social tone for the White House while spearheading and
highlighting important issues for the country.
(7) Sacagawea, as currently represented on the new $1 coin,
is an important symbol of American history.
(8) Many people cannot name all of the Presidents, and
fewer can name the spouses, nor can many people accurately
place each President in the proper time period of American
history.
(9) First Spouses have not generally been recognized on
American coinage.
(10) In order to revitalize the design of United States
coinage and return circulating coinage to its position as not
only a necessary means of exchange in commerce, but also as
an object of aesthetic beauty in its own right, it is
appropriate to move many of the mottos and emblems, the
inscription of the year, and the so-called ``mint marks''
that currently appear on the 2 faces of each circulating coin
to the edge of the coin, which would allow larger and more
dramatic artwork on the coins reminiscent of the so-called
``Golden Age of Coinage'' in the United States, at the
beginning of the Twentieth Century, initiated by President
Theodore Roosevelt, with the assistance of noted sculptors
and medallic artists James Earle Fraser and Augustus Saint-
Gaudens.
(11) Placing inscriptions on the edge of coins, known as
edge-incusing, is a hallmark of modern coinage and is common
in large-volume production of coinage elsewhere in the world,
such as the 2,700,000,000 2-Euro coins in circulation, but it
has not been done on a large scale in United States coinage
in recent years.
(12) Although the Congress has authorized the Secretary of
the Treasury to issue gold coins with a purity of 99.99
percent, the Secretary has not done so.
(13) Bullion coins are a valuable tool for the investor
and, in some cases, an important aspect of coin collecting.
SEC. 102. PRESIDENTIAL $1 COIN PROGRAM.
Section 5112 of title 31, United States Code, is amended by
adding at the end the following:
``(n) Redesign and Issuance of Circulating $1 Coins
Honoring Each of the Presidents of the United States.--
``(1) Redesign beginning in 2007.--
``(A) In general.--Notwithstanding subsection (d) and in
accordance with the provisions of this subsection, $1 coins
issued during the period beginning January 1, 2007, and
ending upon the termination of the program under paragraph
(8), shall--
``(i) have designs on the obverse selected in accordance
with paragraph (2)(B) which are emblematic of the Presidents
of the United States; and
``(ii) have a design on the reverse selected in accordance
with paragraph (2)(A).
``(B) Continuity provision.--Notwithstanding subparagraph
(A), the Secretary shall continue to mint and issue $1 coins
which bear any design in effect before the issuance of coins
as required under this subsection (including the so-called
`Sacagawea-design' $1 coins).
``(2) Design requirements.--The $1 coins issued in
accordance with paragraph (1)(A) shall meet the following
design requirements:
``(A) Coin reverse.--The design on the reverse shall bear--
``(i) a likeness of the Statue of Liberty extending to the
rim of the coin and large enough to provide a dramatic
representation of Liberty while not being large enough to
create the impression of a `2-headed' coin;
``(ii) the inscription `$1' ; and
``(iii) the inscription `United States of America'.
``(B) Coin obverse.--The design on the obverse shall
contain--
``(i) the name and likeness of a President of the United
States; and
``(ii) basic information about the President, including--
``(I) the dates or years of the term of office of such
President; and
``(II) a number indicating the order of the period of
service in which the President served.
``(C) Edge-incused inscriptions.--
``(i) In general.--The inscription of the year of minting
or issuance of the coin and the inscriptions `E Pluribus
Unum' and `In God We Trust' shall be edge-incused into the
coin.
``(ii) Preservation of distinctive edge.--The edge-incusing
of the inscriptions under clause (i) on coins issued under
this subsection shall be done in a manner that preserves the
distinctive edge of the coin so that the denomination of the
coin is readily discernible, including by individuals who are
blind or visually impaired.
``(D) Inscriptions of `liberty'.--Notwithstanding the
second sentence of subsection (d)(1), because the use of a
design bearing the likeness of the Statue of Liberty on the
reverse of the coins issued under this subsection adequately
conveys the concept of Liberty, the inscription of `Liberty'
shall not appear on the coins.
``(E) Limitation in series to deceased presidents.--No coin
issued under this subsection may bear the image of a living
former or current President, or of any deceased former
President during the 2-year period following the date of the
death of that President.
``(3) Issuance of coins commemorating presidents.--
``(A) Order of issuance.--The coins issued under this
subsection commemorating Presidents of the United States
shall be issued in the order of the period of service of each
President, beginning with President George Washington.
[[Page 28107]]
``(B) Treatment of period of service.--
``(i) In general.--Subject to clause (ii), only 1 coin
design shall be issued for a period of service for any
President, no matter how many consecutive terms of office the
President served.
``(ii) Nonconsecutive terms.--If a President has served
during 2 or more nonconsecutive periods of service, a coin
shall be issued under this subsection for each such
nonconsecutive period of service.
``(4) Issuance of coins commemorating 4 presidents during
each year of the period.--
``(A) In general.--The designs for the $1 coins issued
during each year of the period referred to in paragraph (1)
shall be emblematic of 4 Presidents until each President has
been so honored, subject to paragraph (2)(E).
``(B) Number of 4 circulating coin designs in each year.--
The Secretary shall prescribe, on the basis of such factors
as the Secretary determines to be appropriate, the number of
$1 coins that shall be issued with each of the designs
selected for each year of the period referred to in paragraph
(1).
``(5) Legal tender.--The coins minted under this title
shall be legal tender, as provided in section 5103.
``(6) Treatment as numismatic items.--For purposes of
section 5134 and 5136, all coins minted under this subsection
shall be considered to be numismatic items.
``(7) Issuance of numismatic coins.--The Secretary may mint
and issue such number of $1 coins of each design selected
under this subsection in uncirculated and proof qualities as
the Secretary determines to be appropriate.
``(8) Termination of program.--The issuance of coins under
this subsection shall terminate when each President has been
so honored, subject to paragraph (2)(E), and may not be
resumed except by an Act of Congress.
``(9) Reversion to preceding design.--Upon the termination
of the issuance of coins under this subsection, the design of
all $1 coins shall revert to the so-called `Sacagawea-design'
$1 coins.''.
SEC. 103. FIRST SPOUSE BULLION COIN PROGRAM.
Section 5112 of title 31, United States Code, as amended by
section 102, is amended by adding at the end the following:
``(o) First Spouse Bullion Coin Program.--
``(1) In general.--During the same period described in
subsection (n), the Secretary shall issue bullion coins under
this subsection that are emblematic of the spouse of each
such President.
``(2) Specifications.--The coins issued under this
subsection shall--
``(A) have the same diameter as the $1 coins described in
subsection (n);
``(B) weigh 0.5 ounce; and
``(C) contain 99.99 percent pure gold.
``(3) Design requirements.--
``(A) Coin obverse.--The design on the obverse of each coin
issued under this subsection shall contain--
``(i) the name and likeness of a person who was a spouse of
a President during the President's period of service;
``(ii) an inscription of the years during which such person
was the spouse of a President during the President's period
of service; and
``(iii) a number indicating the order of the period of
service in which such President served.
``(B) Coin reverse.--The design on the reverse of each coin
issued under this subsection shall bear--
``(i) images emblematic of the life and work of the First
Spouse whose image is borne on the obverse; and
``(ii) the inscription `United States of America'.
``(C) Designated denomination.--Each coin issued under this
subsection shall bear, on the reverse, an inscription of the
nominal denomination of the coin which shall be `$10'.
``(D) Design in case of no first spouse.--In the case of
any President who served without a spouse--
``(i) the image on the obverse of the bullion coin
corresponding to the $1 coin relating to such President shall
be an image emblematic of the concept of `Liberty'--
``(I) as represented on a United States coin issued during
the period of service of such President; or
``(II) as represented, in the case of President Chester
Alan Arthur, by a design incorporating the name and likeness
of Alice Paul, a leading strategist in the suffrage movement,
who was instrumental in gaining women the right to vote upon
the adoption of the 19th amendment and thus the ability to
participate in the election of future Presidents, and who was
born on January 11, 1885, during the term of President
Arthur; and
``(ii) the reverse of such bullion coin shall be of a
design representative of themes of such President, except
that in the case of the bullion coin referred to in clause
(i)(II) the reverse of such coin shall be representative of
the suffrage movement.
``(E) Design and coin for each spouse.--A separate coin
shall be designed and issued under this section for each
person who was the spouse of a President during any portion
of a term of office of such President.
``(F) Inscriptions.--Each bullion coin issued under this
subsection shall bear the inscription of the year of minting
or issuance of the coin and such other inscriptions as the
Secretary may determine to be appropriate.
``(4) Sale of bullion coins.--Each bullion coin issued
under this subsection shall be sold by the Secretary at a
price that is equal to or greater than the sum of--
``(A) the face value of the coins; and
``(B) the cost of designing and issuing the coins
(including labor, materials, dies, use of machinery, overhead
expenses, marketing, and shipping).
``(5) Issuance of coins commemorating first spouses.--
``(A) In general.--The bullion coins issued under this
subsection with respect to any spouse of a President shall be
issued on the same schedule as the $1 coin issued under
subsection (n) with respect to each such President.
``(B) Maximum number of bullion coins for each design.--The
Secretary shall--
``(i) prescribe, on the basis of such factors as the
Secretary determines to be appropriate, the maximum number of
bullion coins that shall be issued with each of the designs
selected under this subsection; and
``(ii) announce, before the issuance of the bullion coins
of each such design, the maximum number of bullion coins of
that design that will be issued.
``(C) Termination of program.--No bullion coin may be
issued under this subsection after the termination, in
accordance with subsection (n)(8), of the $1 coin program
established under subsection (n).
``(6) Quality of coins.--The bullion coins minted under
this Act shall be issued in both proof and uncirculated
qualities.
``(7) Source of gold bullion.--
``(A) In general.--The Secretary shall acquire gold for the
coins issued under this subsection by purchase of gold mined
from natural deposits in the United States, or in a territory
or possession of the United States, within 1 year after the
month in which the ore from which it is derived was mined.
``(B) Price of gold.--The Secretary shall pay not more than
the average world price for the gold mined under subparagraph
(A).
``(8) Bronze medals.--The Secretary may strike and sell
bronze medals that bear the likeness of the bullion coins
authorized under this subsection, at a price, size, and
weight, and with such inscriptions, as the Secretary
determines to be appropriate.
``(9) Legal tender.--The coins minted under this title
shall be legal tender, as provided in section 5103.
``(10) Treatment as numismatic items.--For purposes of
section 5134 and 5136, all coins minted under this subsection
shall be considered to be numismatic items.''.
SEC. 104. REMOVAL OF BARRIERS TO CIRCULATION.
Section 5112 of title 31, United States Code, as amended by
sections 102 and 103, by adding at the end the following:
``(p) Removal of Barriers to Circulation of $1 Coin.--
``(1) Acceptance by agencies and instrumentalities.--
Beginning January 1, 2006, all agencies and instrumentalities
of the United States, the United States Postal Service, all
nonappropriated fund instrumentalities established under
title 10, United States Code, all transportation and transit
systems and entities that receive operational subsidies or
any disbursement of funds from the Federal Government, such
as funds from the Federal Highway Trust Fund, including the
Mass Transit Account, and all entities that operate any
business, including vending machines, on any premises owned
by the United States or under the control of any agency or
instrumentality of the United States, including the
legislative and judicial branches of the Federal Government,
shall take such action as may be appropriate to ensure that
by the end of the 1-year period beginning on such date--
``(A) any business operations conducted by any such agency,
instrumentality, system, or entity that involve coins or
currency will be fully capable of accepting and dispensing $1
coins in connection with such operations; and
``(B) prominently displays signs and notices denoting such
capability on the premises where coins or currency are
accepted or dispensed, including on each vending machine.
``(2) Publicity.--The Director of the United States Mint,
shall work closely with consumer groups, media outlets, and
schools to ensure an adequate amount of news coverage, and
other means of increasing public awareness, of the
inauguration of the Presidential $1 Coin Program established
in subsection (n) to ensure that consumers know of the
availability of the coin.
``(3) Coordination.--The Board of Governors of the Federal
Reserve System and the Secretary shall take steps to ensure
that an adequate supply of $1 coins is available for commerce
and collectors at such places and in such quantities as are
appropriate by--
``(A) consulting, to accurately gauge demand for coins and
to anticipate and eliminate obstacles to the easy and
efficient distribution and circulation of $1 coins as well as
all other circulating coins, from time to time but no less
frequently than annually, with a coin users group, which may
include--
[[Page 28108]]
``(i) representatives of merchants who would benefit from
the increased usage of $1 coins;
``(ii) vending machine and other coin acceptor
manufacturers;
``(iii) vending machine owners and operators;
``(iv) transit officials;
``(v) municipal parking officials;
``(vi) depository institutions;
``(vii) coin and currency handlers;
``(viii) armored-car operators;
``(ix) car wash operators; and
``(x) coin collectors and dealers;
``(B) submitting an annual report to the Congress
containing--
``(i) an assessment of the remaining obstacles to the
efficient and timely circulation of coins, particularly $1
coins;
``(ii) an assessment of the extent to which the goals of
subparagraph (C) are being met; and
``(iii) such recommendations for legislative action the
Board and the Secretary may determine to be appropriate;
``(C) consulting with industry representatives to encourage
operators of vending machines and other automated coin-
accepting devices in the United States to accept coins issued
under the Presidential $1 Coin Program established under
subsection (n) and any coins bearing any design in effect
before the issuance of coins required under subsection (n)
(including the so-called `Sacagawea-design' $1 coins), and to
include notices on the machines and devices of such
acceptability;
``(D) ensuring that--
``(i) during an introductory period, all institutions that
want unmixed supplies of each newly-issued design of $1 coins
minted under subsections (n) and (o) are able to obtain such
unmixed supplies; and
``(ii) circulating coins will be available for ordinary
commerce in packaging of sizes and types appropriate for and
useful to ordinary commerce, including rolled coins;
``(E) working closely with any agency, instrumentality,
system, or entity referred to in paragraph (1) to facilitate
compliance with the requirements of such paragraph; and
``(F) identifying, analyzing, and overcoming barriers to
the robust circulation of $1 coins minted under subsections
(n) and (o), including the use of demand prediction, improved
methods of distribution and circulation, and improved public
education and awareness campaigns.
``(4) Bullion dealers.--The Director of the United States
Mint shall take all steps necessary to ensure that a maximum
number of reputable, reliable, and responsible dealers are
qualified to offer for sale all bullion coins struck and
issued by the United States Mint.
``(5) Review of co-circulation.--At such time as the
Secretary determines to be appropriate, and after
consultation with the Board of Governors of the Federal
Reserve System, the Secretary shall notify the Congress of
its assessment of issues related to the co-circulation of any
circulating $1 coin bearing any design, other than the so-
called `Sacagawea-design' $1 coin, in effect before the
issuance of coins required under subsection (n), including
the effect of co-circulation on the acceptance and use of $1
coins, and make recommendations to the Congress for improving
the circulation of $1 coins.''.
SEC. 105. SENSE OF THE CONGRESS.
It is the sense of the Congress that--
(1) the enactment of this Act will serve to increase the
use of $1 coins generally, which will increase the
circulation of the so-called ``Sacagawea-design'' $1 coins
that have been and will continue to be minted and issued;
(2) the continued minting and issuance of the so-called
``Sacagawea-design'' $1 coins will serve as a lasting tribute
to the role of women and Native Americans in the history of
the United States;
(3) the full circulation potential and cost-savings benefit
projections for the $1 coins are not likely to be achieved
unless the coins are delivered in ways useful to ordinary
commerce;
(4) the coins issued in connection with this title should
not be introduced with an overly expensive taxpayer-funded
public relations campaign;
(5) in order for the circulation of $1 coins to achieve
maximum potential--
(A) the coins should be as attractive as possible; and
(B) the Director of the United States Mint should take all
reasonable steps to ensure that all $1 coins minted and
issued remain tarnish-free for as long as possible without
incurring undue expense; and
(6) if the Secretary of the Treasury determines to include
on any $1 coin minted under section 102 of this Act a mark
denoting the United States Mint facility at which the coin
was struck, such mark should be edge-incused.
TITLE II--BUFFALO GOLD BULLION COINS
SEC. 201. GOLD BULLION COINS.
Section 5112 of title 31, United States Code, is amended--
(1) in subsection (a), by adding at the end the following:
``(11) A $20 gold coin that is of an appropriate size and
thickness, as determined by the Secretary, weighs 1 ounce,
and contains 99.99 percent pure gold.''; and
(2) by adding at the end, the following:
``(q) Gold Bullion Coins.--
``(1) In general.--Not later than 6 months after the date
of enactment of the Presidential $1 Coin Act of 2005, the
Secretary shall commence striking and issuing for sale such
number of $20 gold bullion coins as the Secretary may
determine to be appropriate, not to exceed 500,000 in any
year.
``(2) Initial design.--
``(A) In general.--Except as provided under subparagraph
(B), the obverse and reverse of the gold bullion coins struck
under this subsection during the first year of issuance shall
bear the original designs by James Earle Fraser, which appear
on the 5-cent coin commonly referred to as the `Buffalo
nickel' or the `1913 Type 1'.
``(B) Variations.--The coins referred to in subparagraph
(A) shall--
``(i) have inscriptions of the weight of the coin and the
nominal denomination of the coin incused in that portion of
the design on the reverse of the coin commonly known as the
`grassy mound'; and
``(ii) bear such other inscriptions as the Secretary
determines to be appropriate.
``(3) Subsequent designs.--After the 1-year period
described to in paragraph (2), the Secretary may--
``(A) after consulting with the Commission of Fine Arts,
and subject to the review of the Citizens Coinage Advisory
Committee, change the design on the obverse or reverse of
gold bullion coins struck under this subsection; and
``(B) change the maximum number of coins issued in any
year.
``(4) Source of gold bullion.--
``(A) In general.--The Secretary shall acquire gold for the
coins issued under this subsection by purchase of gold mined
from natural deposits in the United States, or in a territory
or possession of the United States, within 1 year after the
month in which the ore from which it is derived was mined.
``(B) Price of gold.--The Secretary shall pay not more than
the average world price for the gold mined under subparagraph
(A).
``(5) Sale of coins.--Each gold bullion coin issued under
this subsection shall be sold for an amount the Secretary
determines to be appropriate, but not less than the sum of--
``(A) the face value of the coins; and
``(B) the cost of designing and issuing the coins,
including labor, materials, dies, use of machinery, overhead
expenses, marketing, and shipping.
``(6) Legal tender.--The coins minted under this title
shall be legal tender, as provided in section 5103.
``(7) Treatment as numismatic items.--For purposes of
section 5134 and 5136, all coins minted under this subsection
shall be considered to be numismatic items.''.
TITLE III--ABRAHAM LINCOLN BICENTENNIAL 1-CENT COIN REDESIGN
SEC. 301. FINDINGS.
Congress finds the following:
(1) Abraham Lincoln, the 16th President, was one of the
Nation's greatest leaders, demonstrating true courage during
the Civil War, one of the greatest crises in the Nation's
history.
(2) Born of humble roots in Hardin County (present-day
LaRue County), Kentucky, on February 12, 1809, Abraham
Lincoln rose to the Presidency through a combination of
honesty, integrity, intelligence, and commitment to the
United States.
(3) With the belief that all men are created equal, Abraham
Lincoln led the effort to free all slaves in the United
States.
(4) Abraham Lincoln had a generous heart, with malice
toward none, and with charity for all.
(5) Abraham Lincoln gave the ultimate sacrifice for the
country he loved, dying from an assassin's bullet on April
15, 1865.
(6) All Americans could benefit from studying the life of
Abraham Lincoln, for Lincoln's life is a model for
accomplishing the ``American dream'' through honesty,
integrity, loyalty, and a lifetime of education.
(7) The year 2009 will be the bicentennial anniversary of
the birth of Abraham Lincoln.
(8) Abraham Lincoln was born in Kentucky, grew to adulthood
in Indiana, achieved fame in Illinois, and led the nation in
Washington, D.C.
(9) The so-called ``Lincoln cent'' was introduced in 1909
on the 100th anniversary of Lincoln's birth, making the
obverse design the most enduring on the nation's coinage.
(10) President Theodore Roosevelt was so impressed by the
talent of Victor David Brenner that the sculptor was chosen
to design the likeness of President Lincoln for the coin,
adapting a design from a plaque Brenner had prepared earlier.
(11) In the nearly 100 years of production of the ``Lincoln
cent'', there have been only 2 designs on the reverse: the
original, featuring 2 wheat-heads in memorial style enclosing
mottoes, and the current representation of the Lincoln
Memorial in Washington, D.C.
(12) On the occasion of the bicentennial of President
Lincoln's birth and the 100th anniversary of the production
of the Lincoln cent, it is entirely fitting to issue a series
of 1-cent coins with designs on the reverse that are
emblematic of the 4 major periods of President Lincoln's
life.
[[Page 28109]]
SEC. 302. REDESIGN OF LINCOLN CENT FOR 2009.
(a) In General.--During the year 2009, the Secretary of the
Treasury shall issue 1-cent coins in accordance with the
following design specifications:
(1) Obverse.--The obverse of the 1-cent coin shall continue
to bear the Victor David Brenner likeness of President
Abraham Lincoln.
(2) Reverse.--The reverse of the coins shall bear 4
different designs each representing a different aspect of the
life of Abraham Lincoln, such as--
(A) his birth and early childhood in Kentucky;
(B) his formative years in Indiana;
(C) his professional life in Illinois; and
(D) his presidency, in Washington, D.C.
(b) Issuance of Redesigned Lincoln Cents in 2009.--
(1) Order.--The 1-cent coins to which this section applies
shall be issued with 1 of the 4 designs referred to in
subsection (a)(2) beginning at the start of each calendar
quarter of 2009.
(2) Number.--The Secretary shall prescribe, on the basis of
such factors as the Secretary determines to be appropriate,
the number of 1-cent coins that shall be issued with each of
the designs selected for each calendar quarter of 2009.
(c) Design Selection.--The designs for the coins specified
in this section shall be chosen by the Secretary--
(1) after consultation with the Abraham Lincoln
Bicentennial Commission and the Commission of Fine Arts; and
(2) after review by the Citizens Coinage Advisory
Committee.
SEC. 303. REDESIGN OF REVERSE OF 1-CENT COINS AFTER 2009.
The design on the reverse of the 1-cent coins issued after
December 31, 2009, shall bear an image emblematic of
President Lincoln's preservation of the United States of
America as a single and united country.
SEC. 304. NUMISMATIC PENNIES WITH THE SAME METALLIC CONTENT
AS THE 1909 PENNY.
The Secretary of the Treasury shall issue 1-cent coins in
2009 with the exact metallic content as the 1-cent coin
contained in 1909 in such number as the Secretary determines
to be appropriate for numismatic purposes
SEC. 305. SENSE OF THE CONGRESS.
It is the sense of the Congress that the original Victor
David Brenner design for the 1-cent coin was a dramatic
departure from previous American coinage that should be
reproduced, using the original form and relief of the
likeness of Abraham Lincoln, on the 1-cent coins issued in
2009.
The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Petri). Pursuant to the rule, the
gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Oxley) and the gentlewoman from New York (Mrs.
Maloney) each will control 20 minutes.
The Chair recognizes the gentleman from Ohio.
Mr. OXLEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong support of S. 1047, the Presidential $1
Coin Act of 2005, and urge its immediate passage.
Mr. Speaker, it is rare in this Chamber when we can vote for
legislation that is good for business, good for consumers, good for
children, good for parents and good for taxpayers all at the same time.
Usually we must make our best judgments on how to balance those often
competing interests. At this time, however, there are a lot of winners
and no losers.
The legislation we are considering, authored by the gentleman from
Delaware, holds every chance of solving what has become a real problem
in modern commerce, how to get a $1 coin circulating in the sections of
the economy that would benefit from having one. We can all remember the
old cartwheel silver dollars, or at least some of us can, that were
great to have when we were kids, but which were too big and bulky to
carry a pocketful, and we can all remember the Treasury's mistake in
1979 when it went to replace the bigger dollars with one that many
people thought was indistinguishable from the quarter.
Mr. Speaker, we have all had the experience of trying to buy a fare
card in the Metro system here in Washington and having the machine
reject our worn dollar time after time or trying to buy something from
a vending machine and having it jam with our paper money. That is an
inconvenience to the consumer, but it is often a big loss to the
operator of the vending machine, not just of that sale, but of all the
others who cannot use the machine until it is repaired. Who actually
pays for the losses in the end, of course, is the consumer.
Mr. Speaker, doubtless a fully circulating dollar coin will not be as
useful or popular in a rural community without public transit as it is
in an urban environment. But in cities, it will be a big hit, and in
any event, it is the obligation of Congress to provide for the
production of coins and currency that allows businesses to operate
efficiently.
So the gentleman from Delaware (Mr. Castle), who is the author of the
50 State quarter program, a most successful program, and I applaud the
gentleman for his leadership and vision. He has come up, again, with an
ingenuous solution. Having seen the demand for quarters skyrocket as
soon as those coins started changing their design every couple of
months, he has designed a program that will do the same for the dollar
coin, creating a gimmick, and I don't know whether I wanted to call it
a gimmick, but that is what it says right here, that will draw the
coins into circulation because of collector demand instead of trying to
push the coins out into circulation as the Mint famously and
unsuccessfully tried to do in 2000.
Other aspects of the bill, a gold First Spouse coin, a solid gold
investor grade coin with a buffalo nickel design and a set of four new
penny reverses in 2009 for the 200th anniversary of the birth of
Abraham Lincoln, are also good ideas in that regard.
I would also like to make two points. One is that since this idea was
that of the gentleman from Delaware, rightfully, the bill we pass ought
to bear the number H.R. 902 that he introduced with the gentlewoman
from New York and which passed the House 422-6. I chalk the fact that
this bill bears a Senate number up to the procedural problem as the
Senate rushed to pass the legislation before the Thanksgiving recess,
but it is still unfortunate. Make no mistake about it, this legislation
came about because of Mike Castle and Carolyn Maloney, and I want to
thank both of them for their efforts.
Much more serious is a provision in the Senate bill that was not in
the House bill and which will, in my estimation, cause some problems as
the Presidential dollar program goes forward, a requirement that a
third of all the dollar coins issued during the life of the
Presidential dollar program bear the Sakakawea design. Mr. Castle and
Mrs. Maloney struck a good commonsense agreement with Mr. Pomeroy over
the House version of this bill that would have continued minting
Sakakawea design coins to meet demand throughout the life of the
Presidential dollar and then return to full production of that design
after the Presidential program is finished and the dollar coin
establishes a useful and well-circulating medium of exchange.
Mr. Speaker, although not the fault of the design of Sakakawea
herself, there will not be the same demand for the Sakakawea coins as
for the Presidents, because there will be no real change in the design
of the coin from year to year. The problem, of course, is that if the
coins are struck but there is no demand, they will need to be stored
somewhere at some cost to the government. I will introduce into the
Record a letter to that effect from the Federal Reserve.
Mr. Castle and other supporters of this legislation have signaled
their intent to revisit this provision in the upcoming session to try
to find a way to stimulate demand for the Sakakawea design, and I
pledge to work with them in that effort.
With those reservations, Mr. Speaker, this is fine legislation. It
will benefit businesses, consumers, have great educational value and
actually probably make the government a good deal of money as
collectors take some of the dollars out of circulation. I urge its
immediate passage.
Board of Governors of
the Federal Reserve System,
Washington, DC, December 5, 2005.
Hon. Michael G. Oxley,
Chairman, Committee on Financial Services, House of
Representatives, Washington, DC.
Dear Mr. Chairman: I am writing to provide you with
information and perspective on H.R. 902 and S. 1047, the
House- and Senate-passed versions of the ``Presidential $1
Coin Act of 2005,'' particularly as these bills would affect
the Federal Reserve Banks. These bills are intended, in part,
to increase the circulation of $1 coins. Prior to House
passage, I provided comments on H.R. 902 in a letter dated
March 15, 2005, and my colleague, Federal Reserve Board
Governor
[[Page 28110]]
Mark Olson, provided comments on a similar bill in an earlier
letter dated August 31, 2004. Federal Reserve Board staff
also briefed House and Senate staff on similar issues. I
appreciate that the bills passed by the House and Senate
address several of the comments that were raised in the
previous letters and briefings; however, we continue to have
concerns about several aspects of the proposed bills.
Both bills require the issuance of four new Presidential $1
coins each year. as well as the continued issuance of the
Sacagawea $1 coin. Although both bills provide the Secretary
of the Treasury with discretion to determine the appropriate
number of Presidential $1 coins per design to issue each
year, the Senate bill requires (and the House bill suggests)
that the Secretary and the Board ensure that unmixed supplies
of each newly-issued $1 coin be available to all institutions
that want them during an introductory period. The experience
of the Reserve Banks with regard to the state quarter and
golden dollar programs has been that the commemorative coin
designs increase Reserve Banks' inventories well beyond
levels that they would otherwise hold and increase operating
costs associated with coin inventory management. The public
initially tends to demand a large number of coins for
numismatic purposes, but eventually many of those coins are
returned to the Reserve Banks. This results in the
accumulation of excessive inventories. Assuming that the flow
back of excess Presidential $1 coins to the Reserve Banks is
consistent with that of earlier commemorative coin designs,
we estimate the net present value of the cost associated with
storing excess Presidential $1 coins to be approximately $45
million over the life of the program. As we have previously
suggested, slowing the rate at which new coin designs are
introduced would help reduce these costs.
The Senate-passed bill would exacerbate the Reserve Banks'
inventory challenges, compared to the House-passed bill, by
requiring the minting and issuance of Sacagawea $1 coins ``in
quantities no less than 1/3 of the total $1 coins minted and
issued'' under the Presidential $1 coin program. Establishing
such a relative quota for Sacagawea coins, irrespective of
the actual public demand for that specific coin design, would
likely further increase the amount of excess coin held at the
Reserve Banks. Federal Reserve Board staff estimates that the
Sacagawea coin quota would further increase the cost
associated with storing excess dollar coins by as much as
one-third, or $15 million, to an estimated net present value
of approximately $60 million over the life of the program. We
would expect the Mint to continue to produce Sacagawea coins,
and the Reserve Banks to put Sacagawea coins into circulation
as needed, and we recommend that the final bill not include a
specific requirement that a fixed fraction of new $1 coin
production be dedicated to the Sacagawea design.
It has proven very difficult over time to stimulate public
demand for the $1 coin. As you may know, the Government
Accountability Office (GAO) has reported several times on a
number of barriers to the effective circulation of $1 coins,
including the U.S. public's continued preference for $1
notes. As a result, we urge that the final legislation be
flexible enough to address the possibility of continued low
public demand for the $1 coin and the potential implications
of slow growth in usage for the costs incurred by the Mint
and the Federal Reserve.
On another issue, the House-passed bill provides a sense of
the Congress that at such time as the Secretary of Treasury
determines to be appropriate, and after consultation with the
Federal Reserve, the Secretary should declare the Susan B.
Anthony $1 coin to be obsolete. Neither existing law nor the
bill defines the word ``obsolete.'' We continue to be
concerned that the public might interpret such language as
withdrawing the legal tender status of the coin. Further, if
``obsolete'' means that Susan B. Anthony coins would remain
legal tender but that the Treasury and Federal Reserve should
remove the coins from circulation, this would likely impose
significant operational costs that would also reduce the
potential value to the government of the proposed $1 coin
program. For example, currently available equipment does not
enable the Federal Reserve to sort the different $1 coins
according to their designs in order to remove some designs
from circulation. Therefore. we continue to believe that it
would be prudent not to include language in the bill
suggesting that the Susan B. Anthony coin will be withdrawn
from circulation or declared obsolete.
We hope these thoughts help clarify some of the remaining
technical issues with the two bills. As the House and Senate
work to resolve the differences between the bills, we ask
that you take into consideration the concerns outlined in
this letter.
Sincerely,
Donald L. Kohn,
Member of the Board.
Mrs. MALONEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
Mr. Speaker, I am delighted that the House is taking up this bill
that Congressman Castle and I initiated, and I truly believe it is a
win-win for taxpayers and the economy, the Presidential $1 Coin Bill.
As we recall, the House passed our version of this bill by an
overwhelming bipartisan majority last April, and the Senate has now
done the same with its version and sent it back here for final passage.
As our earlier vote reflects, this is an idea that we can all agree
on. The Presidential dollar coin will begin in January of 2007 with the
issuance of the George Washington dollar and continue at the rate of
four Presidents a year until all Presidents who have completed their
term of office have been honored, including President Bush and at least
one successor.
The back of the coin has the Statue of Liberty, which is located in
the harbor of the city I represent. It is recognized throughout the
world as the image of the United States and the symbol of freedom and
opportunity.
I am particularly pleased and thankful for discussions with
Representative Pomeroy from North Dakota, Indian tribal chiefs and
women's groups, on the provisions of the bill relating to the Sakakawea
dollar coin that have been clarified, really strengthened, to make sure
that Sakakawea will continue to be honored on the dollar throughout the
program and after the program is complete. This is also true in the
Senate version which we are voting on today.
This initiative builds on the remarkable success also led by my dear
friend and colleague Congressman Castle of our 50 State quarter bill.
Like the State quarters, the Presidential dollar coin will revive
interest in and encourage use of the dollar coin, educate the public
about our Presidents and their first ladies and make money for the
taxpayers. After 5 years at the halfway point, the 50 State quarter
program had made $4 billion for the United States Treasury, primarily
from collectors taking the coins out of circulation so that the Federal
Reserve then buys more from the Mint.
Over 130 million Americans, including children, adults and
collectors, are collecting the quarters. I know from firsthand
experience. My daughter is one of these collectors, and she has
collected every single quarter, has books on them; her friends collect
them. Teachers have told me that they use the quarter in their
classrooms for educational purposes, and I believe that the
Presidential dollar bill will likewise be used as an educational tool
for collectors and for school children. We have similar hopes for the
effect of the individuals collecting the Presidential dollar coins for
them to be useful in the classroom and helpful to the Treasury.
In addition, this bill will revive interest in and encourage use of
the dollar coin. The GAO has estimated that general use of dollar coins
could save the government as much as $50 million per year because they
last longer than the dollar bill.
I have received correspondence from small businesses, who are
delighted that the bill will boost usage of the dollar coin in everyday
commerce. As dollar coins achieve greater use in meters, fare machines,
coin operated laundromats or car washes, these businesses will benefit
and consumers will get faster and more efficient service.
We have done a great deal of research to make sure that this coin is
successful. In the course of developing this bill, Congressman Castle
reached out to the National Federation for the Blind to ask for the
perspective of persons with visual impairments whom we might expect to
have the most concern over problems with usage of a dollar coin and
specifically with distinguishing it from a quarter. The NFB responded
that so long as the edge of the coin was distinctive, persons with
visual impairments would not have a problem, and we have accommodated
that need. The legislation also leaves a great deal of flexibility to
the Mint to design the coins in such a way that they will be
sufficiently distinctive, and we have made the Mint aware of this
imperative.
I am also proud of the bill's provision for also honoring each first
spouse. The bill provides for these to be issued both as gold bullion
collectors items and also in a bronze version, making them more
accessible to school children and the public.
[[Page 28111]]
This bill earns money for the government, benefits small businesses
and consumers, educates all users of American currency about their
Presidents and revitalizes interest in the dollar coin. I would call
that a bill that clearly deserves our full support.
I would like to thank Congressman Castle for his initiative and
steady work on this bill, a bill that should be supported easily by
everyone. The fact is that it makes money for the Treasury, educates
people and helps our economy, but we had many, many hurdles that we had
to jump over, and his thoughtful and persistent work was absolutely
critical for its success.
I also thank my good friend Representative Pomeroy for helping to
make this a bill that continues to honor Sakakawea, both during the
time that it is being minted and afterwards; and also our ranking
member, Mr. Frank, for helping us to move this to the floor for a vote.
Of course, Congressman Oxley, we will miss you and miss your
leadership in this body.
I would also like to thank Joe Pinder and Emily Pfeiffer on the
majority staff of the Financial Services Committee for their assistance
throughout this process.
And I would finally like to thank Jaime Lizarraga of the minority
Financial Services Committee and Eleni Constantine for their work on
it.
Mr. Speaker, I urge all of my colleagues to support it. It is not
often that we have an opportunity to vote on something that will
educate adults and children about our history, put money into the
Treasury, save taxpayers money, help small business, and it is just
plain fun to collect. So I am thoroughly in support of it.
Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
Mr. OXLEY. Mr. Speaker, I am pleased now to yield 5 minutes to the
gentleman from Delaware (Mr. Castle), the First State, who has been a
real leader in this effort and shown a great deal of foresight.
Mr. CASTLE. Mr. Speaker, I thank the chairman for yielding me time.
Mr. Speaker, I am delighted to be able to speak to this bill. Let me
just start by thanking you, Mr. Chairman, for expediting this.
Sometimes it is not that easy to move along even good legislation. I
also wish to thank the ranking member, Mr. Frank, who is on the floor,
for his acceptance of this as well.
I cannot thank Carolyn Maloney enough for her exceptional work. You
have to get a lot of signatures on these bills. You have to talk to a
lot of people. We had a lot of negotiations with respect to some of the
changes from Sakakawea to what we are trying to do, and I just cannot
thank her enough for her constant support of it. I would bet we talked
about this about 100 times in the course of the last couple years, if I
had to guess.
I wish it were our bill and not the Senate version of our bill,
though, but that is the way things go sometimes. We will still enjoy
it.
I would also like to thank particularly Joe Pinder, who knows more
about coins probably than anybody in the United States of America, as
far as I can ascertain. He talked to me first about the other quarter
bill, which I did not think was a particularly sound idea at the time.
This was some 10 years ago now, I think. He talked to me about it
again. Then he told me Delaware would be first because it was the first
State to ratify the Constitution, and then he pointed out it would
actually make some money for the Federal Government. By that time, I
became convinced after several months of this, and we actually had to
convince Secretary Rubin and Deputy Secretary Summers at that time.
They thought the same thing I did; it was not a great idea. It turned
out to be a very significant and good idea, as we all know now, for all
the reasons that Mrs. Maloney and the chairman spoke about, educating a
lot of people, and it has been a wonderfully fun program.
What a lot of people do not realize is these programs make money.
That particular program has made $5 billion, billion with a ``B'' for
the Federal Government so far, on its way to probably $8 billion to $10
billion before it is all said and done. It is a complicated process
called seniorage, but essentially, they make the coins for 4 or 5
cents, and they sell them for 25 cents, obviously, when the public buys
them from the Federal Reserve. And that amount of money, if the coins
are not reclaimed, which they are not in the collectors' case, is money
that we can use instead of having to appropriate money.
It is also estimated, I should point out, that this particular
program which has multiple higher numbers, although there will be fewer
coins distributed, we hope will make in the range of $4 to $5 billion
as well. So we are talking about something which has a lot of benefit.
I would also like to thank Emily Pfeiffer, who started on my staff
and now works for the committee. The committee, which has all this
money and can pay higher salaries, I guess is what it is all about,
took her away, but she has done some wonderful work on this as well.
{time} 1545
This bill is unique. It has on the side edge incusing, which means on
the side of the coin you are going to have what we have above you, Mr.
Speaker: In God We Trust and E Pluribus Unum will be on there. It will
be gold in color, and it will represent the various Presidents who
served our country. It is going to be tremendously educational. There
will be a First Lady coin; there will be gold bullion editions of these
particular coins for collectors. We think it actually may help bring
the dollar coin back into commerce. I see the gentleman from North
Dakota (Mr. Pomeroy) on the floor, and a lot of our negotiations were
with him and he was very concerned about the continuation of the
recognition of Sakakawea. My hope is, frankly, this is going to add to
that, because it is actually going to get the coins distributed when we
revert to that program, and sometime later it will add to it as well.
I must say that I am concerned about what Senator Dorgan did put into
the bill, because I prefer what we worked out in the House as a better
solution to this, and that is an edition of the third of the coins now
still to be Sakakawea, and I am afraid they are going to sit and
collect dust and not be distributed.
At this point I would rather have done this differently. But we are
working on that, and hopefully we will have a better solution to
recognize the great American Indians and what they have done for us in
this country before we are all said and done, even while this program
is going on. I think there are perhaps better solutions than what the
Senate actually did, but that is something we are not going to do
unless we all agree. So I think we should pass this legislation, which
is very good legislation; and if we can make it even better, we should
come back and try to do that at some point in the future. We will
continue to work on that.
These coins, the quarters I am referring to now, have been highly
successful because of the children's involvement. It is my hope that
the children are going to go into the store and ask for dollar coins in
change. We think that is very significant in terms of what they might
do and in terms of the circulation in the commerce. Four of these will
be issued per year, that will be plenty, to make everybody start
looking forward to them. Once they collected the one before, they will
collect the other one. They will be coined at the Philadelphia and
Denver Mints, so they will have the P and the D on them, and people
might wish to collect both of them, as a matter of fact.
As a matter of fact, even the National Education Association has sent
a letter in support of this bill. It is true, you do not find many
bills here in which we actually make money which are educational, which
are fun, which are well received by everybody; and that is essentially
what this bill does. So I would just like to thank everybody who was
involved and urge passage of the legislation hopefully unanimously in
the House.
Mrs. MALONEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield as much time as he may consume to
the gentleman from North Dakota (Mr. Pomeroy), who was instrumental in
the passage of this bill. We thank him for his leadership.
[[Page 28112]]
Mr. POMEROY. Mr. Speaker, I am delighted to be able to participate in
this discussion. I want to thank the gentlewoman for yielding. I also
thank the gentlewoman for struggling with the Hidatsa pronunciation of
Sakakawea, when most across the Nation learned the Shoshone
pronunciation Sacajawea. I think the sensitivity you showed to our
feelings that it is the Hidatsa pronunciation that ought to be
applicable is really representative of the kind of sensitivity you have
shown to our concerns throughout this entire matter.
As far as that goes, I want to really commend my colleague from
Delaware, Mike Castle. I commend also the ranking member, Barney Frank,
for taking what was clearly set up to be a win-lose proposition, with
the losers being those who really are proud of the Sakakawea coin, a
coin representing the first Native American woman ever to grace a
United States coin, a coin that we think also reflects honor and
celebration of the bicentennial of the Lewis & Clark Expedition which
opened up the north and west, and so we felt very strongly that the
Mint had made the right decision moving the dollar coin forward with
Sakakawea, and we were concerned about this coming to an end.
As we worked this through, this win-lose proposition became something
that I now view much more favorably as a win-win proposition. I think
the gentleman from Delaware has it right when he says that the
introduction of the Presidents may spark a whole new interest in the
dollar coin itself; and working together, we have been able to ensure
that Sakakawea will continue to be on part of those coins.
As to in the end what is a right percentage or should there be a
directed percentage, all I would say is we have worked in the end well
on this matter, and I will pledge my commitment to continuing to work
to make sure that this achieves the ends we all want: a dollar coin
more popularly accepted; recognition of our Presidents; a popular
collector's item for school children; and continued prominence of the
Sakakawea coin in circulation in this country.
I think that in the end this has been for me a very satisfying
legislative experience, and I commend the principals for making it so.
Certainly, I think that you could have pursued this another way; and
really, gosh, if we could do this more often around here on other
issues, I think we would get a lot more done.
I also want to take the opportunity at the podium just to recognize
Chairman Oxley. As someone with a former background as an insurance
commissioner, I have a deep interest in the matters of the Financial
Services Committee, and the chairman's serving as the first chairman of
this new committee with its broader reach of jurisdiction than the old
banking committee, I think you have set a very high bar of leadership
and integrity and fair-mindedness, and we have enjoyed your service in
that regard. I look forward to working with you next year as you
continue to serve out your chairmanship.
Mrs. MALONEY. Mr. Speaker, I have no further requests for time, and I
yield back the balance of my time.
Mr. OXLEY. Mr. Speaker, I again want to reiterate my support and
thanks to the leadership of the gentleman from North Dakota and thanks
for his cooperation. The gentlewoman from New York's negotiating skills
got the Statue of Liberty on the coin. That is pretty impressive. And
the gentleman from the First State has been a real leader in this for a
long time. In the great tradition of our committee, we look forward to
strong bipartisan support.
Mrs. KELLY. Mr. Speaker, I rise today in support of S. 1047. I have
the privilege of representing the West Point Mint, the home of our
nation's bullion coin programs. Since 1986 the mint and its employees
have produced the American Eagle series of silver, gold, and platinum
bullion coins with unmatched skill and quality. Each of the tens of
millions of American Eagle bullion coins that has been sold is an
investment in America, a savings for taxpayers, and a vote of
confidence in the workmanship of the West Point Mint.
S. 1047 builds on that legacy by authorizing two new bullion
programs, an American Presidential Spouse 24 karat gold bullion coin
and an American Buffalo $50 gold bullion coin. Passage of this bill
into law will ensure that the West Point Mint remains at the center of
American and global bullion coin production for years to come. I urge
the members of the House to join me in passing this bill.
Mr. OXLEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.
The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Boozman). The question is on the motion
offered by the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Oxley) that the House suspend
the rules and pass the Senate bill, S. 1047.
The question was taken.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. In the opinion of the Chair, two-thirds of
those present have voted in the affirmative.
Mr. OXLEY. Mr. Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.
The yeas and nays were ordered.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Pursuant to clause 8 of rule XX and the
Chair's prior announcement, further proceedings on this question will
be postponed.
____________________
GENERAL LEAVE
Mr. OXLEY. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may
have 5 legislative days within which to revise and extend their remarks
and include extraneous material on S. 1047.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Is there objection to the request of the
gentleman from Ohio?
There was no objection.
____________________
SMALL PUBLIC HOUSING AUTHORITY ACT
Mr. OXLEY. Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and pass the bill
(H.R. 3422) to amend the United States Housing Act of 1937 to exempt
small public housing agencies from the requirement of preparing an
annual public housing agency plan, as amended.
The Clerk read as follows:
H.R. 3422
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives
of the United States of America in Congress assembled,
SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.
This Act may be cited as the ``Small Public Housing
Authority Act''.
SEC. 2. PUBLIC HOUSING AGENCY PLANS FOR CERTAIN SMALL PUBLIC
HOUSING AGENCIES.
(a) In General.--Section 5A(b) of the United States Housing
Act of 1937 (42 U.S.C. 1437c-1(b)) is amended by adding at
the end the following new paragraph:
``(3) Exemption of certain small phas from filing
requirement.--
``(A) In general.--Notwithstanding paragraph (1) or any
other provision of this Act--
``(i) the requirement under paragraph (1) shall not apply
to any qualified small public housing agency; and
``(ii) except as provided in subsection (e)(4)(B), any
reference in this section or any other provision of law to a
`public housing agency' shall not be considered to refer to
any qualified small public housing agency, to the extent such
reference applies to the requirement to submit an annual
public housing agency plan under this subsection.
``(B) Civil rights certification.--Notwithstanding that
qualified small public housing agencies are exempt pursuant
to subparagraph (A) from the requirement under this section
to prepare and submit an annual public housing plan, each
qualified small public housing agency shall, on an annual
basis, make the certification described in paragraph (15) of
subsection (d) of this section, except that for purposes of
such small public housing agencies, such paragraph shall be
applied by substituting `the public housing program of the
agency' for `the public housing agency plan'.
``(C) Definition.--For purposes of this section, the term
`qualified small public housing agency' means a public
housing agency that meets all of the following requirements:
``(i) The sum of (I) the number of public housing dwelling
units administered by the agency, and (II) the number of
vouchers under section 8(o) of the United States Housing Act
of 1937 (42 U.S.C. 1437f(o)) administered by the agency, is
250 or fewer.
``(ii) The agency is not designated pursuant to section
6(j)(2) as a troubled public housing agency.''.
(b) Resident Participation.--Section 5A of the United
States Housing Act of 1937 (42 U.S.C. 1437c-1) is amended--
(1) in subsection (e), by inserting after paragraph (3) the
following:
``(4) Qualified small public housing agencies.--
``(A) In general.--Except as provided in subparagraph (B),
nothing in this section
[[Page 28113]]
may be construed to exempt a qualified small public housing
agency from the requirement under paragraph (1) to establish
one or more resident advisory boards. Notwithstanding that
qualified small public housing agencies are exempt pursuant
to subsection (b)(3)(A) from the requirement under this
section to prepare and submit an annual public housing plan,
each qualified small public housing agency shall consult
with, and consider the recommendations of the resident
advisory boards for the agency, in any determinations and
actions of the agency regarding establishing goals,
objectives, and policies of the agency.
``(B) Applicability of waiver authority.--Paragraph (3)
shall apply to qualified small public housing agencies,
except that for purposes of such small public housing
agencies, subparagraph (B) of such paragraph shall be applied
by substituting `the functions described in the second
sentence of paragraph (4)(A)' for `the functions described in
paragraph (2)'.
``(f) Public Hearings.--''; and
(2) in subsection (f) (as so designated by the amendment
made by paragraph (1) of this subsection), by adding at the
end the following new paragraph:
``(5) Qualified small public housing agencies.--
``(A) Requirement.--Notwithstanding that qualified small
public housing agencies are exempt pursuant to subsection
(b)(3)(A) from the requirement under this section to conduct
a public hearing regarding the annual public housing plan of
the agency, each qualified small public housing agency shall,
not less than annually, conduct a public hearing to discuss
the goals, objectives, and policies of the agency, and any
changes to such goals, objectives, and policies, and to
invite public comment regarding such issues.
``(B) Availability of information and notice.--Not later
than 45 days before the date of such a hearing, the qualified
small public housing agency shall--
``(i) make all information relevant to the hearing and any
determinations of the agency regarding the goals, objectives,
and policies of the agency to be considered at the hearing
available for inspection by the public at the principal
office of the public housing agency during normal business
hours; and
``(ii) publish a notice informing the public that (I) the
information is available as required under clause (i), and
(II) a public hearing under subparagraph (A) will be
conducted.''.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Pursuant to the rule, the gentleman from
Ohio (Mr. Oxley) and the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Frank) each
will control 20 minutes.
The Chair recognizes the gentleman from Ohio.
Mr. OXLEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong support of H.R. 3422, the Small Public
Housing Authority Act, and wish to commend the gentleman from Texas
(Mr. Neugebauer) for his work on this important legislation.
The Small Public Housing Authority Act would amend the United States
Housing Act of 1937 to exempt a small public housing agency from a
requirement to prepare an annual public agency plan if the agency
administers not more than a total of 250 dwelling units and section 8
vouchers and is not a troubled agency and provides assurances of
resident participation.
Currently, public housing authorities are required to submit both a
5-year plan and an annual plan to HUD. The 5-year PHA plan addresses
the agency's mission and their plan to achieve their mission.
Specifically, the annual plan has typically required public housing
authorities to include information on the housing needs of the families
in the jurisdiction, strategies to meet these needs, statement of
financial resources, and PHA policies governing eligibility, selection,
and administrations.
Typically the average streamlined PHA plan is 47 pages with extensive
attachments. For a small PHA with limited staff, compiling such a
report is both time consuming and labor intensive. The regulatory
relief provided in this legislation will give small public housing
authorities more time to focus on the needs of their tenants. This
exemption of smaller PHAs from filing plans will not affect the ability
of tenant organizations to continue to have input with the managers of
their developments. Language incorporated into the legislation ensures
tenant participation and requires smaller PHAs to provide advanced
planning required under the 5-year plans.
Similar legislation sponsored by our good friend, retired
Representative Doug Bereuter, was considered by the Financial Services
Committee on March 17, 2004, and passed the House under suspension of
the rules on May 5, 2004, in the 108th Congress.
Mr. Speaker, H.R. 3422 deserves our support. I urge its adoption.
Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as
I may consume.
Mr. Speaker, we agree that this is a useful piece of legislation. I
am one who believes in appropriate regulation. And if you believe in
appropriate regulation, you should be committed to doing away with
inappropriate regulation. When you overregulate, when you put too much
of a burden on people who should not have the burden, you undercut the
case for those restrictions where they should apply. Clearly, when you
talk about housing authorities, you are talking about entities that
differ greatly; and this is one of those cases where to quote, I guess
Marx I am afraid, ``Quantity can become quality.'' Differences in size
can become so important that they become difference in kind.
When you talk of the New York Public Housing Authority or the Los
Angeles Public Housing Authority and you are talking about some of the
very small public housing authorities, you are talking about very
different entities, and you ought not try to put them all under one. So
we appreciate the initiative that came on the other side from those who
wanted to make this more flexible.
We did have some concerns. By ``we'' I did mean myself and the
gentlewoman from California (Ms. Waters), who chairs the housing
subcommittee, because we did not want to have tenants who, after all,
are human beings in large authorities as well as small to be somehow
inadvertently disadvantaged. So we appreciate the fact that the
majority is willing to negotiate with us, and I always say that with
trepidation lest my having acknowledged that we worked out something
bipartisan in our committee and transformed something routine into an
ideological war. But I would assure people that the negotiations here
were of a fairly calm level.
What we did, essentially, was to maintain the statutory role for
resident advisory boards. They are advisory, and obviously it is
important to watch housing authorities that are small and talk to the
people who live there.
Secondly, we left in a requirement that they have to have a public
hearing at least once a year to talk about their objectives. I think
these are beneficial. Finally, we wanted to make clear that they did
have to self-certify that they were meeting the civil rights and fair
housing laws.
{time} 1600
No one has to investigate them, but leaving that out, leaving that
requirement itself out of the equation, the vast majority of housing
authorities are well-intentioned, and you do not volunteer to be on a
housing authority unless you really care about the people who are
there. The people who run the small housing authorities are very often
very civic-minded people, people who care about the poor. Very rarely
are the people who run these authorities getting back any kind of
compensation, enough to make up for the time. But we want to make sure
that we did not send the wrong message.
So with those three fairly minor modifications that the majority
accepted, this is a fairly useful bill, and we hope that it is passed.
Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
Mr. OXLEY. Mr. Speaker, I am now pleased to yield such time as he may
consume to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Neugebauer), the sponsor of
the legislation.
Mr. NEUGEBAUER. Mr. Speaker, I thank Chairman Oxley and Ranking
Member Frank.
Mr. Speaker, H.R. 3422 would exempt public housing authorities with
250 or fewer public housing units and section 8 vouchers combined from
the requirement of submitting an annual plan to the Department of
Housing and Urban Development.
[[Page 28114]]
In the 108th Congress, the House passed a similar legislation
sponsored by former Congressman Doug Bereuter. The Senate, however,
failed to take up this legislation.
I represent a rural West Texas district. Most of the public housing
authorities in my district have fewer than 250 housing units and/or
vouchers. Several have part-time directors or directors who split time
between public housing authorities.
The annual plan process, mandated by Congress in 1998, requires a
significant amount of time and resources for these public housing
authorities. This mandate is especially burdensome on our PHAs, our
small ones, because they have few staff resources to devote to the
annual plans. While HUD has taken regulatory steps to reduce the
reporting burden for small PHAs, the plans still require much
unnecessary paperwork and additional time.
Reducing the unnecessary paperwork and reporting will help smaller
PHAs better serve their communities and focus on their mission of
providing affordable rural housing to rural residents in need.
H.R. 3422 only addresses annual plans. Small PHAs will still complete
their HUD 5-year plan.
This legislation also requires PHAs to continue providing their
residents with opportunity to help set goals and policies for the
housing authority and to continue to certify their civil rights
compliance with HUD.
However, I would note that the intent of this legislation is for HUD
to keep the annual certification process as simple as possible and not
create additional requirements and additional reports for PHAs.
This is a small bill, but it has a positive impact on PHAs in rural
areas in my district, and I ask the House that this much-needed,
commonsense regulatory relief for small public housing authorities be
passed.
As the ranking member said, one of the things that makes sense is
when government oversteps its bounds, it is appropriate for government
to step back in and correct those. I think this is a much-needed
correction so that we can let these small public housing authorities
focus on the tenants and not on the paperwork.
I thank, again, the chairman and the ranking member.
Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself some
additional time to simply say, I appreciate what the gentleman from
Texas said in closing which is to focus on the tenants.
I think it is important that we continue to pay attention to housing
authorities. Too often, people slip into the mistake of equating
homeownership with homes. Homeownership is very important, yes, to the
sense that people are economically and other ways able to own homes,
that is a good thing. But a large number of low-income people, through
a variety of reasons, economic and others, are not going to own homes,
and we ought to be clear that it is the right of people to a home that
we want to work for or at least the ability of people to have a decent
home.
In many cases, that will be homeownership. But in some cases, it will
not be, and we want to make it very clear, as far as the public sector
is concerned, we ought to have the same obligation to help people make
the most out of their home, whether they are tenants or owners. This is
an example of how we do that.
So I thank the gentleman.
Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.
Mr. OXLEY. Mr. Speaker, I have no further requests for time. I just
want to, again, congratulate the gentleman from Texas for his
leadership and the cooperation on the other side.
Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.
The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Boozman). The question is on the motion
offered by the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Oxley) that the House suspend
the rules and pass the bill, H.R. 3422, as amended.
The question was taken.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. In the opinion of the Chair, two-thirds of
those present have voted in the affirmative.
Mr. OXLEY. Mr. Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.
The yeas and nays were ordered.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Pursuant to clause 8 of rule XX and the
Chair's prior announcement, further proceedings on this question will
be postponed.
____________________
GENERAL LEAVE
Mr. OXLEY. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may
have 5 legislative days within which to revise and extend their remarks
and include extraneous material on H.R. 3422.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Is there objection to the request of the
gentleman from Ohio?
There was no objection.
____________________
BROWNFIELDS REDEVELOPMENT ENHANCEMENT ACT
Mr. OXLEY. Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and pass the bill
(H.R. 280) to facilitate the provision of assistance by the Department
of Housing and Urban Development for the cleanup and economic
redevelopment of brownfields, as amended.
The Clerk read as follows:
H.R. 280
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of
the United States of America in Congress assembled,
SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.
This Act may be cited as the ``Brownfields Redevelopment
Enhancement Act''.
SEC. 2. FINDINGS AND PURPOSES.
(a) Findings.--The Congress finds that--
(1) returning the Nation's brownfield sites to productive
economic use could generate more than 550,000 additional jobs
and up to $2,400,000,000 in new tax revenues for cities and
towns;
(2) redevelopment of brownfield sites and reuse of
infrastructure at such sites will protect natural resources
and open spaces;
(3) lack of funding for redevelopment is a primary obstacle
impeding the reuse of brownfield sites;
(4) the Department of Housing and Urban Development is the
agency of the Federal Government that is principally
responsible for supporting community development and
encouraging productive land use in urban areas of the United
States;
(5) grants under the Brownfields Economic Development
Initiative of the Department of Housing and Urban Development
provide local governments with a flexible source of funding
to pursue brownfields redevelopment through land acquisition,
site preparation, economic development, and other activities;
(6) to be eligible for such grant funds, a community must
be willing to pledge community development block grant funds
as partial collateral for a loan guarantee under section 108
of the Housing and Community Development Act of 1974, and
this requirement is a barrier to many local communities that
are unable or unwilling to pledge such block grant funds as
collateral; and
(7) by de-linking grants for brownfields development from
section 108 community development loan guarantees and the
related pledge of community development block grant funds,
more communities will have access to funding for
redevelopment of brownfield sites.
(b) Purpose.--The purpose of this Act is to provide cities
and towns with more flexibility for brownfields development,
increased accessibility to brownfields redevelopment funds,
and greater capacity to coordinate and collaborate with other
government agencies--
(1) by providing additional incentives to invest in the
development and redevelopment of brownfield sites; and
(2) by de-linking grants for brownfields development from
community development loan guarantees and the related pledge
of community development block grant funds.
SEC. 3. BROWNFIELDS DEVELOPMENT INITIATIVE.
Title I of the Housing and Community Development Act of
1974 (42 U.S.C. 5301 et seq.) is amended by adding at the end
the following new section:
``SEC. 123. BROWNFIELDS DEVELOPMENT INITIATIVE.
``(a) In General.--The Secretary may make grants under this
section, on a competitive basis as specified in section 102
of the Department of Housing and Urban Development Reform Act
of 1989 (42 U.S.C. 3545), only to eligible public entities
(as such term is defined in section 108(o) of this title) and
Indian tribes for carrying out projects and activities to
assist the development and redevelopment of brownfield sites,
which shall include mine-scarred lands.
``(b) Use of Grant Amounts.--Amounts from grants under this
section--
``(1) shall be used, as provided in subsection (a) of this
section, only for activities specified in section 108(a);
[[Page 28115]]
``(2) shall be subject to the same requirements that, under
section 101(c) and paragraphs (2) and (3) of section 104(b),
apply to grants under section 106; and
``(3) shall not be provided or used in a manner that
reduces the financial responsibility of any nongovernmental
party that is responsible or potentially responsible for
contamination on any real property and the provision of
assistance pursuant to this section shall not in any way
relieve any party of liability with respect to such
contamination, including liability for removal and
remediation costs.
``(c) Availability of Assistance.--The Secretary shall not
require, for eligibility for a grant under this section, that
such grant amounts be used only in connection or conjunction
with projects and activities assisted with a loan guaranteed
under section 108.
``(d) Applications.--Applications for assistance under this
section shall be in the form and in accordance with
procedures as shall be established by the Secretary.
``(e) Selection Criteria and Leveraging.--The Secretary
shall establish criteria for awarding grants under this
section, which may include the extent to which the applicant
has obtained other Federal, State, local, or private funds
for the projects and activities to be assisted with grant
amounts and such other criteria as the Secretary considers
appropriate. Such criteria shall include consideration of the
appropriateness of the extent of financial leveraging
involved in the projects and activities to be funded with the
grant amounts.
``(f) Definition of Brownfield Site.--For purposes of this
section, the term `brownfield site' has the meaning given
such term in section 101(39) of the Comprehensive
Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act of
1980 (42 U.S.C. 9601(39)). Such term includes a site that
meets the requirements under subparagraph (D) of such section
for inclusion as a brownfield site for purposes of section
104(k) of such Act (42 U.S.C. 9604(k)).
``(g) Authorization of Appropriations.--There are
authorized to be appropriated for grants under this section
such sums as may be necessary for each of fiscal years 2006,
2007, 2008, 2009, and 2010.''.
SEC. 4. CLARIFICATION OF BROWNFIELDS REDEVELOPMENT AS
ELIGIBLE CDBG ACTIVITY.
(a) Technical Correction.--Subsection (a) of section 105 of
the Housing and Community Development Act of 1974 (42 U.S.C.
5305(a)) is amended--
(1) by striking paragraph (24) and all that follows through
the end of the subsection and inserting the new paragraph
(24) inserted by section 2(3) of Public Law 108-146 (117
Stat. 1883);
(2) by adding at the end (after the paragraph added by
paragraph (1) of this subsection) the new paragraph (20)
added by section 907(b)(1)(C) of Public Law 101-625 (104
Stat. 4388) and redesignating such paragraph as paragraph
(25); and
(3) by adding at the end (after the paragraphs added by
paragraphs (1) and (2) of this subsection) the new paragraph
(21) added by section 1012(f)(3)) of Public Law 102-550 (106
Stat. 3905) and redesignating such paragraph as paragraph
(26).
(b) Brownfields Redevelopment Activities.--Section 105(a)
of the Housing and Community Development Act of 1974 (42
U.S.C. 5305(a)), as in effect pursuant to subsection (a) of
this section, is amended--
(1) in paragraph (24) (as added by subsection (a)(1) of
this section), by striking ``and'' at the end;
(2) in paragraph (25) (as added by subsection (a)(2) of
this section), by striking the period at the end and
inserting a semicolon;
(3) in paragraph (26) (as added by subsection (a)(3) of
this section), by striking the period at the end and
inserting ``; and''; and
(4) by adding at the end the following new paragraph:
``(27) economic development and redevelopment activities
related to projects for brownfields sites (as such term is
defined in section 123(f)), in conjunction with the
appropriate environmental regulatory agencies, except that
assistance pursuant to this paragraph shall not be provided
in a manner that reduces the financial responsibility of any
nongovernmental party that is responsible or potentially
responsible for contamination on any real property and the
provision of assistance pursuant to this paragraph shall not
in any way relieve any party of liability with respect to
such contamination, including liability for removal and
remediation costs.''.
SEC. 5. TECHNICAL AMENDMENT TO ALLOW USE OF CDBG FUNDS TO
ADMINISTER RENEWAL COMMUNITIES.
Section 105(a)(13) of the Housing and Community Development
Act of 1974 (42 U.S.C. 5305(a)(13)) is amended by inserting
``and renewal communities'' after ``enterprise zones''.
SEC. 6. APPLICABILITY.
The amendments made by this Act shall apply only with
respect to amounts made available for fiscal year 2006 and
fiscal years thereafter for use under the provisions of law
amended by this Act.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Pursuant to the rule, the gentleman from
Ohio (Mr. Oxley) and the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Frank) each
will control 20 minutes.
The Chair recognizes the gentleman from Ohio.
Mr. OXLEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 2 minutes.
Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to see this bill on the floor today.
The revitalization of brownfield sites has always interested me because
Ohio has thousands of those underused or vacant properties. I was
involved in writing the first brownfields legislation almost 10 years
ago at a time when people were just starting to focus on what
redevelopment could mean for jobs and cleaning up the environment.
Aside from the contamination at these sites, we found that there were
legal and financial obstacles to redevelopment. After working on the
issue for several years, Congress passed a major brownfields bill in
2001 that the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Gillmor) helped push across the
goal line. That bill mainly dealt with EPA's programs.
The Financial Services Committee then started looking at making HUD's
programs more effective, specifically the Brownfields Economic
Development Initiative. At a hearing, we learned that many communities
have been shut out of the BEDI, pronounced Betty, program because they
cannot get a grant without going through the cumbersome process of
applying for a section 108 loan. That is very hard on smaller
communities. In fact, Mayor Lydia Reid from Mansfield in my
congressional district testified that is an obstacle to getting
redevelopment project off the ground and creating new jobs.
I applaud the gentleman from California (Mr. Gary G. Miller) for
introducing H.R. 280. It will bring needed flexibility to the program
by delinking BEDI from the section 108 program. Communities will be
able to apply for a grant if that is all they need to get a project
going and bring in major private sector investment.
We can unlock a lot of jobs by getting a lot of these properties back
to productive use. There are some 450,000 brownfield sites in every
State in the Nation. By redeveloping these properties, we also reduce
the stress being put on pristine green fields and farmland.
We have had good cooperation in our committees and with other
committees in bringing this bill to the floor. A vote for H.R. 280 is a
vote for jobs. I urge its passage today.
Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as
I may consume.
I know that our colleague from California (Mr. Gary G. Miller) was en
route here, and that is appropriate because he has been a major
proponent of this bill. He and I have worked together on it.
What we do here is to frankly allow cities, municipalities, to do
more to clean up brownfield sites. Surprisingly, initially we ran into
some jurisdictional objections, I think based on turf, I guess, in this
case, almost literally on turf, from some people who were kind of
proponents of the EPA's role there.
I should make it very clear, to the extent that the Environmental
Protection Agency can clean up these sites, wonderful. Mayors are not
asking for the right to take funds for which they have a large number
of demand and divert them into projects that would be otherwise done by
the EPA, but there are occasions where we know the EPA does not have
the money it ought to have.
I regret the fact that Congress earlier, the majority then in
control, decided to end the taxation that we levied on the oil
companies to provide funds for EPA. EPA has not got enough money, and
we do not give it enough in the appropriations process. So I regret
that, and I want to do all that I can to include it, but I do not want
to tell a city because we have not given enough money to the EPA that
the city is precluded from going forward cleaning up their brownfields.
I also want to talk a little bit about the public sector/private
sector issue here. We hear a lot about the value of the private sector,
and it is often put in the context of the private sector
[[Page 28116]]
versus the public sector, with people being critical of the public
sector. There are times when the public sector and elements of it do
not do well. There are times when the private sector does not, but
understand what we are talking about here.
Brownfields are overwhelmingly the product of private sector
activity. Brownfields is a somewhat neutral term for ugly, messy stuff,
pollutants, chemicals and other things that I guess turn the green
grass brown, that turn the earth into an unpleasant situation.
The private sector companies that did that were not bad people. Most
of them, a couple of bad people sneak in everywhere, but they really
believed that it was their job to do it. They were producing various
goods, and the processes used to produce various goods will sometimes
produce pollutants.
What we have here with brownfields are situations overwhelmingly
where a private sector entity made money by producing certain goods and
then went out of business, moved away, moved overseas and left behind
quite literally a physical problem in the city. What we are saying here
is we are recognizing that the public sector has to step in and clean
that up.
In some cases, under environmental law, we try to get private sector,
responsible parties, to contribute, but sometimes, they are not around
to do that. They have not got the money. They are just not there. Let
us be clear. This is a recognition of the need for a well-funded public
sector operation to literally clean up the messes left behind by the
private sector. This is an example in my mind of how in a rational
society seeking the right quality of life, public and private sectors
each will have an important role, and they will be cooperative.
I regret that fact that because we had a rule about no new programs
that the pilot projects that would have allowed the Secretary of HUD to
make some grants to explicitly combine cleaning up the brownfields with
subsequent economic development on that cleaned-up site, that that was
stricken from the bill. I know the gentleman from California has said,
and I appreciate this, that he and I will continue to push for that. I
hope that next year we may get that authorized as a separate bill.
What we are doing here is to free up any restrictions on the
community development block grant program. One problem in the past was
that if cities wanted to use their CDBG funds, they had to do it
through a program called section 108 which required them to kind of
roll their CDBG funds for many years. This allows them more
flexibility. It allows us if we can get some appropriations into this
to give them some money so they can also get things cleaned up.
It is, as I said, arming the mayors and local officials with a new
set of tools to take areas of their city that have been despoiled by
past private sector practices and make them available for the kinds of
uses that will help enhance the quality of life, the economic and other
kinds of activities in the city.
I just want to pay tribute here to the mayor of the city of New
Bedford, Fred Kalisz, a long-serving mayor in the largest city in my
district, who is leaving office in a few weeks. It was his advocacy to
a great extent that called this issue to my attention, and he will be
leaving, but I am very pleased that, as he leaves, we will be passing,
and I hope soon the President will sign into law a bill that responds
to one of the needs that he identified
Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
Mr. OXLEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Ohio
(Mr. Gillmor), who I have had the pleasure to work with for many, many
years, both in Ohio and here in the Congress. He has been a leader on
the brownfields issue since we served together on the Energy and
Commerce Committee, and we are pleased to have him participate not only
on that committee but our committee as well.
Mr. GILLMOR. I want to thank the gentleman for yielding, and I rise
in support of this bill.
Mr. Speaker, for the last 10 years, Federal involvement in
brownfields cleanup and redevelopment has been increasing, particularly
since our Nation's mayors know that brownfields redevelopment efforts
are proven, results-driven programs that have changed the way
contaminated property is managed. What once began as an administrative
pilot program has now blossomed into a major Federal grant program.
Simply having a brownfield, though, is no guarantee that the land
will be cleaned up and redeveloped. When I introduced the legislation
in 2001 that has now become our country's primary brownfields law, a
major component of that measure was ensuring that Federal grant money
was available to seed the development of those run-down properties.
{time} 1615
In fact, next to lingering liability concerns, the largest barriers
that cities face when trying to acquire and redevelop contaminated
brownfields sites was their lack of access to adequate and affordable
capital to carry out critical brownfields activities.
This bill does not create a new program, but rather builds on an
existing administrative program at HUD. H.R. 280 will increase access
to brownfields redevelopment funds for America's more distressed and
smaller communities through the Brownfields Economic Development
Initiative; and, more importantly, it will couple this money with
Federal expertise on community redevelopment projects.
Brownfields are both as a result of private and government activity,
and in almost every case the activity which now needs to be cleaned up
was legal when it was done. But it is important that we provide the
resources so that we can redevelop these sites and bring back the jobs
that once existed there.
Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 1 minute, and
I appreciate the gentleman from Ohio making that point. Yes, a great
many of these activities, probably most of them, were legal at the
time. And I think that is an important point.
Society's mores change and customs change; and we are talking about,
in many cases, businesses and, in some cases, government with waste
disposal that were doing things entirely legal at the time, not fully
cognizant of the consequences; and it sometimes falls to later
generations literally to clean up.
These things were often things that were legal, not done by bad
people, but people who were following the rules at the time; and I
think it is fashionable to lament the deterioration of society all the
time. This is an example, the whole brownfields approach of higher
standards, of the decision of society today not only not to accept some
of the things that used to happen but literally to clean them up.
Mr. Speaker, I yield such time as she may consume to the gentlewoman
from New York (Mrs. Maloney).
Mrs. MALONEY. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding me this
time and for his leadership on so many other issues. Bringing this to
the floor took a great deal of work and conversations and negotiations
and Mr. Frank led that work in many ways.
I also want to really compliment the passion of Gary Miller from
California, who has introduced this legislation in a number of
Congresses. Before coming to Congress, he worked in urban areas in
redevelopment and knows the problem that brownfields can cause to
localities in holding back economic development. He has been really
devoted to passing it, and it has been my pleasure to work with him on
this for three Congresses.
The primary purpose of this legislation is to increase the
flexibility of the HUD Brownfields Economic Development Initiative, the
BEDI program, and make the program available to more local governments.
This is a very important initiative, particularly for upstate New
York, a former industrial area. Many manufacturing jobs have left and
left behind contaminated brownfields. Our localities, our villages,
towns and cities desperately need this money to clean up these
brownfields and return these economic centers to economic growth.
[[Page 28117]]
The Financial Services Committee has reported this legislation out by
an overwhelming bipartisan vote in the past two Congresses, reflecting
the bipartisan consensus that brownfields clean-up benefits the
economic development of our entire Nation. The legislation eliminates
the requirement that communities applying for BEDI grants must pledge
their Community Development Block Grant funding as security for the
loan. This requirement puts local governments, particularly smaller
local governments, between a rock and a hard place.
Since its inception, the larger brownfields program has proven to be
an effective government response to a serious environmental problem,
and it is important that we maximize its use. Brownfields spot our
country from coast to coast, especially in areas with high or formerly
high levels of industrial activity, especially urban areas. These
brownfields locations have a potential for economic development, but
they have been held back by the environmental problems created by
former or current users.
New York City and State, and I am sure probably every State and city,
is full of them. The EPA program has successfully used a variety of
financial and technical assistance to restore these sites which would
otherwise be doomed to further decay.
I am very pleased that we are moving this legislation forward today,
but very disappointed that the BEDI program appears to be under attack
from the administration. The budget the administration put forward this
year would have discontinued the BEDI program at HUD and shifted its
function to Commerce. Therefore, this bill is especially important this
year to preserve the very survival of the brownfields initiative.
I truly do want to thank Gary Miller for his consistent and
persistent leadership in introducing this legislation year after year
and Ranking Member Frank for championing it, along with his staff; and
of course Chairman Michael Oxley for his leadership on this and so many
other issues.
Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 2 minutes.
The gentlewoman from New York reminded me that a lot of these things
that are very broadly supported require money. And just as we have seen
a cutting off of funding of the EPA, this administration, sadly, has
been trying to cut back the funds for the brownfields program.
And indeed I have a rare opportunity in which I can congratulate the
Appropriations Committee under the control of the majority because they
had the good sense to reject a proposal by this administration to
rescind this coming year's money for the brownfields program because
they said they needed to deal with it to offset the problems in
Katrina.
So this strong support for this brownfields program comes at a very
good time, because it is a strong voice of support, I believe on a
bipartisan basis, from the Appropriations Committee in repudiating that
very ill-thought-out effort by the administration to rescind all of its
money.
Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
Mr. OXLEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentlewoman from
Pennsylvania (Ms. Hart), a former member of the Financial Services
Committee, who has come back home to participate in this debate on
brownfields.
Ms. HART. Mr. Speaker, I especially thank the chairman for his
indulgence in allowing me some time on this legislation, and I am
honored to be part of the Financial Services Committee argument today
for this House bill 280, the Brownfields Redevelopment Enhancement Act,
because it will make a real difference for communities throughout this
country.
I was a Pennsylvania senator for 10 years; and while I was there, we
passed a very forward-thinking brownfields bill that helped to provide
more opportunity for development of brownfields without fear of
liability. That is one step, and it was important for my State;
however, on the Federal level, we have had a program in place, the BEDI
program, which is a great program; but there are some impediments to
many of our communities being able to utilize that program.
I am a cosponsor of this legislation because it will provide access
to funding that is vital to restoring brownfields sites. It is going to
improve the BEDI program and make it more practical for America's small
cities and communities so that they can thrive.
My district is home to many of these communities that have small
brownfields sites right in the middle of town. Revitalizing these sites
is key to helping rebuild the economy of these small towns.
The significance of this development was highlighted recently at the
U.S. Conference of Mayors in June 2003 when they did their survey. The
cities that were surveyed noted that the creation of over 83,000 jobs
through redevelopment in 148 cities was because of brownfields
redevelopment. However, they also stated that nearly 600,000 more jobs
could be created with more liberal use of monies through this program.
In addition, by helping to reclaim these old sites, developers do not
have to look to undeveloped land to locate businesses or residential
properties.
One of the major hurdles to revitalizing these is financing.
Unfortunately, this is especially true for these small towns and cities
that I mentioned. These are the ones that are most eager to see these
sites as host to new development. They face continuous hurdles, and
this bill will help remove some of these hurdles.
These grants through BEDI could be a valuable source of funding to
revitalize these towns and communities and lead to a brighter future
that these towns envision. The program requires communities at this
time, though, to take on additional debt. Many of these communities
cannot afford to do so. The investment, though, in these communities
would provide opportunities for them to grow and to grow their tax base
and also add jobs.
I have heard from many in the communities I represent that we need to
work to make BEDI grants more available. This bill would do so. By
delinking section 108 loans from BEDI grants, H.R. 280 will provide
this access to brownfields redevelopment and to this special program
which works so well for small communities. It will make it work even
better for the small communities in my district and across the Nation.
Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of
my time.
Mr. OXLEY. Mr. Speaker, in closing, let me again recognize a few
individuals. Gary Miller of California, the author of this legislation,
has been just dogged in his determination to get this legislation
passed. Unfortunately, his plane was delayed coming from California
today and so was unable to participate in the debate.
I also want to thank Paul Gillmor for his dogged efforts on this, and
I appreciate also the cooperation of the ranking member, the gentleman
from Massachusetts, and Mrs. Maloney for their efforts.
It has been 4 years since we began working on this legislation, and I
have to say that these are the kinds of bills that do not get a whole
lot of attention. They are not overly controversial, but they do a lot
of good. They will have a very positive impact on a lot of communities
throughout the country.
We debate this under the suspension of the rules, so you will not
hear a lot of hue and cry in the media about it. But at the end of the
day, it is Congress at its best doing the kind of work we need to do.
Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?
Mr. OXLEY. I yield to the gentleman from Massachusetts.
Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. I would just say that they have one other
advantage: they are sufficiently uncomplicated to get the United States
Senate to act on them.
Mr. OXLEY. I would echo that. And I am glad we changed the rules, by
the way, that one can mention that body instead of referring to it as,
quote, the other body.
[[Page 28118]]
In any event, this is meaningful legislation that we indeed want to
pursue in the other body so that we can get this to the President. It
has an enormous upside and potential for communities.
Governor Voinovich, when he was Governor before becoming Senator, had
a commission which he commissioned in Ohio to study the loss of
greenfields in the Buckeye State. One of the things that that
commission found was that we could start the flow of that use of very
productive farmland in Ohio by better cleaning up brownfields and
putting them back to use.
So this bill is basically in that vein, and we think that this will
go a long way in that effort.
Mr. GARY G. MILLER of California. Mr. Speaker, I rise today in strong
support of H.R. 280, The Brownfields Redevelopment Enhancement Act.
I would like to thank Committee Chairman Oxley, Subcommittee Chairman
Ney, and Ranking Member Frank for their leadership and assistance in
ensuring this important legislation be considered by the full House
prior to adjournment.
community redevelopment
Brownfields are abandoned, idle, or under-used industrial and
commercial facilities where expansion or redevelopment is complicated
by real or perceived environmental contamination.
It is estimated that there are over 500,000 Brownfield sites across
the country.
Brownfields represent more than just unproductive eyesores blighting
individual communities.
They threaten our groundwater supply, cost our local communities jobs
and revenue, and contribute to urban sprawl.
Brownfield sites hold tremendous potential for community
revitalization. Many of these sites are strategically located in or
around key areas of communities.
Redevelopment of these sites is both a challenge and an opportunity
and returning them to productive use can serve as a catalyst for local
economic recovery.
hud's involvement in brownfields redevelopment
The largest obstacle cities face when redeveloping Brownfield sites
is the lack of capital needed to carry out essential early-stage
activities.
Because private financiers are often unwilling or unable to provide
the funding to take a site through the full redevelopment cycle, local
municipalities and local leaders find themselves confronted with the
complex task of redevelopment.
The Brownfields Economic Development Initiative (BEDI) grant program
was designed to help cities overcome this challenge.
The BEDI program helps communities to convert abandoned or
underutilized sites into useful developments, thereby increasing the
area's tax base and creating new job opportunities where none existed.
The BEDI program gives cities the opportunity to minimize urban
sprawl and preserve existing green space by working with local
developers and builders to utilize previously developed properties.
The program gives local communities a valuable tool to address
blight, create new jobs, and expand their tax base.
bedi is distinct from other federal brownfield programs
There is a clear and critical role for the Department of Housing and
Urban Development (HUD) to play in communities' efforts to redevelop
Brownfield sites.
Unlike Brownfields programs in other agencies, BEDI funds are
targeted for use, with a particular emphasis upon redevelopment.
Further, HUD emphasizes that resources are to be used on projects and
activities that will provide near-term results and demonstrable
economic benefits, such as job creation and increases in the local tax
base.
Funds are used as the stimulus for local governments and private
sector parties to commence redevelopment or continue phased
redevelopment efforts on Brownfield sites.
Brownfields funds under other federal agencies, such as the EPA, are
more focused on environmental clean-up.
HUD does not encourage applications whose scope is limited only to
site acquisition and/or remediation (i.e., land banking), where there
is no immediately planned redevelopment.
problem with current structure of bedi program
While HUD's BEDI program is an important tool for communities to
redevelop Brownfield sites, in its current form the grant is difficult,
if not impossible, for local communities to utilize.
If a local community wishes to pursue Brownfields redevelopment funds
from HUD, they must first apply for a Section 108 loan.
In order to secure this loan, they are required to put up a portion
of their Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) money as collateral.
The requirement that communities must obtain a Section 108 loan
guarantee before they are awarded a BEDI grant has stymied the
effectiveness of the BEDI program because it:
Makes it virtually impossible for small cities to access BEDI
resources since they do not get their own CDBG entitlement grants from
which to meet the required Section 108 collateral pledge.
Serves as a disincentive for small and mid-sized cities.
Discourages small projects.
Has proven difficult for many cities and counties to meet because of
debt caps and concern that the addition of more Section 108 debt would
jeopardize basic CDBG programs and services.
Without the Section 108 loan guarantee, cities are effectively locked
out of the BEDI grant.
H.R. 280
H.R. 280 provides communities with the flexibility they need to
finance Brownfields redevelopment projects.
It makes improvements to the BEDI program, ensuring that communities
who have traditionally had trouble obtaining financing for Brownfields
Redevelopment activities have access to needed capital.
Specifically, the bill authorizes appropriations for the BEDI program
and eliminates the requirement that cities obtain Section 108 loan
guarantees as a condition to receiving BEDI grant funding.
Conclusion
This legislation gives local communities a valuable tool to address
blight, create new jobs, and expand their tax base.
With the flexible access to the BEDI grant program that this bill
provides, we can help revitilize Brownfields sites across the country.
Cities have an opportunity to minimize urban sprawl and preserve
existing green space by working with local developers and builders to
utilize previously developed properties.
This bill will empower cities to take ownership of their Brownfields
and work with their development community to design projects that
utilize existing infrastructure.
Most importantly, it is estimated that more than $2.4 billion in new
tax revenues can be generated through Brownfields redevelopment.
Let's give cities access to the up-front financing they need to clean
up Brownfields sites. I urge my colleagues to support this crucial
legislation.
Mr. SHAYS. Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of H.R. 280, which would
allow the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) to make
grants to assist in the environmental cleanup and economic development
of Brownfields sites.
I believe the Brownfields program is one of the most successful
programs the Federal Government has to help revitalize urban areas.
These sites, typically in the heart of urban areas, lie idle because
no one wants to incur the large costs associated with Superfund
cleanups.
As a result, cities are marked by abandoned buildings and vacant lots
while developers construct new buildings on what was previously open
space in the suburbs.
Specifically, this legislation ensures that communities that have
traditionally had trouble obtaining financing for Brownfields
Redevelopment activities have access to needed capital.
Though small, these grants have served as seed money, enabling dozens
of communities to leverage millions of state and private dollars to
move into actual cleanup phase.
By reusing Brownfields sites we not only rebuild blighted
communities, but also target development in city centers and avoid
unnecessary urbanization on the fringes of metropolitan areas.
Mr. PASCRELL. Mr. Speaker, I want to express my strong support of
H.R. 280, ``The Brownfields Redevelopment Enhancement Act'' and want to
thank Representative Gary Miller for shepherding this important
legislation through the House.
This legislation will remove unnecessary obstacles from localities
that are poised to transform abandoned or underutilized sites into
clean, marketable properties. This type of redevelopment is an
important ingredient in the economic recovery of many areas--creating
jobs, improving the quality of the environment and spurring the
preservation of open space.
There are few issues that we face that have as much strategic
potential as redeveloping Brownfields sites.
This redevelopment is not just about real estate--it is a jobs issue,
a health issue, an environmental issue, a housing issue and an economic
development issue.
A relatively small investment by the Federal Government will yield
tremendous benefits for our country's social and economic well being.
The HUD Brownfields Economic Development Initiative (BEDI) is
particularly valuable
[[Page 28119]]
for neighborhood revitalization, since only BEDI funds are specifically
targeted for use in economic development projects.
Unfortunately, current law requires that cities obtain Section 108
loan guarantees as a condition of receiving a BEDI grant.
This makes it difficult for small and medium sized cities to obtain
BEDI grants since they are often not able to raise the capital
necessary to meet the Section 108 collateral requirement.
Let the Congress pass this common sense legislation to remove the
Section 108 requirement and unleash the vast economic potential that
lies dormant in our cities across the Nation.
Mr. TURNER. Mr. Speaker, I support H.R. 280, the Brownfields
Revitalization Enhancement Act. I want to thank Congressman Miller from
California for his hard work and dedication toward the issue of
brownfields redevelopment. I look forward to working with Congressman
Miller in the future on this issue.
Brownfield sites are served by an existing infrastructure and through
their remediation, urban sprawl can be reduced. Redeveloping
brownfields could create 1.9 billion dollars annually in increased tax
revenues for American cities.
H.R. 280 provides grant money to cities and towns to redevelop
brownfield sites. This bill also detaches grant availability from
section 108 loan guarantees, which allows more communities to have
access to critical grant funds.
Mr. Speaker, we must clean up our Nation's brownfields. These
contaminated sites are hazards to our communities, and through their
remediation we can bring businesses and families back into American
cities.
Mr. OXLEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.
The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Sodrel). The question is on the motion
offered by the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Oxley) that the House suspend
the rules and pass the bill, H.R. 280, as amended.
The question was taken; and (two-thirds having voted in favor
thereof) the rules were suspended and the bill, as amended, was passed.
A motion to reconsider was laid on the table.
____________________
GENERAL LEAVE
Mr. OXLEY. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may
have 5 legislative days within which to revise and extend their remarks
and include extraneous material on H.R. 280, as amended.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Is there objection to the request of the
gentleman from Ohio?
There was no objection.
____________________
{time} 1630
DESIGNATING CERTAIN BUILDINGS OF CENTERS FOR DISEASE CONTROL AND
PREVENTION
Mr. BOOZMAN. Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and pass the
bill (H.R. 4500) to designate certain buildings of the Centers for
Disease Control and Prevention.
The Clerk read as follows:
H.R. 4500
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of
the United States of America in Congress assembled,
SECTION 1. ROSA PARKS HEADQUARTERS AND EMERGENCY OPERATIONS
CENTER BUILDING.
(a) Designation.--The Headquarters and Emergency Operations
Center building (Building 21) of the Centers for Disease
Control and Prevention located at 1600 Clifton Road in
Atlanta, Georgia, shall be known and designated as the ``Rosa
Parks Headquarters and Emergency Operations Center
Building''.
(b) References.--Any reference in a law, map, regulation,
document, paper, or other record of the United States to the
building referred to in subsection (a) shall be deemed to be
a reference to the ``Rosa Parks Headquarters and Emergency
Operations Center Building''.
SEC. 2. MOTHER TERESA GLOBAL COMMUNICATIONS CENTER BUILDING.
(a) Designation.--The Global Communications Center building
of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (Building
19) located at 1600 Clifton Road in Atlanta, Georgia, shall
be known and designated as the ``Mother Teresa Global
Communications Center Building''.
(b) References.--Any reference in a law, map, regulation,
document, paper, or other record of the United States to the
building referred to in subsection (a) shall be deemed to be
a reference to the ``Mother Teresa Global Communications
Center Building''.
The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Sodrel). Pursuant to the rule, the
gentleman from Arkansas (Mr. Boozman) and the gentlewoman from the
District of Columbia (Ms. Norton) each will control 20 minutes.
The Chair recognizes the gentleman from Arkansas.
General Leave
Mr. BOOZMAN. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members
may have 5 legislative days within which to revise and extend their
remarks and include extraneous material on H.R. 4500.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Is there objection to the request of the
gentleman from Arkansas?
There was no objection.
Mr. BOOZMAN. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
Mr. Speaker, H.R. 4500 honors two great leaders, Rosa Parks and
Mother Teresa, by designating buildings in their honor.
This bill designates the Headquarters and Emergency Operations Center
Building at the Centers For Disease Control and Prevention as the Rosa
Parks Headquarters and Emergency Operations Center. Rosa Parks is most
well known as the mother of the civil rights movement. In 1955, she
defiantly refused to give up her seat on a segregated bus in
Montgomery, Alabama, inspiring further civil disobedience. Rosa Parks'
dedication to fight for social and economic justice continued beyond
that monumental day in 1955, as she spent the remainder of her life
fighting against all forms of discrimination.
Rosa Parks received numerous awards for her contributions to the
civil rights movement, including the Presidential Medal of Freedom and
Congressional Gold Medal. Rosa Parks passed away earlier this year.
H.R. 4500 also designates the Global Communications Center Building
at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention as the Mother Teresa
Global Communications Center.
Mother Teresa spent her life assisting those in poverty in Calcutta,
India and throughout central Asia. Her inspiration started a movement
of volunteers who continue to spread her message and ministry
throughout the world. Today, over 100,000 volunteers in 123 countries
participate in Mother Teresa's Missionaries of Charity program,
bringing hope and aid to the sick and dying.
Mother Teresa received numerous awards and recognition for her humble
acts of kindness, including the Nobel Peace Prize in 1979. Mother
Teresa died in 1997.
It is an honor to name facilities used to provide essential human
services and protect the health and safety of the American people after
two women who devoted their lives to similar causes.
I support this legislation and encourage my colleagues to do the
same.
Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that the gentlewoman from
Kentucky (Mrs. Northup) be allowed to manage the remainder of my time.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Is there objection to the request of the
gentleman from Arkansas?
There was no objection.
Ms. NORTON. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
Mr. Speaker, I presume this is either All Saints Day or the Christmas
season because we are certainly honoring two saints, and I do not think
there will be a single ``nay'' vote on this bill. I am pleased to
endorse these bills to name buildings respectively after Mother Teresa
and Rosa Parks.
As if a bio was needed for Mother Teresa, the record probably should
reveal some of the background of Mother Teresa who began life as an
ordinary human being like the rest of us. She just went on to sainthood
even before she died.
She was born in Macedonia in August of 1910. At the age of 18, she
left home to join the Sisters of Loreto, an Irish community of nuns
conducting missionary work in India. In 1931, after training in Dublin,
Sister Teresa arrived in India, where from 1931 to 1948 she taught at
St. Mary's High School in Calcutta. In 1948, Sister Teresa received
permission to leave the high
[[Page 28120]]
school to minister to the poorest of the poor in the slums of Calcutta.
In the ensuing half century, she created a legacy of human charity and
good works that have become the standard for all to emulate.
In 1959, she received permission to start her own order known as the
Missionaries of Charity whose primary task is to look after those left
with no one prepared to look after them.
The Society of Missionaries has spread all over the world, including
the former Soviet Union and Eastern Europe. The society provides help
to the world's needy in a number of countries and houses alcoholics,
the homeless and AIDS sufferers.
Mother Teresa's work is acclaimed throughout the world. Her awards
and distinctions are countless. In 1979, she was awarded the Nobel
Peace Prize in recognition of her work to bring help to suffering
humanity. She is one of only nine women to be awarded the Nobel Peace
Prize.
Respect for individual dignity and each person's innate value are at
the core of her beliefs and provide the basis for her charitable work.
Her order receives the dying, the destitute, abandoned lepers and the
poor. Her work and her personal philosophy is grounded in her Christian
faith. It is certainly proper and appropriate that the building located
on the campus for the Centers for Disease Control at 1600 Clifton Road,
Atlanta, Georgia, be named in Mother Teresa's honor.
Also, at the same location, a building dedicated to Rosa Parks will
be identified as the Rosa Parks Emergency Operations Center.
We honor Rosa Parks for her courage and conviction. By now, Mr.
Speaker, we all know the story of that December evening in 1955, 50
years ago, when a 42-year-old black woman riding a bus in Montgomery,
Alabama, refused to give up her seat to a white passenger on demand.
Montgomery segregation laws were complex and deeply humiliating, but
Rosa Parks' personal and quiet strength and sense of justice changed
not only the laws of Montgomery she challenged, but also the laws of
the United States of America.
For her boldness, she was arrested and found guilty of disorderly
conduct. These actions led to the famous Montgomery bus boycott that
lasted over a year and ultimately to a Supreme Court decision that
banned segregation in city public transit systems, led also to the
great civil rights laws enacted in the 1960s and led also to the civil
rights movement itself which followed her lead and took up the struggle
with an army of black and white nonviolent activists working in
imitation of Rosa Parks.
It is impossible to overstate the impact of her actions in defiance
of segregation. Her story has become part of the American story and of
the story of Congress itself where she became the first woman to lie in
State in the Rotunda in November.
I am honored to support this bill that acknowledges the contributions
of two exceptional women.
Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
Mrs. NORTHUP. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
Mr. Speaker, it gives me great pleasure to echo the words of the
gentlewoman from the District of Columbia (Ms. Norton) and to have an
opportunity to offer H.R. 4500 which names two recently completed
Centers for Disease Control buildings after two heroic and renowned
women in our Nation's and in fact our world's history: Mrs. Rosa Parks
of Tuskegee, Alabama; and Mother Teresa of Calcutta.
In their own ways, each of these women helped to make our country and
our world more just and caring. I am sure everyone in this House is
aware that Rosa Parks passed away this October, and we have since had a
real chance to celebrate her life and her contribution to this Nation.
Her courage and her will to do what was right will continue to be an
example to all Americans and to the people of other nations who are
dedicated to the cause of justice and equality.
Mrs. Parks was a seamstress in Montgomery, Alabama, when, in
December, 1955, she refused to give up her seat on a city bus to a
white passenger. The bus driver had her arrested for being in violation
of the law, granting preferential seating to white passengers. Her
subsequent trial and conviction for this act of civil disobedience
sparked the Montgomery bus boycott, one of the largest and most
successful mass movements against racial segregation in history. It
launched Martin Luther King, Jr., as one of the organizers of the
boycott, and he came to the forefront of the civil rights movement.
Rosa Parks ignited a civil rights struggle and made possible the
eventual overturn of the Jim Crow laws. Over the next four decades, she
reminded her fellow Americans of our ideals and our commitment to
justice and equal treatment under the law.
She was a recipient of innumerable awards, including the Martin
Luther King, Jr., Nonviolent Peace Prize and the Presidential Medal of
Freedom. Our country will always be indebted to her for the moral
courage she showed to call on our country to live up to our ideals and
promises. Senator Barack Obama said it best upon the President's
signing of legislation placing a statue of Rosa Parks in Statuary Hall,
``Rosa Parks held no public office, but when the history of this
country is written, her name and her legacy will be remembered long
after the names of Senators and Presidents have been forgotten. So it
is fitting that her legacy, her hopes, and her struggles be
immortalized alongside the statues of men and women whose hearts she
helped change.''
Mr. Speaker, this bill also pays homage to the life and work of
Mother Teresa by naming the Global Communications Center building at
the Centers for Disease Control after her.
Mother Teresa was born in Macedonia in 1910, and at an early age, she
felt the calling to serve God and her fellow man and joined the Sisters
of Loreto that had missions in India. While teaching high school in
India, Mother Teresa witnessed the poverty outside of her convent and
asked permission to devote her life and her ministries to serving the
poor and the sick, bringing them medical care, education and food.
Her remarkable work helped bring comfort to people around the world
that society had forgotten or neglected. The Missionaries of Charity,
which she founded, carries on her work, operating schools, orphanages
and houses for the poor in over 130 countries.
Mother Teresa's saintly good works received acclaim and recognition
throughout the world. In 1979, she was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize
and later President Reagan awarded her the Presidential Medal of
Freedom in 1985.
In 1996, shortly before she died, Congress made her an honorary
citizen of the United States, one of the highest honors our country can
bestow on foreign nationals. I think it is particularly fitting that
her name adorn CDC's Global Communications Center which will allow it
to share in the legacy and mission of Mother Teresa's work by serving
the world's poor and sick.
Mr. Speaker, thank you for this opportunity to pay tribute to these
two profoundly good women who sacrificed so much so we can all live in
a freer and more compassionate world. I urge every Member to support
H.R. 4500.
Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
Ms. NORTON. Mr. Speaker, I yield 4 minutes to the gentleman from
Illinois (Mr. Davis) and a cosponsor of the bill.
Mr. DAVIS of Illinois. Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the distinguished
gentlewoman from the District of Columbia for yielding me this time.
I am pleased to cosponsor this resolution with the gentlewoman from
Kentucky (Mrs. Northup) and rise in strong support of it passage.
Mr. Speaker, this bill renames two buildings at the Centers for
Disease Control and Prevention in honor of two of the world's most
outstanding and most accomplished contemporary women.
Designation of building one names the Headquarters and Emergency
Operations Center Building of the Centers
[[Page 28121]]
for Disease Control and Prevention located at 1600 Clifton Road in
Atlanta, Georgia, as the Rosa Parks Headquarters and Emergency
Operations Center Building.
Designation two of this bill changes the name of the Global
Communications Center building at the Centers for Disease Control and
Prevention Building 19 located at 1600 Clifton Road as the Mother
Teresa Global Communications Center Building.
Mr. Speaker, we all know that Mother Teresa was one of the greatest
advocates for the poor, disadvantaged and downtrodden that the world
has ever seen. She, in many instances, almost single-handedly brought
greater attention to poverty and the needs of the poor.
{time} 1645
And given the mission of the Centers for Disease Control, there is no
greater way or better way to draw attention to its continuing needs
than to have one of its buildings named in honor of Mother Teresa.
Mr. Speaker, all of us have most recently participated in the
celebration of the life of Rosa Parks, and many of us actually were
able to attend her funeral. This dainty freedom fighter who defied
years of tradition and the law in refusing to give up her seat on a bus
in Montgomery, Alabama to a white person, this calculated act of
defiance helped to spark the civil rights movement of the late 1950s
and 1960s, which resulted in desegregation of public accommodations
throughout the South, brought about the Voting Rights Act of the 1960s,
actually fostered development of the War on Poverty, and put America in
a serious position to look hard at the health care needs of the poor
and disadvantaged in its country.
So naming a building at the Centers for Disease Control and
Prevention will help us to recognize that health care needs are still
unmet; that there are still great disparities that need to be
corrected; that there are still areas of research which need to be
conducted. And so, Mr. Speaker, I am indeed pleased to join with the
gentlewoman from Kentucky in cosponsoring this resolution and urge its
passage.
Mrs. NORTHUP. Mr. Speaker, I yield 5 minutes to the gentleman from
Iowa (Mr. King).
Mr. KING of Iowa. Mr. Speaker, I particularly want to thank the
gentlewoman from Kentucky (Mrs. Northup) for bringing this piece of
legislation before the House Chamber today. This is an important
statement to be made on a number of points, one of them being that this
bill sends an important message that sitting Members of Congress should
not take it upon themselves to name public buildings or infrastructure
after themselves or other Members. This violates our House rules.
Mr. Speaker, often in this Chamber we have the opportunity to name
Federal buildings after worthy individuals. We are about to do that
here today. As we elected officials have a responsibility to our
constituents and to the laws that we pass, we must spend our time and
the American taxpayers' money wisely, and we have to do so also
honestly with the attention and care that I know my constituents in
Iowa expect.
When we name Federal buildings, we should do so and insist that they
be worthy of our time, our Nation's tax dollars, and the trust of those
who elected us. And I think that my record here in this Congress does
demonstrate that, and that is why I am here on this floor this
afternoon, Mr. Speaker. But most recently, the Centers for Disease
Control buildings appeared in the Labor-HHS appropriations bill named
after two sitting Senators. And it is in violation of our House rules.
Because that conference report has not yet passed both Houses, both
bodies, the buildings are currently unnamed. But under the Labor-HHS
conference report that was filed just today, the buildings would be
named the Arlen Specter Headquarters and Emergency Operation Center and
the Thomas R. Harkin Global Communications Center Building. This
provision violates House rule XXI, and that prohibits the naming of a
public work after a sitting Member of Congress.
Our bill proposes to name the buildings the Rosa Parks Headquarters
and Emergency Operations Center and the Mother Teresa Global
Communications Center Building. I urge my colleagues to support this
legislation. It prevents abuse of power. It adheres to the rules of the
House of Representatives, and it also does a couple of very important
things, and that is it honors two of the greatest women in my
contemporary time: Rosa Parks, who stood tall and sat down 50 years
ago, who inspired generations of Americans and actually was a key
player in renovating this concept of segregation that still remain.
And 10 years later, we saw the passage of the Voting Rights Act and
piece after piece of the civil rights legislation that came about that
same period of time was inspired. And I saw a time when it was a
glorious time for the civil rights movement, a glorious time when there
were peaceful demonstrations throughout the South. And I watched on a
black and white television from up in Iowa wondering really what was
going on down there. Now I understand it.
At this stage of my life I appreciate it a great deal. I thought I
understood it then, but appreciate it far more today, the movement that
was begun in significant part by Rosa Parks, who was honored and lay in
state here in this Capitol Building, the first woman ever to be given
that honor.
And Mother Teresa, a fine Catholic nun, a sister that through prayer
and work and sacrifice and devotion and the power of her personality
and her character and self sacrifice, moved millions of people, and her
legacy remains today.
I look back on Harkin grants that are granted in my State, and also I
think of a building named again in that fashion. I have stated that if
we are going to name grants after someone, we should name them after
the taxpayers that fund them. And if we are going to name buildings, we
should name the buildings after people who are not seated Members of
Congress, but people who really stand tall for America and for the
world.
So I congratulate the gentlewoman from Kentucky (Mrs. Northup) for
bringing this legislation today. I am proud to stand on the floor and
join in this request to name these two buildings after Rosa Parks and
Mother Teresa.
Ms. NORTON. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
I understand the gentleman's point. But I do not understand this bill
to be a retort or a response to Senate action. I understand it to be an
affirmative act on the part of the bipartisan House of Representatives.
The only reason I raise it is because we are not a party to whatever is
the discussion that has gone on on that. I do understand the concern,
and I listened to it.
But I would not want anything to take away from the way I opened my
remarks about All Saints Day and the Christmas season because I think
the gentleman perhaps did not mean it. And if I may so, by inserting
that, and I am not questioning it, I have no personal knowledge of it,
it leaves, I think, an unfortunate impression that I do not think the
gentleman means to leave. Perhaps it should have been inserted into the
Record if the gentleman thought so.
Mr. KING of Iowa. Will the gentlewoman yield?
Ms. NORTON. I will be happy to yield to the gentleman from Iowa.
Mr. KING of Iowa. I thank the gentlewoman. I am referencing House
rule XXI. And my point was to illustrate what can come from that. But
also it is my emphasis to be here today to honor the two people that we
hope to name these buildings after, and that is the focus of my
remarks.
Ms. NORTON. Mr. Speaker, the gentleman made that clear. I appreciate
that the gentleman made that clear. I was trying to think, as my
colleague spoke, about whether or not we have named things after
Members of the House while they were still here.
I had a young man, kid from D.C., some people brought him in today,
along with a whole group of students, and I showed him pictures, I
explained pictures on my wall that when I came to Congress, instead of
putting some fake Picassos, I put pictures of old
[[Page 28122]]
Washington. I went to the Library of Congress and to the D.C.
Historical Society. And this child interrupted me, he is a high school
student. He said, why do you not have a big picture of yourself there?
It simply provided an opportunity for me to let him know that he ought
to wonder about a Member of Congress who had a big picture of herself
in her office. I do not know who she ought to have, and I did not
suggest to him who she ought to have.
But in this season, when we have the opportunity, and I was called,
literally, only a couple of hours ago to say would I manage a bill that
would name buildings at the Centers for Disease Control against these
two women, I said, well, here is one that I know this is only love and
praise and I really think we should rest on that, whatever is the
predicament that the gentleman discussed.
And I do not mean to cast any aspersion upon what he said because he
is talking about matters that are of some concern, insertions into the
bill and so forth. But that is not the spirit in which I came forward
on this side to offer this bill, and I do not think it is the
gentleman's spirit, and I do not think it is the spirit of the House
today. And Merry Christmas everybody.
Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.
Mrs. NORTHUP. Mr. Speaker, in closing, let me just say that I think
that these two women served as wonderful examples of humble and
effective service in this country and around the world, and naming
these two buildings at CDC is something that I think all Americans
would join us in believing would be an appropriate name for those
buildings.
Mr. OBERSTAR. Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of H.R. 4500, a bill to
designate the Headquarters and Emergency Operations Center building of
the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in Atlanta,
Georgia, as the ``Rosa Parks Headquarters and Emergency Operations
Center Building''. The bill also honors Agnes Gonxha Bojaxhiu, also
known as Mother Teresa of Calcutta, by designating the CDC's Global
Communications Center building as the ``Mother Teresa Global
Communications Center Building''.
Mother Teresa devoted her life to helping the poor and sick
throughout the world. Her compassion and humanity, in the face of
abject poverty, war, and starvation serves as a reminder to us all that
when our hearts are focused on helping those who can not help
themselves, our potential for greatness is unlimited. Although, at
first sight, she appeared to have been a tiny woman, Mother Teresa was
strong enough to carry the weight of the world's suffering on her
narrow shoulders and to bring love and dignity to those facing the
greatest challenges that life can offer.
Mother Teresa was born in Skopje in modern day Macedonia on August
27, 1910. She recalled being pulled to the work of God at the age of 12
and, by age 18, she left her family to join the Sisters of Loreto, an
Irish community of nuns with missions in India. After teaching at St.
Mary's High School in Calcutta for 17 years she found that she could no
longer simply hear the stories of dismal poverty and despair that
existed outside the convent walls. In 1948, Mother Teresa left the
convent school to devote her time to working among the poorest of the
poor in the slums of Calcutta. There she opened a school for poor
children though she had no money herself.
On October 7, 1950, Mother Teresa received permission to start her
own order, ``The Missionaries of Charity''. Since its inception in
1950, the Missionaries of Charity has spread to all corners of the
world, tending to the most desperately needy in Asia, Africa, Eastern
Europe, and Latin America. They also assist in relief work in the wake
of natural disasters such as floods, epidemics, famine, and
earthquakes, and care for the homeless and those suffering with the
AIDS virus.
Mother Teresa's work was not limited to the developing world. In the
United States, the Missionaries of Charity have established many soup
kitchens, emergency shelters for women, shelters for unwed mothers,
homes for the dying, prison ministries, service to hospitals, and
nursing homes.
In 1985, she received the Presidential Medal of Freedom; in 1997, she
was awarded the Congressional Gold Medal. In 1996, Congress passed and
the President signed Public Law 104-218, proclaiming Agnes Gonxha
Bojaxhiu--Mother Teresa--to be an honorary citizen of the United States
of America. At the time she was only the fifth person to ever receive
this honor.
Mother Teresa died on September 5, 1997, in Calcutta. She continued
to work with the poor right up until her death.
Mr. Speaker, the bill also designates the headquarters of the Centers
for Disease Control and Prevention as the ``Rosa Parks Headquarters and
Emergency Operations Center Building''.
As I noted during debate on H.R. 2967, which designates a Federal
building in Detroit, Michigan, in honor of Rosa Parks, she is known as
the ``mother of the civil rights movement.'' With one single act of
defiance--when she refused to give up her seat on the Cleveland Avenue
bus in Montgomery, Alabama--she galvanized a Nation and changed the
course of history. On December 1, 1955, Mrs. Parks was sitting in the
middle rows of the bus with three other black riders. The bus driver
demanded that all four give up their seats so that one white man could
sit. Three of the riders complied. Mrs. Parks remained seated.
As Mrs. Parks herself has said in the years following that pivotal
moment, she hadn't planned on taking a stand that day. She hadn't
planned on becoming the face of the injustices of segregation. She had
simply had enough. She was tired of being treated like a second-class
citizen. She had had enough.
Rosa Parks' act of courage sparked the civil rights movement.
The strength and presence of a Federal building perfectly captures
the character and personality of this icon of the civil rights
movement.
It is fitting and just that the lives and accomplishments of Mother
Teresa and Rosa Parks are acknowledged with these designations.
I strongly support H.R. 4500 and urge its passage.
Mrs. NORTHUP. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.
The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Boozman). The question is on the motion
offered by the gentleman from Arkansas (Mr. Boozman) that the House
suspend the rules and pass the bill, H.R. 4500.
The question was taken; and (two-thirds having voted in favor
thereof) the rules were suspended and the bill was passed.
A motion to reconsider was laid on the table.
____________________
METHAMPHETAMINE REMEDIATION RESEARCH ACT OF 2005
Mr. BOEHLERT. Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and pass the
bill (H.R. 798) to provide for a research program for remediation of
closed methamphetamine production laboratories, and for other purposes,
as amended.
The Clerk read as follows:
H.R. 798
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of
the United States of America in Congress assembled,
SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.
This Act may be cited as the ``Methamphetamine Remediation
Research Act of 2005''.
SEC. 2. FINDINGS.
The Congress finds the following:
(1) Methamphetamine use and production is growing rapidly
throughout the United States.
(2) Some materials and chemical residues remaining from the
production of methamphetamine pose novel environmental
problems in locations where methamphetamine laboratories have
been closed.
(3) There has been little standardization of measures for
determining when the site of a former methamphetamine
laboratory has been successfully remediated.
(4) Initial cleanup actions are generally limited to
removal of hazardous substances and contaminated materials
that pose an immediate threat to public health or the
environment. It is not uncommon for significant levels of
contamination to be found throughout residential structures
where methamphetamine has been manufactured, partially
because of a lack of knowledge of how to achieve an effective
cleanup.
(5) Data on methamphetamine laboratory-related contaminants
of concern are very limited, and uniform cleanup standards do
not currently exist. In addition, procedures for sampling and
analysis of contaminants need to be researched and developed.
(6) Many States are struggling with establishing assessment
and remediation guidelines and programs to address the
rapidly expanding number of methamphetamine laboratories
being closed each year.
SEC. 3. VOLUNTARY GUIDELINES.
(a) Establishment of Voluntary Guidelines.--Not later than
one year after the date of enactment of this Act, the
Assistant Administrator for Research and Development of the
Environmental Protection Agency (in this Act referred to as
the ``Assistant Administrator''), in consultation with the
National Institute of Standards and Technology, shall
establish voluntary guidelines, based on the best currently
available scientific knowledge, for the remediation of former
methamphetamine laboratories, including guidelines regarding
preliminary site
[[Page 28123]]
assessment and the remediation of residual contaminants.
(b) Considerations.--In developing the voluntary guidelines
under subsection (a), the Assistant Administrator shall
consider, at a minimum--
(1) relevant standards, guidelines, and requirements found
in Federal, State, and local laws and regulations;
(2) the varying types and locations of former
methamphetamine laboratories; and
(3) the expected cost of carrying out any proposed
guidelines.
(c) States.--The voluntary guidelines should be designed to
assist State and local governments in the development and the
implementation of legislation and other policies to apply
state-of-the-art knowledge and research results to the
remediation of former methamphetamine laboratories. The
Assistant Administrator shall work with State and local
governments and other relevant non-Federal agencies and
organizations, including through the conference described in
section 5, to promote and encourage the appropriate adoption
of the voluntary guidelines.
(d) Updating the Guidelines.--The Assistant Administrator
shall periodically update the voluntary guidelines as the
Assistant Administrator, in consultation with States and
other interested parties, determines to be necessary and
appropriate to incorporate research findings and other new
knowledge.
SEC. 4. RESEARCH PROGRAM.
The Assistant Administrator shall establish a program of
research to support the development and revision of the
voluntary guidelines described in section 3. Such research
shall--
(1) identify methamphetamine laboratory-related chemicals
of concern;
(2) assess the types and levels of exposure to chemicals of
concern identified under paragraph (1), including routine and
accidental exposures, that may present a significant risk of
adverse biological effects;
(3) identify the research efforts necessary to better
address biological effects and to minimize adverse human
exposures;
(4) evaluate the performance of various methamphetamine
laboratory cleanup and remediation techniques; and
(5) support other research priorities identified by the
Assistant Administrator in consultation with States and other
interested parties.
SEC. 5. TECHNOLOGY TRANSFER CONFERENCE.
(a) Conference.--Not later than 180 days after the date of
enactment of this Act, and at least every third year
thereafter, the Assistant Administrator shall convene a
conference of appropriate State agencies, as well as
individuals or organizations involved in research and other
activities directly related to the environmental, or
biological impacts of former methamphetamine laboratories.
The conference should be a forum for the Assistant
Administrator to provide information on the guidelines
developed under section 3 and on the latest findings from the
research program described in section 4, and for the non-
Federal participants to provide information on the problems
and needs of States and localities and their experience with
guidelines developed under section 3.
(b) Report.--Not later than 3 months after each conference,
the Assistant Administrator shall submit a report to the
Congress that summarizes the proceedings of the conference,
including a summary of any recommendations or concerns raised
by the non-Federal participants and how the Assistant
Administrator intends to respond to them. The report shall
also be made widely available to the general public.
SEC. 6. RESIDUAL EFFECTS STUDY.
(a) Study.--Not later than 6 months after the date of
enactment of this Act, the Assistant Administrator shall
enter into an arrangement with the National Academy of
Sciences for a study of the status and quality of research on
the residual effects of methamphetamine laboratories. The
study shall identify research gaps and recommend an agenda
for the research program described in section 4. The study
shall pay particular attention to the need for research on
the impacts of methamphetamine laboratories on--
(1) the residents of buildings where such laboratories are,
or were, located, with particular emphasis given to
biological impacts on children; and
(2) first responders.
(b) Report.--Not later than 3 months after the completion
of the study, the Assistant Administrator shall transmit to
Congress a report on how the Assistant Administrator will use
the results of the study to carry out the activities
described in sections 3 and 4.
SEC. 7. METHAMPHETAMINE DETECTION RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT
PROGRAM.
The Director of National Institute of Standards and
Technology, in consultation with the Assistant Administrator,
shall support a research program to develop--
(1) new methamphetamine detection technologies, with
emphasis on field test kits and site detection; and
(2) appropriate standard reference materials and validation
procedures for methamphetamine detection testing.
SEC. 8. SAVINGS CLAUSE.
Nothing in this Act shall be construed to add to or limit
the regulatory authority of the Environmental Protection
Agency.
SEC. 9. AUTHORIZATION OF APPROPRIATIONS.
(a) Environmental Protection Agency.--There are authorized
to be appropriated to the Environmental Protection Agency to
carry out this Act $3,000,000 for each of the fiscal years
2006 through 2009.
(b) National Institute of Standards and Technology.--There
are authorized to be appropriated to the National Institute
of Standards and Technology to carry out this Act $1,500,000
for each of the fiscal years 2006 through 2009.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Pursuant to the rule, the gentleman from New
York (Mr. Boehlert) and the gentleman from Tennessee (Mr. Gordon) each
will control 20 minutes.
The Chair recognizes the gentleman from New York.
General Leave
Mr. BOEHLERT. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members
may have 5 legislative days within which to revise and extend their
remarks and include extraneous material on H.R. 798, the bill now under
consideration.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Is there objection to the request of the
gentleman from New York?
There was no objection.
Mr. BOEHLERT. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong support of H.R. 798, legislation to
combat an insidious aspect of the methamphetamine crisis, the
environmental consequences and the potential harm to those with no
connection to the drugs manufacture or use. I want to thank the
gentleman from Tennessee (Mr. Gordon) and the gentleman from California
(Mr. Calvert) for their active pursuit and leadership on this issue,
which is of great concern to States and localities that have to deal
with the aftermath of busting meth labs.
Over the past decade, methamphetamine, or meth, as it is properly
called, has spread across the country, killing individuals, destroying
families, and devastating communities. We are all too familiar with the
facts of the case. The meth epidemic needs to be attacked on many
levels. But we also have to deal with the harmful residue that meth
leaves behind in homes and in the soil.
Earlier this year, I visited with Sheriff Gary Howard of Tioga
County. I was so impressed with what he told me that we invited him to
testify before our committee. Tioga County is located in the southern
tier of New York within my congressional district.
Between 1989 and 1999, a decade, he indicated that there were only
four meth lab incidents reported for the entire State of New York.
Since then, the number of seized meth labs has risen quickly and
steadily, from eight in the year 2000, this is the whole State, to 73
in 2003. Of that number, most were found in Tioga County.
Sheriff Howard described the terrible human tragedies associated with
meth use. He had our panel in the palm of his hands, including the
inherent danger to law enforcement from paranoid and agitated addicts.
But he also told me, and us, that anyone who lived near or had reason
to visit these active and former meth labs was at risk from unseen
hazardous chemicals and dangerous byproducts of meth production. During
the manufacture of meth, harmful chemicals are released into the air
and distributed throughout the surrounding area. In residential
settings, these chemicals penetrate and adhere to countertops and
floors. They are absorbed into furnishings and carpets and walls, and
their toxic byproducts are frequently poured down the drains or spilled
onto the ground, potentially contaminating the soil and drinking wells.
While few studies have been conducted on the long-term consequences
of exposure to these chemicals, many of the ingredients used in the
manufacture of meth are highly caustic and upon exposure are believed
to damage the skin, the eyes, the lungs. They do serious damage to the
body.
{time} 1700
Yet, as witnesses testified before our Science Committee, we do not
have the scientific knowledge to deal responsibly with former meth
labs. Little is known about the risk of moving into a house that has
been used as a meth lab; the best way to remediate a former lab so the
building can be safely occupied; or the long-term effects on those
living in the former labs, including but most
[[Page 28124]]
specifically the children and the elderly. They are the most
vulnerable.
States and localities are struggling to protect the public from the
adverse effects of meth; yet there are no national guidelines on how to
remediate a residential lab for reoccupation or what levels of residues
are safe. States have become increasingly concerned about the cleanup
and remediation issues related to meth labs, and State officials and
law enforcement officials have requested assistance in dealing with the
growing number of small labs in their States, particularly those
located in residential settings.
H.R. 798 should go a long way toward getting States the assistance
they need to protect the wider population from meth residues. The bill
requires the Environmental Protection Agency to establish voluntary
guidelines for the remediation of former meth labs. These guidelines
will combine the best of all existing and new information to help
States and local governments respond effectively to this growing
problem. The bill also requires the EPA to support research to identify
persistent chemicals of concern in the use and manufacture of meth, to
determine the most effective cleanup and remediation techniques, and to
develop assessment and remediation guidance for States and localities
based on the short- and long-term consequences of these former
residential labs.
Finally, the bill enlists the National Institute of Standards and
Technology to support the development of new testing methods to help
law enforcement identify and quantify the risks of meth lab sites in
the field.
This is a sensible, targeted, bipartisan bill, which, for a modest
investment, will help our State and local governments safeguard our
communities from the consequences of these toxic neighborhood labs. For
this reason, H.R. 798 has been endorsed by the National Association of
Counties, the Fraternal Order of Police, the National Association of
Realtors, the National Multi Housing Council and the National Apartment
Association, the National Sheriffs' Association, and the National
Narcotics Officers' Associations' Coalition.
In conclusion, I want to thank the leadership, particularly Mr.
Blunt, for enabling this bill to come to the floor, and I want to thank
the gentleman from Indiana (Mr. Souder) for his help in this matter. He
heads the Speaker's task force dealing with the very sensitive subject
of drug abuse prevention.
This bill will make a real difference in our communities, and I urge
its passage.
Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
Mr. GORDON. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
Mr. Speaker, I rise today in support of H.R. 798, the Methamphetamine
Research Remediation Act.
Chairman Boehlert has already outlined the provisions of H.R. 798.
And I want to reiterate that this is a narrow bill designed to address
the health and environmental problems caused by former meth labs. H.R.
798 focuses on the cleanup requirement of former meth labs, a
tremendous problem facing communities across the country.
The Drug Enforcement Agency reported more than 17,000 domestic meth
lab seizures last year alone. Often in residential settings, these
former meth labs are contaminated not only with methamphetamine but
also with other toxic residues associated with the production of meth.
These chemical residues pollute the inside of a residence as well as
septic and water systems. People move into these former meth labs in
good faith, expecting a safe environment, but instead find a chemical
waste site.
Right now there are thousands of unsuspecting families living in
homes that were once illegal meth labs. Dangerous and hidden toxic
substances exist in these sites, and children are the most vulnerable
to the devastating long-term effects of exposure.
H.R. 798 addresses the specific problems of what type of cleanup is
required to ensure that a former meth lab is safe to occupy. I want to
stress that H.R. 798 is not a Federal mandate. Rather, it requires the
Environmental Protection Agency to develop model, voluntary, health-
based cleanup guidelines for use by States and localities.
In addition, H.R. 798 authorizes the National Institute of Standards
and Technology to initiate a research program to develop meth detection
equipment for field use. This will help law enforcement agents detect
active meth labs faster and assist in measuring levels of contamination
in former meth labs.
Finally, H.R. 798 requires a study by the National Academy of
Sciences on the long-term health impacts of children taken from meth
labs and on first responders. And I also remind the Speaker that this
bill passed unanimously out of the Science Committee with a number of
bipartisan sponsors.
Before closing, I want to thank Mr. Calvert and Chairman Boehlert for
their support and assistance in bringing this bill to the floor. I also
want to thank the Meth Caucus and its co-chairs, Representatives
Cannon, Calvert, Larsen and Boswell, for their strong support, as well
as Congressman Souder for his help in bringing this to the floor. In
addition, the National Alliance for Model State Drug Laws has been an
invaluable resource in developing this legislation. And, finally, Mike
Quear of the Science Committee staff has done a tremendous amount of
work in bringing this legislation to this point.
H.R. 798 is not a total solution to the methamphetamine epidemic.
Unfortunately, there will always be people who decide to harm
themselves by using and manufacturing dangerous drugs such as meth.
H.R. 798 is aimed at protecting innocent people whose lives are
endangered by these illegal activities.
I would urge every Member to vote ``yes'' on this bipartisan
legislation.
Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
Mr. BOEHLERT. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from
Indiana (Mr. Sodrel), a very valuable member of the Science Committee.
Mr. SODREL. Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank all of those who
worked hard to bring this bill to the floor.
Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong support of H.R. 798, the
Methamphetamine Remediation Research Act of 2005. I am a cosponsor of
this bill, and like many of my colleagues, this bill addresses a
growing concern back home in our districts needing immediate attention.
Across the country, almost every community has been touched by the
meth crisis. Meth is a toxic mixture of chemicals that gives its users
an incredible euphoria, followed by dramatic crashes, paranoia and
often violence.
My home State of Indiana has the unenviable distinction as one of the
leaders in the number of methamphetamine labs. Everyone in Southern
Indiana is painfully aware of the tragic toll meth has taken on our
communities. The danger from the meth crisis is great, not only because
of the lives destroyed by intentional use and production, but also from
unintentional contact with the drug by first responders, unwary home
buyers and renters, and innocent children.
The law enforcement officials I have met with on the topic tell me
meth can be absorbed through inhalation during the manufacturing
process and through the skin from contaminated soil, carpeting, drywall
and other housing materials. Groundwater can be contaminated with
effects that last long after the meth cooks have left the area.
Few know about the long-lasting problems left by the producers of
methamphetamine. These makeshift labs are leaving toxic sites around
our communities, our highways and our farmland. We must act and do more
to clean up this invisible time bomb.
This bill is a good first step in the process. We must know more
about how to treat a meth lab when the first responders arrive on the
scene, particularly after a fire explosion. We must know more about the
long-term effects of meth on those who occupy these lab sites after the
meth cooks are gone. We must know more about how to protect children
who happen upon these toxic sites.
Mr. Speaker, I thank our leadership for bringing this bill to the
House floor. I urge my colleagues to support passage of this bill to
protect our police, our first responders, our loved
[[Page 28125]]
ones from the after-effects of meth production. This assistance is
especially important to our rural counties. I urge its adoption.
Mr. GORDON. Mr. Speaker, I yield such time as he may consume to the
gentleman from California (Mr. Costa), who was a leader in the
California State Senate in fighting this meth epidemic.
Mr. COSTA. Mr. Speaker, as a member of the Science Committee, I would
like to thank Chairman Boehlert and Ranking Member Gordon for
introducing this legislation. I believe it is very important throughout
the country.
I rise in strong support of the methamphetamine Remediation Act
before us today.
While meth abuse is currently sweeping the country, causing great
alarm for law enforcement and health officials, we in California's San
Joaquin Valley have been fighting rampant meth abuse, production and
clean up for over 20 years.
Meth is California's largest drug threat, and the Valley suffers one
of the highest rates of abuse, both in production and use.
According to local law enforcement officials, over 13,500 pounds of
meth have been seized over the last 3 years. In 2004, Fresno made 180
meth related felony arrests. These are significant achievements, but
there is more to be done.
The San Joaquin Valley law enforcement successfully reduced the
number of Superlabs seizures from 27 in 2003 to 9 in 2004. However, the
need to ensure the former labs are cleaned to a safe level is key to
protecting our communities.
Meth abusers are not the only victims of this destructive drug. The
production of meth in meth labs and ``super labs'' leave dangerous bi-
products, putting innocent children and law enforcement into harms way.
I am a co-sponsor of this legislation because it provides communities
with the guidelines to properly clean up hazardous contaminants from
former meth labs and improves meth lab detection tools.
As a Member of the California State legislature, I authored a law
raising penalties for trafficking, manufacturing, and sale of meth to
the same level as heroin and cocaine.
I also authored legislation authorizing the forfeiture of any boat,
airplane or vehicle used to facilitate the manufacture of meth.
My co-sponsorship of H.R. 798 represents my continued commitment to
rid our great Valley of this devastating drug.
Mr. GORDON. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
Mr. BOEHLERT. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from
Michigan (Mr. Schwarz), a very valued member of the Science Committee
but also one who is particularly knowledgeable about this subject
matter and has made significant contributions to the development of
this package.
Mr. SCHWARZ of Michigan. Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank Chairman
Boehlert and Ranking Member Gordon from Tennessee for pushing the
committee to get this important legislation out.
I have been a physician for 41 years, starting out with problems when
people would come into an emergency room high on marijuana, and then we
moved to opiates like heroin coming from across the sea, coming from
the Asian Continent for the most part, and then cocaine coming up from
South and Central America.
But now methamphetamine is made in our own backyards and particularly
in areas in this country that are similar to those areas around my home
in Michigan. They do not need much. They need chemicals that they can
buy in a convenience store or anhydrous ammonia that people can steal
from an agricultural operation someplace. It is very, very easy to
make. It is very, very addictive, and it is very dangerous, both for
those who use it and for those who make it.
This bill deals with the residual things that happen when
methamphetamine is made in a lab out someplace usually in the country.
What they are left with is a chemical soup.
For every pound of methamphetamine manufactured, 5 pounds of
hazardous waste is created. For every lab that has to be cleaned up,
somewhere between $8,000 and $15,000 worth of public money is expended.
Children are put into foster care because their parents can no longer
care for them. It is a huge public health and social problem.
And it is so easy to make. One oxygen molecule from pseudoephedrine,
which one can buy over the counter in almost any store, one oxygen
molecule taken away and we have methamphetamine. Numbers of arrests
coming up almost exponentially in the past 5 years, and the residual in
the labs is a terrible thing. It is a horrible thing, and we have to
have some systematic way to deal with that residual as we are working
on ways to deal with the drug itself.
This bill is a tremendously good start in that direction. And, again,
I compliment the chairman, the ranking member, and members of the
Science Committee on moving the ball forward, moving it down the field,
to help clean up methamphetamine labs.
Mr. GORDON. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
In conclusion, let me just say that Senators Smith and Baucus have
taken this exact legislation and introduced it in the other body. So,
hopefully, after we pass this today, there will be time this week for
the other body to also pass this legislation, get it directly to the
President and get some action right away.
So, again, my thanks to Chairman Boehlert and his staff and all the
Members for bringing this bill up today.
Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.
{time} 1715
Mr. BOEHLERT. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
Mr. Speaker, I appreciate some of the comments of my colleagues, and
as chairman I have had the privilege to sort of move the ball forward.
But I think it is right that we acknowledge that the ball was put in
motion by Mr. Gordon of Tennessee and Mr. Calvert of California. They
have worked in tandem and partnership, and we have produced a good bill
worthy of this House and our mission. I am hopeful that not only will
we pass on a strong bipartisan vote the measure today but that the
Senate will follow through with this. Senator Gordon and Senator Baucus
on a bipartisan basis are working on it and with good reason.
The problem is meth is a national crisis. It started out small on the
west coast; it now affects all 50 States. The producers, as Dr. Schwarz
has indicated, can buy the product over the counter, all the
ingredients to this; and then they rent an apartment or rent a motel
room and quickly cook the stuff to make the final product. That is what
we are concerned about. What about the atmosphere that is created?
They tend to go in the more rural areas of America, bypassing the big
cities, because they figure there is an undue concentration of law
enforcement officials there, and maybe they can get away with it in the
more rural settings. They did not reckon on guys like Sheriff Gary
Howard, who has got an outstanding record of busting these guys and
carting them off to where they belong, to jail.
But then what? What happens to the property? The owner of the
property, totally unaware of what was taking place on their property, I
understand it, we can all understand that, and then the owner probably
says, well, we will clean it up, we will vacuum the floor and paint the
walls and it will be okay. Wrong. Not okay. We have got to do more
studies, because the residue is there, and we have got to be concerned
about that. That is what this is all about, a modest amount of Federal
dollars to deal with a very real and meaningful problem.
Mr. LARSEN of Washington. Mr. Speaker, I rise today in strong support
of H.R. 798, the Methamphetamine Remediation Research Act. I commend
Mr. Gordon, Mr. Calvert, and Mr. Boehlert for their work introducing
this important legislation; and bringing it to the floor.
Meth is a scourge on our communities. It is literally a chemical
cocktail, made from hazardous, caustic substances. In the process of
cooking a batch of meth, those chemicals seep into the interior of a
home. Often, unsuspecting, innocent families move into these houses and
apartments, completely unaware that the new home was once used to cook
meth. It isn't until they become ill that they learn something is
wrong, terribly wrong.
DEA reported over 17,000 meth lab busts last year in 47 states. There
is currently no federal standard to determine when a former lab is safe
to inhabit. This bill will do that.
[[Page 28126]]
H.R. 798 will establish a research program to develop voluntary,
health-based, model guidelines for the clean-up of former meth labs. It
will establish a research program to develop meth detection equipment
for use by first responders, and will require a study on the long-term
health impacts on first responders and children taken from meth labs.
It is important for us to know when a house used as a meth lab is
safe to inhabit again. It is important that we know the health impacts
of exposure to a meth lab. This bill will do both of these things. As a
Co-Chair of the Meth Caucus, I am proud to see an important meth bill
like this one finally see its day on the floor. I urge my colleagues to
vote ``yes''.
Mr. CRAMER. Mr. Speaker, I rise today in strong support of H.R. 798,
the Methamphetamine Remediation Research Act.
I am a member of the Congressional Caucus to Fight and Control
Methamphetamines and an original cosponsor of this legislation.
Before coming to Congress, I was the District Attorney of Madison
County, Alabama.
It was in that capacity that I learned that meth is not only a danger
to adults who use the drug, but also a great danger to people who live
in the homes where meth is used or manufactured, especially children.
Unfortunately, the effects the exposure to meth is something that we
are still learning more about.
I support today's legislation because I believe it is important for
our communities to understand these residual effects.
H.R. 798 addresses the environmental and second-hand impacts of
methamphetamine abuse.
It specifically establishes research programs through the
Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the National Institute of
Standards and Technology (NIST) to: identify the harmful chemicals
associated with meth labs; discover the impact exposure to these
chemicals have; and identify any residual effects of methamphetamine
labs.
Additionally, this legislation creates guidelines for the clean up
and decontamination of contained meth lab sites.
It also requires NIST to develop and standardize methamphetamine
detection methods.
I would like to thank Congressman Gordon for his leadership in
addressing this often-overlooked battle in the fight against
methamphetamines.
I encourage my colleagues to approve this bill.
Mr. DICKS. Mr. Speaker, the rapid growth in the production and use of
methamphetamine is very serious problem that requires the full
attention of Congress. In the State of Washington and in my
Congressional district in particular, meth has rapidly become the drug
of choice. The police chiefs and sheriffs in my district tell me that
the percentage of criminals that are also meth users has grown
astronomically over that last ten years, and now it is the most
frequently used drug by both violent and non-violent offenders.
This drug is highly addictive and easy to make. As most of my
colleagues are aware, meth can be made with instructions that can be
found on the internet and using ingredients and equipment that can be
purchased over-the-counter in virtually any community. Congress must do
more, in my opinion, to fight this growing menace.
The by-products of methamphetamine production are highly toxic and
can linger at the point of production long after the equipment and
drugs have been taken away. These by-products, even in small amounts,
can irritate, burn or even kill individuals coming across a lab site
well after the drug producers have gone. As a result, state and local
agencies often must take extreme measures to remove all traces of
toxicity from a lab site. In my own district, state environmental
clean-up engineers have had to remove entire hotel rooms--including the
furniture, appliances, dry wall and studs--because contamination from
routine production of meth has been so extensive.
Cleaning up these toxic messes is the issue addressed by the
legislation proposed by my good friend from the state of Tennessee.
This bill calls upon the Environmental Protection Agency, together with
the National Institute for Standards and Technology to help provide
some expertise and guidance to state and local agencies on guidelines
for to follow to safely and effectively clean up meth labs. I commend
my friend for offering this sensible and needed proposal, and I
encourage my colleagues in the House to support it.
Mr. Speaker, I encourage all Members to support H.R. 798, and I urge
my colleagues to continue to work together to eradicate this extremely
dangerous and locally produce drug.
Mr. COSTA. Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong support of H.R. 798, the
Methamphetamine Remediation Act before us today.
While methamphetamine abuse is currently sweeping the country,
causing great alarm for law enforcement and health officials, we in
California's San Joaquin Valley have been fighting rampant
methamphetamine abuse, production and clean up for over 20 years.
Methamphetamine is California's largest drug threat, and the Valley
suffers one of the highest rates of abuse, both in production and use.
According to local law enforcement officials, over 13,500 pounds of
methamphetamine have been seized over the last three years. In 2004,
Fresno made 180 methamphetamine related felony arrests. These are
significant achievements, but there is more to be done. The San Joaquin
Valley law enforcement successfully reduced the number of Superlabs
seizures from 27 in 2003 to 9 in 2004. However, the need to ensure the
former labs are cleaned to a safe level is key to protecting our
communities.
Unfortunately, methamphetamine abusers are not the only victims of
this destructive drug. The production of methamphetamine in labs and
``super labs'' leave dangerous bi-products, putting innocent children
and law enforcement into harms way. I am a co-sponsor of this
legislation because it provides communities with the guidelines to
properly clean up hazardous contaminants from former methamphetamine
labs and improves methamphetamine lab detection tools.
As a Member of the California State Legislature, I authored a law
raising penalties for trafficking, manufacturing, and sale of
methamphetamine to the same level as heroin and cocaine. In addition, I
authored legislation authorizing the forfeiture of any boat, airplane
or vehicle used to facilitate the manufacture of methamphetamine.
My co-sponsorship of H.R. 798 represents my continued commitment to
rid our great Valley of this devastating drug. I urge the adoption of
this critical measure.
Mr. COSTELLO. Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of H.R. 798, the
Methamphetamine Remediation Research Act, a bill to address the
methamphetamine abuse problem and provide support to states and local
communities to fight and clean-up methamphetamine (meth) and
methamphetamine labs. As a cosponsor of H.R. 798, I believe this
legislation takes a crucial first step towards achieving this goal and
I applaud Ranking Member Gordon for his leadership on this issue.
As a member of the Congressional Caucus to Fight and Control
Methamphetamine and a former law enforcement official, I am actively
working with my colleagues to decrease methamphetamine use. In my home
state of Illinois, there were 926 methamphetamine seizures reported and
813 methamphetamine arrests in 2004, many in my district in Southern
Illinois. In order to combat meth in our communities, I believe we need
a comprehensive plan to deal with the environmental, health, and law
enforcement challenges facing our communities because of the growing
use of this dangerous drug.
Reports show that methamphetamine use in the United States has
increased rapidly in recent years. In order to assist local governments
prevent and control the spread of methamphetamine, I am pleased grants,
such as the Edward Byrne Memorial Justice Assistance Grant, are
available for cities and counties to apply for through the Department
of Justice. I will continue to assist the local law enforcement
agencies throughout my congressional district to ensure they receive
funding based on local needs and conditions.
Mr. Speaker, meth labs not only cost communities, they also can
create a serious public health threat. It is my continued hope that by
raising national awareness about methamphetamine use and providing
increased federal resources to combat the methamphetamine problem, we
can diminish methamphetamine use. This legislation is a first step
toward that goal and I urge my colleagues to support H.R. 798.
Mr. CARNAHAN. Mr. Speaker, I am proud to be an original cosponsor of
the ``Meth'' Remediation and Research Act as it will aid our local law
enforcement, environmental regulatory, and health care officials in
coping with ``meth'' abuse by providing voluntary guidelines to clean
up and remediate the highly toxic chemicals that are used to make the
drug.
The harmful effects of contamination are not fully recognized and
first responders, future inhabitants, and sadly, children are at risk
of developing health problems--this legislation seeks to remedy this
problem.
I am tremendously sensitive to the problem of ``meth'' abuse due to
it's widespread emergence in my district. Last year my home state of
Missouri had the unfortunate distinction of being the number one state
in the country, by more than double, for methamphetamine laboratory
seizures. Furthermore, Jefferson County, which resides in my
congressional
[[Page 28127]]
district, has the most seizures and arrests related to ``meth'' in the
state of Missouri.
I applaud the Science Committee's bipartisan leadership for
addressing this growing problem and doing their utmost to move this
legislation.
Mr. CASE. Mr. Speaker, I rise today in strong support of H.R. 798,
the Methamphetamine Remediation Research Act of 2005, which I was
pleased to cosponsor originally.
I commend the dedicated work of the Science Committee in bringing
this bipartisan bill to the floor today. I would also like to thank
Congressmen Bart Gordon, Ben Calvert, and Committee Chairman Sherwood
Boehlert, the bill's chief sponsors, for their leadership on this
issue.
Last year, 30 methamphetamine labs--including sites where only the
chemical were found--were seized in Hawaii. While I fully understand
that this number is small in comparison to other states in our country,
the number of methamphetamine laboratories is unfortunately growing in
our more isolated rural communities like those in Hawaii's Second
Congressional District.
H.R. 798 would provide federal support and guidance to our states
with rapidly expanding number of closed methamphetamine laboratory
sites. The bill would require the Environmental Protection Agency to
develop the voluntary guidelines for use by state and local officials
and would establish a research program to address the environmental
effects from contamination caused by methamphetamine labs and examine
ways to clean up such labs and minimize adverse health effects. H.R.
798 would also direct the National Institute of Standards and
Technology to conduct research into methamphetamine detection
technologies and calls for a separate study by the National Academy of
Sciences to examine research on the effects that methamphetamine labs
have on the residents of the buildings in which the laboratories were
located.
I look forward to continuing to work with any likeminded colleagues
on our Congressional Methamphetamine Caucus and otherwise to provide
the federal support we need in our collective fight against the
national crisis of crystal methamphetamine.
Mahalo (thank you) for this opportunity to express support for H.R.
798.
Mr. CALVERT. Mr. Speaker, I am proud to have joined Mr. Gordon and
Mr. Boehlert as a lead sponsor of this legislation--H.R. 798, the
Methamphetamine Remediation Research Act of 2005. I thank Mr. Gordon
for bringing this very important issue to the Congress' attention and
Mr. Boehlert for steering the bill quickly through the Science
Committee. I also thank the Science Committee's Majority and Minority
staffs who have diligently worked together for the last two years to
develop and revise this legislation.
As a Co-Chairman of the 135-member Congressional Caucus to Fight and
Control Methamphetamine, I know the growing meth epidemic in our
country shows no deference to district or party line. This is an issue
everyone can agree is wreaking havoc on communities across the Nation.
As mentioned by my colleagues, H.R. 798 focuses its efforts on the
procedures and standards needed to decontaminate a site where a
methamphetamine lab is found so our communities can more thoroughly
remediate these sites. The creation of voluntary, health-based
remediation guidelines for former meth labs, crafted by the
Environmental Protection Agency, will protect and ensure the health of
our citizens and the surrounding environment.
In my area of Riverside, California, methamphetamine production has
reached epidemic proportions with many of these labs having the
distinction of being labeled superlabs--these are labs that are capable
of producing over ten pounds of finished methamphetamine per batch. One
such lab which was seized in 2003 operated out of a barn in a rural
area of Riverside County and produced over 6,000 pounds of finished
product with a street resale value of over $33 million dollars. Over 4
million pounds of contaminated toxic soil had to be removed with heavy
equipment, costing in excess of $226,000. Officials from the California
Department of Toxic Substance Control have called this the most
difficult and costly methamphetamine lab clean up in California's
history.
This is a distressing issue with which my region, and quite frankly,
most of America is becoming all too familiar. Our State and local
agencies need all the resources and tools that we can provide them
within their efforts to address this epidemic. Although we are all
aware that much more needs to be done to win the fight against this
devastating drug, I am convinced H.R. 789 will be a good start in that
fight and will be welcomed by our communities.
I strongly encourage my colleagues to vote yes in favor of H.R. 798
today.
Mr. GENE GREEN of Texas. Mr. Speaker, I rise to offer my support for
this legislation, of which I am a cosponsor. As a member of the Energy
and Commerce Committee, I have participated in several hearings and
mark-ups on methamphetamine legislation.
One of the many unsafe effects of this drug is the environmental harm
caused by producing it and disposing of the byproducts. Given that the
products necessary to produce meth can be purchased at a drug store,
and it can be produced in small quantities, many users make the drug in
their basement, garage or kitchen, despite the health and safety risks.
Cooking meth indoors allows toxic fumes to escape into the house and
be trapped in furniture and walls, causing additional health concerns
for those producing it--and especially for the family and children who
live in these homes. The production of meth puts family members and
children in harm's way, as there is a possibility of inhaling fumes,
absorbing chemicals or accidentally ingesting the toxic materials used
to manufacture this drug.
Depending on the process used, each pound of meth produced results in
about six additional pounds of waste which will likely end up in our
sewer systems, in streams or rivers, or on the ground. Given that some
of the key ingredients can be acetone, hydrochloric acid, ether and
ammonia, disposing of this byproduct improperly can lead to additional
health risks and environmental damage.
I am pleased the House is taking up this legislation to address the
negative environmental impacts of methamphetamines, and problems posed
by clean-up and remediation by directing the EPA to develop assessment
standards and remediation guidelines. H.R. 798 also directs studies to
be conducted on the residual effects of methamphetamine production, and
supports the development of methamphetamine detection testing.
Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleague to join me in supporting this
legislation.
Mr. BOEHLERT. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.
The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Aderholt). The question is on the motion
offered by the gentleman from New York (Mr. Boehlert) that the House
suspend the rules and pass the bill, H.R. 798, as amended.
The question was taken; and (two-thirds having voted in favor
thereof) the rules were suspended and the bill, as amended, was passed.
A motion to reconsider was laid on the table.
____________________
RECESS
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Pursuant to clause 12(a) of rule I, the
Chair declares the House in recess until approximately 6:30 p.m. today.
Accordingly (at 5 o'clock and 17 minutes p.m.), the House stood in
recess until approximately 6:30 p.m.
____________________
{time} 1830
AFTER RECESS
The recess having expired, the House was called to order by the
Speaker pro tempore (Mr. Bradley of New Hampshire) at 6 o'clock and 30
minutes p.m.
____________________
REPORT ON RESOLUTION WAIVING POINTS OF ORDER AGAINST CONFERENCE REPORT
ON H.R. 3199, USA PATRIOT IMPROVEMENT AND REAUTHORIZATION ACT OF 2005
Mr. PUTNAM, from the Committee on Rules, submitted a privileged
report (Rept. No. 109-343) on the resolution (H. Res. 595) waiving
points of order against the conference report to accompany the bill
(H.R. 3199) to extend and modify authorities needed to combat
terrorism, and for other purposes, which was referred to the House
Calendar and ordered to be printed.
____________________
REPORT ON RESOLUTION WAIVING POINTS OF ORDER AGAINST FURTHER CONFERENCE
REPORT ON H.R. 3010, DEPARTMENTS OF LABOR, HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES,
AND EDUCATION, AND RELATED AGENCIES APPROPRIATIONS ACT, 2006
Mr. PUTNAM, from the Committee on Rules, submitted a privileged
report (Rept. No. 109-344) on the resolution (H. Res. 596) waiving
points of order against the further conference report
[[Page 28128]]
to accompany the bill (H.R. 3010) making appropriations for the
Departments of Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education, and
related agencies for the fiscal year ending September 30, 2006, and for
other purposes, which was referred to the House Calendar and ordered to
be printed.
____________________
ANNOUNCEMENT BY THE SPEAKER PRO TEMPORE
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Pursuant to clause 8 of rule XX, proceedings
will resume on motions to suspend the rules previously postponed.
Votes will be taken in the following order:
H. Res. 487, by the yeas and nays;
S. 1047, by the yeas and nays;
H.R. 3422, by the yeas and nays.
The first and third electronic votes will be conducted as 15-minute
votes. The second vote in this series will be a 5-minute vote.
____________________
SUPPORTING THE GOALS AND IDEALS OF KOREAN AMERICAN DAY
The SPEAKER pro tempore. The pending business is the question of
suspending the rules and agreeing to the resolution, H. Res. 487.
The Clerk read the title of the resolution.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. The question is on the motion offered by the
gentleman from Utah (Mr. Cannon) that the House suspend the rules and
agree to the resolution, H. Res. 487, on which the yeas and nays are
ordered.
The vote was taken by electronic device, and there were--yeas 405,
nays 0, not voting 28, as follows:
[Roll No. 623]
YEAS--405
Abercrombie
Ackerman
Aderholt
Akin
Alexander
Allen
Andrews
Baca
Baird
Baker
Baldwin
Barrett (SC)
Barrow
Bartlett (MD)
Barton (TX)
Bass
Bean
Beauprez
Becerra
Berkley
Berman
Berry
Biggert
Bilirakis
Bishop (GA)
Bishop (NY)
Bishop (UT)
Blackburn
Blumenauer
Blunt
Boehlert
Boehner
Bonilla
Bono
Boozman
Boren
Boswell
Boucher
Boustany
Boyd
Bradley (NH)
Brady (PA)
Brady (TX)
Brown (OH)
Brown (SC)
Brown-Waite, Ginny
Burgess
Burton (IN)
Butterfield
Buyer
Camp (MI)
Campbell (CA)
Cannon
Cantor
Capito
Capps
Capuano
Cardin
Cardoza
Carnahan
Carson
Carter
Case
Castle
Chabot
Chandler
Chocola
Clay
Cleaver
Coble
Cole (OK)
Conaway
Conyers
Cooper
Costa
Cramer
Crenshaw
Crowley
Cuellar
Culberson
Cummings
Davis (AL)
Davis (CA)
Davis (IL)
Davis (KY)
Davis (TN)
Davis, Jo Ann
Davis, Tom
Deal (GA)
DeFazio
Delahunt
DeLauro
DeLay
Dent
Diaz-Balart, L.
Dicks
Dingell
Doggett
Doolittle
Doyle
Drake
Dreier
Duncan
Edwards
Ehlers
Emanuel
Emerson
Engel
English (PA)
Eshoo
Etheridge
Evans
Farr
Fattah
Feeney
Ferguson
Filner
Fitzpatrick (PA)
Flake
Foley
Forbes
Fossella
Foxx
Frank (MA)
Franks (AZ)
Frelinghuysen
Garrett (NJ)
Gerlach
Gibbons
Gilchrest
Gillmor
Gingrey
Gohmert
Gonzalez
Goodlatte
Gordon
Granger
Graves
Green (WI)
Green, Al
Green, Gene
Grijalva
Gutierrez
Gutknecht
Hall
Harman
Hart
Hastings (FL)
Hastings (WA)
Hayes
Hefley
Hensarling
Herger
Herseth
Higgins
Hinojosa
Hobson
Hoekstra
Holden
Holt
Honda
Hooley
Hostettler
Hoyer
Hulshof
Hunter
Inglis (SC)
Inslee
Israel
Issa
Istook
Jackson (IL)
Jackson-Lee (TX)
Jefferson
Jenkins
Jindal
Johnson (CT)
Johnson (IL)
Johnson, E. B.
Johnson, Sam
Jones (NC)
Jones (OH)
Kanjorski
Kaptur
Keller
Kelly
Kennedy (MN)
Kennedy (RI)
Kildee
Kilpatrick (MI)
King (IA)
King (NY)
Kingston
Kirk
Kline
Knollenberg
Kolbe
Kucinich
Kuhl (NY)
LaHood
Langevin
Lantos
Larsen (WA)
Larson (CT)
Latham
LaTourette
Leach
Lee
Levin
Lewis (CA)
Lewis (GA)
Lewis (KY)
Linder
Lipinski
LoBiondo
Lofgren, Zoe
Lowey
Lucas
Lungren, Daniel E.
Lynch
Mack
Maloney
Manzullo
Marchant
Markey
Marshall
Matheson
Matsui
McCarthy
McCaul (TX)
McCollum (MN)
McCotter
McCrery
McGovern
McHenry
McHugh
McIntyre
McKeon
McKinney
McMorris
McNulty
Meehan
Meek (FL)
Meeks (NY)
Melancon
Menendez
Mica
Michaud
Millender-McDonald
Miller (FL)
Miller (MI)
Miller (NC)
Miller, Gary
Miller, George
Mollohan
Moore (KS)
Moore (WI)
Moran (KS)
Moran (VA)
Murphy
Murtha
Musgrave
Myrick
Nadler
Napolitano
Neal (MA)
Neugebauer
Ney
Northup
Norwood
Nunes
Nussle
Oberstar
Obey
Olver
Ortiz
Osborne
Otter
Owens
Oxley
Pallone
Pascrell
Pastor
Paul
Payne
Pearce
Pelosi
Pence
Peterson (MN)
Peterson (PA)
Petri
Pickering
Pitts
Platts
Poe
Pombo
Pomeroy
Porter
Price (GA)
Price (NC)
Pryce (OH)
Putnam
Radanovich
Rahall
Ramstad
Rangel
Regula
Reichert
Renzi
Reyes
Rogers (AL)
Rogers (KY)
Rogers (MI)
Rohrabacher
Ross
Rothman
Roybal-Allard
Royce
Ruppersberger
Rush
Ryan (OH)
Ryan (WI)
Ryun (KS)
Salazar
Sanchez, Linda T.
Sanchez, Loretta
Sanders
Saxton
Schakowsky
Schiff
Schmidt
Schwartz (PA)
Schwarz (MI)
Scott (GA)
Scott (VA)
Sensenbrenner
Serrano
Sessions
Shadegg
Shaw
Shays
Sherman
Sherwood
Shimkus
Shuster
Simmons
Simpson
Skelton
Slaughter
Smith (NJ)
Smith (TX)
Smith (WA)
Snyder
Sodrel
Solis
Souder
Spratt
Stark
Stearns
Strickland
Stupak
Sullivan
Sweeney
Tancredo
Tanner
Tauscher
Taylor (MS)
Taylor (NC)
Terry
Thomas
Thompson (CA)
Thompson (MS)
Thornberry
Tiahrt
Tiberi
Tierney
Towns
Turner
Udall (NM)
Upton
Van Hollen
Velazquez
Visclosky
Walden (OR)
Walsh
Wamp
Wasserman Schultz
Waters
Watson
Watt
Waxman
Weldon (FL)
Weldon (PA)
Weller
Westmoreland
Wexler
Whitfield
Wicker
Wilson (NM)
Wilson (SC)
Wolf
Woolsey
Wu
Young (AK)
Young (FL)
NOT VOTING--28
Bachus
Bonner
Brown, Corrine
Calvert
Clyburn
Costello
Cubin
Davis (FL)
DeGette
Diaz-Balart, M.
Everett
Ford
Fortenberry
Gallegly
Goode
Harris
Hayworth
Hinchey
Hyde
Kind
McDermott
Rehberg
Reynolds
Ros-Lehtinen
Sabo
Udall (CO)
Weiner
Wynn
{time} 1901
So (two-thirds of those voting having responded in the affirmative)
the rules were suspended and the resolution was agreed to.
The result of the vote was announced as above recorded.
A motion to reconsider was laid on the table.
____________________
PRESIDENTIAL $1 COIN ACT OF 2005
The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Bradley of New Hampshire). The pending
business is the question of suspending the rules and passing the Senate
bill, S. 1047.
The Clerk read the title of the Senate bill.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. The question is on the motion offered by the
gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Oxley) that the House suspend the rules and
pass the Senate bill, S. 1047, on which the yeas and nays are ordered.
This will be a 5-minute vote.
The vote was taken by electronic device, and there were--yeas 291,
nays 113, not voting 29, as follows:
[Roll No. 624]
YEAS--291
Abercrombie
Ackerman
Aderholt
Allen
Andrews
Baca
Baird
Baker
Baldwin
Barrow
Barton (TX)
Bass
Bean
Becerra
Berkley
Berman
Berry
Biggert
Bishop (GA)
Bishop (NY)
Blumenauer
Boehlert
Boehner
Boren
Boswell
Boucher
Boustany
Boyd
Bradley (NH)
Brady (PA)
Brady (TX)
Brown (OH)
Brown (SC)
Butterfield
Cantor
Capito
Capps
Capuano
Cardin
Cardoza
Carnahan
Carson
Case
Castle
Chandler
Clay
Cleaver
Conyers
Cooper
Costa
Cramer
Crenshaw
Crowley
Cuellar
Cummings
Davis (AL)
Davis (CA)
Davis (IL)
Davis (TN)
Deal (GA)
DeFazio
Delahunt
DeLauro
Dent
Diaz-Balart, L.
Dicks
Dingell
Doggett
Doyle
Dreier
Edwards
Ehlers
Emanuel
Emerson
Engel
English (PA)
Eshoo
Etheridge
Evans
Farr
Fattah
Ferguson
Filner
Fitzpatrick (PA)
Foley
Fossella
Frank (MA)
Frelinghuysen
Gerlach
Gibbons
Gilchrest
Gillmor
Gonzalez
Gordon
Graves
Green, Al
Green, Gene
Grijalva
Gutierrez
[[Page 28129]]
Gutknecht
Harman
Hastings (FL)
Hastings (WA)
Herseth
Higgins
Hinojosa
Hobson
Hoekstra
Holden
Holt
Honda
Hooley
Hostettler
Hoyer
Hulshof
Inglis (SC)
Inslee
Israel
Issa
Jackson (IL)
Jackson-Lee (TX)
Jefferson
Jenkins
Johnson (CT)
Johnson, Sam
Jones (OH)
Kanjorski
Kaptur
Keller
Kelly
Kennedy (RI)
Kildee
Kilpatrick (MI)
King (NY)
Kirk
Knollenberg
Kucinich
LaHood
Langevin
Lantos
Larsen (WA)
Larson (CT)
Latham
LaTourette
Leach
Lee
Levin
Lewis (CA)
Lewis (GA)
Linder
Lipinski
Lofgren, Zoe
Lowey
Lucas
Lynch
Maloney
Manzullo
Marchant
Markey
Marshall
Matheson
Matsui
McCarthy
McCaul (TX)
McCollum (MN)
McGovern
McHugh
McIntyre
McKeon
McKinney
McNulty
Meehan
Meek (FL)
Meeks (NY)
Melancon
Menendez
Mica
Michaud
Millender-McDonald
Miller (NC)
Miller, George
Mollohan
Moore (KS)
Moore (WI)
Moran (KS)
Moran (VA)
Murtha
Nadler
Napolitano
Neal (MA)
Ney
Northup
Nunes
Nussle
Oberstar
Obey
Olver
Ortiz
Osborne
Owens
Oxley
Pallone
Pascrell
Pastor
Payne
Pearce
Pelosi
Peterson (MN)
Petri
Pickering
Pombo
Pomeroy
Porter
Price (NC)
Pryce (OH)
Putnam
Radanovich
Rahall
Ramstad
Rangel
Regula
Rehberg
Reichert
Renzi
Reyes
Rogers (AL)
Rogers (KY)
Rogers (MI)
Rohrabacher
Ross
Rothman
Roybal-Allard
Ruppersberger
Rush
Ryan (OH)
Salazar
Sanchez, Linda T.
Sanchez, Loretta
Sanders
Schakowsky
Schiff
Schwartz (PA)
Schwarz (MI)
Scott (GA)
Scott (VA)
Serrano
Shaw
Shays
Sherman
Sherwood
Shimkus
Simmons
Simpson
Skelton
Slaughter
Smith (NJ)
Smith (TX)
Smith (WA)
Snyder
Solis
Spratt
Stark
Stupak
Tancredo
Tanner
Tauscher
Taylor (MS)
Thomas
Thompson (CA)
Thompson (MS)
Tierney
Towns
Udall (NM)
Van Hollen
Velazquez
Visclosky
Walden (OR)
Walsh
Wasserman Schultz
Waters
Watson
Watt
Waxman
Weldon (PA)
Weller
Wexler
Wilson (NM)
Wilson (SC)
Wolf
Woolsey
Wu
NAYS--113
Akin
Alexander
Barrett (SC)
Bartlett (MD)
Beauprez
Bilirakis
Bishop (UT)
Blackburn
Blunt
Bonilla
Bono
Boozman
Brown-Waite, Ginny
Burgess
Burton (IN)
Buyer
Camp (MI)
Campbell (CA)
Cannon
Carter
Chabot
Chocola
Coble
Conaway
Culberson
Davis (KY)
Davis, Jo Ann
Davis, Tom
DeLay
Doolittle
Drake
Duncan
Feeney
Flake
Forbes
Foxx
Franks (AZ)
Garrett (NJ)
Gingrey
Gohmert
Goodlatte
Granger
Green (WI)
Hall
Hart
Hayes
Hefley
Hensarling
Herger
Hunter
Istook
Jindal
Johnson (IL)
Johnson, E. B.
Jones (NC)
Kennedy (MN)
King (IA)
Kingston
Kline
Kolbe
Kuhl (NY)
Lewis (KY)
LoBiondo
Lungren, Daniel E.
Mack
McCotter
McCrery
McHenry
McMorris
Miller (FL)
Miller (MI)
Miller, Gary
Murphy
Musgrave
Myrick
Neugebauer
Norwood
Otter
Paul
Pence
Peterson (PA)
Pitts
Poe
Price (GA)
Royce
Ryan (WI)
Ryun (KS)
Saxton
Schmidt
Sensenbrenner
Sessions
Shadegg
Shuster
Sodrel
Souder
Stearns
Strickland
Sullivan
Sweeney
Taylor (NC)
Terry
Thornberry
Tiahrt
Tiberi
Turner
Upton
Wamp
Weldon (FL)
Westmoreland
Whitfield
Wicker
Young (AK)
Young (FL)
NOT VOTING--29
Bachus
Bonner
Brown, Corrine
Calvert
Clyburn
Cole (OK)
Costello
Cubin
Davis (FL)
DeGette
Diaz-Balart, M.
Everett
Ford
Fortenberry
Gallegly
Goode
Harris
Hayworth
Hinchey
Hyde
Kind
McDermott
Platts
Reynolds
Ros-Lehtinen
Sabo
Udall (CO)
Weiner
Wynn
Announcement by the Speaker Pro Tempore
The SPEAKER pro tempore (during the vote). Members are advised 2
minutes remain in this vote.
{time} 1915
Ms. HART and Messrs. ROYCE, TURNER, BUYER, GINGREY and HERGER changed
their vote from ``yea'' to ``nay.''
Mr. NUSSLE and Mr. LATHAM changed their vote from ``nay'' to ``yea.''
So (two-thirds of those voting having responded in the affirmative)
the rules were suspended and the Senate bill was passed.
The result of the vote was announced as above recorded.
A motion to reconsider was laid on the table.
____________________
FURTHER MESSAGE FROM THE SENATE
A further message from the Senate by Ms. Curtis, one of its clerks,
announced that the Senate agreed to the following resolution:
S. Res. 330
In the Senate of the United States, December 12, 2005.
Whereas Eugene J. McCarthy devoted many years of his life
to teaching in public high schools and other institutions of
higher learning in the service of the youth of our Nation;
Whereas Eugene J. McCarthy served in the House of
Representatives from 1949 to 1959;
Whereas Eugene J. McCarthy served the people of Minnesota
with distinction from 1959 to 1971 in the United States
Senate;
Resolved, That the Senate has heard with profound sorrow
and deep regret the announcement of the death of the
Honorable Eugene J. McCarthy, former member of the United
States Senate;
Resolved, That the Secretary of the Senate communicate
these resolutions to the House of Representatives and
transmit an enrolled copy thereof to the family of the
deceased.
Resolved, That when the Senate adjourns today, it stand
adjourned as a further mark of respect to the memory of the
Honorable Eugene J. McCarthy.
The message also announced that the Senate has passed without an
amendment a bill of the House of the following title:
H.R. 4340. An act to implement the United States-Bahrain
Free Trade Agreement.
The message also announced that the Senate has passed bills of the
following title in which the concurrence of the House is requested:
S. 2093. An act to amend the Morris K. Udall Scholarship
and Excellence in National Environmental and Native American
Public Policy Act of 1992 to provide funds for training in
tribal leadership, management, and policy, and for other
purposes.
S. 2094. An act to reauthorize certain provisions relating
to Indian tribal justice systems.
____________________
HONORING THE 50TH ANNIVERSARY OF THE HONORABLE JOHN D. DINGELL'S
SERVICE IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
Mr. HASTERT. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee
on House Administration be discharged from further consideration of the
resolution (H. Res. 594) honoring the 50th anniversary of the Honorable
John D. Dingell's service in the House of Representatives, and ask for
its immediate consideration in the House.
The Clerk read the title of the resolution.
The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Bradley of New Hampshire). Is there
objection to the request of the gentleman from Illinois?
There was no objection.
The Clerk read the resolution, as follows:
H. Res 594
Whereas John D. Dingell learned firsthand about the
institution of Capitol Hill at an early age, serving as a
House of Representatives Page from 1938 to 1943;
Whereas John D. Dingell served his country during the World
War II as a member of the United States Army;
Whereas John D. Dingell has served 50 years in the House of
Representatives, since succeeding his late father, the
Honorable John David Dingell, Sr., a 12-term incumbent, in a
special election to the 84th Congress on December 13, 1955;
Whereas a member of the Dingell family has represented the
Detroit metropolitan area in the House of Representatives
since 1933;
Whereas John D. Dingell, the Dean of the House of
Representatives since the 104th Congress, is the longest
serving current Member of the House of Representatives,
having been re-elected on 25 subsequent occasions;
Whereas John D. Dingell's term of service is the third-
longest term of service in the history of the House of
Representatives and the fifth-longest in Congressional
history; and
Whereas John D. Dingell has served on the Energy and
Commerce Committee (and its predecessors) since the 85th
Congress in 1957, and chaired that panel from the 97th
through the 103rd Congresses (1981-1995): Now, therefore, be
it
Resolved,
SECTION 1. HONORING THE 50TH ANNIVERSARY OF JOHN D. DINGELL'S
SERVICE IN THE HOUSE.
The House of Representatives--
[[Page 28130]]
(1) honors the lifelong commitment of the Honorable John D.
Dingell to the ideals of our Nation;
(2) recognizes the Honorable John D. Dingell's half-century
of exceptional dedication to his constituents, to the State
of Michigan, and to the United States; and
(3) congratulates the Honorable John D. Dingell on 50 years
of superior service in the United States Congress.
SEC. 2. TRANSMISSION OF ENROLLED RESOLUTION.
The Clerk of the House of Representatives shall transmit an
enrolled copy of this resolution to the Honorable John D.
Dingell.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. The gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Hastert) is
recognized for 1 hour.
Mr. HASTERT. Ladies and gentlemen, it is important for the House to
recognize important milestones. Tonight, the Democratic leader and I on
behalf of the House take this brief time to honor our colleague John
Dingell.
If Members would also like to add words of congratulations, I would
encourage them to insert remarks as part of the Congressional Record or
partake in a Special Order following votes tonight.
I rise in support of this resolution saluting and congratulating our
good friend, John Dingell, for 50 years of service in the U.S. House of
Representatives.
As the Clerk said, only two other House Members have made the 50-year
milestone, Jamie Whitten and Carl Vinson. For a half century, John has
walked the Halls of this Capitol doing the business of the people of
southeast Michigan. And I must say the Congress is a better place
because we have men like John Dingell.
I first met John when I came to the House in 1986, and he had already
been here three decades at that time. We really got to know each other
better when I started my third term when I was named to the House
Energy and Commerce Committee. I knew him as Mr. Chairman. In fact, I
think I only started to call him John after I became Speaker.
Mr. Dingell earned my respect early on. He knew the issues under his
committee's jurisdiction, which was just about everything. He knew
their legislative history. He knew how to count votes. He knew how to
get legislation through the process. He was tough, but he was fair.
His congressional work has done much to benefit the American people.
During his time in the House, he has left his mark on historic
legislation like the Clean Air Act of 1990, the Safe Drinking Water
Act, the Children's Health Insurance Program, and every other major
energy and telecommunications bill since the 1970s. In fact, during the
1980s, he oversaw the investigation into the safety of the Nation's
blood supply, including the procedures that we now have to ensure that
donated blood is disease free.
As Dean of the House, John Dingell administers the oath of office to
the Speaker. The Speaker then administers the oath of office to all the
Members as well. I could not be more proud to have had John Dingell
administer my oath four times.
Mr. Speaker, in this age of sound-bite politicians, John Dingell is
the real deal. You always know where he stands, and you can always rest
assured that he stands for something. And so today we salute John
Dingell for 50 years of service with dignity, with dedication, with
courage, with principle, and with honor. I thank you, John, for your
good work.
Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Pelosi),
the Democratic leader, for her remarks.
Ms. PELOSI. Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker.
I am proud to join you in co-sponsoring this resolution honoring the
50th anniversary of the Honorable John D. Dingell's service in the
House of Representatives. As we celebrated at the National Building
Museum before, I am pleased to join you once again in congratulating
John Dingell. It is impossible to acknowledge his service and
congratulate him for his great leadership without also acknowledging
Debbie Dingell, who has been his partner in so much of his life's work.
As I mentioned, Mr. Speaker, you and I had the privilege of
celebrating this milestone with Congressman Dingell at an extraordinary
event at the National Building Museum on October 26. Something
phenomenal happened that night when Republicans and Democrats came
together in unity to praise this great man. Everyone in the bipartisan
group, President Clinton, Vice President Cheney, Governor Granholm of
Michigan, and so many of John's colleagues in the House and Senate,
including his chairman, Joe Barton, who regaled us with Dingell stories
that night, agreed that John Dingell is an American statesman of the
highest order.
President Kennedy could have been describing John Dingell when he
said: ``No government is better than the people who serve it. We want
the best, we need the best, and we deserve the best.'' For 50 years in
John Dingell we have had the best.
To the pages in the room, I want to say tonight we could really be
celebrating his 54th anniversary in the House because from age 12 to
16, he served here as a page, the longest-serving page in history. It
was as a page in 1941 that John Dingell was standing on the House floor
when President Roosevelt asked Congress to declare war on Japan. It was
World War II that would ultimately call him to service.
He served in the Army with distinction, rising to the rank of second
lieutenant. John would later say of his service, ``It taught me the
meaning of discipline and respect, two qualities which I believe are
key to success in the United States.'' It also began a public life
dedicated to making America strong both at home and abroad.
A member of the Greatest Generation, John Dingell applied his
brilliant mind, his great judgment, and his broad vision to making the
future better for generations to come. John always made clear that a
strong America had to be a healthy America. Continuing a tradition his
father began, in every Congress he has introduced a bill for universal
national health insurance. Because of his tireless work in securing
health care for the elderly, John presided in the House in 1965 when
Medicare was passed into law. The gavel he used that day still sits on
his desk. He was a very young man at the time, still is.
As part of his focus on future generations, John was one of the first
elected officials to link public health with environmental health, and
he has had a hand in almost every major environmental legislation of
the past 40 years. He has done as much to clean up government as he has
to clean up the environment. For the last 50 years, Federal agencies
have checked their mail with one eye squinted open hoping they have not
received what became known as ``Dingell-grams.''
In the 1980s, the EPA even had an employee whose sole responsibility
was responding to Chairman Dingell's inquires, and it was recognized
that her job was not an easy one. To work alongside John Dingell is to
be inspired by the history of our institution and humbled by the
seriousness of our work. John is a giant in Congress and a symbol of
continuity.
Fifty years ago on December 13, 1955, John Dingell took over the seat
that had been opened by his father. After hearing his father's
colleagues eulogize John, Sr., John stepped up and said, ``My father
loved and respected the House and all of its Members. If I can be half
the man that my father was, I shall feel that I am a great success.''
On this 50th anniversary, we say that we love and respect John
Dingell and by any measure his leadership and his success have been
unsurpassed. I am sure that John Dingell, Sr., is very, very proud. We
may call John Dingell the Dean of the House, as the Speaker has done;
but for many of us here tonight he has also been a teacher.
I know I speak for all of the Members of the House when I say we are
proud to call John Dingell colleague.
{time} 1930
We are all so glad that your lifetime of service continues. The best
is yet to come. Thank you, John Dingell.
Mr. RAHALL. Mr. Speaker, today, December 13, 2005, John D. Dingell,
Jr. marks 50 years of distinguished service to the people of
[[Page 28131]]
Michigan. I have enormous respect for my friend, the gentleman from
Michigan, who serves the people he represents, and the country, well
and with distinction.
I was a member of this body when the last gentleman to serve 50 years
in the House was acknowledged--Congressman Jamie Whitten. And the
tribute Mr. Dingell paid to Mr. Whitten also is fitting in tribute to
Mr. Dingell--For all the wisdom the gentleman from Michigan has
displayed during his tenure in the House, his constituents have shown
even more wisdom in returning him to Congress 25 times.
Upon reflecting on Mr. Dingell's career, I am reminded of the quote
by Martin Luther King, Jr. who said, ``the quality, not the longevity,
of one's life is what is important.''
After half a century of service in this body, serving with 10
presidents and in 25 Congresses, all marvel at the longevity of the
gentleman's career. But it is the quality of Mr. Dingell's service that
his colleagues, his constituents and the American people remember.
And let us not forget in celebrating the gentleman's past
accomplishments and distinguished service that his career is far from
over.
True, his efforts on behalf of the Civil Rights Movement, the
American laborer and our Nation's neediest individuals helped shape the
second half of the 20th Century.
But as we look to the future, a future where John Dingell will
undeniably play a significant role, we are comforted by the fact that
the gentleman from Michigan, always true to his word and with a quick
wit, will continue to lead us for many years to come.
I am proud of my friend John and thank him for many years of personal
kindnesses and professional courtesies.
Mr. CAMP of Michigan. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to pay tribute to the
service of a fellow Michigan congressman: the Honorable John Dingell,
who marks today his fiftieth year as a member of this distinguished
House of Representatives. The length of his labors is astounding; his
constant concern for his constituents is exemplary; and his integrity
is simply beyond reproach.
Having been elected to fill the seat and the shoes of his father (who
passed away while still in office), Mr. Dingell has blazed his own path
over the past five decades. Impacting virtually every major piece of
legislation to be signed into law during the last half century, Mr.
Dingell is one of a handful of lawmakers whose effectiveness does not
rely solely on his party being in the majority.
Impressive in both stature and the tenacity with which he pursues his
positions, Mr. Dingell has lent his life to public service. The good
citizens of his district and his colleagues here on the Hill are all
the better for his tenure; may it long continue.
Mr. ADERHOLT. Mr. Speaker, I would like to congratulate my colleague,
John D. Dingell, of Michigan, on his 50 years of service in the United
States House of Representatives this week. He is rightfully called
``the Dean of the House,'' as the longest currently serving Member of
the House. Only two Members of the House have ever served longer, and
Congressman Dingell's congressional career began at age 29, when he won
election to succeed his father. John Dingell is known as a Member who
is passionate about the welfare of the constituents he represents, and
more broadly, all the residents of the United States. He shares his
father's great passion for health care for all persons, and was key to
the passage of many health care bills, including the Children's Health
Insurance Program, and the Mammography Quality Standards Act. His work
on health extends naturally to the environment as well, both in terms
of holding polluters accountable for cleanup, and in working to
preserve America's outdoor treasures for future generations. Michigan,
of course, borders Canada, and Congressman Dingell has done outstanding
work both in resolving pollution issues with Canada and in creating
North America's first international wildlife refuge. As ranking member
of the House Committee on Energy and Commerce, and former chairman,
John Dingell is known for his extensive knowledge and wisdom, and
commands deep respect from both sides of the aisle. I am sure there
have been many temptations over the years to leave congressional
service for a more lucrative career, but it is a testimony to his
dedication and integrity that he has reached this milestone in his
career. I extend to him, and to his wife Deborah, and the entire
family, my sincere congratulations.
Mr. PRICE of North Carolina. Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to join
colleagues in recognizing and honoring John Dingell as he celebrates
his fiftieth anniversary as a member of the House of Representatives.
As a young political scientist teaching about the Congress and doing
research on the committee system, I knew a good deal about John Dingell
before I joined him in the House in 1987. I studied his role, along
with his friend and colleague John Moss, in shaking up the Commerce
Committee in the 1970s, decentralizing the then-Chairman's authority
and greatly stepping up oversight of the executive. I came to the House
hoping that I could someday become a Commerce member myself. By then,
John was chairman, and the Committee was the ``place to be'' for an
activist member, known for its broad legislative reach and vigilant
oversight.
As it happened, my region had its full quota of Commerce seats, and I
successfully pursued Appropriations instead. But I have continued to
admire John's work, now as ranking member. He is totally dedicated to
this institution as the keystone of American democracy, and he fully
understands the importance of active, assertive committees to the
institution's capacity for deliberation and sound lawmaking.
John richly deserves the fulsome tributes we have heard from senior
and junior colleagues, of every partisan and political stripe, upon
this fiftieth anniversary of his winning the seat vacated by his
father's death in 1955. Many have also mentioned Debbie Dingell, John's
wife and partner in service. Debbie has been an invaluable resource to
the House Democratic Caucus in planning issues conferences and other
activities, and I recently was privileged to serve with her on our
national party's Commission on Presidential Nomination Timing and
Scheduling.
Mr. Speaker, I am proud to join in tribute to John and Debbie
Dingell--to thank them for their dedication and perseverance, for their
effectiveness as advocates and public servants, and for what they have
meant to each of us and to our country as champions of this
institution.
The SPEAKER. Without objection, the previous question is ordered on
the resolution.
There was no objection.
The SPEAKER. The question is on the resolution.
The resolution was agreed to.
A motion to reconsider was laid on the table.
____________________
SMALL PUBLIC HOUSING AUTHORITY ACT
The SPEAKER. The pending business is the question of suspending the
rules and passing the bill, H.R. 3422, as amended.
The Clerk read the title of the bill.
The SPEAKER. The question is on the motion offered by the gentleman
from Ohio (Mr. Oxley) that the House suspend the rules and pass the
bill, H.R. 3422, as amended, on which the yeas and nays are ordered.
The vote was taken by electronic device, and there were--yeas 387,
nays 2, not voting 44, as follows:
[Roll No. 625]
YEAS--387
Abercrombie
Ackerman
Aderholt
Akin
Alexander
Allen
Andrews
Baca
Baird
Baker
Baldwin
Barrett (SC)
Barrow
Bartlett (MD)
Barton (TX)
Bass
Bean
Beauprez
Becerra
Berkley
Berman
Berry
Biggert
Bilirakis
Bishop (GA)
Bishop (NY)
Bishop (UT)
Blackburn
Blumenauer
Blunt
Boehlert
Boehner
Bonilla
Bono
Boozman
Boren
Boswell
Boucher
Boustany
Boyd
Bradley (NH)
Brady (PA)
Brady (TX)
Brown (OH)
Brown (SC)
Brown-Waite, Ginny
Burgess
Burton (IN)
Butterfield
Buyer
Camp (MI)
Campbell (CA)
Cannon
Capito
Capps
Capuano
Cardin
Cardoza
Carnahan
Carson
Carter
Case
Castle
Chabot
Chandler
Chocola
Clay
Cleaver
Cole (OK)
Conaway
Conyers
Cooper
Costa
Cramer
Crenshaw
Crowley
Cuellar
Culberson
Cummings
Davis (AL)
Davis (CA)
Davis (IL)
Davis (KY)
Davis (TN)
Davis, Jo Ann
DeFazio
Delahunt
DeLauro
DeLay
Dent
Diaz-Balart, L.
Dicks
Dingell
Doggett
Doolittle
Doyle
Drake
Dreier
Duncan
Edwards
Ehlers
Emanuel
Emerson
Engel
English (PA)
Eshoo
Etheridge
Evans
Farr
Fattah
Feeney
Ferguson
Filner
Fitzpatrick (PA)
Flake
Foley
Forbes
Fortenberry
Fossella
Frank (MA)
Franks (AZ)
Frelinghuysen
Garrett (NJ)
Gerlach
Gibbons
Gilchrest
Gillmor
Gingrey
Gohmert
Gonzalez
Goodlatte
Gordon
Granger
Graves
Green (WI)
Green, Al
Green, Gene
Grijalva
Gutierrez
Gutknecht
Hall
Harman
Hart
Hastings (FL)
Hastings (WA)
Hayes
Hefley
Hensarling
Herger
Herseth
Higgins
Hinchey
Hinojosa
Hobson
Hoekstra
[[Page 28132]]
Holden
Holt
Honda
Hooley
Hostettler
Hoyer
Hulshof
Hunter
Inglis (SC)
Inslee
Israel
Issa
Istook
Jackson (IL)
Jackson-Lee (TX)
Jindal
Johnson (IL)
Johnson, E. B.
Johnson, Sam
Jones (NC)
Jones (OH)
Kanjorski
Kaptur
Keller
Kelly
Kennedy (MN)
Kennedy (RI)
Kildee
Kilpatrick (MI)
King (IA)
King (NY)
Kingston
Kirk
Kline
Kolbe
Kucinich
Kuhl (NY)
LaHood
Langevin
Lantos
Larsen (WA)
Larson (CT)
Latham
LaTourette
Leach
Lee
Levin
Lewis (GA)
Lewis (KY)
Linder
Lipinski
LoBiondo
Lofgren, Zoe
Lowey
Lucas
Lungren, Daniel E.
Lynch
Mack
Maloney
Manzullo
Marchant
Markey
Marshall
Matheson
Matsui
McCaul (TX)
McCollum (MN)
McCotter
McCrery
McGovern
McHenry
McHugh
McIntyre
McKeon
McKinney
McMorris
McNulty
Meehan
Meek (FL)
Meeks (NY)
Melancon
Menendez
Mica
Michaud
Millender-McDonald
Miller (FL)
Miller (MI)
Miller (NC)
Miller, Gary
Miller, George
Mollohan
Moore (KS)
Moore (WI)
Moran (KS)
Moran (VA)
Murphy
Musgrave
Myrick
Nadler
Napolitano
Neal (MA)
Neugebauer
Ney
Northup
Norwood
Nunes
Nussle
Oberstar
Obey
Olver
Ortiz
Osborne
Otter
Owens
Pallone
Pascrell
Pastor
Paul
Payne
Pearce
Pelosi
Pence
Peterson (MN)
Peterson (PA)
Petri
Pickering
Pitts
Poe
Pombo
Pomeroy
Porter
Price (NC)
Pryce (OH)
Radanovich
Rahall
Ramstad
Regula
Rehberg
Reichert
Renzi
Reyes
Rogers (AL)
Rogers (KY)
Rogers (MI)
Rohrabacher
Ross
Rothman
Roybal-Allard
Royce
Ruppersberger
Rush
Ryan (OH)
Ryan (WI)
Ryun (KS)
Salazar
Sanchez, Loretta
Sanders
Saxton
Schakowsky
Schiff
Schmidt
Schwartz (PA)
Schwarz (MI)
Scott (GA)
Scott (VA)
Sensenbrenner
Serrano
Sessions
Shadegg
Shays
Sherman
Sherwood
Shimkus
Shuster
Simmons
Simpson
Skelton
Slaughter
Smith (NJ)
Smith (TX)
Smith (WA)
Snyder
Sodrel
Souder
Spratt
Stark
Stearns
Strickland
Stupak
Sullivan
Sweeney
Tancredo
Tanner
Tauscher
Taylor (MS)
Taylor (NC)
Terry
Thomas
Thompson (CA)
Thompson (MS)
Thornberry
Tiahrt
Tiberi
Tierney
Towns
Turner
Udall (NM)
Upton
Van Hollen
Velazquez
Visclosky
Walden (OR)
Walsh
Wamp
Wasserman Schultz
Watson
Watt
Waxman
Weldon (FL)
Weldon (PA)
Weller
Westmoreland
Wexler
Whitfield
Wicker
Wilson (NM)
Wilson (SC)
Wolf
Woolsey
Wu
Young (AK)
Young (FL)
NAYS--2
Foxx
Putnam
NOT VOTING--44
Bachus
Bonner
Brown, Corrine
Calvert
Cantor
Clyburn
Coble
Costello
Cubin
Davis (FL)
Davis, Tom
Deal (GA)
DeGette
Diaz-Balart, M.
Everett
Ford
Gallegly
Goode
Harris
Hayworth
Hyde
Jefferson
Jenkins
Johnson (CT)
Kind
Knollenberg
Lewis (CA)
McCarthy
McDermott
Murtha
Oxley
Platts
Price (GA)
Rangel
Reynolds
Ros-Lehtinen
Sabo
Sanchez, Linda T.
Shaw
Solis
Udall (CO)
Waters
Weiner
Wynn
Announcement by the Speaker Pro Tempore
The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Bradley of New Hampshire) (during the
vote). Members are advised there are 2 minutes remaining in this vote.
{time} 1948
So (two-thirds of those voting having responded in the affirmative)
the rules were suspended and the bill, as amended, was passed.
The result of the vote was announced as above recorded.
A motion to reconsider was laid on the table.
____________________
REMOVAL OF NAME OF MEMBER AS COSPONSOR OF H.R. 4099
Mr. BOREN. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to have my name
removed as a cosponsor of H.R. 4099.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Is there objection to the request of the
gentleman from Oklahoma?
There was no objection.
____________________
SPECIAL ORDERS
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of
January 4, 2005, and under a previous order of the House, the following
Members will be recognized for 5 minutes each.
____________________
RECOGNIZING AND HONORING AN AMERICAN GIANT: CONGRESSMAN JOHN D.
DINGELL, JR.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the
gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Hoyer) is recognized for 5 minutes.
Mr. HOYER. Our friend, Mr. Dingell. Mr. Speaker, tonight there will
only be unanimous bipartisan agreement on this House floor. Tonight,
the Members of this body, both Democrats and Republicans, our Speaker
and our Democratic leader join together to recognize the extraordinary
and many accomplishments of a great Member of this House. And to honor
that service to our Nation we honor an American giant: The Dean of the
House, our colleague from the State of Michigan, Congressman John
Dingell, Jr.
This day, December 13, 2005, marks Chairman Dingell's 50th
anniversary as a Member of this great body, the people's House. The
people are proud of John Dingell and rightfully so. He is the third
longest serving Member in the history of this institution. That means
he has survived a long time. And, frankly, 50 years of service is
itself something that ought to be honored, but John Dingell is
deserving of honor for much more than longevity.
As I can attest, Congressman Dingell shows no signs of slowing down.
Only Jamie Whitten of Michigan, with whom I served on the
Appropriations Committee, with 53 years and 10 months of service, and
Carl Vinson, the great Representative of Georgia, with 50 years and 2
months of service have served longer. John Dingell will surpass, God
willing, both of those.
Just consider that during the last half century Congressman Dingell
has searched under 10 presidents. No, that is wrong. John Dingell
serves under no one. John Dingell has served with 10 Presidents. He has
cast nearly 22,000 rollcall votes. In fact, one-fourth of the Members
who serve here today, 107 Members to be precise, were born after John
Dingell came to the Congress of the United States.
However, no one should be mistaken. As notable as the length of
Congressman Dingell's tenure is, it is eclipsed by his truly remarkable
record of substantive legislation over the last five decades on behalf
of his people, on behalf of the people of Michigan, on behalf of the
people of this country.
John Dingell, my constituents, are proud of your service and thankful
for your contributions. You have made their lives better. You have made
the Chesapeake Bay better. You have made Maryland better. In serving
Michigan, you have served us all.
Many of the most important pieces of legislation, on health care, as
Leader Pelosi pointed out and as Speaker Hastert pointed out, on the
environment and on workers and consumers rights bear John Dingell's
strong imprint, and a significant number of these bills were written by
him.
Examples: The 1990 Clean Air Act, the Endangered Species Act, the
Children's Health Insurance Program, the Mammography Quality Standards
Act. And he is still fighting for a real Patients Bill of Rights. We
should have passed and enacted John Dingell's Patients Bill of Rights a
few years ago. That would have indeed been a testimonial that would
have been worthy of his service.
In addition, Congressman Dingell halls helped craft legislation on
issues ranging from telecommunications to drinking water quality, and
blocked proposals such as electric utility deregulation that he
opposed. Said Senator Carl Levin of Michigan, ``he has a role in almost
every major legislative effort to help average families,'' working
Americans, and his fellow citizens.
And when it comes to effective, tenacious congressional oversight
Congressman Dingell has demonstrated that he has few peers. He has
fought to ensure that the intent of the laws were carried out and that
tax dollars were spent properly. He wanted to invest, but he wanted
that investment to be honest, he wanted that investment to be
effective, and he wanted that investment to be carefully husbanded.
The work of his Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations led to
the
[[Page 28133]]
firing of the Superfund administrator, the discovery of a defense
contractor who charged the Pentagon for boarding a dog, and improper
billing practices by universities for research expenses.
I had a 15-minute interview with a reporter from USA Today and,
unfortunately, she took two words that I said. I said, yes, John
Dingell is a wonderful man. She said, well, I hear he's pretty tough. I
said, he can be sometimes gruff and intimidating. He has intimidated me
sometimes. But the vast majority of my comments were about his caring
for his fellow human beings, his love for Debbie, and indeed the love
and respect and honor that he gives to every one of his colleagues,
realizing that they too have been chosen by their constituents to serve
in this people's House. The people's House is a greater place, this
country is a greater country, the people are a richer people because of
the service of John Dingell.
God bless you, John Dingell, and thank you.
____________________
TRIBUTE TO A COLLEAGUE, THE HONORABLE JOHN DINGELL
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the
gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Upton) is recognized for 5 minutes.
Mr. UPTON. Mr. Speaker, I rise too, along with all my colleagues, to
congratulate our dear friend, John Dingell, on his 50 years of service
as a Member of the United States House of Representatives. Today, we
honor not only his work in this Congress but also his lifetime of
service to his community and to his country.
Born July 8, 1926, John Dingell served as a page in this institution,
served as a soldier in the United States Army, a forest ranger, and
assistant Wayne County prosecutor before replacing his father as
Representative from Michigan's 15th Congressional District on December
13, 1955, 50 years ago.
Mr. Speaker, I wish to insert into the Record at this point a
Certificate of Proclamation from the Governor of our great State making
this day Congressman John D. Dingell Day, as signed by the Governor:
State of Michigan Certificate of Proclamation
On behalf of the citizens of Michigan, I, Governor Jennifer
M. Granholm hereby proclaim December 13, 2005, as Congressman
John D. Dingell Day.
Whereas, For five decades, Congressman John D. Dingell has
worked tirelessly for the citizens of Michigan, working for
the things that matter most, including a strong manufacturing
economy, good paying jobs, a clean environment, and
healthcare for every citizen; and,
Whereas, In celebrating his 50th anniversary in Congress,
Congressman Dingell is now the third longest serving House
member in history; and,
Whereas, Over the course of his 50 years in Congress,
Congressman Dingell has cast more than 21,800 roll call
votes, served under 10 presidents, and led the House Energy
and Commerce Committee; and,
Whereas, Together, Congressman Dingell and his father have
represented the citizens of the Detroit area since the Great
Depression, a testament to the hard work and dedication the
Dingell family has in representing and advocating for the
working people of Southeast Michigan; and now therefore be
it,
Resolved, That I, Jennifer M. Granholm, Governor of
Michigan, do hereby proclaim December 13, 2005, as
Congressman John D. Dingell Day in Michigan. I thank
Congressman Dingell for being a man of integrity, a man of
the people; and most of all, I thank him for his
extraordinary commitment and service to the citizens of the
great State of Michigan.
Jennifer M. Granholm,
Governor.
Mr. Dingell is not only a dear friend; he is an avid hunter and an
outdoorsman. And maybe that is why he is such a straight shooter. In my
14 years serving on the Energy and Commerce Committee, I have found
that it is far better to have him on your side than having him as an
adversary. But when he is, you have to beat him on the merits.
Otherwise, you lose.
He has served as an expert on so many subjects that this Congress has
dealt with, from telecommunications, to health care, to trade, to
energy, and even little things called the Tucker Act. He may be the
only Member that really knows the history of that act, which means a
lot in the history of this Congress.
He shares with all of us the drive to go after fraud and abuse. In
fact, I think it was my very first subcommittee meeting when he was
chairman of the Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee, and we were
grilling a guy by the name of President Kennedy. No, that is not John
F. Kennedy, that was President Kennedy, the former President of
Stanford, and the abuse that that university did with taxpayer money.
Mr. Speaker, the current chairman, Mr. Barton of the Energy and
Commerce Committee, recently remarked at the wonderful tribute for John
Dingell, that he thought that most historians would put this gentleman,
Mr. Dingell, in the top ten of all the Members, Republicans and
Democrats, that have ever served in this body. I would agree with Mr.
Barton's assessment. It is a lot of Members, a lot of years, and we are
fortunate to have someone of Mr. Dingell's caliber for the years I have
served.
For some 50 years, the gentleman from Michigan can be proud, so proud
knowing that he indeed made a difference for his country on the field
of battle in the Army, but also in the Halls of Congress as a most
distinguished and very respected Member.
He is also a Wolverine. That means he represents the University of
Michigan, another proud institution, and he has always looked out for
the interest of education as well in this body, whether he served on
the Education Committee or not.
{time} 2000
Mr. Speaker, I join with all of the House in recognizing a wonderful
friend, a dear colleague, a great husband, and I know Debbie is here
someplace watching; and I simply say, well done. Many of us look
forward to serving with you for a long time yet to come, as you
continue to make a difference for the people of southeast Michigan, and
all of the people that live in this great country.
____________________
PROTECTING FIRST AMENDMENT RIGHT OF MILITARY CHAPLAINS
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the
gentleman from North Carolina (Mr. Jones) is recognized for 5 minutes.
Mr. JONES of North Carolina. Mr. Speaker, before I start my remarks,
I want to pay respect and gratitude to the gentleman from Michigan who
served with my father for a number of years, and also has been a friend
to me.
Mr. Dingell, you are an example of what is good about the House of
Representatives.
Mr. Speaker, in my remaining time, I want to speak about a serious
problem in my opinion, and that is the fact that chaplains in the
American military, those who happen to be of the Christian faith, have
been told they cannot use the name Jesus Christ when they pray outside
of the church.
Mr. Speaker, I would be on this floor tonight if this were a Jewish
rabbi or if it were a Muslim chaplain in the United States military.
Mr. Speaker, 72 Members of the House have sent a letter to the
President. This is the first sentence. ``Mr. President, we are
disappointed and gravely concerned to learn that the Christian military
chaplains are under direct attack and that their right to pray
according to their faith is in jeopardy.''
Mr. Speaker, I spoke to a Navy chaplain, and in the last 3 years, I
have talked to hundreds of chaplains who have conveyed to me the fact
that they are being told outside of their church they cannot pray their
faith, and I think this is a tragedy, particularly in our military.
About 10 months ago I spoke to a Navy chaplain in Hawaii who told me
he is a Methodist. He told me ``Congressman, let me tell you what
happened. I was praying at a service to remember Marines who were
killed in Afghanistan and Iraq. When I finished my prayer, I prayed in
the name of Jesus Christ, our savior.''
Mr. Speaker, he told me, about an hour and 15 minutes later, he got a
call from a Marine major who reminded him, in those kind of settings,
you cannot pray in the name of Jesus Christ, and please in the future
do not do so.
[[Page 28134]]
He was so upset, Mr. Speaker, he went to a friend of his who happens
to be a Jewish chaplain, and he said to his Jewish chaplain friend,
``Chaplain, do I offend you when I pray in the name of Jesus Christ?''
The Jewish chaplain said, ``No, you do not. This is your faith and
your tradition and you should pray in the name of your savior.'' This
came from a Jewish chaplain.
Mr. Speaker, to me this is a very tragic situation. We are asking the
President, as Commander-in-Chief, to use his constitutional authority
to call up the Secretary of Defense, Donald Rumsfeld, and say, Mr.
Secretary, I am Commander-in-Chief and I am asking that you protect the
first amendment right of all of our chaplains, whether they be Muslim,
Jewish or Christian.
As I begin to close, let me just read a letter that I received from
an Army major who is a chaplain. This was last year.
``Dear Congressman Jones:
Thank you for your interest in ending the religious persecution that
exists in our military today. I am a chaplain in the United States
Army, and I can tell you in all honesty that religious persecution is
taking place in the Army on a daily basis. The persecution centers on
Christian chaplains praying in the name of our Lord, Jesus Christ.''
Mr. Speaker, I want to make it clear tonight that if we do not
protect the right of our chaplains in the military; and I have spoken
to many, almost 200 as I said just a few minutes ago, that are telling
me that they are being encouraged not to pray outside of the church in
the name of their religion and their faith; there is something wrong
with that.
We are going to do a news conference tomorrow and ask the President
to please protect the first amendment right of our Muslim, Jewish and
our Christian chaplains, and I will tell you that the American Center
for Law and Justice, ACLJ, they have over 158,000 signatures from
people around this country asking the President to use his
constitutional authority to protect the first amendment rights of all
of our chaplains.
With that, I want to say to the gentleman from Michigan,
congratulations, you are a great man and a great patriot. And I close
by asking God to please bless our men and women in uniform, to please
bless the families of our men and women in uniform, and God please
bless and hold in his arms those who have given their life dying for
this country, and I ask God to please bless America, and continue, God,
to show us the light that we might save this great Nation and do what
is right in your eyes.
____________________
OPENING BORDERS TO U.S. BEEF
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the
gentleman from Nebraska (Mr. Osborne) is recognized for 5 minutes.
Mr. OSBORNE. Mr. Speaker, I also would like to congratulate Mr.
Dingell. Mr. Dingell lockers next to me in the House gym, and I see him
occasionally, and I appreciate the fact that he gets down there on
occasion, and we get a chance to talk.
Mr. Speaker, yesterday, the Japanese border was opened to U.S. beef
trade. This was good news. This border had been closed since December
2003. In 2003, we exported $1.4 billion in beef to Japan. Since that
time, the border has been closed, and we have lost over $3 billion in
trade. Regaining the market is not going to be easy. Australia has
filled much of the void that was created by this ban on U.S. beef. We
also must restore confidence in U.S. beef in Japan. I think roughly
two-thirds of the Japanese public are saying that they are not sure
that they want to eat beef from the United States. And of course, we
have a very safe supply.
We also must ship beef from cows 20 months of age or younger, and to
verify that age is going to be difficult because we do not have an
animal ID program which is critical for this country. So we hope that
this trade can be restored rather quickly.
Over the last year or two, much of the focus on trade issues,
particularly in regard to agriculture, has been in regard to the
Canadian border and also Japan. But as far as I am concerned, Mr.
Speaker, the major issue regarding agricultural trade is not Japan. It
is not Canada. It is being played out to some degree this week in WTO
talks in China. The major players in these talks in regard to
agriculture are the United States and the European Union.
This brings me to a discussion of comparison of these two trading
powers. On the chart here, we see the comparison. The economy of the
United States is $11.7 trillion a year. The European Union is $9.4
trillion. So they are very comparable economies. Well, the largest two
in the world. The import tariffs on European Union goods coming into
the United States are roughly 12 percent. In contrast, our goods going
into the European Union are being tariffed at 30 percent, more than
double. This is hard to understand when you look at the comparison of
the economies. The agriculture trade deficit of the United States right
now is a minus $6.3 billion to the European Union although we have a
slight trade surplus with the overall trade worldwide. This has been a
major problem for us. Of course, those tariff differences have been a
major issue.
Export subsidies: These are subsidies that are given to promote
exports. You see that the European Union is providing roughly $3
billion in export subsidies; the United States, $31 million in
subsidies. So it is about a 100 to 1 ratio with the European Union
providing $100 for every $1 that we are providing in export subsidies.
Farm subsidy per acre: This is an interesting statistic. The United
States subsidizes our farmers $38 an acre, and the European Union
subsidizes their agriculture $295 an acre, almost six times as much as
we do.
One other interesting statistic of comparison is that we have had two
cases of BSE or mad cow disease in the United States, just two. In the
European Union, they have had 189,000 cases of BSE in the last 15
years. Last year alone, in 2004, they had 756 cases of BSE where we
have had two in the last 3 years in North America. So you would think
that we would have a tremendous opportunity to trade beef with the
European Union, and yet that has not happened. What has happened is the
European Union has not allowed U.S. exports of beef into the European
Union at all for the last several years because we use some hormones
with our beef. They have used this as a tactic to keep our beef out
even though the WTO has declared our beef perfectly safe. So we have
had practically no trade with them in this regard.
We also have had genetically modified crops such as corn and soybeans
which have been excluded, again for final sanitary reasons which,
again, defy logic. They have also shut out our pork and our poultry.
Mr. Speaker, we do not think these issues will be resolved in this
current round of trade talks that are occurring now in Hong Kong, but
eventually, they must be addressed if there is going to be some equity
in world trade. And if the WTO is going to move forward, we absolutely
have to have some equanimity in the relations we have with the European
Union, and we think that these trade issues need to be resolved.
____________________
ALITO CORRECT ON CONSTITUTION
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the
gentleman from Arizona (Mr. Franks) is recognized for 5 minutes.
Mr. FRANKS of Arizona. Mr. Speaker, before I begin my remarks, I
would also like to congratulate Mr. Dingell for his 50 years of service
to this institution and to his country.
Mr. Speaker, it has come to the attention of the American people that
the President's nominee for United States Supreme Court, Judge Samuel
Alito, wrote in a job application at the Justice Department some 20
years ago statements to the effect that the Constitution does not
protect a right to an abortion. Judge Alito's statements regarding Roe
v. Wade reflect a widely held belief by many judges and lawyers and
scholars across the political spectrum. These legal experts recognize
that Roe v. Wade was indeed bad law created out of whole cloth by an
[[Page 28135]]
unelected Supreme Court seeking to legislate its social agenda from the
bench.
Ironically, if Roe v. Wade was overturned today, it would not end
abortion on demand. It would simply leave the matter to the States and
to the people through their elected representatives.
Mr. Speaker, this was not the vision of our Founding Fathers. They
wrote the U.S. Constitution to specifically protect those that were
most innocent and to protect the most basic civil right of all, that
being life itself.
The preamble to the Constitution sums up the entirety of their
reasons for establishing a constitution in the first place, that we,
the people, to ``secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our
posterity do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United
States of America.''
The Constitution expressly states in plain language that one of the
primary purposes for its existence is to secure the blessings of
liberty to our future children. The phrase in the 14th amendment sums
up the entire document. It says, ``No State shall deprive any person of
life, liberty or property without due process of law.''
Mr. Speaker, protecting the lives of the innocent and their
constitutional rights is why this government exists. How does it secure
the blessings of liberty to our posterity to sacrifice their very lives
upon the altar of convenience?
Judge Alito was correct; the Constitution does not guarantee the
right to hire someone to kill an innocent unborn child and dispose of
the body. Our Founding Fathers put pen to paper and proclaimed: We hold
these truths to be self-evident that all men are created equal, that
they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, and
that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
When our Founding Fathers proclaimed those words, the course of human
history was forever changed.
Mr. Speaker, it is time to have this debate on abortion out in the
open.
{time} 2015
Those who promote abortion on demand ignore the Constitution and the
original intent of our Founding Fathers who took great care to
structure a foundation for self-governance that safeguards innocent
life and human dignity. America will not remain free if we claim for
ourselves the right to destroy innocent human lives simply because they
are unwanted or they are at our mercy, or because they lack even the
voice to cry out. We cannot embrace the notion that by our own choice
we determine the dignity or worth of other human beings. That is the
principle of might makes right, and this Nation was founded to dispel
that depraved injustice.
Mr. Speaker, the future of this country in freedom depends that the
fundamental principle which guarantees the right to the divine gift of
life and liberty to each of us must remain intact. This is America's
creed. This is our foundation. It is so very simple. We are not born
equal; we do not become equal when we reach a certain level of
development or age or status. All human beings are created equal. That
principle of human equality must not be discarded by the United States
of America, because if Americans in the 21st century cannot or will not
sustain the will and the courage to protect the innocent, in the final
analysis we will never sustain the will or the courage to protect any
kind of liberty for anyone.
Mr. Speaker, as the nomination of Judge Samuel Alito moves forward,
let us all just remind ourselves that we are Americans, that we walk on
the freest soil, and that we breathe the freest air of any people in
human history. There is nothing more American than defending innocent
human life. So now it is up to this generation, Mr. Speaker, to protect
the God-given life to live so that future generations will say of us
that we justify our brief moment here. God bless America.
____________________
STATUS REPORT ON CURRENT SPENDING LEVELS OF ON-BUDGET SPENDING AND
REVENUES FOR FY 2006 AND THE 5-YEAR PERIOD FY 2006 THROUGH FY 2010
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the
gentleman from Iowa (Mr. Nussle) is recognized for 5 minutes.
Mr. NUSSLE. Mr. Speaker, I am transmitting a status report on the
current levels of on-budget spending and revenues for fiscal year 2006
and for the 5-year period of fiscal years 2006 through 2010. This
report is necessary to facilitate the application of sections 302 and
311 of the Congressional Budget Act and section 401 of the conference
report on the concurrent resolution on the budget for fiscal year 2006
(H. Con. Res. 95). This status report is current through December 5,
2005.
The term ``current level'' refers to the amounts of spending and
revenues estimated for each fiscal year based on laws enacted or
awaiting the President's signature.
The first table in the report compares the current levels of total
budget authority, outlays, and revenues with the aggregate levels set
forth by H. Con. Res. 95. This comparison is needed to enforce section
311(a) of the Budget Act, which creates a point of order against
measures that would breach the budget resolution's aggregate levels.
The table does not show budget authority and outlays for years after
fiscal year 2006 because those years are not considered for enforcement
of spending aggregates.
The second table compares, by authorizing committee, the current
levels of budget authority and outlays for discretionary action with
the ``section 302(a)'' allocations made under H. Con. Res. 95 for
fiscal year 2006 and fiscal years 2006 through 2010. ``Discretionary
action'' refers to legislation enacted after the adoption of the budget
resolution. This comparison is needed to enforce section 302(f) of the
Budget Act, which creates a point of order against measures that would
breach the section 302(a) discretionary action allocation of new budget
authority for the committee that reported the measure. It is also
needed to implement section 311(b), which exempts committees that
comply with their allocations from the point of order under section
311(a).
The third table compares the current levels of discretionary
appropriations for fiscal year 2006 with the ``section 302(b)''
suballocations of discretionary budget authority and outlays among
Appropriations subcommittees. The comparison is also needed to enforce
section 302(f) of the Budget Act because the point of order under that
section equally applies to measures that would breach the applicable
section 302(b) suballocation as well as the 302(a) allocation.
The fourth table gives the current level for 2007 of accounts
identified for advance appropriations under section 401 of H. Con. Res.
95. This list is needed to enforce section 401 of the budget
resolution, which creates a point of order against appropriation bills
or amendments thereto that contain advance appropriations that are: (I)
not identified in the statement of managers or (ii) would cause the
aggregate amount of such appropriations to exceed the level specified
in the resolution.
STATUS OF THE FISCAL YEAR 2006 CONGRESSIONAL BUDGET ADOPTED IN H. CON.
RES. 95 REFLECTING ACTION COMPLETED AS OF DECEMBER 5, 2005
[On-budget amounts, in millions of dollars]
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Fiscal years 2006-
Fiscal year 2006 2010
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Appropriate Level:
Budget Authority........ 2,144,384 n.a.
Outlays................. 2,161,420 n.a.
Revenues................ 1,589,892 9,080,006
Current Level:
Budget Authority........ 2,130,625 n.a.
Outlays................. 2,155,935 n.a.
Revenues................ 1,607,200 9,176,091
Current Level over (+) /
under (-)
Appropriate Level:
Budget Authority........ -13,759 n.a.
Outlays................. -5,485 n.a.
Revenues................ 17,308 96,085
------------------------------------------------------------------------
n.a.=Not applicable because annual appropriations acts for fiscal years
2007 through 2010 will not be considered until future sessions of
Congress.
Budget Authority: Enactment of measures providing new
budget authority for FY 2006 in excess of $13,759,000,000 (if
not already included in the current level estimate) would
cause FY 2006 budget authority to exceed the appropriate
level set by H. Con. Res. 95.
Outlays: Enactment of measures providing new outlays for FY
2006 in excess of $5,485,000,000 (if not already included in
the current level estimate) would cause FY 2006 outlays to
exceed the appropriate level set by H. Con. Res. 95.
Revenues: Enactment of measures that would reduce revenue
for FY 2006 in excess of $17,308,000,000 (if not already
included in the current level estimate) would cause revenues
to fall below the appropriate level set by H. Con. Res. 95.
Enactment of measures resulting in revenue reduction for
the period of fiscal years 2006 through 2010 in excess of
$96,085,000,000 (if not already included in the current level
estimate) would cause revenues to fall below the appropriate
levels set by H. Con. Res. 95.
[[Page 28136]]
DIRECT SPENDING LEGISLATION--COMPARISON OF CURRENT LEVEL WITH AUTHORIZING COMMITTEE 302(a) ALLOCATIONS FOR
DISCRETIONARY ACTION REFLECTING ACTION COMPLETED AS OF DECEMBER 5, 2005
[Fiscal years, in millions of dollars]
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
2006 2006-2010 Total
House committee ---------------------------------------------------
BA Outlays BA Outlays
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Agriculture:
Allocation.............................................. 0 0 0 0
Current level........................................... 0 0 0 0
Difference.............................................. 0 0 0 0
Armed Services:
Allocation.............................................. 0 0 0 0
Current level........................................... 0 0 0 0
Difference.............................................. 0 0 0 0
Education and the Workforce:
Allocation.............................................. 100 100 500 500
Current level........................................... 38 20 38 38
Difference.............................................. -62 -80 -462 -462
Energy and Commerce:
Allocation.............................................. 100 100 2,000 2,000
Current level........................................... 141 231 2,283 2,240
Difference.............................................. 41 131 283 240
Financial Services:
Allocation.............................................. 0 0 0 0
Current level........................................... 2,000 2,000 2,000 2,000
Difference.............................................. 2,000 2,000 2,000 2,000
Government Reform:
Allocation.............................................. 50 50 50 50
Current level........................................... -1 -1 0 0
Difference.............................................. -51 -51 -50 -50
House Administration:
Allocation.............................................. 0 0 0 0
Current level........................................... 0 0 0 0
Difference.............................................. 0 0 0 0
Homeland Security:
Allocation.............................................. 0 0 0 0
Current level........................................... 0 0 0 0
Difference.............................................. 0 0 0 0
International Relations:
Allocation.............................................. 0 0 0 0
Current level........................................... 0 0 0 0
Difference.............................................. 0 0 0 0
Judiciary:
Allocation.............................................. 6 6 6 6
Current level........................................... 0 0 0 0
Difference.............................................. -6 -6 -6 -6
Resources:
Allocation.............................................. 8 8 50 50
Current level........................................... 0 0 0 0
Difference.............................................. -8 -8 -50 -50
Science:
Allocation.............................................. 0 0 0 0
Current level........................................... 0 0 0 0
Difference.............................................. 0 0 0 0
Small Business:
Allocation.............................................. 0 0 0 0
Current level........................................... 0 0 0 0
Difference.............................................. 0 0 0 0
Transportation and Infrastructure:
Allocation.............................................. 3,027 0 4,107 0
Current level........................................... 4,195 412 37,125 1,271
Difference.............................................. 1,168 412 33,018 1,271
Veterans' Affairs:
Allocation.............................................. 0 0 0 0
Current level........................................... 0 0 0 0
Difference.............................................. 0 0 0 0
Ways and Means:
Allocation.............................................. 350 346 1,537 1,914
Current level........................................... 631 638 341 370
Difference.............................................. 281 292 -1,196 -1,544
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
DISCRETIONARY APPROPRIATIONS FOR FISCAL YEAR 2006--COMPARISON OF CURRENT LEVEL WITH APPROPRIATIONS COMMITTEE
302(a) ALLOCATION AND APPROPRIATIONS SUBCOMMITTEE 302(b) SUBALLOCATIONS
[In millions of dollars]
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
302(b) Current Level Current Level Minus
Suballocations as of Reflecting Action Suballocations
November 2, 2005 (H. Completed as of ---------------------
Appropriations Subcommittee Rpt. 109-264) December 5, 2005
-------------------------------------------- BA OT
BA OT BA OT
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Agriculture, Rural Development, FDA........... 17,088 18,691 17,031 18,747 -57 56
Defense....................................... 403,280 372,696 389,964 401,945 -13,316 29,249
Energy & Water Development.................... 30,495 30,273 30,495 30,696 0 423
Foreign Operations............................ 20,937 25,080 20,937 25,213 0 133
Homeland Security............................. 30,846 33,233 30,846 33,184 0 -49
Interior-Environment.......................... 26,159 27,500 26,159 28,760 0 1,260
Labor, HHS & Education........................ 142,514 143,802 141,080 143,150 -1,434 -652
Legislative Branch............................ 3,804 3,804 3,804 3,809 0 5
Military Quality of Life-Veterans Affairs..... 44,143 81,634 44,143 41,803 0 -39,831
Science-State-Justice-Commerce................ 57,854 58,856 57,854 58,537 0 -319
Transportation-Treasury-HUD-Judiciary-DC...... 65,900 120,837 66,518 121,433 618 596
Unassigned.................................... 0 430 0 0 0 -430
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Total (Section 302(a) Allocation)....... 843,020 916,836 828,831 907,277 -14,189 -9,559
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Page 28137]]
STATEMENT OF FY2007 ADVANCE APPROPRIATIONS UNDER SECTION 401 OF H. CON.
RES. 95 REFLECTING ACTION COMPLETED AS OF DECEMBER 5, 2005
[In millions of dollars]
Budget Authority
Appropriate Level................................................23,158
Current Level:
Elk Hills....................................................... 0
Employment and Training Administration.......................... 0
Education for the Disadvantaged................................. 0
School Improvement.............................................. 0
Children and Family Services (Head Start)....................... 0
Special Education............................................... 0
Vocational and Adult Education.................................. 0
Payment to Postal Service....................................... 73
Section 8 Renewals............................................4,200
Shipbuilding and Conversion, Navy............................... 0
__________
Total.......................................................4,273
Current Level over (+) / under (-) Appropriate Level............-18,885
U.S. Congress,
Congressional Budget Office,
Washington, DC, December 13, 2005.
Hon. Jim Nussle,
Chairman, Committee on the Budget,
House of Representatives, Washington, DC.
Dear Mr. Chairman: The enclosed report shows the effects of
Congressional action on the fiscal year 2006 budget and is
current through December 5, 2005. This report is submitted
under section 308(b) and in aid of section 311 of the
Congressional Budget Act, as amended.
The estimates of budget authority, outlays, and revenues
are consistent with the technical and economic assumptions of
H. Con. Res. 95, the Concurrent Resolution on the Budget for
Fiscal Year 2006. Pursuant to section 402 of that resolution,
provisions designated as emergency requirements are exempt
from enforcement of the budget resolution. As a result, the
enclosed current level report excludes these amounts (see
footnote 2 of the report).
Since my last letter, dated September 15, the Congress has
cleared and the President has signed the following acts that
affect budget authority, outlays, or revenues for fiscal year
2006:
The Second Emergency Supplemental Appropriations Act to
Meet Immediate Needs Arising from the Consequences of
Hurricane Katrina, 2005 (Public Law 109-62); The National
Flood Insurance Program Enhanced Borrowing Authority Act of
2005 (Public Law 109-65); The Pell Grant Hurricane and
Disaster Relief Act (Public Law 109-66); The TANF Emergency
Response and Recovery Act of 2005 (Public Law 109-68); Tbe
Katrina Emergency Tax Relief Act of 2005 (Public Law 109-73).
The Natural Disaster Student Aid Fairness Act (Public Law
109-86); The Community Disaster Loan Act of 2005 (Public Law
109-88); The Department of Homeland Security Appropriations
Act, 2006 (Public Law 109-90); The QI, TMA, and Abstinence
Programs Extension and Hurricane Katrina Unemployment Relief
Act of 2005 (Public Law 109-91).
The Agriculture, Rural Development, Federal Drug
Administration, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 2006
(Public Law 109-97); An act to extend the special postage
stamp for breast cancer research for 2 years (Public Law 109-
100); The Foreign Operations, Export Financing, and Related
Programs Appropriations Act, 2006 (Public Law 109-102); The
Energy and Water Development Appropriations Act, 2006 (Public
Law 109-103); An act making further continuing appropriations
for the fiscal year 2006, (Public Law 109-105).
The Science, State, Justice, Commerce, and Related Agencies
Appropriations Act, 2006 (Public Law 109-108); The Military
Quality of Life and Veterans Affairs Appropriations Act, 2006
(Public Law 109-114); and The Transportation, Treasury,
Housing and Urban Development, the Judiciary, the District of
Columbia, and Independent Agencies Appropriations Act, 2006
(Public Law 109-115).
The effects of the actions listed above are detailed in the
enclosed report.
Sincerely,
Douglas Holtz-Eakin,
Director.
Enclosure.
FISCAL YEAR 2006 HOUSE CURRENT LEVEL REPORT AS OF DECEMBER 5, 2005
[In millions of dollars]
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Budget
Authority Outlays Revenues
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Enacted in previous sessions:\1\
Revenues............................................................. n.a. n.a. 1,607,650
Permanents and other spending legislation............................ 1,346,289 1,314,337 n.a.
Appropriation legislation............................................ 0 382,272 n.a.
Offsetting receipts.................................................. -479,872 -479,872 n.a.
--------------------------------------
Total, enacted in previous sessions:............................. 866,417 1,216,737 1,607,650
Enacted this session:
Authorizing Legislation:
TANF Extension Act of 2005 (P.L. 109-19) 148 165 0
An act approving the renewal of import restrictions contained in 0 0 -1
the Burmese Freedom and Democracy Act of 2005 (P.L. 109-39)
Dominican Republic-Central America-United States Free Trade 27 27 -3
Agreement Implementation Act (P.L 109-53)
Energy Policy Act of 2005 (P.L. 109-58) 141 231 -588
Safe, Accountable, Flexible, Efficient Transportation Equity Act: 3,444 36 9
A Legacy for Users (P.L. 109-59)
National Flood Insurance Program Enhanced Borrowing Authority Act 2,000 2,000 0
of 2005 (P.L. 109-65)
Pell Grant Hurricane and Disaster Relief Act (P.L. 109-66) 2 2 0
TANF Emergency Response and Recovery Act of 2005 (P.L. 109-68)\2\ 102 105 0
Natural Disaster Student Aid Fairness Act (P.L. 109-86) 36 18 0
Community Disaster Loan Act of 2005 (P.L. 109-88)\2\ 751 376 0
QI, TMA, and Abstinence Programs Extension and Hurricane Katrina 354 341 0
Unemployment Relief Act of 2005 (P.L. 109-91)
An act to extend the special postage stamp for breast cancer -1 -1 0
research for 2 years (P.L. 109-100)
Appropriations Acts;
Emergency Supplemental Appropriations Act for Defense, the Global -39 -21 11
War on Terror, and Tsunami Relief, 2005 (P.L. 109-13)\2\
Interior Appropriations Act, 2006 (P.L. 109-54) 26,211 17,301 122
Legislative Branch Appropriations Act, 2006 (P.L. 109-55) 3,804 3,185 0
Homeland Security Appropriations Act, 2006 (P.L. 109-90) 31,860 19,306 0
Agriculture Appropriations Act, 2006 (P.L. 109-97) 99,262 57,294 0
Foreign Operations Appropriations Act, 2006 (P.L. 109-102) 20,979 8,164 0
Energy and Water Appropriations Act, 2006 (P.L. 109-103) 30,459 19,604 0
Science, State, Justice, Commerce Appropriations Act, 2006 (P.L. 58,210 35,763 0
109-108)
Military Quality of Life and VA Appropriations Act, 2006 (P.L. 83,519 67,294 0
109-114)\2\
Transportation, Treasury, HUD Appropriations Act, 2006 (P.L. 109- 81,149 69,465 0
115)
--------------------------------------
Total, enacted this session: 442,418 300,655 -450
Continuing Resolution Authority:
Continuing Resolution. 2006 (P.L. 109-105)\2\........................ 511,851 314,131 0
Entitlements and mandatories:
Budget resolution baseline estimates of appropriated entitlements and 309,939 324.412 n.a.
other mandatory programs not yet enacted............................
Total Current Level2,3................................................... 2,130,625 2,155,935 1,607,200
Total Budget Resolution.................................................. 2,144,384 2,161,420 1,589.892
Current Level Over Budget Resolution..................................... n.a. n.a. 17.308
Current Level Under Budget Resolution.................................... 13,759 5,485 n.a.
Memorandum:
Revenues, 2006-2010:
House Current Level.............................................. n.a. n.a. 9,176,091
House Budget Resolution.......................................... n.a. n.a. 9,080,006
Current Level Over Budget Resolution............................. n.a. n.a. 96,085
Current Level Under Budget Resolution............................ n.a. n.a. n.a.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
\1\The effects of an act to provide for the proper tax treatment of certain disaster mitigation payments (P.L.
109-7) and the Bankruptcy Abuse Prevention and Consumer Protection Act of 2005 (P.L. 109-8) are included in
this section of the table, consistent with the budget resolution assumptions.
\2\Pursuant to section 402 of H. Con. Res. 95, the Concurrent Resolution on the Budget for Fiscal Year 2006,
provisions designated as emergency requirements are exempt from enforcement of the budget resolution. As a
result, the current level excludes: $30,757 million in outlays from funds provided in the Emergency
Supplemental Appropriations Act for Defense, the Global War on Terror, and Tsunami Relief, 2005 (P.L. 109-13);
$7,750 million in outlays from the Emergency Supplemental Appropriations Act to Meet Immediate Needs Arising
from the Consequences of Hurricane Katrina, 2005 (P.L. 109-61); $21,841 million in outlays from the Second
Emergency Supplemental Appropriations Act to Meet Immediate Needs Arising from the Consequences of Hurricane
Katrina, 2005 (P.L. 109-62); $200 million in budget authority and $245 million in outlays from the TANF
Emergency Response and Recovery Act of 2005 (P .L. 109-68); $128 million in budget authority and outlays and -
$3.186 million in revenues from the Katrina Emergency Tax Relief Act of 2005 (PL. 109-73); -$751 million in
budget authority from the Community Disaster Loan Act of 2005 (P.L. 109-88); $47,743 million in budget
authority and $26.543 million in outlays from the Continuing Resolution, 2006 (P.L. 109-105); $15,000 million
in budget authority and $14,000 million in outlays from the National Flood Insurance Program Further Enhanced
Borrowing Authority Act of 2005 (P.L. 109-106); and $1,225 million in budget authority and $1,103 million in
outlays from the Military Quality of Life and VA Appropriations Act, 2006 (P.L. 109-114).
[[Page 28138]]
\3\Excludes administrative expenses of the Social Security Administration. which are off-budget.
Source: Congressional Budget Office.
Notes: n.a. = not applicable; P.L. = Public Law.
____________________
____________________
CONGRATULATING APPALACHIAN STATE UNIVERSITY FOOTBALL TEAM
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the
gentlewoman from North Carolina (Ms. Foxx) is recognized for 5 minutes.
Ms. FOXX. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to recognize and congratulate the
Appalachian State University football team for advancing to the NCAA
Division I-AA national championship game this Friday night in
Chattanooga, Tennessee.
While this is the 13th time the ASU Mountaineers have made it to the
I-AA playoffs, it marks the very first time in history that the team
has advanced to the national championship game. It has been a fantastic
year for football at Appalachian. The Mountaineers finished the season
8-3 before winning their three playoff games. In addition, the team has
won 18 home games in a row at Kidd Brewer Stadium, in Boone, North
Carolina. This impressive record helped them go on to win the Southern
Conference championship.
The Mountaineers have excelled under the leadership of Coach Jerry
Moore, who has been at Appalachian for 17 seasons. Coach Moore is a
real asset to the university. He is the winningest coach not only in
Appalachian State University history but in the history of the Southern
Conference.
Mr. Speaker, I am proud of this football team and their coach, not
only for their athletic team but for their teamwork, work ethic, goals,
and perseverance. There are two young men on the team who deserve a
special recognition. Brian Stokes and Wayne Norman both served their
country as marines in Iraq before returning to school. These bright
young men bring tremendous leadership and maturity to the football team
and serve as positive role models for their peers.
Mr. Speaker, please join me in congratulating the Appalachian State
University football team. I wish them the best of luck this Friday. Go
Mountaineers.
____________________
RECOGNIZING AND HONORING AN AMERICAN GIANT: CONGRESSMAN JOHN D.
DINGELL, JR.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of
January 4, 2005, the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Conyers) is
recognized for 60 minutes as the designee of the minority leader.
General Leave
Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members
may have 5 legislative days within which to revise and extend their
remarks and include extraneous material on the subject of my Special
Order today.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Is there objection to the request of the
gentleman from Michigan?
There was no objection.
Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Speaker, I have over 15 persons including myself who
have asked to be included in this Special Order, that is, celebrating
the 50th year of service of the Dean of the House of Representatives
John Dingell of Michigan; and I am very pleased and honored to lead
this discussion. I would encourage all of the Members to share this
time as expeditiously as they can and insert the rest of their
materials or remarks into the Record.
Let me begin, Mr. Speaker, by pointing out that the first Member of
Congress I ever met in my life was John Dingell, namely, because he was
my Congressman. Further, our relationship and family went back before
because my father knew John Dingell's father. Further, we shared
contiguous districts across the entire span of my service, and many of
our constituents were mutual and frequently, according to the whims of
the Michigan legislature the lines that changed from time to time, and
frequently my constituents became his as his became mine.
This is a particularly moving event for me because it did not take
long for me to realize that one of the more formidable legislators of
the 20th century was the same person who worked so hard for my family
as his constituents and for the congressional district he represented,
but more for all of the citizens of this country.
The legislative prowess and the ability with which he exercised his
leadership as chairman of a major committee and the many different and
important pieces of legislation have been recounted already tonight and
at other events. But I merely want to say that John Dingell is the
Renaissance man of the 20th century in the Congress, the man for all
issues, the leader for all challenges, and the person who has created a
friendship and a relationship with, as far as I can tell, every single
Member of the House of Representatives who has served with him during
these 50 years.
So this celebration is absolutely in order. The fact that it has been
so widely recognized and so movingly responded to, not only by Members
of Congress but by those across the country, it is no easy task to win
the admiration and love of the labor movement and yet retain the
respect of the corporate economic system leaders of this great country.
And so it is with great pleasure that I begin this recounting of our
memories, of our relationships, of our legislative successes with the
Dean of the Congress. And it seems fairly clear to most of us that he
will soon be able to exceed the staying power of those several Members
who exceeded him in 50 years of service. I am, of course, one of those
looking happily and proudly toward that day when that occurs.
Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Obey), the
ranking member.
Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, do we have to tell the truth about the persons
we are honoring tonight?
Mr. Speaker, I guess if we have to tell the truth, then I will have
to say the same thing I would have said if we did not have to tell the
truth, that John Dingell is one of the great men in the history of this
institution.
I want to thank John Dingell, not because he is Dean of the House,
not because he is the third longest serving Member in the history of
the House. I think the most notable aspect of John Dingell's career is
not his length of service, but its quality.
When each of us comes to this institution, we come with one of two
desires, either to be something and somebody, or to stand for
something. In the end, we take little note of those who merely want to
be a Member of Congress, or be a United States Senator. But we take
great note of those who use their service here to do things on behalf
of the country and the people they represent.
John Dingell and I both share admiration for former Congressman John
Moss, who is a great leader in his own right in this institution. John
Moss earned a reputation as a lion fighting for justice and for the
rights of the common people of this country. Like John Moss, John
Dingell personifies integrity, courage, independence, and dedication to
the public interest. John follows in the footsteps of his father. He
has championed the cause of wildlife, of wild lands and wild places. He
has championed the cause of consumers in an economy of corporate
giants.
He has championed the cause of medical research. He has followed in
his father's footsteps in championing the cause of health insurance for
all Americans. He is truly a social gospel Democrat who understands
that we are elected to this House for the same reason that we are
placed on this Earth, namely, to try to do good for others.
I want to congratulate John Dingell for his passion, for his
conscience, for his vigor; and I want to thank his remarkable wife,
Debbie, for helping him focus his prodigious abilities on behalf
[[Page 28139]]
of not only his constituents but so many of our own.
I feel privileged to have served in the same institution with John
Dingell. I am proud of his service, and I want to thank John for the
honor that he has done this place by the quality of his service for the
last 50 years.
Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Michigan (Mr.
Levin).
Mr. LEVIN. Mr. Speaker, I am so glad to be here with my colleagues.
John Dingell is being lionized here tonight and for good reason, as was
true on previous occasions. And I think ``lion'' is a good term to
describe John Dingell. Ferociousness. There is a ferocity about John,
about his beliefs, a belief in the common man and woman and their
aspirations and their needs.
{time} 2030
A ferociousness about the need for health for everybody in this
country. He has devoted his life to this. A ferociousness, and I am not
on the committee, but Members who have been there tell me that is so
true when he investigates. And also for the automotive industry, it is
in his blood. It is in his being, raised in southeast Michigan, knowing
the importance of it.
A lion is also known for bravery, and, John, you are gutsy. You are
brave. You do not simply look to see where the winds are blowing, and
that has been a mark of your career.
A lion is also known for eminence. And I think just, for example, and
Mr. Obey and others have talked about the environment, what a lofty
person John has been about our earth, about its sacredness, its
sanctity.
And also, John, you have been an eminence in terms of the institution
here. You believe in it, and you want everybody else to believe in it.
A lion is also known for gruffness, and there is a bit of that in
John. He can be very succinct.
So all those characteristics of a lion, I think, apply to John
Dingell as a lion in this place. But we were chatting in my office.
Some of the staff has worked directly with John, and everybody has
worked with his staff, and we were talking about another characteristic
of John that is sometimes lost, and that is gentleness. Some of it
comes from his beloved wife, Debbie, but I think it is part of his
being.
So we were talking about, and I finish with this, a fable about a
lion, the fable about Androcles and the lion. Androcles was a slave, as
we might remember, who escaped. He fled from the Emperor. He wandered
about and came across a lion. And the lion, he thought, would go after
him. But, no, it was kind of moaning and groaning, and so Androcles
approached and found the lion with a huge thorn in the paw. And
Androcles took out the thorn, and they became friends. And the lion
took Androcles, as the Members may remember, to the cave and helped to
feed him. But soon afterwards, the lion and Androcles were captured,
and the sentence was to throw the slave into, I guess, the center of a
ring and throw him to the lion. And so here they came. And the emperor
showed up, and all of his court, and they expected that the lion would
approach Androcles and maul and eat him. So they let the lion loose.
And the lion comes from the den and rushes in, and there is a lot of
roaring. And at first, I guess, the lion roars at Androcles, but then
as he comes close, he recognizes who it is, and he licks his hands like
a friendly dog.
And the emperor hears this story, wondering what had happened, and
Androcles tells the story, and the slave is let loose and the lion.
And I close, if this fable applies, and I think it does, to John and
his gentleness, I think John would have done something different.
Androcles would have said, Look, the lion is loose; however, I think
the lion also would have said to the emperor, We will go after you
unless you make sure among all your constituents there is universal
health care.
And, John, you have been a lion with the ferociousness of your
beliefs and all the other qualities but also with a gentleness. And we
salute you today. We are proud of you in good measure because you have
made this institution something to be very proud of.
Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Speaker, I thank Mr. Levin for his comments.
I now am pleased to yield to the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr.
Markey).
Mr. MARKEY. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for from Michigan for
holding this Special Order, this well-deserved Special Order.
I have had the privilege of serving on the Energy and Commerce
Committee for 30 years with Mr. Dingell, and I have seen him through
three energy crises, two Clean Air Acts, a complete rewrite of the 1934
Communications Act, the creation of Super Fund, on and on and on and
on. And he is, without question, going to go down as one of the great
congressmen who have ever served in the history of this institution.
And I am not going to go through the entire litany, but what I am
going to do is, because I had a front-row seat all those years, and
these years continue, and what I am about to describe to the Members
continues even this week in the Energy and Commerce Committee, I am
just going to take the Members back through time and give them some
idea of what happens on our committee on a regular basis because,
before John Dingell was elected to Congress, he was an assistant
District Attorney in the State of Michigan where he learned many
skills, including the art of inducing recalcitrant witnesses into
cooperating. Some of my most memorable moments as his colleague on the
Energy and Commerce Committee have occurred as an observer of this
talent, judiciously but forcefully applied, to those who over the years
have accepted invitations to give testimony on one subject or another
before the Energy and Commerce Committee. I have kept a little list of
some of the more effective rhetorical gambits, verbal jabs, crosses and
haymakers that tend to leave the witness to whom they are directed a
little stunned just as he or she is being called upon to respond.
I have culled the list to bring some of the best, which I humbly
share with the Members tonight as we celebrate a public life whose
tenure in service is as long as its beneficial impact on America is
wide and deep.
Mr. Speaker, I give you the top ten John Dingell hearing questions
that mean you are in real trouble.
Number ten: Do you swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, and
nothing but the truth, so help you God?
Number nine: Would the gentleman yield for a few questions, as I am
trying to better understand where the witness is going, what the
witness is saying?
Number eight: Does the very distinguished gentleman know how much
affection and respect that I have for him?
Number seven: Perhaps if I direct a few questions to the
distinguished majority counsel, we might be able to shed a little light
on the gentleman's proposal.
Number six: Is the witness at all familiar with the Tucker Act?
Number five: I hear what you are saying, but what are you telling me?
Number four: That is an excellent answer but not to the question that
I asked.
Number three: I am just a poor Polish lawyer. Perhaps you could help
explain a few things to me?
Number two: Did you happen to know that my father wrote that law?
And the number one John Dingell hearing question that means that you
are in real trouble: Did you know that I wrote that law?
Mr. Speaker, one of the great congressmen of all time is being
honored on his 50th but not by far his last year in this institution.
May he stay here forever.
I thank all here for honoring this gentleman tonight. And I thank the
gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Conyers) for holding this Special Order.
Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Speaker, I thank Mr. Markey for his statement.
I now yield to the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Kildee).
Mr. KILDEE. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding to me.
Mr. Speaker, I rise today to honor my good friend, John D. Dingell of
Michigan.
Today marks John's 50th year of service in the U.S. House of
Representatives. John's entire life has been one
[[Page 28140]]
of service. He has served his community, his State of Michigan and his
country as a prosecutor, as a soldier in World War II and now as a
congressman.
He is not only the Dean of the House, he is the dean of our Michigan
Congressional Delegation. He brings our delegation together to do what
is best for the State of Michigan, and our State is a much better place
because of all his hard work.
Mr. Speaker, no one in this House has a firmer grasp of the
legislative process and the Rules of the House, and John uses his
knowledge and experience to move his legislative agenda forward to
passage.
John has always taken a balanced approach to the art of governing.
While justly earning the title of defender of the automotive industry,
John has amassed one of Congress's most meaningful legislative records
of protecting our Nation's air, water, land and wildlife. And he has
fought tirelessly to protect the rights of organized labor.
This balance tells a lot about the kind of man and the kind of
legislator John Dingell is.
Mr. Speaker, I am proud to number John Dingell among my colleagues in
this House. But I am even more proud to number John among my close,
personal friends.
Mr. Speaker, this country is certainly a better Nation because of
John Dingell. This Congress is certainly a better body because of John
Dingell. And I know, Mr. Speaker, that I am a better person because of
John Dingell, and I shall always be grateful for that.
Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for his statement.
Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to yield to the gentleman from Missouri
(Mr. Skelton), the ranking member of his committee.
Mr. SKELTON. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for this Special
Order and for giving me the opportunity to say a word or two about my
friend John Dingell.
John Dingell is a friend, a colleague, a gentleman of great
knowledge, stature. And at the end of the day, he is known as a pillar
of this institution. Fifty years of service to the Nation as a Member
of this body. That is wonderful.
It is interesting, having the thrill of a spouse, a wife, who is such
a companion to me, I know full well that so much credit goes to the
wife of John Dingell, Debbie Dingell, because she has devoted her life
to making this institution better and our country a better place to
live. So along with John Dingell, tonight, we salute Debbie.
In 1944, at the age of 18, John joined the United States Army. He
became a second lieutenant and received orders to take part in the
first wave of a planned invasion of Japan in November of 1945.
{time} 2045
He has been reported to have said that Harry Truman saved his life by
using the weapon that he had at hand to end the war with Japan. He
finished the military service in the fall of 1946, studied chemistry
and law at Georgetown before working as a forest ranger, prosecuting
attorney and a lawyer.
When his father passed away while still a Member of this Congress,
John was elected to that open seat at the age of 29. He has served
Michigan, our country, and this body ever since.
Mr. Speaker, this is an institution of relationships, those who have
knowledge, those who have studied this subject and those who understand
the word ``friendship.'' If you want something done or something
passed, one must have the knowledge and the stature and the respect of
others before something becomes law. That is the way this institution
works. It is a wonderful, wonderful American way of doing things. John
Dingell is the master of all. He understands the subject matter, he
studies it, he speaks well, but, most of all, all of us look to him as
a friend.
So we are pleased to salute him tonight as the dean of the House, as
a role model for those who will follow in the days and years to come. I
can honestly say that each of us who has had the privilege of serving
in Congress with John Dingell says it is a true highlight in our life
to do so.
Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to call upon the gentleman
from Texas (Gene Green).
Mr. GENE GREEN of Texas. Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank our
ranking member and good friend, John Conyers, for allowing us to speak
tonight and putting together this hour-long Special Order for John
Dingell.
John Dingell has taught as much as any Member of this House about
what it means to represent your district, and, more importantly, what
it means to represent the Nation as a whole and to protect the
integrity of this House.
John Dingell has devoted his life to the House of Representatives,
the people's House, where his patriotism, intelligence, and trust have
been put to the test every 2 years for 50 years; and every other
November John has passed that test with flying colors. While the
newspapers have recently featured stories of elected officials at all
levels who abandon the public's trust and instead look out for
themselves or other powerful interests, John has created an
unbelievable and unbeatable record of accomplishment fighting for the
American consumers for half a century.
He accomplished much of this during his terms as subcommittee and
committee Chair of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, which I am
honored to serve with him on; but he also continued his strong record
of accomplishment as the ranking member. That is the toughest test of
effectiveness, being able to get things done when you do not have all
the cards.
I am glad that John is still filled with vigor and vitality, and I
encourage all Members to seek his advice and wisdom. He is a great
resource for all Members, Republican and Democrat.
The mark that John has made on Congress and this House in particular
will be enduring. For example, there is no Member that has been more
effective at protecting the jurisdiction of this Congress under the
U.S. Constitution. John practically invented the modern practice of
congressional oversight of the executive branch, which, I may add, we
have not been doing for the last few sessions. In addition, he exposed
more waste, fraud and abuse in the Federal Government probably than any
person in history.
John's partner in his work is his wife, Debbie, or as he refers to
her, as his beautiful wife Debbie; and they are a great team. My wife
and I enjoy their friendship, and I have enjoyed serving with John on
the Energy and Commerce Committee. But even more fun is when we had the
chance to go hunting the few times we could, whether it be quail in
Texas or duck on the Eastern Shore or pheasant in northern Maryland. He
is a true sportsman in every sense of the word, not only in the field,
but as a Member of Congress and his leadership, again, carrying on the
tradition that his father did in being an outdoorsman and sportsman.
America owes him a debt of gratitude for his many years, and even
more years of service to this Congress and to this country.
I thank, again, my colleague from Michigan for allowing me to speak
tonight.
Mr. CONYERS. Thank you so much.
Mr. Speaker, I am delighted now to turn to the gentleman from New
Jersey, Mr. Frank Pallone, and recognize him at this time.
Mr. PALLONE. Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my colleague from Michigan
for organizing this Special Order tonight as a tribute to John Dingell.
I did not really have any prepared notes tonight. I figured I would
get up here and maybe write a few things down before I got up to speak.
I have to say I have been here 17 years, and that seems like such a
short time compared to the time that John Dingell has been here, 50
years; but I have had enough time in those 17 years to watch John and
to realize why he is such a giant in this institution. I want to
mention a few things.
First of all, I think most important, John Dingell is so proud to be
a Member of the House of Representatives, and he really sees the House
as an institution. In the 17 years I have been here, I have watched as
the House has been basically put down, denigrated, many times compared
not favorably to
[[Page 28141]]
the other body or to the other branches of government.
No matter how many times I would come down on this floor, John would
remind me about why the House was so important. It was the people's
House, and we are elected here every 2 years because we are really more
directly representative of the American people than any other
institution here in Washington. He is proud to be a Member of this
institution, and he wants to make sure that it continues as an
outstanding institution.
I think that is one of the reasons that he stayed here for 50 years,
or more. We know it is going to be more, because he really thinks it is
important to build the House as an institution and to make people proud
to be Members here.
The second thing he is so proud of is his committee; and, of course,
it is my committee, the Energy and Commerce Committee. If you have
watched also in the last 10-or-so years, or maybe more, we have seen
the committees sort of break down as institutions. The committees may
be seen as less important. Their chairmen, even in the minority now as
Democrats, seem less important.
I think once again John feels that that is wrong, that the committees
as an institution are just as important as the House as an institution
and we need to be proud of them. We need to follow the procedure. We
need to have jurisdiction that is defined. We need to have proper
process. I think, again, he feels that the institution suffers if we do
not follow proper procedure, if we do not follow the process, and he
wants to build the institution, not tear it down.
The third thing I want to say is that he is so proud to be a
legislator. I think it was Dave Obey that said before, some people come
down here to be a Congressman or to be a Senator, not to be a
legislator and to legislate. He wants to get things done. He wants to
get them done on a bipartisan basis, if possible; but, most of all, he
wants to get them done. And he wants to hear from the other side. He
wants to listen to what the other side of the aisle says. He respects
the rights of the minority.
When he was in the majority, and I was there, he always respected the
rights of the minority, mainly because he feels that if a person is
elected to come down here, then they should have a voice and we should
listen to what they have to say so we can get good legislation passed.
Another Member, I think it was Gene Green, talked about the oversight
and investigative responsibility of Congress. Once again, John always
stressed that. He believes that it is an important function of the
Congress.
When you think about it, it is not enough to just pass a bill; you
want to follow up to make sure it works and it is carried out by the
executive branch in the right way. So that is why oversight and
investigation are so important, because if we need to make changes,
then John wants to say let us make those changes, and he has been
forthright in saying that regardless of who is in power, regardless of
who is in the majority, that we have to take that oversight and
investigation responsibility very seriously.
Now, I have talked about the institutional aspects of John, which I
think are so important; but I want to just say a couple personal things
before I sit down. First of all, he is always someone that you can turn
to for advice. I have not turned to him that many times; but whenever I
have, he was always there and offered advice that was very valuable to
me.
Next, I want to say he is someone who you can trust. His word is
gold. You can take his handshake to the bank, as we say, and that is,
unfortunately, not true of every Member; but I think it is more true of
him than any other Member, and I think he wants us all to be that way,
and it is one of the reasons he is that way.
The last thing I want to mention is Debbie. I see her sitting up
there in the gallery, his wife. She has always been by his side, and
she also believes in the House as an institution. I have to assume that
part of that is because John believes in it, but I also think that she
takes on sort of her own responsibility and her own views in that
regard. But she shares his views on all the things that I mentioned,
and I think those things are so important as well. So I want to thank
Debbie as well.
Again, I thank John for being a giant, not because of the legislation
that he passed, and I know that it is important, but because of what he
stands for and what he believes that this House of Representatives
should be.
Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Speaker, I am pleased now to yield to Carolyn
Maloney of New York in this very moving tribute.
Mrs. MALONEY. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding and for
organizing this important Special Order.
Tonight, we stand to honor Michigan's most famous export, John
Dingell. He has served and led in this body for many years. His partner
in life, Debbie Dingell, has been an important part of his work and
causes.
It is absolutely amazing how much he has helped improve people's
lives through the legislation and causes he has advanced. Because John
is so tenacious, determined, knowledgeable and effective, I always seek
him out to help me with those causes nearest to my heart. There have
been many, but one is the equal rights amendment which like-minded men
and women have been trying to pass since the first women's rights
meeting at Seneca Falls in New York in 1848.
John believed that the best way to advance women's rights was through
an economic argument, so we commissioned and worked together on what
became known as the Dingell-Maloney Reports. One called ``A New Look at
the Glass Ceiling'' proved that women managers earned significantly
less than their male counterparts. Another, ``The Glass Ceiling Under
the Microscope,'' proved that this wage gap had persisted unchanged for
20 years. College professors and teachers tell me that they use the
Glass Ceiling reports as part of their women's studies curriculum.
John, thank you for helping me on these reports, and for so many
other issues, health care, campaign finance reform, energy policy,
clean water, clean air.
John is known for many, many, many achievements. He is one of the
most outstanding legislators this body has ever seen, but, above all,
John cares. He cares about people, and he cares about quality public
policy.
We thank Michigan tonight for her proud gift to the Nation,
Congressman John Dingell. And as we say in New York, sto lat, sto lat:
may you live 1,000 years, may you serve 1,000 years.
Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Speaker, I am pleased now to yield to the gentlelady
from Illinois, Jan Schakowsky.
Ms. SCHAKOWSKY. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Michigan for
yielding to me.
When I came to the House in 1999, I was often asked what surprised me
the most. I answered that it was the passion, energy and depth of
engagement of many of the longest-serving Members, and would cite John
Dingell as the example.
John Dingell has been the driving force behind major landmark
progressive legislation, from the Children's Health Insurance Program,
to electric utility consumer standards, to environmental protections
like the Clean Air Act and Clean Water Act; and he is still going
strong.
A master of the legislative process, he is legendary for his
oversight hearings, dogged in his determination to protect the public
by holding government officials, corporations, and others accountable
for their actions.
John Dingell is a fighter. He continues to be a strong voice for
consumers and workers in Michigan and across the country. He told us
all at his magnificent 50th anniversary celebration that he has no
intention of leaving the House anytime soon and that he intends to be
chairman of the Energy and Commerce Committee once again; and I fully
believe it will happen, and very soon.
{time} 2100
When it does, I will do all I can to support him as he works to win
his goal of securing health care for every American.
[[Page 28142]]
Some have used the word ``feared'' when talking about John Dingell,
and it certainly is true that you want to have him on your side and not
against him. But the John Dingell I have personally experienced is a
gentleman to all, a loving husband to his spectacular wife and partner,
Debbie, a man who is respectful and generous to his staff, who in turn
work tirelessly and effectively and are ever loyal to him. He is
patient with newer Members, always willing to share his experiences
and, when asked, offer solid advice.
I feel privileged to serve with John Dingell, a patriot, a role
model, mentor, and friend. I thank him for his 50 years of service to
our country and wish him many, many more.
Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Speaker, I am now delighted to turn to the
gentlewoman from California (Mrs. Capps) to help us wind down on this
Special Order in honor of the Dean of the Congress.
Mrs. CAPPS. Mr. Speaker, I thank our colleague from Michigan for
organizing and for allowing me to speak in this time of tribute. It is
truly a high privilege and a rare moment to recognize someone who has
served 50 years in this remarkable institution and, of course, that is
my colleague John Dingell.
Of course, I am also privileged to call him a friend and a great
mentor. And that extends to Debbie, the beautiful Debbie as he calls
her, whom I knew first as a congressional spouse and got a glimpse of
the partnership that now I know even better, when I saw her leadership
among the spouses who add a lot to this place here and a respect for
her tireless work amongst us all.
John Dingell has been a remarkable role model for me in the House and
particularly on the Energy and Commerce Committee. It is an
understatement to say it is the highest privilege and a matter of great
pride to be able to serve with him, to learn from him, to catch the
spirit of tenacity, being a bulldog on issues that you care very deeply
about. He works so hard on behalf of his constituents and it shows. No
matter the issue, first and foremost, as many years as he has served
and as beloved as he is by them, he goes back to them time after time.
It has been a pleasure to be in his district and to see the great
affection with which he is held. For me he gave reason and definition
to my being here to see that there really, truly are people in places
of leadership who are champions for the working people of this country.
To those without privilege and strong voice, except through those of us
who serve here, he has never lost sight of why he followed in his
father's footsteps to be here.
He takes a back seat to no one. Those who have opposed him on issues
he cared about have learned what a strong advocate he is and how tough
it is to face him. But he is also one of the best examples I have seen
in this place of how to work across the aisle, how to maneuver deftly
amongst the parliamentary procedures to get things done. When there is
a chance to make some progress on an issue, when there is a chance to
improve the lives of the American people, John Dingell will not let
party lines stand in the way.
I am so privileged that I have had the opportunity to see someone
here, and there are more, there are quite a few, but to see someone
with the kind of respect he has for this institution. This connection
that we have, going back to the beginning, and the way that he conducts
the affairs, a lesson for us all in civility and the way to treat other
people, particularly those you serve with and especially with whom you
do not agree, making a strong point and yet doing it in such a
respectful way.
He has been a most important person to me here in my career in
Congress. When I was newly elected, he helped me secure a seat on the
committee where I wanted to be to serve particularly on the matters of
health care. He guided me through the committee's traditions and
procedures and has always been there to help me with any kind of
particular need I might have to fulfill the goals I have that are
similar to his. And for me, for John, it is being a relentless advocate
for health care, for health care for everyone.
When the committee, for example, began addressing the nursing
shortage, and that was a priority of mine, he joined with me and made
it clear that supporting nurses was a personal priority for him; and I
can tell you that if you ask a nurse around this country who represents
them and what they care about, it is Mr. Dingell. And that makes me
proud as a nurse to be able to serve with my colleague, Mr. Dingell.
I watched as the Energy and Commerce Committee marked up a couple
years ago now the Medicare bill, John's bill, John's father's bill.
John did not take this easy. Long into the night for 3 days in a row he
led our efforts to reshape that bill into a better proposal, truer to
the ideals that came into being. I could go on and on, but I know this
country is a better place because John Dingell has been here for 50
years. It is something that my children, though they have not met him,
will appreciate. It is something for sure that my grandchildren will be
beneficiaries of.
And only one thing will make my service here better than it already
is, and that will be to serve with John Dingell as chair of the Energy
and Commerce Committee.
Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Speaker, I am delighted now to turn to the
gentlewoman from California (Ms. Matsui) to express her congratulations
in this tribute.
Ms. MATSUI. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Michigan (Mr.
Conyers) for putting together this special time and for yielding me
some time.
Mr. Speaker, I am pleased this evening to honor a dear friend, John
Dingell, who because of life's twists and turns has also become my
colleague. It was actually about 30 years ago that I first met John
Dingell. At that time my husband, Bob, was serving on the Sacramento
City Council as well as chair of the reelection campaign of Congressman
John Moss.
John Moss and John Dingell had arrived in Congress at about the same
time, building a relationship and friendship as the years passed. When
John Moss marked his 20th year in office, he asked his friend, John
Dingell, to come to Sacramento to speak. It was at this milestone that
Bob and I first met John Dingell. Little did Bob and I know that this
was only the beginning of what would become a very deep and abiding
friendship, as 4 years later John Moss would announce his retirement
and Bob would run and succeed him in Congress.
Following his election, John Moss offered Bob some sage advice which,
among other things, included John Moss's hope that Bob would build his
own relationship and friendship with John Dingell. Bob took this advice
to heart and built a friendship with his new colleague. It was clear
that John Dingell respects and deeply cares and loves this institution.
He brings knowledge that spans generations to any debate. And Bob, as a
junior Member served alongside him on the Energy and Commerce Committee
before his assignment to joining Ways and Means, saw why John Moss had
given him the advice he had.
Simultaneously, Bob and I also began a friendship with John and his
wife, the lovely Deborah. I would be hard pressed to talk about John
without also mentioning Debbie as she is a strength in her own right.
Their marriage is a true partnership, and because of that when we honor
John, we are also honoring Debbie. Together they have made each other
stronger. The friendship I have with both John and Debbie is one I
truly value.
John, I know that you have many more years to serve in Congress, and
I look forward to working with you through all those many years.
Congratulations on the first 50 years.
Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Speaker, I am delighted now to recognize a Member of
the House Committee on the Judiciary, the distinguished gentlewoman
from Texas (Ms. Jackson-Lee).
Ms. JACKSON-LEE of Texas. Mr. Speaker, I thank my distinguished
colleague from Michigan, and I thank you for yielding and convening us
on the floor of the House to have an opportunity to be part of the
celebration and
[[Page 28143]]
the honoring of our friend and colleague, John Dingell, for 50 years of
service.
I have not had the privilege of serving as a member of the House
Energy and Commerce Committee, and so I cannot give testimony to the
privilege and the pleasure and the excitement of that room on the first
floor in the Rayburn Building. I do know that the fireworks are strong
and the leadership is strong because John Dingell is in the room.
I do, however, have the memories of Mickey Leland, who made it very
well known of the excitement he had in having the opportunity to serve
on such an important committee and serve alongside of John Dingell. It
was a great step up for the Congressman, and he did great works
alongside of John Dingell as a member of the Committee on Energy and
Commerce.
And so, yes, I came here longing after the opportunity to serve on
that committee, knowing about John Dingell's leadership and the great
things that could be done. But I am very glad to say that I serve
alongside him just down the hall on the Committee on the Judiciary. And
even without any membership on that committee, I come here today to
cite the kind of counsel that John Dingell gives to Members, whether it
is a minute amendment or a question of an issue going on in his
committee or the sharing of his staff to answer questions. I want you
to know, Congressman Dingell, thank you for being a counsel to many
Members, whether they served with you in their committee or they just
walked past the hall that you are in and are concerned about those
issues.
I also want to thank John Dingell and make mention of the fact that
his 50 years saw a lot of tumultuous times, and those times included
the 1964 Civil Rights Act and the 1965 Voter Rights Act. Those were
difficult times, and no matter whether you were a Member from a
northern State or a southern State, there was a great controversy of
whether or not you would support that kind of legislation.
Might I say that John Dingell's courage in standing up to maybe even
the obstacles and opposition in his own district, being a vigorous and
vibrant supporter of the 1964 Civil Rights Act and the 1965 Voter
Rights Bill really gives cause and a basis for me standing here today.
For out of that vote that you have made was the creation of what we
call majority-minority districts which allowed the maiden holder of
this seat, the Honorable Barbara Jordan, to come to Congress as the
first African American woman and African American elected to Congress
after Reconstruction from the State of Texas.
{time} 2115
That was not an easy vote or an easy debate, and those of us who read
the history of that debate realize that there was a lot of cajoling and
encouraging and sacrifices to be made.
As well I want to thank Congressman Dingell for another tough time
that came along during this recent time in Congress, and that, of
course, was the Enron tragedy. I was a Member of the Congress but, of
course, not a member of the committee, but of course, Enron was in my
congressional district. I went to my ranking member, who I call
Chairman DIINGELL, and inquired as to whether or not I could be allowed
to sit on the panel as the Enron proceedings began. It was a crowded
room, a lot of Members, and he could have easily said it was just
simply untenable at the time. Knowing how important it was to our
constituents in Houston, many of whom had been laid off, I want to
thank you again, Mr. Dingell, for recognizing the important issues to
Members, embracing them and creating a pathway of opportunity.
So, as I rise this evening to be able to cite you for the 50 years
and congratulate you, might I thank you for the personal counsel and
concern you take on Members' progress and growth and opportunity. Might
I thank you for paving the way for sometimes a difficult road, sharing
with us maybe the opportunity to pass an amendment or give insight to
an issue, albeit we might be on that particular committee and a very
powerful committee.
Again, as I met with my senior citizens over this past weekend,
talking about the Medicare enrollment part D, I was so proud to be
associated with a man who understood what Medicare is supposed to be,
the real safety net for senior citizens, something they understand,
applaud and appreciate, something that has helped save lives. For many
of my seniors, when I asked the question, had they enrolled in Medicare
part D or did they understand it, maybe one hand raised in the room. As
I asked them whether they had enrolled already, with only a few days
before the deadline for them to be covered on January 1, as I looked at
their eyes, I was glad to be part of the Dingell plan, who understood
the right kind of benefit, a guaranteed prescription drug benefit, that
you led the fight on, that someday I know we will have.
So, Mr. Dingell, you have had 50 years. It may seem like a long time,
but I know it has been made lighter by having a wonderful partner like
Debbie Dingell alongside of you. Although she handles many of the
spouse issues, she is a friend to many of us who are Members of the
United States Congress. Her insight and understanding and friendship
have certainly been appreciated by all of us. So I think you all make a
dynamic duo, a dynamite duo, if you will, and I thank you both for your
service to this country.
Thank you, Mr. Conyers, for giving me the opportunity to salute our
friend.
Of course, what I say to him, you are a great American. Certainly a
hero, and thank you again for the contributions you make to this great
institution, and thank you for allowing us to understand that it is, in
fact, a dignified and sacred institution and all who walk into this
chamber must show it the respect that you have shown for the years of
your service. God bless you as He blesses America.
Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong support of this proposed resolution,
``Honoring Rep. John Dingell on his 50 years of service to the United
States House of Representatives and the people of Michigan.''
Only two members in the history of the House of Representatives have
served longer than our friend, Mr. Dingell. It is almost hard to
believe that he has served his country and his fine state of Michigan
in this House for 50 years to the day. This is especially difficult for
me because I could have sworn he doesn't look a day over 40 years old!
Over the last five decades, Congressman Dingell has been a steadfast
champion of healthcare. At the beginning of every Congress, Congressman
Dingell introduces the same bill to the House floor, providing for a
national health insurance system. This bill was authored by his father
many years ago when he was serving in Congress. Congressman Dingell
also remains vigilant in his pursuit of a United States Patients' Bill
of Rights. Mr. Dingle's bill would ensure patients' care is in the
hands of doctors.
Aside from fighting for better health care for this country, Dingell
may be best known as one the most committed protectors of our
environment, being himself an avid hunter and outdoorsman. Perhaps one
of his most famous of his bills is the 1990 Clean Air Act, which
ensures cleaner air for our children tomorrow by encouraging
responsible stewardship of our air quality today. He also fought for
the passage of such landmark legislation such as the Endangered Species
Act.
John Dingell, Dean of the House, is a giant among men. His resume
reads as one of the great stories of this past century, but five
decades of service in the House has not slowed Mr. Dingell down one
bit. If one man could embody all that is great about this Institution
of ours, John Dingell is that man. For half a century, he has
resolutely left his mark on some of the most important legislation of
our time. He tirelessly and tenaciously serves the interests of his
constituents, and of average citizens across the United States. Quite
simply, his enduring presence in the House of Representatives has made
the United States a better place for all of us.
[[Page 28144]]
I urge my colleagues to join me in honoring Congressman John Dingell
for his 50 years of service and devotion to his country he loves so
much. We all look forward to many more years of sharing the Halls of
Congress with this great man.
Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Speaker, I thank so much Ms. Jackson-Lee for her
very moving tribute.
Mr. DICKS. Mr. Speaker, on this day, when our colleague and friend
Congressman John Dingell is celebrating 50 years of service in the
House of Representatives, I believe it is important for all Members--
however long they have served--to reflect not only on the number of
years that he has served in this institution, but also on the
contributions he has made and on the example that he continues to set
for all of us.
In the finest traditions of the House, John Dingell remains a
powerful force among us because of the commitment he made 50 years ago
as he took the oath of office for the first time in this chamber. He
took that oath very seriously that day and has lived up to it each day
since, as he has represented the interests of the people in his
district in the State of Michigan. His legislative accomplishments are
legendary, and I know many Members today have praised him as a champion
of health care reform, consumer protection, worker rights and
environmental protection. He deserves all of that praise, and more,
because he is truly one of the ``workhorses'' around the House of
Representatives. Without a doubt, John Dingell is one of the hardest
working Members of Congress I have seen during my tenure here, and I am
sure he is one of the hardest working individuals who has ever served
in the House. Largely because of that work ethic, most of the Members
here have their own personal stories about the help or advice they have
received from John on issues of importance in their own districts.
Since I was elected to Congress in 1976, and certainly during his
tenure as Chairman and now Ranking Member of the Commerce Committee,
John Dingell has helped me and has worked with me on a variety of
issues that are important to me and to my constituents in the State of
Washington. He fought hard for the creation of the Superfund and to
sustain it so that harmful contamination at toxic sites in and around
Puget Sound can be identified and cleaned up. He has demanded
accountability from the Department of Energy, which is responsible for
eliminating the waste that still remains from decades of nuclear
production work on the Hanford Reservation. Through his leadership of
the investigations subcommittee over many years, he exposed abuses and
set a new standard for Pentagon procurement and contracting that helps
us expand the purchasing power of our defense dollars today. And as an
sportsman and wildlife advocate, he has strongly supported our efforts
in the House to increase funding for critical habitat protection and
for acquisition of public lands for recreational purposes. I have
appreciated his support and his leadership on these issues, and I have
appreciated his friendship.
So as the House today recognizes Congressman John Dingell today for
the chronological length of his tenure in this institution, I also want
to remark that it is recognizing one of the legislative giants who has
made his indelible mark on this chamber not just by his tenure but by
the breadth and depth of his influence and his accomplishments here. I
congratulate him, but I also look forward to continuing to work with
him long beyond today's milestone.
Mr. LEWIS of Georgia. Mr. Speaker, I think it is fitting and so
appropriate that Members of the U.S. House of Representatives pay
tribute to the Honorable John Dingell on his 50 years of distinguished
service in this body.
I want to take a little time to thank my friend John Dingell for all
he has done to make America a better place.
When I was growing up in rural Alabama, and I would visit the little
town of Troy, I saw those signs that said ``White Men, Colored Men,
White Women, Colored Women, White Waiting, Colored Waiting.''
I used to ask my mother, my father, my grandparents, and great
grandparents, ``Why segregation? Why racial discrimination?''
And they would tell me, ``Don't get in trouble. Don't get in the
way.'' John Dingell got in trouble. He got in the way. And it was good
trouble. It was necessary trouble.
For the past 50 years, John Dingell has said through his leadership
and with his votes, that as Americans, we have a right to know what is
in the food we eat, the water we drink, and the air we breathe. He has
said that all Americans have a right to expect and demand simple
justice.
He came here to Washington at a time when there was a great deal of
drama all over this Nation related to civil rights and social justice.
But John Dingell wasn't afraid to take a stand for what is right.
Mr. Speaker, I believe it was no accident that 12 days before John
Dingell was elected in 1955, a humble and dignified woman named Rosa
Parks decided to stand up by sitting down on a city bus in Montgomery,
Alabama.
It was no accident that in 1955, the world learned a 14-year-old boy
named Emmett Till was kidnapped and murdered in Money, Mississippi.
It was no accident that in 1955 the U.S. Supreme Court said the Brown
v. Board of Education decision should be carried out with ``all
deliberate speed.''
It was no accident that in that same year, Congressman John Dingell
took the place of his father in the House of Representatives. And when
he did, he took this oath: He said, ``. . . I will support and defend
the constitution . . . against all enemies, foreign and domestic . . .
and I will faithfully discharge the duties of this office . . . so help
me God.''
He has used the power of his office to fight for the cause of
justice, to protect what is good, what is honorable, what is great
about America. He used all his power to defend the integrity of this
great Nation.
I said this about the late Rosa Parks, and I think it also applies to
John Dingell. There is a force that I like to call the spirit of
history that can track you down and select you to help right the wrongs
of this world.
John Dingell is one among a chosen few in the U.S. House of
Representatives who helped chart a new ethical and legislative future
for these United States.
I am among the many who call him the Dean of the House of
Representatives. Mr. Speaker, John Dingell showed us all how it should
be done. He is a champion of the people from the great state of
Michigan who has brought honor and dignity to this chamber. It has been
an honor and a pleasure to serve with him.
Mrs. McCARTHY. Mr. Speaker, today I honor my friend and colleague,
John Dingell.
Mr. Dingell has been a member of the House for 50 years. He is truly
an institution within this institution.
Mr. Dingell has been a leader in passing legislation to improve
people's lives. And he has an unmatched record of fighting corruption
and waste in this body and throughout the government.
I hope my colleagues on both sides of the aisle will take a good look
at Mr. Dingell's record of accomplishment and cooperation.
Mr. Dingell has demonstrated how well this body can operate and how
much we can achieve by setting aside partisan differences and working
together to do what's right for the American people.
Whether you are a Democrat or Republican, whether you are on the same
side of an issue or have an opposing view, Mr. Dingell will work with
you to make our country a better place.
The ultimate tribute to the Dean of the House on his first 50 years
of service would be to follow his lead and end the partisanship and
politics of personal destruction that's going on now.
Our country needs members of Congress to lead, not constantly
question the motivation of those who do not agree with them.
Mr. Dingell serves as the founding fathers intended us to serve.
I am proud to call Mr. Dingell a colleague. And I am honored to call
him a friend. And I look forward to working with him in coming years to
help make America stronger and better place.
Mrs. JONES of Ohio. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to commend the service
of one of our most distinguished members, Mr. John Dingell. Today we
honor the ``Dean of the House'' as he celebrates 50 years of service to
the people of the state of Michigan and of this country. We also
celebrate his wonderful spouse Debbie Dingell.
During his tenure in the House, Representative Dingell has fought for
access to affordable healthcare, a strong economy, and the protection
of our environment. He authored the 1990 Clean Air Act which is
credited with cleaning up the air we breathe, while preserving American
competitiveness. Additionally he has championed laws that address
America's most pressing needs like the Children's Health Insurance
Program (CHIP) and the Mammography Quality Standards Act.
He has worked tirelessly for the people of Michigan's 15th District.
He established the first international wildlife refuge in North America
to protect thousands of acres of natural habitat in both Michigan and
Canada. He worked with officials in Wayne County to save local
taxpayers more than $350 million of the cost to stop pollution of the
Rouge River and has been relentless in his efforts to limit the
importation of Canadian waste into Michigan.
[[Page 28145]]
Representative Dingell is truly a leader and trailblazer within the
House of Representatives. He not only leads by example but sets the
example by which we all strive to emulate. On behalf of the people of
the 11th Congressional District of Ohio, I thank you Representative
Dingell for your leadership and wish you continued success.
Ms. CARSON. Mr. Speaker, Detroit, Michigan is known as Motown, mecca
for Soul R&B music. Here, in the Halls of Congress, Detroit is known as
``Dingell town.''
Tonight, we continue our salute to Congressman John David Dingell,
Jr. for his 50 years of service as an elected representative in the
House of the people.
With the service of Congressman Dingell's father, the late John
Dingell, Sr., in the House for 22 years, the people of Detroit, the
state of Michigan, and indeed the Nation have benefited from the
Dingell legacy of public service for 72 uninterrupted years.
Congressman Dingell served in the United States Army during World War
II, then attended Georgetown University in Washington, DC, where he
graduated in law in 1952. He worked as a Congressional employee, a
forest ranger and a prosecuting attorney for Wayne County until 1955,
when his father died and he succeeded him in his district.
Congressman Dingell won the seat in his own right in 1956 and has
been re-elected 25 times.
With the retirement of Jamie L. Whitten at the start of a new
Congress in January 1995, he became the longest-serving member in
Congress. He is only the third person to serve in the House for 50
years, behind only Whitten and Carl Vinson.
Since 1994, Congressman Dingell has been the Ranking Member of the
Energy and Commerce Committee. Before that, he was Chairman for many
years of Energy and Commerce.
Congressman Dingell: Regardless of the change in party majority, the
esteem and high regard that your colleagues, and I, past and present,
hold for you, will honor you always as Mr. Chairman.
I am pleased to add my best wishes to a statesman and a great
American.
Mr. POMEROY. Mr. Speaker, I rise to add my voice to the praise of a
remarkable man--one of the most effective legislators ever to grace the
Halls of Congress--the gentleman from Michigan, John Dingell.
Today we celebrate his 50 years in the U.S. Congress. I feel
extremely fortunate to have had the chance to observe John Dingell as
one of the most powerful Chairmen of the House and for the last decade
a canny Ranking Member, influential by any measure.
If there would ever be a Hall of Fame for Members of Congress, John
Dingell would be admitted on the first ballot.
I consider it a great privilege to have had the chance to learn from
a person of such enormous talent, dedication and perservance.
John Dingell has been steadfast in fighting for the rights and
interests of ordinary Americans. He has been unrelenting in his
willingness to take on any interest--no matter how powerful--as he has
stood up for all who needed such a gifted and forceful champion.
I hope John Dingell will celebrate many more anniversaries of
distinguished service in the House as his tenure continues.
He is a national treasure and we need him now more than ever.
Best wishes John Dingell. I am proud to be your colleague--prouder
yet to be your friend. God bless you.
Mr. STUPAK. Mr. Speaker, thank you, Mr. Conyers, for the opportunity
to stand and recognize one of the finest men to ever serve in the
United States Congress.
John Dingell can be and has been described using a wide variety of
adjectives--ranging anywhere from fierce and intimidating to kind and
charming and just about everywhere in between. This man has been
leaving vivid impressions on those of us he has worked with during his
50 years as a United States Congressman.
Whether one may have come to enjoy the deeply intellectual candor
associated with his great knowledge of issues spanning from health care
to the environment to labor; or whether one may have become a victim of
his witty tongue lashings he has been known to dole out to his
opposition or to those testifying before him--either way, these
individuals have more than likely walked away from these scenarios
respecting Mr. John Dingell all the more.
Mr. Dingell is the Dean of the House because he has spent 50 years
working diligently to fight for those who may not be able to fight for
themselves. He has fought for vulnerable people and worthy causes with
an iron first. He has defended large companies even when allies have
criticized him because those companies sustain the jobs his
constituents depend on to feed their families. He has stood up for
unpopular ideas based on righteous values. He has led wars for
universal causes in order to see the eventual acceptance of a fair
ideal.
The people of southeast Michigan continue to elect John Dingell to
serve and represent them and many others across the country in Congress
because he is a good man. He is a shining example as to why term limits
are not wise in governance. Consumers would have a hard time investing
in a company where a new set of untrained professionals were ushered in
to run a major corporation just as their predecessors finally obtained
the necessary skills and experiences to truly excel on their behalf.
Each term John Dingell has brought with him another two years of
valuable experiences that help him craft better legislation, provide
deeper insight, and mentor his colleagues to be more prepared to lead.
Mr. Speaker, I have the proud privilege of not only standing beside
Mr. Dingell as a friend and colleague from the great state of Michigan,
but I am honored to have found his mentorship in our last 6 terms in
Congress as some of the most profound advice I could have received.
Congressman Dingell spent nearly 2 decades heading the Energy and
Commerce Committee's Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigation. There
he uncovered unparallel fraud and deceptions of companies and
government agencies. He drilled witnesses and experts in order to
obtain the answers necessary to protect the American people. John
Dingell spent his years on that subcommittee with an unwavering, fiery
commitment to do the right thing.
When Congressman John Dingell, Jr. was inaugurated after winning a
special election to succeed his late father, who had served in the
House of Representatives since 1932, he told his new colleagues ``if I
can be half the man my father was, I shall feel I am a great success.''
As the new ranking Democrat on the Oversight and Investigation
Subcommittee where the great John Dingell accomplished some of the most
memorable and most remarkable feats on behalf of the American people, I
declare that if I can do half the job John Dingell has done during his
tenure in Congress, I shall feel I am too am a great success.
Mr. Speaker, I would like to once again thank Mr. John Dingell of
Michigan for being a great leader, example, servant, mentor, and
friend. Mr. Dingell and the work he has done in the last 50 years in
the United State Congress will be remembered, valued and respected for
as long as this great country stands united.
Mr. OWENS. Mr. Speaker, certainly I would like to associate myself
with the previous remarks of congratulations, admiration, and
appreciation expressed by numerous members of this House about our
esteemed and revered colleague, Congressman John Dingell of Michigan.
It is my opinion that wisdom is the invaluable contribution which
Chairman Dingell continues to offer our deliberations; it is wisdom,
gained from years of hard work, experience and keen analytical
observations. At a time of relentless public policy turmoil and
frequent partisan confrontations, this institution needs well-anchored,
seasoned, counseling to blend with the know-how and energy of the fresh
and the young. John Dingell's fifty-year life investment in the House
of Representatives continually produces a dividend for all Americans.
Mr. CONYERS. If it pleases the House, I would like to invite the
object of our affection this evening and through the last few weeks to
make a closing comment, and I would yield now to the Dean of the House
of Representatives, the honorable John Dingell.
____________________
EXPRESSING THANKS TO FELLOW MEMBERS FOR THEIR REMARKS
The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Poe). Under a previous order of the
House, the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Dingell) is recognized for 5
minutes.
Mr. DINGELL. Mr. Speaker, I rise to thank my good friend and
colleague from Michigan, John Conyers, my dear friend of long standing,
for his gracious kindness in this Special Order tonight, and I thank
all of my good friends and colleagues who have participated in that. I
am deeply grateful, and I am very proud of the friendship that they
show me and that I have for them and the kindness that they have shown
me throughout these years I have had the privilege of serving in this
body.
I want to say that I have been uniquely blessed. Not only have I had
[[Page 28146]]
the privilege of serving wonderful people in the southeast corner of
Michigan, people who are uniquely loyal, decent and good, hardworking
and patriotic, who believe in their country and who work to make it
better and who raise good kids and who are concerned not just about
their well-being but about the country and its future, I have also been
uniquely blessed in having an extraordinary staff which has stood
loyally by me and which has provided me the basis of knowing how to be
a good and effective Congressman.
I have had one unique and special blessing, and that is a beautiful
woman who has stood by my side all of these years, the lovely Deborah,
who has worked with me, worked for me, worked with and for the people
that I have the honor to serve and who is much loved in Michigan and
here in Washington, whose good works and whose talents are
extraordinary and whose decency and loyalty are absolutely unique.
I want to say how proud I am to have served in the Congress. I am
proud of my colleagues and grateful to them for their words, and I
repeat my thanks to my good friend from Michigan (Mr. Conyers) and to
my other colleagues who have been so gracious to me today, to the
Speaker and to the minority leader for their gracious remarks, for the
resolution which this body passed and for the privilege of serving with
all of my dear friends and colleagues.
I have only good memories of having served in this institution, and I
think if there is one characteristic about the service that I have had
here it is with what blinding speed those 50 years have gone by and how
many wonderful human beings I have known and served with: Members of
Congress, members of the staff, people who work in and around the
Congress, lobbyists, the constituents that I have had the privilege of
serving and the people in the executive branch. We are fortunate,
indeed, that we have men and women who will do the things that my
colleagues have done here in terms of coming to Washington to serve.
I cannot tell my colleagues how proud I am of them or how grateful I
am to them and the appreciation which I feel for all of them, including
not just my friend Mr. Conyers, but I look at my good friend Mr. Kildee
and the gentlewoman from Texas who was so gracious earlier.
It has been a singular privilege for me to be here. This is a
wonderful institution. It belongs to the people. They deserve the best
we can give, and it is a wonderful institution. I salute my colleagues
for what they do. I express to them my respect and admiration and
affection and also my gratitude to them for what it is they do.
Mr. Speaker, I want to again express my affection, my respect and my
gratitude to those who have participated in this Special Order,
including my very special friend Mr. Conyers.
Thank you.
____________________
PEAK OIL PRODUCTION
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of
January 4, 2005, the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Bartlett) is
recognized for 60 minutes as the designee of the majority leader.
Mr. BARTLETT of Maryland. Mr. Speaker, I would first like to thank
Congressman Dingell for his many years of service to his country.
Sometimes there is a young person who is very bright and well-achieved.
And it is said of them that they are wise beyond their years.
Congressman Dingell has served 50 years in the Congress. Before that,
he served in World War II. Matter of fact, he is just about a year
younger than I, so obviously he is not a really young person. I can
truly say of Congressman Dingell that he, too, is wise beyond his
years.
As a matter of fact, the subject I am going to talk about tonight is
better understood by Congressman Dingell, I think, than any other
Member of the House. I remember a conversation with him some time ago,
several months ago, when he noted that he did not believe that oil
would ever be $50 a barrel again. I spoke with him tonight, and he
said, you know, we probably had better hope that it is not ever $50 a
barrel again because the only thing that could cause it to drop to that
level would be the demand construction that would be precipitated by a
world crisis. Thank you, Congressman Dingell, for your friendship, and
I thank you for your contribution to your country.
The first chart is taken from a publication from a report that was
funded by the Department of Energy. I want to make that clear. The
principal investigator was Robert Hirsch. He works for SAIC, a very
prestigious scientific organization.
``The peaking of world oil production presents the U.S. and the world
with an unprecedented risk management problem. As peaking is
approached, liquid fuel prices and price volatility will increase
dramatically, and, without timely mitigation, the economic, social, and
political costs will be unprecedented. Viable mitigation options exist
on both the supply and demand side, but to have substantial impact,
they must be initiated more than a decade in advance of peaking.''
Dealing with world oil production peaking will be extremely complex,
involve literally trillions of dollars and require many years of
intense effort.
Mr. Speaker, what is he referring to? To put this in context, as the
next slide shows us, we need to go back about six decades. Working for
the Shell Oil Company was a scientist by the name of M. King Hubbert,
and he watched the exploitation and exhaustion of oil fields. He found
that they all tended to follow a similar pattern. Oil came freely at
first and then reached a peak production, and then, not surprisingly,
the last oil from the field, as a matter of fact, roughly the last half
of the oil from the field, was more difficult to get than the first
half of the oil from the field.
So he judged that if he could add up all of the little fields in the
country and the curve that would be produced by the exploitation and
exhaustion of that, and these are called bell curves, they are typical
curves of phenomena, that he then could predict when the United States
would peak in oil production.
He made this prediction in 1956, and he said that the United States
peak oil production would occur about 1970, certainly in the early
1970s. Right on target, the United States peaked in oil production in
1970 or 1971.
The smooth green curve here shows what he predicted. The somewhat
more ragged curve with symbols shows the accurate data points. You see
how closely this is for the lower 48 States. It shows how closely they
followed his predicted curve.
The red curve is the similar curve for the Soviet Union. You notice
that on the down side, they peaked some years ago, after us, but some
years ago, and on the down side, when the Soviet Union fell apart, they
lost a lot of production capacity. Now they are going to have a second
small peak, but then on down. Russia is now a major producer of oil in
the world, but they were in the past a larger producer of oil in the
world.
The next chart shows the sources from which our oil production has
come.
{time} 2130
And notice that this peak, about 1970, and this curve differ from the
previous one in that we have added here the oil from Prudhoe Bay in
Alaska. There was a tiny blip on the down slope. Without that oil,
there was no blip at all. But in spite of that enormous find in Prudhoe
Bay, about a fourth of our total production for a number of years, we
still continued our slide down the other side of Hubbert's Peak.
I want to note the yellow there, that is the fabled discoveries of
oil in the Gulf of Mexico where there are now, I think, what, 4,000 oil
wells. That was supposed to solve our problems with oil for quite some
time. Notice the fairly trifling contribution it made. This was a big
find. But we and the world use a lot of oil, and that kind of puts it
in perspective.
The next chart shows two characteristics of the world. The previous
one, the one just removed, we were looking at the United States, and in
this one we look at the world. And there are
[[Page 28147]]
really two curves here, and they are superimposed because that helps us
to understand the situation a little better.
The bar graph here, the dark shows the discoveries of oil; and notice
that we started discovering a lot of oil back in the 1940s and the
1950s and the 1960s; and after the 1980s, that is 25 years ago, we have
had diminishing discoveries of oil. The heavy black line here shows the
use of oil. For many, many years we were discovering far more oil than
we used. But since about the early 1980s, every year we have used more
oil than we found. And until today, and that is at this point, you can
see that we are using several times as much oil as we find, maybe four
barrels of oil used for every barrel of oil that we find.
Now, of course one can only extrapolate into the future. But if you
make reasonable assumptions for what we will find, and that is this
curve here, we could find more; we could also find less. But if you
look back through the last 20 years, this is a fairly optimistic
assumption of what we will find for the next 25 or 30 years.
And then, of course, you cannot pump oil that you have not found. And
so the consumption curve, this curve, suggests that that will peak in
about 5 years. But the consumption curve must have under it exactly the
same area as is the area under the discovery curve, because obviously
you cannot pump oil that you have not found.
We will come back to this chart a little later, and we will mention
some of the critical relationships here a time or two as we address
other points.
Now, there are a number of critics, and the next chart points to the
statements that one critic has made. And we will come to the floor, Mr.
Speaker, in the future to talk about other critics and the points that
they have made, and we will carefully and respectfully address each of
the points that they make.
This critic made four comments, four points. And what he said was, if
we really understood this, you would not have any concern about peak
oil because we are really not facing a problem, in his view.
I am only going to talk about the first one now, and then we will put
this chart down here, and we will pull it up after we have talked about
this one and then talk about the second, third, and fourth bullet here.
In the first bullet, he says: Simply put, known reserves can produce
far more oil if more aggressively drilled, as in the United States.
That is true, and it is not true. As the next chart shows, this shows
the relationship between drilling and pumping oil in this country. By
1980, when Ronald Reagan became President, we had already slid 10 years
down the other side of Hubbert's Peak; and we knew in this country, and
the world knew, that M. King Hubbert had been correct, that the United
States had peaked in its oil production.
Mr. Speaker, I wonder why there was not more recognition given to the
fact that M. King Hubbert also predicted when the world would peak,
which, considering events like a worldwide recession and the oil price
spike hikes and so forth, would be about now. I wonder why more people
were not concerned that maybe if M. King Hubbert were right about the
United States, he might be right about the world. And if he was right
about the world, then we really ought to be paying attention to that.
This curve shows the effect of the extra drilling that was encouraged
by the tax policy of the early Reagan years. It showed that that had no
effect on the amount of oil that we pump, because we went from
positive, pumping more oil than we were consuming, to negative, pumping
less oil than we were consuming, in spite of the fact that there was a
very large spike here in increased drilling.
So depending upon the state of exhaustion of the oil fields,
increased drilling may not produce any increased flow of oil. It
certainly did not here. In spite of all this increased drilling, we
produced relatively less and less oil. Now, it is true that if there is
still a lot of oil left in the fields, you could exhaust it more
quickly by drilling more wells.
I think that in this country, Mr. Speaker, we have drilled at least
three-fourths of all of the oil wells that have been drilled in all of
the world. And the critic was saying if we drilled relatively as many
wells in Saudi Arabia as we have drilled in this country, that we could
get that oil out more quickly. That may be true. But as we will
discover a little later in this discussion, Mr. Speaker, that probably
is not a good idea.
There is an old adage that says: If you're in a hole, stop digging.
And I think a good corollary to that is, if you are climbing a hill and
you know that you will fall off the other side, it is obvious that the
higher you climb, the greater the fall will be.
So if there is only so much oil there, if we are able to get it out
more quickly now by drilling more holes, then does it not stand to
reason that there will be even less oil for the future, and the slope
down the other side of Hubbert's Peak will be even sharper?
The next slide shows again a relationship between drilling and the
amount of oil that you discover. The red curve here is a hyperbolic
model. It approaches in ascentot. It will never quite reach the top
because it will go up ever more slowly. And the yellow points here show
the actual cumulative discovery of oil. And notice that it follows this
very clear ascentotic curve.
What that points to, Mr. Speaker, is that there is probably not a lot
more oil in the world that we are going to find. For the last number of
years, we have had very good techniques: seismic, 3D modeling with
computers. We are really very good now at characterizing the geologic
formations in which oil is likely to be found, and we have drilled and
exploited all of those that held much promise.
The next chart is another one taken from this very excellent report
called the ``Hirsch Report,'' done by SAIC, and funded by our own
Department of Energy. This shows the net difference between annual
world oil reserves, reserve additions, and annual consumption. And this
showed when we flipped over from every year finding more oil than we
used to the point that for every year since, what, the early 1980s, as
you can see from this chart, the world has found less and less oil than
it has pumped.
I would like to now come back to the chart that I showed a few
minutes ago because I think that this chart actually shows if you make
this curve here a straight line, then that produces the curve that you
have just seen. I would like to come back to this and point out that
the history of discovery indicates that we probably are not going to
have any more really large oil fields discovered. The last of the great
oil fields were discovered in the 1980s. And in spite of intense
drilling and vastly improved discovery techniques, just about on the
average every year since then we have found less and less.
And I would like to point out again something which is very obvious,
that you cannot pump oil that you have not found. Now, if you want to
change the shape of this consumption curve, and you can change the
shape of that curve, if you want to change the shape of that curve and
have it ever go up and up, then you are obviously going to have to find
a lot more oil.
Now, you can in the short term have it go up somewhat faster if you
simply were to drill in Saudi Arabia relatively as many wells as we
have drilled in this country. But what that will do, Mr. Speaker, is
maybe to extend this curve a bit like this.
But you cannot pump more oil than you have found, so then it will
fall off very sharply on the other side. I am not sure that is what our
economy needs, and I am not sure that is what the world needs. So I am
not certain, Mr. Speaker, that in the absence of finding more oil that
it is in anybody's self-interest to find ways to exhaust the oil that
we have found more quickly than we are doing it now.
Now, if you believe that just around the corner we are going to find
enormous additional amounts of oil, then that might be a supportable
philosophy. But I would suggest, looking at this history of our
discovery of oil,
[[Page 28148]]
that it would be very prudent to not use techniques for more rapidly
exhausting the oil until you have found more oil, or we are simply
going to be building a larger and larger economy in the world that is
going to be even more and more difficult to support as we inevitably
run down the other side of Hubbert's Peak.
I would like now to put back up the comments of this critic, and we
want to look at the second bullet here. There is enough tar and natural
gas in the world to fuel the globe for hundreds of years at current
rates of consumption. And I should have underlined it there, the ``at
current rates of consumption.'' There are two things I want to talk
about on this.
The first is that there is a great deal of natural gas and other
sources of hydrocarbons in the world. I am not sure that they are
economically exploitable. And the second thing is at current-use rates.
Let me finish this, and then I will put the next chart up. And that
does not include even more massive amounts of coal that could be turned
into gas and oil, and indeed it can be turned into gas and oil.
That is the way Hitler ran his country and his military in World War
II, because we cut him off from oil and he made oil from coal. As a
matter of fact, when I was a little boy, the lamps you now call
kerosene lamps we called coal oil lamps. And that is because it was
coal oil that first replaced whale oil before we learned how to refine
crude oil and make kerosene. So we can do that.
The next chart points to what Albert Einstein said was the most
powerful force in the universe. After we discovered nuclear power as a
result of his theory of relativity and his contributions, he was asked,
Dr. Einstein, we have now discovered this incredible power source,
energy source. What will be next? And he said, you know, the most
powerful force in the universe is the power of compound interest.
Now, that is an exponential function. What we show here are several
curves, and this lower curve here shows a 2 percent growth rate; and
the straight line shows, if you extrapolate that out without
compounding, that is you do not add this year's growth to the baseline
for next year's growth, if you have money and interest and you take the
interest every year and do not let it accumulate. But notice how much
it grows if you let it accumulate. And this is only a 2 percent growth
rate. There is a 4 percent growth rate. Notice how much more quickly it
grows. By the way, a 2 percent growth rate doubles in 35 years.
This steepest curve here is a 10 percent growth rate. I would like to
remind you that that is pretty much the curve that China is on, and
India very close behind them. China, about 9.5 percent; 10 percent
growth rate doubles in 7 years. It is four times bigger in 14 years, it
is 8 times bigger in 21 years. That is exponential growth.
{time} 2145
Mr. Speaker, if you will do a Google search for Dr. Albert Bartlett,
not a relative of mine, but he gives the most interesting 1-hour
lecture I have ever heard, and pull up his lecture on exponential
growth and energy. He has some excellent analogies to help understand
exponential growth.
I will give just one true story from an ancient kingdom where one of
the citizens of the kingdom invented chess. The king was so impressed
he called his citizen in and said, I will give you any reasonable
request for the contribution you make for inventing chess.
The inventor said, I am a simple man with simple needs; Mr. King, if
you will simply take my chess board and put one grain of wheat on the
first square and double that and put two grains of wheat on the second
square and double it and four on the third square and eight on the
fourth until you have finally filled all of the squares of my chess
board, that is all the reward I would ask. The king thought, silly man,
I would have given him a great deal more. No problem.
But had the king understood the power of exponential growth, he would
have had to place on that chess board more wheat than the world has
harvested in the last 40 years. That is the power of compound growth.
We see that in the next chart that looks at one of these assumptions,
and that is that we have a lot of coal. We do. We have 250 years of
coal at current use. But if you have to use more of it, and we
certainly will have to use more of it as we have less natural gas;
today that topped $15 for a thousand cubic feet, the highest ever, and
if you increase the use of coal only 2 percent a year and compound
that, notice what happens. It shrinks to about 85 years. That is the
power of compound growth. And for much of its use, you will not be able
to use coal, you will have to make it, as the critics suggested, into
gas and oil, and that takes energy to do that, and so now it has shrunk
down to about 50 years.
With just 2 percent growth, we will be really lucky if we can get by
with increasing the use of coal only 2 percent, but that now lasts only
50 years. It is there. It is a very valuable resource, and we need to
use it, but it is not a long-term solution to our problem.
The next chart shows something which is really very interesting. This
shows the current consumption, and it is making an interesting
assumption. I would like to pause for just a moment because, in another
life, I had a course in statistics, and they give you some
probabilities here. That is what statistics is all about,
probabilities. They have the 95 percent probability and the 50 percent
probability and the 5 percent probability. The 5 percent probability
means only 1 time in 20 would you expect that to happen. The 95 percent
probability is what is called statistically significant, and 97 percent
probability is highly significant.
What they have done here is to take the mean and to assume that is
the expected value. No, Mr. Speaker, that is not the expected value.
The 50 percent probability means there is 50 percent probability it
could be more. There is also 50 percent probability it could be less.
What they have done, they say that is the mean. That is really, I
think, a major distortion of statistics and reflects a misunderstanding
of statistics because it could be just as well less than that as more
than that.
But this red curve assumes that there will be 50 percent more. The
total amount of oil most authorities believe that was recoverable, and
we have recovered about half of it, was about 20,000 giga barrels. That
is 2,000 billion barrels. This mean is 3,000. This is roughly the 2,000
here, and the 3,000 is here. Notice, even if you assume, which I think
is a very rash assumption, that there will be 50 percent more oil than
most of the world's experts believe, notice how little that pushes out
the peaking. That is what exponential growth does.
Albert Bartlett uses another interesting explanation of exponential
growth. He has a little colony of microbes that are growing in a liter
flask and notices that they are doubling every minute. When they are
only partially full, they say, we better be looking for more territory
because we are soon going to fill up this liter vessel. They send out
scouts and find not one or two or three more liters. Wow, three times
as much as they now have. That should last them for a long time.
Remember, they are doubling every minute.
If they fill their present liter flask at midnight, 1 minute after
midnight they fill the second one because they double every minute, and
in 2 minutes after midnight, they fill the third and the fourth.
That shows why if we find 50 percent more oil than most of the
experts believe is there, that will only push out peak oil those
relatively few years. If by some means you are able to extract oil more
quickly, like drilling a whole lot more wells or using this enhanced
recovery technique, you might push the peak out to 2037, but this curve
acknowledges a reality that you cannot pump what is not there. And so
now you fall off very quickly, and the area between these two curves is
going to have to equal the area between these two curves.
So from a very real perspective, Mr. Speaker, if we are not going to
find enormously more oil or gas or coal or large amounts of
alternatives, it will
[[Page 28149]]
not be in the long-term best interest of the world to exploit our
present reserves more quickly.
The next chart shows the characteristics that any alternatives will
have to be useful because the primary crisis that we face is not just
an energy crisis; it is really a crisis of liquid fuels because that is
where our economy and the world's economy will be first impacted.
This is an interesting chart, and it has an ordinate and an abscissa.
The ordinate is energy-profit ratio. The energy-profit ratio is the
amount of energy you have to put in to get out a certain amount of
energy, and obviously, the best energy sources will be those where you
put in just a little bit of energy, like drilling one well and getting
out an awful lot of oil. And the energy profit ratios may be 60 or 80
or 100, and some even 200. That means you get out 200 times as much
energy as put into drilling and developing the field.
Now on the abscissa here, we have economic effectiveness in
transport. What that means is how convenient it is to use transport.
The source that is the highest in both of these is the giant oil
fields. None of those exist in this country. They are all in the Middle
East and many in Saudi Arabia. But notice that they have a very high
energy-profit ratio and also a very high economic effectiveness in
transport.
Our oils were just as effective in transport, so they are way over
here in the abscissa. But notice they are much more expensive to get
than the Middle East oil. This is 1970, and now they are harder and
harder to get, and so now we are down at this point where it is maybe
five to one. We put in one unit of energy and get out five units of
energy. Notice where the tar sands and ethanol are. They are really
easy to use once you develop them, but you get very little more energy
out of them than you put in them.
Over here we have hydro, coal-fired and nuclear, photo voltaics, and
they have really improved, and direct use of coal. So any alternative
that we are going to develop to replace our current oil for
transportation needs to be put on this table, this chart, to see where
it fits. It must have a very high energy-profit ratio, and it should
have a very high economic effectiveness in transport quotient.
I will return now to the next of these points made by the critic. He
says we have just produced the tip of the shale gas iceberg, and the
likely resources in the U.S. are vast. What he is saying is, do not
worry about energy; there is absolutely an enormous amount of energy in
these shale gases. What they are, are gases trapped so tightly in shale
that the only way to get them out is to drill a well and then to put
sand and water in that well under a very high pressure, kind of an
explosive pressure that fractures the rock and pushes the sand in
between the levels of the shale so the gas can now come out. Yes, there
is a lot of gas there, and you can get it out by doing that, but it is
quite expensive. It is one well for every one relatively small area of
the reservoir where this gas is trapped.
What I want to show now is a number of potential sources of energy.
As we run down the other side of Hubbard's peak, we are going to have
to turn to other sources of energy. Some of those are finite like the
tar sands and the oil shales and the shale gas that he was talking
about, and coal and nuclear fission and nuclear fusion. I guess the
nuclear thing ought to be put in a category kind of by itself because
if you are talking about the light water reactors and fissile uranium,
you are talking about a finite source. If you are talking about nuclear
fusion, and I support all of the money that that technology can absorb,
but I do not think that it is likely in any timely manner that we are
going to have economically viable fusion to produce power. The general
estimates are, in 30 to 50 years, that technology may have matured to
where you will be using electricity produced by fusion. That is what
happens in the sun and in the hydrogen bomb.
If we were to go to breeder reactors, they are pretty much
sustainable, and they would not be finite, so nuclear is in a category
by itself. We need to exploit all of these areas, but the energy-profit
ratio is very low for those.
Let me give an example of an enormous amount of energy, and we really
would have no energy problem if we just could harness that energy. It
is called the tides. Every day, the moon lifts all of the oceans about
2 feet. I just pick up two 5-gallon buckets of water, and they are
pretty heavy. Can you imagine the amount of energy it takes to lift the
oceans 2 feet every day? The oceans are three-fourths of the earth's
surface. If we just could capture that energy, we would be home free.
But the problem is the energy-profit ratio is very low. There is a lot
of energy there. It is very disbursed, very diffuse, very hard to
harness, and we still try.
Ocean thermal gradients are another potential source. Here are some
potentially enormous sources of energy.
Solar. If we paved our desserts with solar cells, we would have all
of the energy we needed. That is a big if. It is about as big an if as
getting all of this gas out of the gas shales.
Wind. If we put a wind machine every place the wind was blowing, we
would produce incredible amounts of energy, but it is very diffuse,
very expensive to build them, and it would take a long time to build
enough of them to make any real difference.
Geothermal. If we just drilled down deep enough to tap into the
molten core of the earth, there is essentially inexhaustible energy
there. But again, the energy-profit ratio, except for a few places
where the crust is thin, is very high, and so we are not doing that.
I would like just a word of caution about energy from agriculture. I
am a big fan of energy from agriculture, but you must recognize its
limitations.
{time} 2200
We barely are able to feed the world. Now, you would not believe that
by looking at many Americans, but tonight maybe a fifth of the world
will go to bed hungry. And so if we are going to take what would
otherwise be a food crop like corn or sugarcane and use it for energy,
then we have to ask the question, How will we feed the world?
Another caution about energy from agriculture. A lot of the sources
of energy are from what is called cellulose or agricultural waste like
beet pulp and corn fodder and soybean stocks and switch grass. Now, all
of these things are organic. All of them, in one way or another, by
sheet composting or some other composting techniques, are returned to
the soil to help make what we call top soil. And topsoil is different
from subsoil because it has organic material in it that supports life,
and it has a quality which we call tilth which is not there if you take
the organic material away.
To rob our topsoils of organic material will be the exact equivalent
of mining them. You may get away with it for a year or two or a few,
Mr. Speaker; but in the long run, unless you husband our topsoils, we
will not be able to continue to grow the food we need.
Now, there are potentials for getting energy from agriculture. But
they are going to necessarily be limited by our need to feed the world
and our need to maintain our top soil. I just heard the other day that
for every bushel of corn that we produce in Iowa, three bushels of
topsoil go down the Mississippi River. So in spite of no-till farming
and the other advanced techniques we have, we still have a problem
holding our topsoil.
Here is a great one: waste to energy. Up here in Montgomery County
there is a facility that burns waste to produce electricity. I would be
proud to have my church next to it or live next to it. You would think
it is an office building from the front. The waste comes in in big
containers on the back of trucks or trains, and you do not even see it.
It is really quite an engineering marvel. We are producing some energy
that way. We could produce more and probably should produce more.
The last bullet here: hydrogen. Hydrogen, Mr. Speaker, is not an
energy source. Hydrogen is simply a convenient way, and sometimes not
all that convenient way because of what it is, an explosive gas. But it
is a way to move energy from one place to another. If you think of it
in terms of a
[[Page 28150]]
battery, then you get the notion of where hydrogen is going to fit into
our economy. It is a good idea, because when you finally use the
hydrogen, it produces, well, we say no pollutants. It produces a little
bit of heat. And it produces water, but you know that is really no
pollutants compared to what we get from the internal combustion energy
in burning gasoline or diesel fuel.
And you can now use it, not in an internal combustion engine, but if
we ever perfect them, we can use it in a fuel cell which gets at least
twice the efficiency of the internal combustion engine. So you are now
burning something, using something that produces, at the point of use,
essentially no pollutants, and which produces about twice the net
energy output that you can get by burning it in a combustion engine. So
it is a good idea, but fraught with problems because if you are going
to carry it as a gas, you have to really compress it, a big thick
vessel, the lightest element we have, gas molecules just wanting to
separate themselves and get out of there, so you have to have a big
heavy vessel to contain it.
If you want to liquify it, it is very cold, a lot of insulation,
again a big problem. And the experts believe that if it ever becomes a
part of our economy, that it is going to be in a solid state form, in
other words, a hydrogen battery. So if you will think of it as
something maybe quite better than the electron battery that you have in
your car, but very similar to that because it is simply something that
takes energy from one place, a nuclear power plant for instance,
producing electricity that is then used to split water and produce the
hydrogen, taken to another place where you use it like using it in your
car.
The next chart shows the details on one of these possible
alternatives, and that is ethanol. And on the right, we show there the
energy balance in getting gasoline from fuel oil. And it shows there
that you must start out with 1.23 million Btus of fossil energy to
produce 1 million Btus. That is quite reasonable. You have got to drill
for the oil. You have got to transport it. You have got to refine it.
You have got to haul it to the service station. You have got to pump it
out. That all takes energy, and so you put in 1.23 units and you get
out 1 unit of energy.
Now, when it comes to corn, to ethanol, which you get from corn here,
you start with solar energy. So you would expect that there is going to
be some contribution of solar energy. And this, by the way, I am told
by some people, is quite optimistic because Dr. Pimental believes that
the usual ways of producing ethanol use more energy than you get out of
the ethanol because of all of the applications of fossil fuels to
building the farm equipment, plowing the ground, putting the corn in,
harvesting the corn, that if you account for all the fossil fuel
inputs, he says with the usual techniques you use, you get less energy
out of the ethanol than you put in growing the corn.
But I think we will do better than that, and we may get to this goal,
and that is, you put in .74 units of energy, and you get out one. Well,
that is not a really big energy-profit ratio. You would probably never
drill an oil well if that is all you got out of it. That is a very low
energy-profit ratio. But it is one of the things that we will need to
turn to.
The bottom little pie chart here shows something that will stun most
people. Notice the big purple, nearly half segment of that circle. That
is the energy that goes into producing corn from natural gas producing
the nitrogen fertilizer. Very few people know, Mr. Speaker, that
essentially the only source today of nitrogen fertilizer is natural
gas. When natural gas is gone, we are going to have to find another big
energy source to produce nitrogen fertilizer.
By the way, before we learned how to do that, the only source of
nitrogen fertilizer were the barn yard manures. We still have those
today, but they do not go very far with the enormous agricultural lands
we have, and guano. Guano were the droppings of bats and birds over
thousands of years in the tropical islands on the cliffs and the bat
caves, and there was a generation ago a major industry of mining guano.
If we wait another 10,000 years, there will be some more guano.
If you look at this circle, you will see the contribution of oil and
gas and natural gas to producing corn. It is hydrocarbon, very energy
intensive. Almost literally, Mr. Speaker, the food you eat is gas and
oil. If it were not for gas and oil, you would not be eating that food.
The next chart kind of puts this challenge in perspective, and the
analogy I like to use here is that we, in our country, are very much
like the young couple that had their grandparents die and left them a
big inheritance. And so they have established a lifestyle where 85
percent of all the money they spend comes from their grandparents'
inheritance, and only 15 percent comes from their earnings. And they
look at the rate they are spending it and at the size of their
grandparents' inheritance, and it is going to run out a long time
before they retire.
So obviously this young couple is going to do one or both of two
things: either they are going to have to spend less money, or they are
going to have to make more money. And I use that 85/15. Others will
tell you it is 86/14, not quite as good as the 85/15, because this is
exactly where we are in energy use in our country. Eighty-five percent
of the energy we use comes from natural gas, today at the highest price
ever, over $15, and oil and coal. And only 15 percent of it comes from
other sources. A bit more than half of that 15 percent, 8 percent of
it, comes from nuclear. It is 20 percent of our electricity, but only 8
percent of our total energy production.
As you drive home tonight, Mr. Speaker, every fifth house and every
fifth business would be dark if it were not for the electricity
produced by nuclear power. And here we have blown up the 7 percent of
renewable energy. Now, as we run down the other side of Hubbert's Peak,
and as we exhaust, as we surely will, in time, the fossil fuels in our
world, this is what we will have to deal with, nuclear and renewables.
Look at what these renewables are. Conventional hydro. Nearly half of
it. We have tapped out in our country. We might get some microhydro,
but the big stuff we have dammed up all the rivers we should have and
maybe a few that we should not have.
Second largest contributor: wood. That is the paper industry and the
timber industry, wisely using what would otherwise be a waste product.
And then burning waste. I mentioned that in a former chart, and that
is 8 percent now. That is 8 percent of 7 percent. That is not a lot, by
the way. That could grow and should grow.
And then we get down to the things that we increasingly will have to
rely on. Now, this is the 2000 chart, and things like solar and wind
have been growing at 30 percent. Mr. Speaker, that doubles in about
2\1/2\ years. It is four times bigger in 5 years. So this is 5 years
later. So let us say it is four times bigger. So instead of being .07
percent, that is what 1 percent of 7 percent is, is it not, .07
percent, instead of being .07 percent, it is .28 percent. Big deal. A
little over one-fourth of 1 percent.
Now, eventually we will have to be getting a major proportion of our
energy from such things as solar and wind and agricultural. Today they
are trifling amounts. And it takes quite awhile to ramp these things up
and a lot of investment. It takes investments of both time and energy
and also money.
The next chart, I think, is one that puts in perspective what we are
talking about better than perhaps any other chart. And I want to look
at the top here. The bottom of it, by the way, we simply, for a short
time period, explode the petroleum and natural gas. They are joined
here, and it is a little better to see them together. But this shows
the history of the world from 1600s on, and it shows the Industrial
Revolution that began with wood and we were making steel when we were
using charcoal from wood.
And then it shows what happened with coal and how much more energy on
the ordinate here is quadrillion Btus of energy. Notice what happened
when we found oil and gas. It exploded. That
[[Page 28151]]
is the result of exponential growth. That is 2 percent exponential
growth.
Now, it is very steep because we have really compressed the abscissa
here. And the previous charts, we will show another one that shows it
in a big spread out curve like this. But that is spreading out only a
few years. If you expanded this abscissa, that curve would look like
that.
And by the way, the world's population has generally followed this.
We started out with about a billion people, more or less here. And now
we have 7 billion people.
Mr. Speaker, we are about 100 to 150 years into the age of oil. It is
probable that we are halfway through the age of oil. I would submit
that when we found that incredible wealth under the ground, that we
collectively, our country and all the other countries in the world,
should have stopped and said, gee, what will we do with this? Now, this
was incredible wealth. Let me give you a couple of examples of what
this meant. One barrel of oil, the refined product which you can buy
for less, about a hundred dollars, will give you the work output of 12
people working all year for you. Imagine how far 1 gallon of gas or
diesel fuel will carry your car and how long it would take you to pull
your car or SUV or truck that far. You get some idea of the quality of
energy, of the energy density in these fossil fuels.
If you worked really hard all day long at manual labor, I will get
more work out of an electric motor with less than 25 cents' worth of
electricity. That is the quality of this wealth that we found. What we
should have done is say, gee, what will we do with this, so that
mankind, for now and for the future, will benefit most from this
incredible wealth that we found under the ground. We did not do that.
What we did, we collectively, the whole world, what we did was to pile
in and exploit this just as quickly and irresponsibly as the kids who
found the cookie jar.
We really, Mr. Speaker, should have taken note--what will we do with
this incredible wealth so that it will do the most good for the most
people for the most time? In another 100, 150 years we will be through
the age of oil, and 5,000 years of recorded history will be just a blip
on this long screen. What will our world be like when we have run down
the other side of Hubbert's Peak, when we have exhausted the natural
gas, when we have converted the coal to gas and oil and used that?
{time} 2215
What will we feed our people, 7 billion people now?
The next chart shows some of these characteristics. This shows kind
of the energy density quality. These are gigajoules per ton. A joule is
a measure of energy. It is a scientific one that most people do not use
in their usual discussions, but it shows here, we start with crude oil,
and it gets better and better as we refine it. And then the things that
we are going to have to replace it with, domestic refuge, brown coal,
that will be gone. Straw, dung. We do not burn much dried dung in our
country. In some parts of the world, they cook their meals and warm
their houses with dried dung. Wood. Black coal, that will be gone. When
we are through the age of oil, we will have used the coal. Ethanol, it
does not look at all that bad here, does it? Way short of the energy
density of these hydrocarbons from fossil fuels but better than most of
these other things, many of which will be gone anyhow by that time.
This speaks to the challenge that we have.
Let us put the critics chart back up again. And the fourth one here,
By the time we are close to peaking out on all of the types of
hydrocarbon molecules which can be refined into oil, a host of
competing fuel technologies will have overtaken hydrocarbons
altogether, using technologies that no one can anticipate today.
I hope he is right. I hope he is right. I also hope that everybody
who has played the lottery today is going to win. Obviously, only one
out of the millions who played it is going to win. And I think the odds
of this happy scenario happening are roughly the same odds that you or
I, and I do not play the lottery, but if I did, the odds of my winning
the lottery. What could it possibly be?
I would submit that we need to be very careful how quickly we exhaust
the resources we have until we are sure what these miracle replacements
are going to be. Once they are out there and definable and achievable,
then, yes, okay. But short of that, we really need to husband what we
have so that we can make this transition as smooth as possible.
The next chart are some quotes that I would like to spend just a
moment on because I think they are so significant. Again I would like
to emphasize, this is a report that was funded by our Department of
Energy, done by the very prestigious SAIC, Dr. Robert Hirsch, a real
authority that headed this, and let me read what they said: World oil
peaking is going to happen. No wishful thinking will avoid it. It is
going to happen. World production of conventional oil will reach a
maximum and decline thereafter. It happened in our country. King
Hubbert predicted it. Why will it not happen in the world? It will
happen in the world. The only question is, when it will happen?
Predicting the peaking is extremely difficult because of geological
complexities, measurement problems, pricing variations, demand,
elasticity, political influences. Peaking will happen but the timing is
uncertain. Most of the authorities believe that it will be within the
next decade: Oil peaking presents a unique challenge. And then I
emphasize here, The world, he says, has never faced a problem like
this. And the first chart, it said, unprecedented challenges. Never
have there been challenges like this. Without massive mitigation, more
than a decade before the fact, the problem will be pervasive and will
not be temporary.
Previous energy transitions, wood to coal and coal to oil, as we just
looked at, were gradual and evolutionary. Oil peaking will be abrupt
and revolutionary, he says.
In our closing moments, I would like to just show some of the things
that they were doing. What they have done is to simplify this bell
curve to make it a little triangle because they want to use that to
depict the solutions that they are suggesting are possible. On the
bottom here is an interesting one, and what it shows is that oil price
spike hikes have not made any difference in the amount of oil that is
available.
This is the production of oil, and this is price spike hike. If
making more profit because it sells for more would stimulate
production, then one would have thought we would see a big production
peak follow this. Notice we do not really see any big production peak
following that.
Now, they have simplified this bell curve, and the next chart shows
the reason why. This is just a little schematic, and they have a number
of alternatives that they could use to fill the gap. The gap is going
up like this, and then it is going to fall off, and we would like it to
keep on going up so we could keep using more and more, and these are
things we would fill the gap with.
The next chart shows what happens if we wait until it happens. Then
we have a major, major economic problem because it takes quite a while
to get these things going. If we anticipate it by 10 years, we have
less of a problem but still a problem. To not have a meaningful
problem, we must anticipate it by 20 years. Clearly, we have probably
passed that point. By most people's reckoning, we have passed that
point.
The next chart is a little schematic that I think shows it very well.
This, again, is a 2-percent curve. This is a schematic curve, and what
it shows is a 2-percent increase in the rate at which we are using it,
which has been the rate at which we are producing it. That will slow as
we reach peak oil. And notice that the gap starts to occur before we
reach peak oil.
I would submit, Mr. Speaker, that what we do not want to do is to try
to meet the challenge of filling that gap because, if we do, we only
have a really sharp decline on the other side. What we really need to
do is to depress our
[[Page 28152]]
use with conservation efficiency so that we have something to invest in
the alternatives that we must invest in. With oil at $60 a barrel,
obviously there is not as much as we would like to have or it would be
cheaper.
I would like to close by putting up again this chart which I think is
so significant. This is kind of a global long-term look at the problem.
This is where we are, about halfway through the age of oil. Now, we
have been as a world and as a country, as a society, rather grossly
irresponsible up to this time.
Mr. Speaker, whether we like it or not, oil will peak. We will start
down the other side. We will shift to the alternatives. That will be a
much less traumatic transition if we plan for it. And my urging tonight
is that we need in our country to address this problem with the kind of
an overall commitment we had when we fought World War II, and I lived
through that, with the kind of a technical commitment we had to putting
a man on the moon and the kind of urgency we had in the Manhattan
Project. Mr. Speaker, I think that if we have a national, an
international program that has those elements in it, that we probably
can have a relatively smooth landing. Minus that, it could be a very
rough landing not just for us but for all of the world.
Mr. Speaker, the great ingenuity of the American people cannot be
harnessed, and I hope that we can challenge them so that we will meet
this challenge and have a relatively smooth transition.
____________________
THE 30-SOMETHING WORKING GROUP
The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Poe). Under the Speaker's announced
policy of January 4, 2005, the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Meek) is
recognized for half the remaining time until midnight, approximately 48
minutes.
Mr. MEEK of Florida. Mr. Speaker, it is an honor to address the House
once again. I would like to thank not only the Democratic leader but
the Democratic leadership for allowing the 30-Something Working Group
to come to the floor again not only to address the Members but also
interested parties in how our country conducts its business and how we
operate this government that the American taxpayers have allowed us to
oversee.
There is a lot going on, Mr. Speaker. I must add a lot of it is quite
discouraging when we start looking at how we are conducting business
here in Washington, D.C. But I think it is very important and very
appropriate for not only Mr. Delahunt but Ms. Wasserman Schultz and
also Mr. Ryan of Ohio to come to the floor to share with the American
people things that the Democratic side of the aisle are working on to
improve their lives.
I can tell the Members try, day in and day out, not only in the
committees but here on the floor working on behalf of Americans,
protecting Americans here at home, dealing with issues as it relates to
implementing the recommendations of the 9/11 reports. As Members know,
the 9/11 Commission has given this government failing grades across the
board of implementing some of the projects that they would like to see
implemented to protect Americans. Also, we have been standing up for
Americans that have served in harm's way, veterans, making sure that
they are able to get improved health care benefits. But in this
particular budget that the Republican majority passed, we know the
lines are going to get longer and services are going to be cut back or
veterans are going to have to pay more.
We released a report today dealing with Hurricane Katrina. In the
same week that the Republican majority, Mr. Speaker, is going to pass a
budget on the backs of working Americans to give millionaires tax
breaks, we still have families living in tents. Tents. While we are
kicking others out of hotel rooms, we are giving tax breaks to
millionaires and billionaires. And I think it is important that we
understand what is happening right now in the moment.
I do not want to wait for the book to come out, Mr. Speaker. I want
to do something about it before one can write the book. And if they are
going to write a book, it is going to talk about Americans and Congress
came together. Hopefully, we can get some of our Republican colleagues
in a bipartisan way to save the American taxpayer and to save the
Americans that are in need right now.
There is a lot of concern and focus on what is going on hundreds and
thousands of miles away as it relates to a group of individuals that we
have done quite a bit for recently in Iraq. Americans simply ask for,
not just Democrats in the House but also the Senate has asked the
President for a clear plan as it relates to dealing with the issue of
Iraq and our troops and making sure that we can bring families together
in the very near future.
I think it is important that we continue to hit on these issues. I do
not know what the American children and families have done to the
Republican majority, but I can say that if they passed this budget,
what the majority would like to do on the backs of Americans and in the
same week give the wealthiest Americans an unprecedented tax break in
the history of this Republic, I think it is something that the American
people are going to have to evaluate. The Democrats, on this side, we
are trying very much to protect access to health care for Americans.
Not a mumbling word, not a mumbling word, from this Congress on this
issue of the health care crisis here in Congress. But I am glad that
the 30-Something Working Group does not find it robbery to come to the
floor to bring light to these issues and make sure that not only
Independents, Republicans and Democrats know what is happening here
under the Capitol Dome but also know what is not happening.
And with that, I yield to the gentlewoman from the great State of
Florida (Ms. Wasserman Schultz).
Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to join my good
friend from Ohio and Massachusetts and Florida here each week.
Just to pick up what the gentleman was talking about, it is, sadly,
not only on the gulf coast that we have had the issue of housing
difficulties following Wilma. They had the same issue in Katrina on the
gulf coast. We have got the same issue going on in Wilma, which was
much smaller in scope but affected a significant number of people. We
had more people affected by Wilma in terms of electric utility outages
than all of Katrina, and we still to this day have Wilma victims in
South Florida who have not been given temporary housing assistance,
still people who are struggling to find that. Yet we are passing budget
reconciliation, budget cut bills. We are passing tax cut bills in the
name of offsetting the cost of the relief that we need to provide for
Katrina victims and victims of natural disasters when the reality is
that what we are doing with budget cuts is a direct result of needing
to pay for the tax cuts that were passed just a week later.
And I want to echo what our good friend from Pennsylvania said when
he introduced his Iraq War resolution, and he has repeated this a
number of times, that just because you say it does not make it true.
And our good friends on the other side of the aisle can continue to
repeat over and over if they want to that they are offsetting the cost
of Katrina relief with budget cuts, but we all know that the reality
is, and I mean, we have only to do the math, that when they pass $50
billion in budget cuts one week and then the very next week they pass
$70 billion in tax cuts, that is not a Deficit Reduction Act, as they
called it and titled that bill, when we are adding $20 billion to the
deficit.
I do not know. I go back to my kindergarten and first grade
mathematics and can pretty easily sit down with my 6-year-olds, and
they can figure out that the math does not work. But, unfortunately,
what we have going on here, I guess, the politics of what is going on
here is about message. And the Republican leadership's politics is
repetition, repetition, repetition. They figure if they repeat the same
message over and over again, whether it is true or not, that they
figure if it has a kernel of truth, that people will believe it.
[[Page 28153]]
{time} 2230
But Mr. Murtha is absolutely right on tax-cut policy, on budget-cut
policy, whether it is how we got into the Iraq war and even down to the
description of his own resolution. If you say it, just because you say
it does not make it true. That is really what we need to get across to
the American people.
I would like to yield to my good friend, the gentleman from Ohio.
Mr. RYAN of Ohio. Mr. Speaker, I just totally agree. I think we are
talking about some basic principles here of which the government that
currently rules is not reflective of what is going on in Ohio, in
Florida, in the Gulf States, in Massachusetts. We are clearly not
addressing the main issues.
I know my friend from Massachusetts has some comments to make, so I
am going to kick it over to him. But I think as we make our
presentation tonight, this is not personal with the Republicans,
because I think we have all agreed, we have got some good friends on
the other side of the aisle. We are just disagreeing with their
philosophy of governing.
When you see here tonight, with some great charts that Tom Manatos
from our staff has put together for us, the kind of spending that our
country is doing in Iraq and the kind of cuts that we have here in the
United States, when you see the tax cuts, the amount and who they are
going to and the cuts in the budget in specific programs that are
geared towards the middle class, Medicare, Medicaid, and the level of
sacrifice that average people are being asked to make here, it is
unbelievable.
When you talk about Delphi going bankrupt; Ford came out last week,
they are going to cut 30,000 jobs and close 10 plants. The economy may
be growing, but average middle Americans are not seeing it in their
paychecks, and they are seeing tremendous increases in their energy
costs and gas and heating oil and the like. I know you have been very
instrumental in a variety of ways in Massachusetts to help with that.
Mr. DELAHUNT. Mr. Speaker, I think the point that our colleague Ms.
Wasserman Schultz was making about arithmetic and the fact that,
despite the rhetoric, the reality is that the deficit will increase as
a result of the action that this Republican majority will take during
the course of this week in concert with the Republican Senate in terms
of spending cuts and tax cuts, these so-called reconciliation bills.
I think it is important to note a very disturbing statistic that was
referred to in a Wall Street Journal article, and that is that the
Federal Government's budget deficit in December, in December 2005, the
month just concluded, was in excess of $83 billion. That is for a
single month. That is an increase of some 43 percent from a year
earlier, that is from November of 2004, and a record high for any
November in American history.
So the direction that this country is headed with the economic
policies that are debated and voted on, again recognizing that there is
a Republican majority, I would submit are heading our Nation into a
potential economic tsunami. Distinguished economists from all places on
the spectrum have expressed concern. I am sure during the course of our
conversation, knowing how well prepared you all are, you 30-somethings,
you will be able to provide a quote for our colleagues and for those
that are watching our conversation this evening. But stop for one
minute and simply think of that figure, $83 billion.
Mr. RYAN of Ohio. Just to clarify that, we are running an $83 billion
deficit just for one month, just for the month of November, which means
we do not have the money; we are not taking in the money to pay out the
bills, and we have got to go and borrow the money. And this $83 billion
that the gentleman from Massachusetts was talking about, we are
borrowing it from China. We are borrowing it from Saudi Arabia. We are
borrowing it from Japan, and we have to pay interest on it.
So we are running up a tab here for the next generation that is not
fair. And we are doing things to the next generation, our generation,
our generation, that we are going to eventually have to pay the bill.
Mr. MEEK of Florida. Mr. Speaker, reclaiming my time, there was a
time and a place that we could say future generations, but we are
talking about right now. We are talking about taking and cutting out of
the budget child enforcement, Mr. Speaker, enforcement that State
attorneys have to go after deadbeat dads, that mothers will lose money
out of, deadbeat parents. Let me say that children will go without.
We are talking in this budget about cutting free and reduced lunches
for children. We are talking about cutting money out of the veteran
affairs. The Republican majority in this budget is instructing through
legislation the Veteran Affairs Committee to cut over $650 million out
of veteran affairs.
I do not understand. We can talk about future generations as it
relates to the budget and the $27,000-plus that they already owe at
birth, but let us talk about what is happening right now. The lines are
going to get longer for veterans. Under Medicaid, children will not get
eye examinations because of this cut.
I could see it if we were to say, Mr. Speaker, we did not have the
money for this. But we are giving the money to millionaires. We are
giving the money to billionaires.
Mr. DELAHUNT. We are also giving money to the Iraqi people and
denying it to the American people.
Mr. MEEK of Florida. Well, Mr. Delahunt, I must add to just say this,
that we are compassionate to the oil companies. We are giving them
money when they are making record-breaking profits. So when folks say,
well, Congressman, when we get an e-mail or so to Members of Congress,
well, what are you so alarmed about? We are in the majority. What are
you concerned about? You gain the majority on the Democratic side, and
you can do something different.
We have reams of plans where we want to put American people first. We
want to put our troops first, our troops' families first. We want to
put our veterans first. We want to put a child that did nothing but was
born as an American child first. That is what we want to do. We want to
do away with the culture of corruption and cronyism and incompetence.
What is wrong with that?
So, Mr. Delahunt and Mr. Ryan and Ms. Wasserman Schultz, when we talk
about future generations, we have to talk about now in the present. We
are not talking about Republican families will not suffer under this.
They will suffer just as bad as independents and Democratic families.
So I think it is important that we should be alarmed, that Americans
should be alarmed. These are the very same individuals, I am sorry, I
have to pull my chart out; Mr. Delahunt, you can't say this enough,
these are the folks that are saying, Trust us, we know how to operate
the government.
Then you have a President that could not do it by himself with a
Republican majority who made this country more dependent on foreign
countries like China, Saudi Arabia, Japan, borrowing $1.05 trillion. I
cannot say that enough. In 4 years, that has trumped 42 presidents
before him, $1.01 trillion. In 224 years of presidencies, of all the
crises we have had, this President seems to have done it in 4 years.
You would think that cities would be a shining example of the Federal
commitment after all of this money has been borrowed from foreign
nations. No, cities are putting levies and millage and going out to the
taxpayers asking for more money, a penny here, a penny there.
Meanwhile, back at the ranch, people are getting tax cuts, millionaires
are getting tax cuts on the backs of the very people that we are trying
to provide a government for.
So, Mr. Delahunt and Ms. Wasserman Schultz and Mr. Ryan, if we could
talk about the present, because we talk about future generations and
some folks will say we will have time, we will recover. But this is
unprecedented. The deficit has never been this high.
Mr. DELAHUNT. If I could talk about the immediate future for one
moment to follow up, because I think you make a prescient point.
[[Page 28154]]
While we are standing here today, there was a report that I listened
to that indicated that the chairman of the Defense Appropriations
Committee, a highly respected and regarded Member of this House,
Chairman Bill Young from Florida, and the senior Democrat, the ranking
member whom you alluded to earlier, John Murtha, again, highly
regarded, well-respected, served his country in Vietnam, a senior
Democrat, on the Defense Appropriations bill that their staffs are
preparing, already an additional $100 billion in that supplemental
budget to be put to this House, to this Congress, for approval in the
not-too-distant future. That is an additional $100 billion that will be
utilized in Iraq, not here in America.
Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. Mr. Speaker, if the gentleman will yield
further, we talk about the culture of corruption and cronyism and the
total lack of competence on a regular basis in our 30-Something Working
Group, and we are really zeroing in on the incompetence tonight, the
incompetence and the indifference, because really the two are hand-in-
glove.
Mr. Delahunt, you talked about the economic tsunami, and I want to
follow up on that, but let us build up to the economic tsunami that you
have been describing.
First, Mr. Meek talks about the debt, the debt under this President
being more than the combined total of the previous 42 presidents prior
to this one.
Now, we have a chart over here that talks about the Defense budget
deficits. Let us just look at the two years when we transitioned from
President Clinton to President Bush. If you look in fiscal year 2001
and fiscal year 2002, fiscal year 2001, we had a surplus of $128.2
billion. You move into fiscal year 2002, and we have a deficit of
$157.8 billion.
Mr. MEEK of Florida. Incompetence.
Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. If that is not evidence of incompetence, how
do you have that big a swing from one year to the next, with the only
difference being the person in the White House?
Mr. RYAN of Ohio. Can I just make a point there, because I think it
just fits right into there? $100 billion more in Iraq, $200 billion we
have already spent, $100 million here for media campaigns. We have
Republican media consultants slopping at the trough of the Defense
Department so that they can put on a PR campaign in Afghanistan when
the Afghanistan people do not even want it. The same in Iraq.
Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. It keeps going: $157.8 billion; a $377.6
billion deficit the next year; $412.1 billion deficit the year after
that. We are getting a little better; we go back to $319 billion. Now
we are at $323 billion. So the track record here is that there was one
dip in the whole time that this President has been in office, and now
we are climbing back again.
Yet, supposedly, we just passed the Deficit Reduction Act. If you are
going to zero in on the incompetence, talk about the fact that the 9/11
Commission just came out with a report grading this administration and
this Congress an F on the necessary follow-up to their recommendations.
There is still no unified list of terror suspects for use by air travel
screeners. There has been a misallocation of funds in terms of Homeland
Security money. You have big city police and firefighters who still
lack the ability to talk to each other. They lack the communications
systems that were one of the key recommendations.
Remember, after 9/11, if you know nothing about what happened after
9/11, the thing that sticks in everyone's mind was it was so shocking
that these police and firefighters, between agencies, city to county
and station to station, could not talk to each other because their
communications systems do not line up. They could not talk to the FBI.
That has not been fixed. It is just unbelievable.
They are still cutting. They are still cutting. They are still
cutting the budget, and they are cutting taxes. They are giving more
money to wealthy people, not just your run-of-the-mill average wealthy
person, but the top two-tenths of 1 percent of the wealthiest people in
America, people who make more than $1 million annually.
So, Mr. Delahunt, you talk about an economic tsunami. The policies
that have been going on in this administration and in this Congress, it
is not just an economic tsunami. What the American people have been hit
with is Hurricane Republican. You really cannot describe it any other
way, because they have been hit by Katrina, they have been hit by Rita,
they have been hit by Wilma. And instead of fixing it, instead of
addressing the problems that the American people need addressed, they
have now been hit by Hurricane Republican.
{time} 2245
Or they are about to. We can stave it off. We could stave if off
because there is a conference report. A bill is passed out of the
House. A bill is passed out of the Senate. The cuts Mr. Delahunt
described do not have to happen. There is still time to rethink this
and come together and truly work together, which in my 11 months here
just has not happened enough. There are isolated pockets of instances
when we do work together, and I know compromise is possible.
I am praying that that happens because the aftermath of the Hurricane
Republican could be worse than Katrina, but it does not have to be that
way. I yield to the gentleman from Florida.
Mr. MEEK of Florida. Can I amend that chart and say Hurricane
Republican Majority, because we represent Republicans that believe in
what we are talking about here tonight. Goodness gracious, the average
Republican's stomach would turn if they even knew half of what is
happening in this House. You can have a convention or you can have a
pep talk or you can go on a radio show and give one side, but these are
facts, not fiction. There are third-party validators behind all of
these numbers. They can go on the U.S. Treasury Web site and find that
we are borrowing more in the history than any of the other 42
Presidents before this President from foreign countries. The deficit is
higher than it has ever been before.
The Republican majority is saying we are not going to leave until we
pass this budget on the backs of the American people. I added ``backs
of the American people.'' We are not going to leave until we pass this
tax cut for millionaires and billionaires and special interests. We are
not going to leave until they get what they want or what we want them
to have.
Instead of them saying, We are not going to leave until we make sure
that Americans do not have to pay three times as much for heating and
oil. We are not going to leave until we put forth a bipartisan health
care plan. We are not going to leave until veterans get their fair
share out of the Federal Government and we do what we are supposed to
do. And we are not going to leave until we pressure this administration
to come up with a strategy for Iraq because as we were talking earlier,
the bottom line is is it for everything that has happened in Iraq, and
maybe Mr. Ryan will want to elaborate on this little more, there has
been a time line. But when we start talking about our troops, our men
and women that are in harm's way, oh, we cannot talk about time lines
now.
Talk about the Iraqi elections, the President just gave a speech
saying, well, the elections, this is happening and a permanent
parliament will be in place. They will be seated sometime in March, and
it is going just as planned. Well, guess what, the insurgency knew
about the elections, the insurgency knew of every other benchmark that
we put forth; but when it comes down to our men and women, four marines
died today. When it comes down to our men and women we cannot ask any
questions?
Excuse me, we all salute one flag I think. I think just as the
President has the prerogative to say that this Member is wrong or
Congress is wrong or that Senator is incorrect, we can say the same
thing under this democracy, Mr. Speaker. I think the American people
have risen up. It is not a question if they have arrived yet to this
conclusion, that we need a plan. We need a plan so our troops know
clearly what we are asking of them, so the Defense
[[Page 28155]]
Department can stop acting like the State Department and replace them
with diplomats. Just like Mr. Murtha has said, we need a diplomatic
solution to Iraq.
Yes, we can do things on the horizon. Yes, we can come in and carry
out operations here and there, but to have our troops carrying out
convoys on the grounds of Iraq so that the insurgency can continue to
pick off 10 and five and eight, these are American families. I think we
all in this House should be passionate as if we had children in harm's
way. Period. Dot.
If my son or daughter were there, I would want a plan, a plan to
where it just does not move based on what the President says about stay
the course. Stay the course for what? Stay the course for what? For the
elections? We have a plan there. We know when the elections are going
to happen. The insurgents know when their government is going to be
placed. But to say if we reveal that then it will hurt our operations
there. Rhetoric.
So I think it is important if we are going to stay here, and I am
prepared to stay, I am prepared to stay until we deal with the real
energy crisis that we have here at home, until we deal with health
care, until we make sure that jobs are secure here in America, until we
make sure that we get a real budget that is going to decrease the
budget and we are record breaking.
I want to say this in closing out the comments here, an editorial
from the Lafayette Daily Advertiser. I talked this out with the
gentlewoman from Florida (Ms. Wasserman Schultz) because we went
through Wilma. We were here fighting on behalf of Hurricane Katrina
victims and survivors. Meanwhile, while we are fighting, a hurricane
hits our district. Now we are having to talk about not only Katrina,
but Rita, Wilma, and a number of other storms. This could be in a paper
in a Member's district soon: ``Tax Cuts to the Rich Shouldn't Come At
Gulf Coast Expense.''
Let me take one paragraph from here:
``We can't afford a levee protection system for south Louisiana, but
we can afford to give away $56 billion over the next 5 years to people
who don't need it.''
Now this is what the paper is saying. It is not what I am saying.
There is not enough money to help the people pay their mortgage on
uninhabitable homes that insurance companies will not pay for, but we
will give millions to millionaires, $32,000 extra each year in tax
breaks.
Like I said, if it was a perfect world at this point, I would assume
that it would be okay, but it is not. We have Americans living in
tents. We have Americans thinking about, I heard some Members coming to
the floor talking about Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanza, you name it, the
high religious season that we are getting into now. Meanwhile, we are
giving notices to Americans that you are going to be evicted, a judge
had to step in and say not so. A judge had to step in.
We have Members here that are throwing rocks at the judiciary. I say
thank God for the judiciary in this case. Someone needs to stop this
culture of corruption and cronyism and incompetence. And I would add
incompetence as it relates to evicting Americans. Meanwhile, we are
record breaking spending money over in Iraq right now with no plan, no
plan to say we need to take the training wheels off the Iraqi
Government and let them know. Just like we can have elections on time,
we can have a redeployment plan on time and we are offering that
option.
I ask some of my Republican colleagues on the other time, and some of
them are, a very small group, but I asked them to be able to rise up
because when historians in the very near future, and I do say the very
near future, when they start looking at what we were doing and, guess
what, what the Republican majority was not doing under the
circumstances, I think that there is going to be a price to pay
politically for the inaction that they have not taken.
Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. Sometimes incompetence is benign. We all
interact with people who make mistakes, who maybe are not up to the par
that we would like them to be. But not when the stakes are this high,
not when you are talking about the people who are running the
Government of the United States of America. I mean, not when
incompetence results in debts.
The thousands of people that are harmed or died as a result of
Katrina, incompetence hurt them or killed them. Governor Blanco today,
thank God for technology, we talked about that last week a little bit.
E-mail technology allows us to know now as opposed to what goes in a
paper shredder, that the White House, Homeland Security, and FEMA all
knew what was going on down in New Orleans immediately following
Katrina and as she was approaching; and they either did nothing or did
not know what to do.
That kind of incompetence is dangerous. When it is benign you can
look the other way and you can sort of throw up your hands and say,
well, those are just things you have to deal with when you encounter
incompetence. We cannot allow incompetence to reach the heights that we
have in this country.
Mr. DELAHUNT. Mr. Speaker, I would suggest that that incompetence has
characterized this administration for the past 5 years. And I say that
with no glee. I say that purely from a concern about the quality of
life that our people are experiencing here in this country as a result
of miscalculations, incompetence, and a blind belief and denial of
reality.
Do you remember prior to the war when we were told by the Secretary
of Defense, and now I am going to quote Mr. Rumsfeld, ``When it comes
to reconstruction, before we turn to the American taxpayer, we will
turn first to the resources of the Iraqi Government and the
international community.''
His deputy Paul Wolfowitz, he made the following statement: There is
a lot of money to pay for this that does not have to be U.S. taxpayer
money and it starts with the assets of the Iraqi people. We are dealing
with a country that can really finance its own reconstruction.
If you remember the name of President Bush's chief economic adviser,
Larry Lindsey, when he predicted that the cost of the war with Iraq
would range somewhere between 100 and $200 billion, he was dismissed,
he was fired.
I do not want tonight to talk about intelligence and the issue of
weapons of mass destruction and links to al Qaeda, et cetera, et
cetera; but there has consistently been mistakes and miscalculations
because there is such a conviction of righteousness, if you will.
Mr. RYAN of Ohio. Mr. Speaker, can I make a comment?
We have the poster here from Newsweek that has our esteemed leader in
a bubble and it is called the ``Isolated President.'' And I think this
goes to exactly what the gentleman was just saying and what Ms.
Wasserman Schultz was just saying and what Mr. Meek of Florida was just
saying.
The comments that Secretary Wolfowitz made and Secretary Rumsfeld
just were not true. The comments about the tax cuts and what they would
do for average people just did not turn out to be true. And about the
war and how we would progress just did not come to be true. And the
bubble here symbolizes all these people like Mr. Lindsey who are
saying, no, it is going to cost us $200 billion and they fire him. And
the general who said we are going to need a couple hundred thousand
troops in order to do this properly, and they dismissed him too. It
turns out that we needed all these troops there.
It just seems that this administration does not want to hear from
other outside viewpoints in order for us to fix this problem.
Now, Mr. Meek was talking about what I found very interesting. I have
the President's speech here that he was talking about earlier, and the
President talks about the first milestone we had was the transfer of
sovereignty at the end of June. And the second milestone was the Iraqi
election, and the third milestone, if we had these milestones as Mr.
Meek said, these benchmarks, when we were going to transfer,
[[Page 28156]]
when the election was going to be, when the interim government was
going to take place, then December 15, which is coming up in just a day
or two, we had benchmarks.
{time} 2300
So why would we not have benchmarks for when we are going to get out?
That is all we are arguing here.
No Child Left Behind, in which we all agreed on, the Republican
majority has not funded it, which was a key element, but we agreed that
schools need to be accountable, and if you do not hit certain levels,
you are not helping kids.
Accountability, the President talks a lot about accountability. We
need to just say, Mr. President, this administration, Mr. Secretary,
you need to be accountable, need to be accountable in Iraq, accountable
for the budget deficit, accountable for cutting food stamps and giving
tax cuts to the top 1 percent. You need to take responsibility for
that.
Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. You are absolutely right. The President is
trying to get away with saying generically, amorphously, we are not
going to withdraw traps and withdraw from Iraq until we have results on
the ground, results-oriented withdrawal.
I want to know, my constituents want to know, the American people
want to know, what does that mean? Does it mean when the Iraqi troops
are 50 percent independent and cannot operate on their own and protect
their own country, 75, 23? Which is it? You cannot pick and choose. He
cannot be allowed to pick and choose which elements of the process in
Iraq he is going to put a number on and which element he is not going
to.
Mr. RYAN of Ohio. Mr. Speaker, can I make another comment in addition
to what you just said, why are not the people who are in his
administration being held accountable? You tell the American people and
you talk them into something by saying it is not going to cost you any
money, we are going to use the oil revenue, we are only going to be
there a little while, we will not need as many troops as we actually do
really need; why were not any of those people held accountable for
their mistakes, all the mistakes that were being made? We went to Iraq,
and we are on the Armed Services Committee, and we support the Defense
appropriations and body armor and up-armor. We were on all the letters,
all the pressure that was applied to make sure these troops had what
they needed. We were there to support them every step of the way. No
one's going to tell me that I am not supporting the troops, but someone
needs to be held accountable.
All the mistakes that were made, are you telling me that no one
should get fired? Who is the guy who hired the contractor who committed
fraud in the 1990s and then stole $200,000 in the last year or two? Who
hired him? What is this Mike Brown all about? I mean, you hire cronies,
they do an incompetent job, and no one gets fired.
Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. Mr. Speaker, let me just insert one more thing
because the Newsweek cover just says it all. In Bush's world, in the
President's world, you do not have to have accountability. You do not
have to put numbers on anything you do. You do not have to say what
percentage prepared the troops have to be, and you are never wrong.
I have had to teach my kids, and they love to insist that they do not
make mistakes. That is the orientation of a juvenile. My young children
do not understand that sometimes they are wrong and this is okay and
that you should learn how to change course. But in Bush's world, in the
President's world, that does not happen. Because he is the President,
he apparently has surrounded himself with people who either cannot
convince him that he is wrong or he has surrounded himself with people
that insist on agreeing with him all the time.
Mr. RYAN of Ohio. So when they say after 5 years of all of the
misrepresentation and all of the lack of accountability and the
incompetence and the cronyism and the corruption, the culture of
corruption that we have here, when you come to us 5 or 6 years later,
in the midst of a war and huge budget deficits, and you say to the
American people just trust us, it becomes very difficult for us to just
trust.
Mr. DELAHUNT. Mr. Speaker, I am going to refer in a moment to this
chart to my left, but I think in fairness we have to note that just
this past week, for the first time, President Bush has acknowledged
that mistakes were made. I want to commend him for that, and I know we
all share that.
He acknowledged last week ``that the multibillion dollar
reconstruction of Iraq,'' and I am using his words now, ``has `been
uneven' and hobbled by corruption, misplaced priorities and insurgent
attacks.'' This report is from the Washington Post. It is dated
December 8. It goes on to state: ``In an unusually stark assessment of
the situation in Iraq,'' the President ``described several strategic
errors in managing a rebuilding effort that he said proceeded in `fits
and starts.' By learning from its mistakes,'' the President said ``the
administration has reshaped its approach.''
I think it is important that we note that. We welcome that. But it is
long, long overdue, and as I said earlier, we are anticipating
receiving in the next several months a request, a supplemental request,
for an additional $100 billion. Let us talk about what our priorities
are in terms of the American people and our involvement in Iraq.
I was here when a supplemental budget came before us. I, and others,
advocated that rather than just simply giving this money for
reconstruction to the so-called interim government that we put it in
the form of a loan. Every other major donor country insisted, clearly
providing favorable terms and conditions and years to repay, but that
they would be reimbursed so that their children and grandchildren would
not have to confront the order of magnitude that we see in terms of our
deficits.
Look at this chart for a minute. We are cutting $505 million on
student loans, and the interest rates, therefore, will be higher. That
is a cut to a generation of students that we need to be engaged at the
highest level to compete in this global economy. Yet, at the same time,
we are providing $508 million of transportation and communication,
including construction of 28 railroad stations in Iraq's southern
provinces, and we will never see a dime of that. That is a giveaway.
That is a grant. Despite the words of Secretary Rumsfeld and Under
Secretary Wolfowitz, that said that we would not have to pay a dime of
American taxpayer dollars, what we are doing is we are funding that
project and cutting necessary programs for Americans, and we are giving
it away overseas.
The tragedy of it all is that there is pervasive corruption going on
in Iraq today with those dollars, and the President has acknowledged
that. He has acknowledged the fact that there is corruption today in
Iraq and American taxpayers dollars are being misused and wasted and
stolen. Meanwhile, our own people are suffering.
That is wrong, Mr. Speaker. That ought not to be happening, and there
is a responsibility on the part of this Congress, because we have not
had a single oversight hearing, despite the requests of many Members,
including myself, to take a good and hard look at this massive
corruption that is ongoing today as we speak in Iraq.
Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. Just before we close down in our last couple
of minutes, we have been talking about the culture of corruption and
cronyism and incompetence, zeroing in on incompetence today, and we are
about third party validators. It is not just that we say it.
We got an e-mail on our 30-Something Web site that responded to some
of the things we have been talking about. It was actually a Mr. Miller
from Connecticut who said, ``You folks are a great breath of fresh air.
I like the theme of `a culture of corruption, cronyism, and
incompetence.' Well put, but incomplete. The massive rampant
incompetence of this administration,'' he said, ``is a huge problem, no
doubt. But for me, a bigger problem is their fundamental disbelief in
democratic processes of checks and balances combined with overwhelming
ideological arrogance that allows belief to trump evidence.''
[[Page 28157]]
I could not have said it better myself.
{time} 2310
Mr. RYAN of Ohio. I want to say, and I know Mr. Miller was being
complimentary of us when he said he liked the culture of corruption,
but I do not like it. I do not like it.
I do not like coming down here and trying to inform the American
people what third-party validators are saying about what is going on
down here in a negative way. Because I would hope we could come down
here with solutions and work on it and talk about how we are making
this better, how we are having oversight hearings and everything else.
Do not think for one second we like it. But this is going on here and
the American people need to hear about it.