Recognizing the social problem of child abuse and neglect, and supporting efforts to enhance public awareness of the problem.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding me time and for his leadership on this important bill that I am supporting. But I rise today to pay tribute to Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan, and, on behalf of my colleagues and constituents, to join with them in mourning his passing today.

Senator Moynihan was one of our truly inspiring legislators. He was a scholar, a legislator, an ambassador, a cabinet officer, a Presidential adviser in four administrations, the only person in history to serve four consecutive administrations. He was a teacher, a writer, and one of the best Senators

ever to grace the halls of this institution.

He was unmatched in his ability to craft innovative solutions to society's most pressing problems, from welfare to Social Security, to transportation, to taxes. His legislative stamp is everywhere.

Known as, and I quote from the Almanac of American Politics, ``the Nation's best thinker among politicians since Lincoln, and its best politician among thinkers since Jefferson,'' Senator Moynihan moved people through the power of his ideas. He was a unique figure in public life, a man of pure intellect, who was unafraid of speaking inconvenient truths.

Senator Moynihan's life exemplified the American dream. He grew up in a slum known as Hell's Kitchen. Abandoned by his father, his mother became the sole supporter of the family during the Depression. Small wonder that Senator Moynihan grew up to be a strong voice on welfare issues. He recognized the danger of fostering a culture of dependency, while understanding the importance of maintaining a strong safety net.

He proved to be one of the most accurate prophets of our era. Time and time again he correctly predicted future consequences, even though many refused to believe him when his prediction ran counter to conventional wisdom. In the 1980s, he predicted the coming collapse of the Soviet Union. In the 1990s, he expressed concern about the tendency of our society to define deviancy down.

For New Yorkers, Senator Moynihan has and always will be one of our own homegrown heroes, our proud gift to the Nation. Despite his reputation for attention to the more scholarly pursuits, he authored 18 books, Senator Moynihan never forgot those of us who elected him.

He was a hero to landmark preservationists for his effort to preserve the Custom House and the Farley Post Office, the new train station on the Farley site, which he helped plan and which he helped to fund, but it does not yet have a name. I believe that it should be named for Daniel Patrick Moynihan.

When the Coast Guard left Governors Island, he persuaded President Clinton to agree to give the island to New York for $1, and it was this Congress that was able to make that pledge a reality. As ambassador to the United Nations, he denounced the resolution equating Zionism with racism. Seventeen years later, the U.N. reversed itself, revoking this shameful resolution.

Senator Moynihan was a prime mover behind ISTEA, which changed the way highway and transportation funds are distributed. He was widely credited with shifting transportation priorities and making it possible for us to invest in alternatives, like high-speed rail.

As a member of the Senate Finance Committee, he was a guardian of Social Security; and he focused his attention on the importance of opening up government filings and reducing secrecy in government. I was proud to have worked with him on the passage of the Nazi War Crimes Disclosure bill. After 50 years, Americans finally are beginning to get a glimpse of the things that our government knew.

Senator Moynihan was also a tireless worker on getting an accurate census for our country.

Senator Moynihan's passing will make this country a poorer place. I join my constituents and my colleagues in paying tribute to the great Senator from the Great State of New York.

Senator Moynihan was truly an American treasure. He was a great friend and mentor to me, and we will miss him greatly. My colleagues and I send to Elizabeth and their family our deep concern and condolences.

Mr. Speaker, I include for the Record a biography of this remarkable man.

Daniel Patrick Moynihan was the senior United States Senator from New York. First elected in 1976, Senator Moynihan was re-elected in 1982, 1988, and 1994.

Senator Moynihan was the Ranking Minority Member of the Senate Committee on Finance. He served on the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works and the Senate Committee on Rules and Administration. He also was a member of the Joint Committee on Taxation and the Joint Committee on the Library of Congress.

A member of the Cabinet or sub-Cabinet of Presidents Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon and Ford, Senator Moynihan was the only person in American history to serve in four successive administrations. He was U.S. Ambassador to India from 1973 to 1975 and U.S. Representative to the United Nations from 1975 to 1976. In February 1976 he represented the United States as President of the United Nations Security Council.

Senator Moynihan was born on March 17, 1927. He attended public and parochial schools in New York City and graduated from Benjamin Franklin High School in East Harlem. He went on to attend the City College of New York for one year before enlisting in the United States Navy. He served on active duty from 1944 to 1947. In 1966, he completed twenty years in the Naval Reserve and was retired. Senator Moynihan earned his bachelor's degree (cum laude) from Tufts University, studied at the London School of Economics as a Fulbright Scholar, and received his M.A. and Ph.D. from Tufts University's Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy.

Senator Moynihan was a member of Averell Harriman's gubernatorial campaign staff in 1954 and then served on Gov. Harriman's staff in Albany until 1958. He was an alternate Kennedy delegate at the 1960 Democratic Convention. Beginning in 1961, he served in the U.S. Department of Labor as an assistant to the Secretary, and later as Assistant Secretary of Labor for Policy Planning and Research.

In 1966, Senator Moynihan became Director of the Joint Center for Urban Studies at Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He has been a Professor of Government at Harvard University, Assistant Professor of Government at Syracuse University, a fellow at the Center for Advanced Studies at Wesleyan University, and has taught in the extension programs of Russell Sage College and the Cornell University School of Industrial and Labor Relations. Senator Moynihan is the recipient of 62 honorary degrees.

Senator Moynihan was the author or editor of 18 books. His most recent work is Secrecy: The American Experience, published in the fall of 1998, an expansion of the report by the Commission on Protecting and Reducing Government Secrecy. Senator Moynihan, as Chairman of the Commission, led the first comprehensive review in forty years of the Federal Government's system of classifying and declassifying information and granting clearances.

Since 1976 Senator Moynihan has published an analysis of the flow of funds between the Federal Government and New York State. In 1992 the analysis became a joint publication with the Taubman Center for State and Local Government at Harvard University, and includes all fifty states.

Senator Moynihan was a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS). He was Chairman of the AAAS's section on Social, Economic and Political Science (1971-72) and a member of the Board of Directors (1972-73). He also served as a member of the President's Science Advisory Committee (1971-73). Senator Moynihan was Vice Chairman (1971-76) of the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars. He served on the National Commission on Social Security Reform (1982-83) whose recommendations formed the basis of legislation to assure the system's fiscal stability.

He was the founding Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden (1971-85) and served as Regent of the Smithsonian Institution, having been appointed in 1987 and again in 1995. In 1985, the Smithsonian awarded him its Joseph Henry Medal.

In 1965, Senator Moynihan received the Arthur S. Flemming Awards, which recognizes outstanding young Federal employees, for his work as ``an architect of the Nation's program to eradicate poverty.'' He has also received the International League of Human Rights Award (1975) and the John LaFarge Award for Interracial Justice (1980). In 1983, he was the first recipient of the American Political Science Association's Hubert H. Humphrey Award for ``notable public service by a political scientist.'' In 1984, Senator Moynihan received the State University of New York at Albany's Medallion of the University in recognition of his ``extraordinary public service and leadership in the field for education.'' In 1986, he received the Seal Medallion of the Central Intelligence Agency and the Britannica Medal for the Dissemination of Learning.

He has also received the Laetare Medal of the University of Notre Dame (1992), the Thomas Jefferson Award for Public Architecture from the American Institute of Architects (1992), and the Thomas Jefferson Medal for Distinguished Achievement in the Arts or Humanities from the American Philosophical Society (1993). In 1994, he received the Gold Medal Award ``honoring services to humanity'' from the National Institute of Social Sciences.

In 1997, the College of Physicians and Surgeons at Columbia University awarded Senator Moynihan the Cartwright Prize. He was the 1998 recipient of the Heinz Award in Public Policy ``for having been a distinct and unique voice in the century--independent in his convictions, a scholar, teacher, statesman and politician, skilled in the art of the possible.''

Elizabeth Brennan Moynihan, his wife of 44 years, is an architectural historian with a special interest in 16th century Mughal architecture in India. She is the author of Paradise as a Garden: In Persia and Mughal India (1979) and numerous articles. Mrs. Moynihan is a former Chairman of the Board of the American Schools of Oriental Research. She serves as a member of the Indo-U.S. Subcommission on Education and Culture, and the visiting committee of the Freer Gallery of Art at the Smithsonian Institution. She is Vice Chair of the Board of the National Building Museum, and on the Trustees Council of the Preservation League of New York State.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding me time. I also thank him for his splendid work on this very important piece of legislation.

Mr. Speaker, I also thank the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Hinojosa), the gentleman from Ohio (Chairman Boehner), and the ranking member, the gentleman from California (Mr. George Miller), for their work, because they truly produced a bipartisan product here. If there was ever a reason to come together across the aisle, Republican and Democrat, to come to agreement, I cannot think of one more vital than that, of protecting children from child abuse and responding to children who have been abused.

Mr. Speaker, before I entered politics, I was a caseworker. I worked with abused and neglected children. And it is painful work to do. We all know about child abuse, the immediate consequences of child abuse. There is nothing more pathetic and pitiful than to think of a young child, a newborn, a child of any age, who looks to his or her mother, his or her father, for the kind of guidance, the kind of love, the kind of nurturing that all of us want to give to our children and all of us were fortunate enough to have in our childhood, and instead receive rebukes, receive blows, to be tortured, to be sexually abused. The pain of that is unimaginable and anguishing for the child.

Then, of course, it produces long-term consequences that the gentleman from Texas (Mr. DeLay) and others have referred to. It is the cause of so many people turning to lives of crime, it is the cause of so many individuals becoming abusers themselves of their children and of their spouses, it is the cause of substance abuse in so many cases. So many of the ills of society that are costly in terms of human suffering and costly in terms of tax dollars have their origin in the abuse of children.

One of the things that frustrated me as a caseworker was that we know how to respond to abuse. We know how to get it reported now. We have hot lines. We know how to do interventions and investigations. We know how to prosecute child abusers. We know how to seek custody of children who are dependent and not safe at home and place them into foster care. We know how to place children in adoption. We even know how, in some instances, to bring families together again and heal the parents and provide them the services that they need so that they do not have to be abusive.

But the thing that we have the most difficulty in doing is preventing the abuse in the first place. That is so hard, so difficult to get to. That is why I take such great satisfaction in the fact that the members of my committee, the ranking members of the subcommittee and the full committee and the chairman and the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Hoekstra) and the staff helped me to put language in this bill that I hope will do a great deal to prevent child abuse.

If we look at the precursors to child abuse, if we try to predict child abuse and see where we can intervene before it occurs, what the experts will tell us, and those of us who have been in the field know, is that substance abuse is a great predictor of child abuse. When you have a mother and/or a father or others in the house who are addicted to alcohol, who are addicted to drugs, you find so frequently in, I think, 35 percent of the cases, you find that because they are inhibited, they break awful taboos; because their nerves are ruined, they become short-tempered and abusive to their children; because they are out of touch with reality, they do things they do not even know that they are doing. We know that substance abuse leads so frequently, almost invariably, to child abuse.

So what do we do about that? The opportunity to intervene is best found when a child is born. When a child is born in a hospital and it suffers from fetal alcohol syndrome, if it is clear that the mother is addicted to drugs because either she is showing the signs or the child is in neonatal abstinence syndrome, which means they are coming off of drugs at the time of birth, if we can see the systemic presence of a substance, a controlled substance in a child, if it has done neurological damage to a child, we know right there and then at that moment of birth of this child that if something does not happen there is an extraordinarily high chance that that child, after its neurological conditions, its physiological conditions are healed in the hospital, will then return home to a situation in which it is incredibly likely to be abused.

The problem we have had heretofore is there is no legal way to intervene. People have tried to pass laws at the State level and at perhaps the Federal level to make it a child abuse case. Well, that is problematic, because we do not want to necessarily prosecute the woman for child abuse because she has a substance abuse problem. We may even drive her away from the hospital if she knows she is going to face that, and she may choose to deliver at home in a dangerous situation. So it seems that the thing to do is to intervene with social services.

What the language that is in the bill says is that when these children appear under these circumstances is that the hospital personnel, the medical personnel shall be required to report that information to the child protective services specialists who then will come out to the hospital right away and intervene and get with that mother and hopefully the father, if the father is there, and say, look, you have a problem here. You have struck bottom. Look what your problem has done to your child. Here is an opportunity to get help. For the sake of your child, are you willing to receive nursing care at your home, in-home nurses? Are you willing to get treatment for your drug abuse? Are you willing to get social services? We can bring to bear a whole host of intervention services so that your problems are solved and you do not put your child at risk.

It is a wonderful opportunity. All of the substance abuse treatment experts will tell us that it is a bottoming-out experience when the mother and/or the father look and say, what have we done here? This is as low as it gets. We have hurt our newborn baby, that they are most ready for help. By bringing these services to bear, we can help these children and these families. We can prevent child abuse.

In the cases where the mother and the father just refuse to accept services, then that may be the trigger for the caseworkers to take that case to court and seek custody of the child and provide protective custody. But hopefully, in most cases, it will result in a happier ending than that and one in which the child is protected, the family is healed, and good is done all around.

So I want to thank the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Hoekstra), the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Hinojosa), the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Boehner), the gentleman from California (Mr. George Miller), and the staff on both sides of the aisle for helping me get this language in which I tried for years and years in my State legislature of Pennsylvania to get it in; and I am so happy to have it as part of this bill this evening.

Mr. Speaker, pursuant to the order of the House of March 25, 2003, I call up the bill (H.R. 14) to amend the Child Abuse Prevention and Treatment Act to make improvements to and reauthorize programs under that Act, and for other purposes, and ask for its immediate consideration in the House.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days within which to revise and extend their remarks on H.R. 14.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased that we are here today to consider H.R. 14, the Keeping Children and Families Safe Act of 2003, which reauthorizes and improves the Child Abuse Prevention and Treatment Act, CAPTA, the Adoption Opportunities Program, the Abandoned Infants Act, and the Family Violence Prevention and Treatment Act.

Consideration of this bill today is appropriate and timely, as next week begins National Child Abuse Prevention month. Unfortunately, the House and Senate were unable to reach agreement on all issues pertaining to the reauthorization of CAPTA and FVPSA at the end of last Congress. The bill before us today shows our efforts and commitment to ensuring that programs aimed at the prevention of child abuse and neglect continue.

I would like to thank my colleagues on both sides for their hard work and efforts in developing this legislation under consideration today. I especially want to thank the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Boehner), the full committee chairman, for his continued support of our efforts in moving this bill forward; the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Greenwood) for his diligence in ensuring that infants born addicted to alcohol or drugs receive necessary service; and of course my colleagues on the other side of the aisle, the gentleman from California (Mr. George Miller), the ranking member of the full committee, for his support in quickly bringing this bill before us; and also the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Hinojosa), who again in somewhat of irregular order consented to bypass the subcommittee and enable this bill to come right to the full committee and now come to the House. I thank him very much again for his partnership, and as we complete this bill today, it will now enable us to move on to other issues within the committee, so I thank the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Hinojosa) very much.

H.R. 14 provides for the continued provision of important Federal resources for identifying and addressing the issues of child abuse and neglect and for supporting effective methods of prevention and treatment. It also continues local projects with demonstrated value in eliminating barriers to permanent adoption and addressing the circumstances that often lead to child abandonment.

Mr. Speaker, this bill emphasizes the prevention of child abuse and neglect before it occurs. It promotes partnerships between child protective services and private- and community-based organizations, including education and health systems to ensure that services and linkages are more effectively provided. H.R. 14 appropriately addresses a growing concern over parents being falsely accused of child abuse and neglect and the aggressiveness of social workers in their child abuse investigations. It includes language to increase public education opportunities, to strengthen the public's understanding of the child protection system, and appropriate reporting of suspected incidents of child maltreatment.

The bill fosters cooperation between parents and child protective service workers by requiring caseworkers to inform parents of the allegations made against them. It improves the training opportunities and requirements for child protective services personnel regarding the extent and limits of their legal authority and the legal rights of parents and legal guardians. It also ensures the safety of foster and adoptive children by requiring States to conduct criminal background checks for prospective foster and adoptive parents and other adult relatives and nonrelatives residing in the household.

Lastly, this bill expands adoption opportunities to provide for services for infants and young children who are disabled or born with life-threatening conditions and requires the Secretary of Health and Human Services to conduct a study on the annual number of infants and young children abandoned each year and extends the authorization for the Family Violence Prevention and Services Act.

I want to thank my colleagues for their work on this bill and urge them to join me in supporting this effort to improve the prevention and treatment of child abuse and family violence by supporting H.R. 14, the Keeping Children and Families Safe Act of 2003.

Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I yield such time as he may consume to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. DeLay), an individual who has a passion for helping all of our children and who has demonstrated a real caring for abused and neglected children in America.

Mr. Speaker, I yield such time as he may consume to the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Greenwood), a member of the full committee and a gentleman who helped us work through this legislation.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Speaker, just in closing, some may ask, what is the Federal Government's role in this? Do we not realize that dealing with these kinds of issues is done at the local level, that it is done at the State level? And they are absolutely right. What we want to do tonight is we want to recognize the tens of thousands of caseworkers and social workers who each and every day wrestle with these kinds of issues and how they help these children, how they help these families address these very serious problems.

What we are doing here tonight, what comes out of the CAPTA bill, is that at the Federal Government level we do research, we identify best practices, we provide technical assistance, we provide funding for demonstration projects. All of these things are intended to help the States and help those workers at the local level, that when they are involved in these cases that they come up with the right set of answers, the right sets of proposals, to help the child, to help the family, and to help the community forward. That is where the Federal Government can provide a helping hand to address this very, very serious problem.

So, in closing, I thank the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Hinojosa), I thank the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Boehner), and I thank the gentleman from California (Mr. George Miller) and the staff on both sides of the aisle for working in a very collaborative way to get this bill done. I look forward now to joining with my colleagues in passing this bill out of the House and bringing it to the other body and, soon, either being in a conference committee or being at the White House for the President to sign this legislation.

Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, let me also, at the outset, begin with a personal note: how pleased I am to have my neighbor from Nevada here managing this legislation on the floor of the House, the first such opportunity he has had. I predict he will have many more opportunities to serve his home State of Nevada and this Nation with great distinction.

Let me also take time at the outset to thank my friend, the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Davis), on the other side of the aisle for his support of this resolution, House Resolution 113, a resolution that recognizes the scope of child abuse and neglect and declares support for efforts to raise public awareness of this tragic problem.

Mr. Speaker, in many ways this House Chamber becomes America's town hall. We are able to focus the collective attention of our Nation on vital concerns of the day. While war rages around the globe, while our men and women in harm's way are doing their best to liberate another nation, it is worth noting that here at home we have serious problems; and, indeed, these problems extend to the youngest among us.

Mr. Speaker, homicide is the only major cause of childhood death that has increased over the last 30 years. Think about that for just a minute. In the last 3 decades, while we have made such tremendous strides against childhood disease, a cause of death so brutal as the premeditated taking of another's life continues to be on the rise among our youngest. Mr. Speaker, the tragic fact is, murders of children 5 years old and younger are most often committed by family members through beatings or suffocation.

While we welcome the strides my friend, the gentleman from Illinois, talked about in his home State, Mr. Speaker, I am compelled to come to the floor and talk about the challenges my home State of Arizona confronts. An average of 89 reports of alleged child abuse and neglect are made to Arizona's Child Protective Services each day. Of the over 17,000 reports of alleged maltreatment received from April 1 of 2002 to September 30 of that same year, 60 percent alleged neglect, 32 percent physical abuse, 6 percent sexual abuse, and 2 percent emotional abuse.

My friend, the gentleman from Illinois, touched on it earlier; but it bears repeating: sadly, parents who abuse all too often raise children who become abusers when they become parents. Maltreated children are at a higher risk of arrest at a younger age, with more significant and repeated criminal involvement. They can be expected to commit nearly twice as many crimes as children raised in a healthier environment.

We come to this floor today to recognize this social ill, but to go beyond that, not only to draw the scrutiny of our Nation, Mr. Speaker, to this problem, not only to talk about the width and breadth of the challenge we confront, that approximately 3 million cases of suspected or known child abuse and neglect involving 5 million American children are made each year, but also the sobering speculation and belief among many who study this problem that the actual incidence of abuse and neglect is estimated to be three times greater than the number actually reported to authorities. Mr. Speaker, we move beyond mere statistics to the very real human equation of the desperation confronted by the youngest among us.

Therefore, Mr. Speaker, this resolution expresses the sense of Congress that all Americans should keep victims of child abuse and neglect in their thoughts and prayers and urges the faith community, nonprofit organizations, and individual volunteers to recommit and mobilize their resources to assist the victims.

Mr. Speaker, we might also make a personal appeal to those parents who, for reasons of rage or helplessness or, sadly, convenience, reach out almost

reflexively to strike a child. Mr. Speaker, in this place at this time we would ask those parents and those adults to stop and think. Indeed, Mr. Speaker, this resolution urges Americans to seek to break the cycle of child abuse and neglect and to give these victimized children hope for the future.

As was noted earlier, the upcoming month of April is distinguished as Child Abuse Prevention Month. The nonprofit organization Childhelp USA, which I am honored by the fact that it is headquartered in the Fifth Congressional District of Arizona, has initiated the National Day of Hope to focus public awareness of child abuse and neglect. As my colleagues mentioned earlier, this year National Day of Hope is scheduled for Wednesday, April 2.

This resolution also commends Childhelp USA for its efforts on behalf of children and its embracing of the goals of the National Day of Hope.

Lost among all the platitudes about children representing our future is this stunning fact that we cannot ignore: millions of American children are abused and neglected each year. This brutal behavior is so devastating that not only those children, but also our society, are victimized.

The challenge we confront demands the attention and compassionate action of every American. That is why I would urge Members' support for this resolution today.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

I want to thank the gentleman from Ohio (Chairman Boehner). I want to thank the gentleman from California (Mr. George Miller) and the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Hoekstra), subcommittee chairman, for their commitment to writing such a good bipartisan bill; and I look forward to working with our subcommittee chairman on many more issues that are going to be coming up in this session.

The Keeping Children and Families Safe Act of 2003, or as it is better known, CAPTA, is a small program that fills an important role in the Federal response to child abuse by focusing on prevention and treatment. Child abuse is a serious public problem, and we must do much more at the Federal level to protect children from abuse and improve the treatment they receive.

In 2002 there were almost 900,000 substantiated cases of child abuse and neglect. In 2000 an estimated 1,200 children died as a result of abuse and neglect. The bill before us today will enhance collaboration between child protection systems and the juvenile justice system. Research shows that children who are abused and neglected are more likely to be involved in delinquent and criminal behavior. By fostering linkages between the child protection and juvenile justice systems, the provisions of this bill should lead to better, more appropriate treatment services.

The legislation also makes important changes by increasing collaboration between child protective services and health agencies. Children with disabilities are almost four times more likely to be victims of abuse and neglect, and children in the child welfare system are at higher risk for health problems. Any serious attempt to prevent and treat child abuse and neglect must include procedures for linking abused children and children at risk for abuse to the appropriate health and mental health services. The bill also requires States to report on their efforts to improve caseworker training, supervision, and retention so that children and families will be served better.

Ultimately, our success in appropriately intervening and providing services and treatment for vulnerable children and their families is dependent on having a well-trained workforce to make difficult judgments about how to best keep a child safe and make sure they have the love and the support of a permanent family.

This is a strong bill that will help children receive the services they need to grow up safe and healthy.

We must not be hypocritical about this. We cannot say we support children, but not provide the resources to do it. Right now, only 12 percent of Federal money for child abuse and neglect go toward prevention and treatment. This is shortsighted policy, because if we do not pay now for prevention and treatment, we pay later in our criminal justice system and health care costs.

The leadership has designated this week as Children's Week, and it is fitting that we focus on protecting our most vulnerable children. However, this legislation will offer little protection if it is not fully funded at the authorized level of $285 million. Similarly, designating a week as Children's Week will be little more than another empty promise if we are unwilling to provide the resources that we authorize for the key programs that serve our youth, such as this one, and the No Child Left Behind Act. I hope that the week we consider fiscal year 2004 appropriations for these programs will truly be Children's Week.

In closing, Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to support H.R. 14 today.

Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 5 minutes to the distinguished gentlewoman from New York (Mrs. Maloney).

(Mrs. MALONEY asked and was given permission to speak out of order revise and extend her remarks and include extraneous material.)

Tribute to the Late Daniel Patrick Moynihan

Mr. Speaker, before bringing this to closure, I want to join the gentlewoman from New York (Mrs. Maloney) in agreeing that the tribute that she paid Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan was one that is well deserved and one that is going to be remembered

throughout the country by many thousands of people who learned to love Senator Moynihan.

I want to thank the subcommittee chairman, the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Hoekstra), for bringing this legislation forward and bringing it to the floor in a very bipartisan manner.

Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.