[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 153 (2007), Part 12]
[House]
[Pages 16483-16487]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




  PROVIDING FOR CONSIDERATION OF H.R. 2764, THE DEPARTMENT OF STATE, 
   FOREIGN OPERATIONS, AND RELATED PROGRAMS APPROPRIATIONS ACT, 2008

  Mr. HASTINGS of Florida. Mr. Speaker, by direction of the Committee 
on Rules, I call up House Resolution 498 and ask for its immediate 
consideration.
  The Clerk read the resolution, as follows:

                              H. Res. 498

       Resolved,  That at any time after the adoption of this 
     resolution the Speaker may, pursuant to clause 2(b) of rule 
     XVIII, declare the House resolved into the Committee of the 
     Whole House on the state of the Union for consideration of 
     the bill (H.R. 2764) making appropriations for the Department 
     of State, foreign operations, and related programs for the 
     fiscal year ending September 30, 2008, and for other 
     purposes. The first reading of the bill shall be dispensed 
     with. All points of order against consideration of the bill 
     are waived except those arising under clause 9 or 10 of rule 
     XXI. General debate shall be confined to the bill and shall 
     not exceed one hour equally divided and controlled by the 
     chairman and ranking minority member of the Committee on 
     Appropriations. After general debate the bill shall be 
     considered for amendment under the five-minute rule. Points 
     of order against provisions in the bill for failure to comply 
     with clause 2 of rule XXI are waived. During consideration of 
     the bill for amendment, the Chairman of the Committee of the 
     Whole may accord priority in recognition on the basis of 
     whether the Member offering an amendment has caused it to be 
     printed in the portion of the Congressional Record designated 
     for that purpose in clause 8 of rule XVIII. Amendments so 
     printed shall be considered as read. When the committee rises 
     and reports the bill back to the House with a recommendation 
     that the bill do pass, the previous question shall be 
     considered as ordered on the bill and amendments thereto to 
     final passage without intervening motion except one motion to 
     recommit with or without instructions.
       Sec. 2. During consideration in the House of H.R. 2764 
     pursuant to this resolution, notwithstanding the operation of 
     the previous question, the Chair may postpone further 
     consideration of the bill to such time as may be designated 
     by the Speaker.

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The gentleman from Florida (Mr. Hastings) is 
recognized for 1 hour.
  Mr. HASTINGS of Florida. Mr. Speaker, for the purpose of debate only, 
I yield the customary 30 minutes to the gentleman from Florida, my good 
friend, Mr. Diaz-Balart. All time yielded during consideration of the 
rule is for debate only.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.


                             General Leave

  Mr. HASTINGS of Florida. I also ask unanimous consent that all 
Members be given 5 legislative days in which to revise and extend their 
remarks on House Resolution 498.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Is there objection to the request of the 
gentleman from Florida?
  There was no objection.

                              {time}  1115

  Mr. HASTINGS of Florida. Mr. Speaker, House Resolution 498 is an open 
rule that provides for consideration of H.R. 2764, the fiscal year 2008 
appropriations for the Department of State, Foreign Operations, and 
related programs.
  Mr. Speaker, I have seen 15 State and Foreign Operations measures go 
through the House of Representatives in almost 16 years of serving in 
this body. Some bills were well-intentioned, but fell short of meeting 
America's critical needs and objectives, while others missed the target 
altogether.
  Regarding today's State and Foreign Operations bill, I must commend 
Chairwoman Lowey, Ranking Member Wolf,

[[Page 16484]]

their respective staffs and the rest of the committee for coming 
together in a bipartisan fashion to craft this meaningful piece of 
legislation. Despite critical budget constraints and critical concerns, 
the bill is fiscally responsible and begins to address our Nation's 
foreign policy initiatives as they relate to fulfilling our commitments 
abroad.
  In my capacity as chairman of the Commission on Security and 
Cooperation in Europe and as a senior member of the House Permanent 
Select Committee on Intelligence, I believe I can speak to our 
country's need to restore world stability after years of following 
misguided and shortsighted foreign policy.
  This bill provides $34.2 billion overall for foreign assistance and 
State Department operations, with much-needed emphasis placed on 
international AIDS programs, children's health care, basic education 
programs and targeted peacekeeping operations. By increasing funds for 
critical global health, basic education, refugee and disaster 
assistance programs, we are heightening world stability and rebuilding 
our image abroad as a nation builder, not divider.
  In an effort to shift away from a Middle East foreign policy that 
focused a little too narrowly on Iraq, we are now reaching out to 
neighboring Mediterranean countries that need our attention and 
assistance. The escalating situation in Iraq has forced thousands, 
indeed millions, of refugees to flee into neighboring countries, Jordan 
being one of the most heavily affected.
  During a trip to the region almost 2 weeks ago, Mr. Speaker, I 
witnessed firsthand the heart-wrenching effects of people displaced. 
What I learned in Jordan and saw in Kosovo is that there are people in 
this world being forced to live in conditions so inhumane that even our 
wildest nightmares could not comprehend. As such, I am pleased to 
support the bill's allocation of $830 million to provide refugees 
worldwide with food, water and shelter. As I spoke last evening during 
the testimony in the Rules Committee, I said to Mrs. Lowey and to Mr. 
Wolf that I am hopeful in conference that they will be able to add 
funds specifically for Jordan for reasons that I perceive are 
necessary.
  While we must remain vigilant and diligent on combating the evils of 
terrorism, we must also simultaneously seize opportunities to 
establish, maintain and strengthen diplomatic ties in every region of 
the world. I am pleased also to see that the bill provides $365 million 
to enhance our public diplomacy efforts, and allocates $501 million for 
cultural, educational and professional exchange programs globally.
  The underlying legislation includes critical foreign aid to our 
allies in the world, including Israel. It also restores funding in many 
of the areas which the present administration sought to cut.
  As I mentioned, I serve as chairman of the U.S. Helsinki Commission, 
and the President Emeritus of the Organization for Security and 
Cooperation in Europe's Parliamentary Assembly. Mr. Speaker, I am fond 
of saying that if you can say all of that, you ought to be president of 
the assembly. I am deeply appreciative that this bill funds America's 
commitment to the OSCE and the Helsinki Commission, and I indeed thank 
the chairwoman and ranking member, especially the chairwoman, for her 
efforts toward this end.
  Mr. Speaker, America has a responsibility in the world. We are, as is 
constantly reported, the last remaining Superpower. Contrary to what 
many might argue later in this debate, our power cannot and must not be 
flexed only in our military might. On the contrary, our power must be 
flexed in what we do to help repair many of the things that are broken 
in the world.
  The underlying legislation is a critical component in this effort. I 
am pleased to support this open rule and the underlying legislation.
  Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. LINCOLN DIAZ-BALART of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such 
time as I may consume.
  Mr. Speaker, first I would like to thank the gentleman from Florida, 
my good friend, Mr. Hastings, for the time. I would also like to thank 
Chairwoman Lowey and Ranking Member Wolf for their efforts on this 
undeniably important piece of legislation.
  This bill funds a number of U.S. Government programs and activities, 
including the State Department, the United States Agency for 
International Development, foreign, economic and military assistance, 
contributions to international organizations and international 
broadcasting programs.
  Even though aspects of this bill have clearly bipartisan support, 
there are significant areas of concern with some of the priorities that 
the majority has set forth in this legislation.
  Just over a year ago, the people of Colombia reelected President 
Uribe to a second term with over 62 percent of the vote. President 
Uribe is the first President in over 100 years to be reelected by the 
Colombian people. His reelection and his extraordinarily high current 
approval ratings are a testament to his efforts to curb terrorism, 
corruption and narcotrafficking in Colombia.
  For years, designated terrorist organizations in Colombia have 
hampered efforts by the people of that great country to live in a 
peaceful democracy. Proactive action must continue to be taken to 
ensure that armed terrorists are not allowed to create social unrest 
through violence. With the current landscape in the world today, 
foreign assistance, Mr. Speaker, is as strategically important to our 
national interest as it is morally just.
  I am concerned that the underlying legislation cuts funding for Plan 
Colombia $59 million below the President's request and $86.5 million 
below fiscal year 2007. Plan Colombia has achieved significant results. 
When it began, that country was facing a civil war that was tearing it 
apart. Now that the plan has had time to take effect, and with 
President Uribe's leadership, kidnappings have fallen by 75 percent and 
the gross domestic product of Colombia has increased to 7 percent 
annually.
  We must not take progress in the Andean region for granted, however. 
If the United States turns its back on the region, it will falter and 
create a scenario that will require greater U.S. investment and 
sacrifice at a time when obviously we have significant responsibilities 
worldwide, not to mention that we would be spurning a democratically 
elected ally that has bravely fought corruption and narcotrafficking.
  Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank President Bush for his continued 
support for a democratic transition in Cuba. Pursuant to the 
recommendations of his Commission for Assistance to a Free Cuba, the 
President requested $45 million in economic support funds for Cuba pro-
democracy activities. These funds would support efforts for a 
transition to democracy in the Western Hemisphere's only totalitarian 
dictatorship through support for dissidents, human rights activists, 
independent librarians and others who risk their lives each day for 
freedom in that enslaved island. Unfortunately, the bill brought forth 
by the majority is cutting the funds needed to support pro-democracy 
efforts in Cuba and funding less than 20 percent of the President's 
request.
  I would note that under the bill, the other countries in the Western 
Hemisphere will receive over 95 percent of the funds requested by the 
President, and I think that is good. Yet funds to support a democratic 
transition in the Western Hemisphere's only totalitarian dictatorship 
constitute approximately 19 percent of the President's request.
  Mr. Speaker, these acts include from staging a hunger strike; to 
demanded access to e-mail and the Internet and going to prison for it; 
to having the audacity of possessing books by Gandhi and Orwell and 
Martin Luther King in their homes and offering those books as an 
independent library to their neighbors, an act of great courage that is 
met by the dictatorship's goon squads with violence, confiscation of 
the books and often prison time; to the independent journalists who 
risk their lives and their families' safety by writing the truth about 
life under the totalitarian nightmare, and who need paper and 
typewriters and faxes and telephones to send their stories out; to the 
children of political prisoners who have received the only toys they 
have

[[Page 16485]]

ever seen because of the solidarity of this United States program of 
assistance; to those from all walks of life who dare to join a human 
rights organization in a totalitarian police state; to the physicians 
who open their homes to their neighbors for the practice of medicine 
and dispense medicines, risking prison for breaking the rules of the 
totalitarian state, the only employer in the country, or the physicians 
who refuse to perform the forced abortions ordered by the state when 
there is any indication whatsoever of a problematic pregnancy, so the 
regime can keep its infant mortality statistics low.
  Mr. Speaker, that is how one of my heroes, Dr. Oscar Elias Biscet 
began his heroic journey as a pro-democracy activist. He subsequently 
has become a great pro-democracy leader. I carry a card with his 
photograph with me at all times. He is currently in a dark and damp 
dungeon, sentenced to 25 years in the gulag for having the audacity of 
peacefully advocating for democracy and free elections in Cuba.
  Mr. Speaker, we cannot send aid to him in prison. The regime will not 
allow it. But we can help his family and his colleagues in the struggle 
for freedom.
  These are the acts of civic resistance that have grown exponentially 
in recent years, despite a tremendous increase in the dictatorship's 
brutal repression, and those are the people, the heroes that I have 
mentioned, that we help with this program, that we will seek to 
increase funding for through the President's requested level by an 
amendment that I will introduce with my friend and colleague 
Representative Albio Sires of New Jersey, and that I will ask all 
freedom-loving Members of this House to support.
  Last February, Mr. Speaker, the six Cuban American Members of this 
Congress, Bob Menendez, Mel Martinez, Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, Albio Sires, 
Mario Diaz-Balart and myself, received a letter from nine pro-democracy 
leaders in Cuba. They know the risks that they were and are taking by 
sending us that letter. They knew that it would be utilized publicly in 
forums such as today's.
  In that letter, that group of dissidents and pro-democracy leaders, 
representing an extraordinarily wide spectrum of ideology and opinion, 
some with whom I have had disagreements in the past, came together and 
told us of the importance of this aid that we will be debating in this 
bill. They stated in their letter, ``We can affirm that the aid that 
for years has flowed to the pro-democracy movement takes into account 
the vast range of needs, from medicine to keep a political prisoner or 
dissident from dying, to food, water filters, medical equipment, 
clothing, shoes, coats, toys for the children of political prisoners, 
who suffer doubly the loss of a loved one and social repression on the 
streets and in school, essential vitamins, office supplies, and the 
tools of democracy, computers, printers, phones, fax machines, among 
others, that account for a long list of articles and materials that 
have been made possible in Cuba.''
  Today, with the amendment that I have filed along with Representative 
Sires, we reply to the letter sent in February by those pro-democracy 
leaders, and, as I stated, Mr. Speaker, we will ask all of our 
colleagues on both sides of the aisle to support the aid requested by 
those pro-democracy leaders in that letter, the assistance for the pro-
democracy movement.

                              {time}  1130

  Mr. Speaker, on other subjects in this important legislation, the 
bill cuts by approximately 40 percent the President's request for the 
Millennium Challenge account. The Millennium Challenge, which President 
Bush called a new compact for global development, provides assistance 
through a competitive selection process to developing nations that are 
pursuing political and economic reforms in three areas: ruling justly, 
investing in people, and fostering economic freedom. Contributions from 
that account are linked to greater responsibility from developing 
nations. The new responsibilities these nations accept in exchange for 
the funds ensure that the funds we provide do not go to waste and have 
the greatest possible impact on those who need the help the most.
  That account encourages transparency, and it is a good aspect of our 
foreign policy, and it is very important that it be increased as this 
legislation moves forward.
  Lastly, I would mention that this bill faces a veto threat by the 
President because of language which may undermine what is known as the 
Mexico City policy. The Mexico City policy currently in effect requires 
that foreign NGOs agree as a condition of receipt of Federal funds for 
family-planning activities that the organization will neither perform 
nor promote abortion as a method of family planning. The Mexico City 
policy applies only to family-planning programs and is designed to 
protect the integrity of U.S.-funded international family-planning 
programs by creating a bright line of separation between abortion and 
family planning.
  There is concern by the President and many Members in this Congress 
that U.S. taxpayer family-planning funds could possibly go to NGOs that 
promote or provide abortions under the language in the underlying 
legislation.
  I understand the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Smith) and the 
gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Stupak) will introduce an amendment to 
address this issue, and I urge Members to consider that very important 
amendment.
  The majority correctly currently brings this important legislation to 
the floor under an open rule. The House has traditionally considered 
appropriations bills under open rules in order to allow each Member an 
opportunity to offer germane amendments without having to preprint 
their amendments or receive approval from the Rules Committee. I hope 
that the majority will live up to their campaign promise of running a 
transparent House and will continue our tradition of open rules with 
the rest of the appropriations bills this year.
  Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. HASTINGS of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I yield 5 minutes to the 
second-ranking member on the majority side on the Rules Committee, the 
gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. McGovern).
  Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my friend, the gentleman 
from Florida (Mr. Hastings), for yielding me the time.
  Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of this open rule and the underlying 
bill, H.R. 2764, the State-Foreign Operations Appropriations Act for 
Fiscal Year 2008. There is so much to praise in this bill: its emphasis 
on funding our core bilateral development programs; its emphasis on 
funding basic education, child survival and global health initiatives. 
And most importantly, its emphasis on providing for our national 
security and our global economic interests.
  I would like to praise Subcommittee Chairwoman Lowey and Ranking 
Member Wolf and the Foreign Operations Subcommittee in particular for 
the work they have done on aid to Colombia. This bill makes some badly 
needed and long overdue changes to our aid program for Colombia. The 
results of the past several years, particularly where illegal drugs are 
concerned, made clear that it is time to try a different and more 
comprehensive approach.
  The 2008 bill rebalances our priorities in Colombia. It recognizes 
that the response to violence, narcotrafficking and instability in our 
South American neighbor must be multifaceted, helping to guarantee 
lasting security through good governance.
  Colombia is an important friend of the United States and it is the 
largest recipient of U.S. assistance outside the troubled Middle East 
region. Colombia deserves our support; and even though I have been a 
critic of many of our past policies, I have never and I will never 
advocate walking away from Colombia or its people.
  The new approach in this bill will make our counternarcotics policy 
more effective by helping small farmers transition permanently away 
from illegal drug production, increasing funds to investigate and 
prosecute major drug traffickers, and continuing drug

[[Page 16486]]

interdiction programs. Aerial fumigation and sporadic military offenses 
are no substitute for helping Colombia to govern its own territory. The 
results make that clear: 7 years and $5.4 billion later, the old policy 
has resulted in more coca growing in Colombia, and the price of cocaine 
on the streets of America is actually lower than before we started.
  It is time for a change, for a new more balanced direction, and this 
bill provides more funding for judges and prosecutors, roads, clean 
water, jobs and aid for vulnerable people. It looks to fund the need of 
today's Colombia, not yesterday's. Many Colombians are working today to 
clean house in Colombia, going after politically powerful criminals who 
send drugs to our shores and wreak violence and mayhem in Colombia. The 
aid in this bill will help them. Success hinges on Colombia's judicial 
system which faces serious challenges. This bill provides them with new 
resources to meet those challenges.
  Mr. Speaker, unless Colombia deals with the overriding issue of 
impunity, many of us are going to continue to fight for even more 
changes in our policy, restricting security assistance to the Colombian 
military which is responsible for a lot of the human rights violations, 
and we are going to continue to insist that no free trade agreement 
move forward until the human rights situation improves in Colombia.
  If the United States of America stands for anything, it should stand 
out loud and foursquare for human rights. And for too many years, we 
have turned our backs on the harsh reality in Colombia where thousands 
of trade unionists have disappeared or been murdered, thousands of 
people have been victimized by security forces and their allies in the 
paramilitary forces.
  We should not be sending money in a way that does not acknowledge 
that those security forces need to do better. Mr. Speaker, success also 
depends on Colombia's ability to govern and create employment, 
especially in the lawless zones where drug traffickers and paramilitary 
groups still operate. This bill allows USAID to expand badly needed 
efforts to those communities in coca-growing areas that up until now 
have been beyond our reach due to lack of funds.
  Finally, success depends on Colombia's ability to care for and 
reintegrate victims of violence. This includes helping Colombia's 
internally displaced population which is second in the world only to 
Sudan. That is not a list you want to be on, Mr. Speaker. It means 
protecting people coming forward to testify who are seeking redress. It 
also means helping people recover stolen land through violence and 
helping Afro-Colombian and indigenous people who have been 
disproportionately hit by violence.
  Mr. Speaker, this bill does a good job of achieving balance between 
economic development and security aid for Colombia. It demonstrates a 
level of support for Colombia's democratic future that we have not been 
able to articulate before now. I support this new balanced direction 
for Colombia, and I applaud the work of the Appropriations Committee 
for not only these provisions but for its judicious approach of 
supporting what works best in our global development programs.
  Mr. LINCOLN DIAZ-BALART of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the 
balance of my time.
  Mr. HASTINGS of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I yield 4 minutes to the 
gentleman from Vermont (Mr. Welch).
  Mr. WELCH of Vermont. Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague from Florida 
for yielding me this time.
  I also join in the praise for the bipartisan work of the Foreign 
Operations Subcommittee, the excellent work of Chairwoman Lowey and 
Ranking Member Wolf.
  Mr. Speaker, the job of the next President of the United States, 
whoever that may be, whatever party that person may represent, is very 
straightforward. They are going to have to reintroduce America to the 
world. They are going to have to reintroduce the America of 
cooperation, of working together, of multilateralism rather than 
unilateralism, of diplomacy rather than force, and strength through 
persuasion and cooperation.
  This Foreign Operations appropriations bill is the introduction to a 
new relationship that America will have with the world and a new 
relationship that our appropriations bill will have with the taxpayers 
of this country. It really does two things. One, it restores 
accountability. That is best seen in the fact that it does not give a 
blank check on more money to Iraq that will go down the sink hole. 
Number two, it recognizes that we have to be a participant in 
cooperating with other countries in order to solve global problems.
  Mr. Speaker, our Appropriations Committee is to be commended for this 
strong bipartisan work. Our image in the world has been tarnished by 
the foreign policies of this administration, from the war in Iraq to 
the rejection of multilateral agreements such to the Kyoto Protocol, 
the International Criminal Court, to human rights abuses at Abu Ghraib 
and Guantanamo. Through this appropriations measure, we have the 
opportunity to send the world a different message about America's 
priorities. We do that in this bill by allocating $6.5 billion to 
combat global health crises, including HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis, and 
malaria. We have provided needed help to those suffering from genocide 
in Darfur by investing $949 million in development assistance.
  We offer needed food, water and shelter for refugees around the 
world, and we make good on our obligations to international 
organizations investing $334 million in multilateral programs to 
address the global challenges, and we pay $1.3 billion in U.N. 
peacekeeping operations. The bill also helps protect the American 
taxpayer and brings needed accountability from the administration.
  I would also like to commend the committee for restoring funding for 
a small but extremely important initiative, the Middle East Regional 
Cooperation, or MERC program. Established in 1979 by my colleague from 
California, MERC provides grants for collaborative scientific research 
projects between Israel and its Arab neighbors. MERC grants have made 
it possible for many Vermont students to travel to the Middle East to 
conduct environmental research at an innovative program called the 
Arava Institute.
  This incredible program, working together on difficult environmental 
problems, has allowed Vermonters and others to live and work alongside 
Israeli and Arab colleagues, working together on environmental problems 
that affect the entire region. MERC grants have made this experience 
possible, and I applaud the committee for working to make sure this 
invaluable program receives the funding it deserves.
  Mr. Speaker, in addition to supporting important work in the Middle 
East, this bill implements needed changes to our policy in another 
conflicted region, Colombia, as was eloquently described by the 
gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. McGovern). This bill recognizes that 
it is time for change in our Colombia policy.
  Mr. LINCOLN DIAZ-BALART of Florida. Mr. Speaker, again I thank my 
dear friend for yielding me the time initially.
  I would like to, with regard to the issue of the amendment that I 
made reference to previously, note that I will be bringing to the floor 
along with my friend and colleague, Representative Sires, to restore to 
the President's request by offsetting funds from the administration 
account billions of dollars of the State Department, approximately $30 
million, to bring to the President's request level the assistance for 
Cuban democracy programs.
  Not today on the floor in the context of the rule but last night in 
the Rules Committee, a colleague who previously spoke made reference to 
a GAO report to impugn and to impeach the program of assistance to the 
Cuban pro-democracy movement and oppose efforts to restore the level to 
the President's request.
  I have in my office and I highly recommend to all colleagues 
precisely that GAO report. We would inform colleagues where to download 
it. It is a very important report, and there are a couple of things I 
would like to point

[[Page 16487]]

out from the report that is used to impeach or attempt to impeach the 
program and impugn the program, criticize the program, of assistance to 
the dissidents in Cuba.

                              {time}  1145

  The GAO report found that from 1996 to 2006, the Cuba program 
provided the following assistance:
  385,000 pounds of medicine, food, and clothing to the pro-democracy 
movement.
  More than 23,000 shortwave radios.
  Millions of books, newsletters and other informational materials.
  U.S. assistance, the GAO found, supported journalism correspondence 
courses for more than 200 Cuban journalists.
  The publication of approximately 23,000 reports by independent 
journalists in Cuba.
  And with regard to the recommendations of the GAO report, as you 
know, Mr. Speaker, the GAO often when it reviews in-depth, as it does, 
a government program or agency, it often recommends cuts in that 
program, and the GAO makes no recommendation of a cut. It makes 
recommendations for the more efficient running of the Cuban democracy 
programs.
  And in response to the GAO report, and I have this letter in my 
office and it's available to any Member who would like to read it and I 
highly recommend it, the agency that administers these programs, the 
U.S. Agency for International Development, USAID, in a letter dated 
January 16 of this year, responding to the GAO report, informs 
specifically, with specificity, how all of the recommendations of the 
GAO report have been implemented.
  And so I highly recommend the reading of the GAO report and also the 
response by the administrating agency with regard to the implementation 
of the recommendations of the GAO report, Mr. Speaker.
  It's important that we help those who risk their lives and the safety 
of their families day in and day out to achieve freedom, a democratic 
transition in our closest neighbor, 90 miles away, that at this time is 
a state sponsor of terrorism and an anti-American totalitarian regime. 
And what those heroes of the pro-democracy movement are risking their 
lives and their families' freedom for is a democratic transition to a 
reality with the rule of law, obviously a democratically elected 
government that will no longer be allied with state sponsors of 
terrorism, anti-American state sponsors of terrorism but that will, 
rather, be worried and working for the needs to better the lives of the 
long oppressed people within Cuba.
  Mr. Speaker, again I thank my good friend Mr. Hastings for yielding 
the time. I thank any of my colleagues who may have been listening to 
this debate for their attention. Once again I would plead that they 
join from both sides of the aisle to bring up to the President's 
request the assistance for the Cuba pro-democracy movement.
  With that, Mr. Speaker, and acknowledging the complexities and yet 
the importance of the underlying legislation brought to the floor today 
by this rule, I yield back the balance of my time.
  Mr. HASTINGS of Florida. Mr. Speaker, America's leadership role is 
not limited to the Presidency. Nor does it solely fall upon the 
shoulders of this body. Branches of our government must share 
responsibility.
  During this critical time in world history, when America's image as a 
global leader is tarnished and questioned, we must lead from this 
Chamber. We must take it upon ourselves to make it possible for 
America's image in the world to be restored. We must make it our 
business to try and make all that is wrong right.
  When America leads in a constructive, inclusive and thoughtful 
manner, others in the world follow. This approach toward global 
leadership is not, as some have charged, a soft approach to conducting 
the war on terrorism. On the contrary, it is a clear recognition that 
America cannot do this alone.
  If we have learned anything in the last 6 years, it is that no one in 
this world is safe from the directions of terrorism. It will take a 
global effort to curb the efforts of those who are seeking to destroy 
us and others in the world.
  But if we have learned anything else during the last 6 years, it is 
that the policies of the present administration have failed and 
America's standing in the world is in dire need of restoration.
  Parts of the Middle East, from Iraq to Gaza, are living in a civil 
war. People are dying in Darfur as we and others around the world do 
nothing. And children throughout the world are starving to death and 
dying of malnourishment and lack of potable fresh water.
  The underlying legislation, the first Foreign Operations 
appropriations bill of this new Democratic majority, sends a clear 
message to our friends and enemies alike that America's priorities in 
the world are making must-needed changes.
  I urge a ``yes'' vote on the previous question and on the rule.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time, and I move the 
previous question on the resolution.
  The previous question was ordered.
  The resolution was agreed to.
  A motion to reconsider was laid on the table.

                          ____________________