Expressing the sense of the House of Representatives in support of full membership of Israel in the Western European and Others Group at the United Nations.

Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the last word.

Mr. Chairman, I yield to the gentleman from North Carolina (Mr. Price).

Mr. Chairman, I yield to the gentleman from North Carolina (Mr. Burr).

Mr. Chairman, I thank both the gentlemen for their comments.

For decades, the Iraqi people have labored under the brutal dictatorship of Saddam Hussein. In the last year, Iraqis have established local governments and representative councils. These entities represent a radical departure from past practice in which the central government made all of the decisions, including many that we believe are appropriate for the local level, such as education or municipal services.

As the gentleman remarked, we face significant challenges in Iraq that are going to require our continuing oversight. The United States' assistance to Iraq is well over $21 billion thus far and is the largest single assistance program ever undertaken in the world.

The effective implementation of programs like the Local Governance Project is critical to American efforts to bring peace to the Middle East and to the successful withdrawal of American troops from Iraq, and I appreciate the gentlemen for bringing this to our attention today.

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

Amendment No. 11 Offered by Mr. Kennedy of Minnesota

Mr. Chairman, I rise in opposition to the amendment.

Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from New York (Mrs. Lowey), the distinguished ranking member of the subcommittee.

Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from Minnesota (Ms. McCollum).

Mr. Chairman, I yield myself the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman from Minnesota (Mr. Kennedy) for his amendment in the sense that the support that it gives the Millennium Challenge Corporation, I think as he knows, I am one of his biggest champions. Indeed, it is our bill last year that carried the authorization for Millennium Challenge Corporation. But I do have to rise to oppose this amendment, cutting IDA to pay for addition funds through the Millennium Challenge Corporation and for HIV/AIDS.

As I said at the very outset and as the gentlewoman from New York (Mrs. Lowey) has said, this bill is a bipartisan one which means none of us could get everything we wanted. Given that the subcommittee had a budget allocation of $1.9 billion that is below what the President requested for all his initiatives, we simply could not fund all of them. The Millennium Challenge Corporation is one that we were not able to fully fund. I wanted to. I would have liked to, but the dollars simply were not there. Already our legislation cuts the International Development Association which, of course, is known as IDA, by $211 million below the President's request. And I can assure you this is already giving the Department of Treasury heartburn. So I feel compelled to resist further cuts to this funding.

Diverting these funds into bilateral programs denies six times as much as the gentleman's cuts to the poorest nations. Now, I made this point on the Sherman amendment earlier, because other countries put up for every U.S. taxpayer dollar that is put up, other countries and donors and resources provide $6 for each of those. This means a cut of six times as much when we cut this money out of there.

Mr. Chairman, I think the ranking member and the subcommittee and I made a difficult decision to cut the World Bank funding by $211 million

below the request, but another $425 million would put U.S. leadership at risk at the bank, in addition to reducing billions of dollars of assistance for poor countries for Africa, Asia, and Latin America.

As an appropriations chairman, I have a responsibility to manage many requests and many priorities, Presidential and congressional. And I do think that in this bill we have found a good balance between the Millennium Challenge Corporation, the HIV/AIDS accounts, and the IDA. And I think we have met all of those requirements. And I look forward, let me just say, to working with the gentleman to support the Millennium Challenge Corporation in the years ahead.

I am excited about what it is going to do. We are at the very beginning of that, but I am very excited about the potential for the Millennium Challenge Corporation. I hope we can provide substantially more funding for it in the years ahead.

I can also say that if our committee receives a higher allocation in conference, which is possible if the Senate numbers are different, I will certainly work my hardest to ensure that more of that goes to the Millennium Challenge Corporation. But for now I am compelled to oppose the gentleman's amendment, and I urge my colleagues to vote ``no.''

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

Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the last word. I do so for the purpose of entering into a colloquy with the gentleman from California (Mr. George Miller).

I yield to the gentleman from California.

Let me say I appreciate the gentleman calling this to our attention, and I agree with the importance of this program. I certainly would be happy to work with my friend from California as the bill moves to conference.

Mr. Chairman, I rise in opposition to the amendment.

Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the gentlewoman from New York (Mrs. Lowey).

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

I thank the gentleman from Oregon (Mr. Blumenauer) for his dedication to environmental issues and raising the funding for the Global Environmental Facility today.

As my colleague knows, the bill before the House today is bipartisan, as the gentlewoman has indicated, and of course that means that we do not get everything we want here. Given the priorities of the President, the priorities of both sides of the House, we did cut funding for the Global Environmental Facility by $13 million from the President's request.

But we did fund the entire regularly scheduled contribution of $107.5 million to the GEF so that we do not go further into arrears.

Just so my colleague understands that the GEF was not the one that was targeted specifically. The International Development Association, or IDA, which we just discussed in the last amendment, the concessional arm of the World Bank was cut $211 million from the administration's request.

So I appreciate my colleague raising the issue, and I appreciate his withdrawing the amendment and the bipartisan spirit within which the gentlewoman from New York (Mrs. Lowey) and I have worked during the course of the year, and I thank the gentleman.

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

Mr. Chairman, I rise in opposition to the amendment and claim the time in opposition.

Because I am going to close, unless the gentlewoman from New York wishes to say something on this amendment, I reserve the balance of my time.

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

I do rise in opposition to this amendment.

I find it ironic that a few moments ago we had an amendment offered by the gentleman from Minnesota to take money out of IDA and put it into the Millennium Challenge Corporation. Now we are having an amendment to take everything out of the Millennium Challenge Corporation, which suggests to me that maybe the subcommittee is just in the right place here in regards to the amount of the funds that we have.

I also find it ironic that the gentleman from Texas, who is a strong fiscal conservative, is offering this amendment. If ever there was anything in foreign assistance that made sense, it is the Millennium Challenge Corporation. I believe that it is the most dramatic departure from the way we have administered and provided foreign assistance since the Marshall Plan at the end of World War II, and I think it has a real opportunity to make a difference in the way that countries approach foreign assistance. In fact, we are already finding that to be the case, that countries that are not on the list of those who are eligible yet for consideration for the Millennium Challenge grants are saying what do we have to do to get on that, what kind of reforms do we have to undertake, and this is exactly what this Millennium Challenge Corporation, which we carried in our bill last year, does.

It is different than any other foreign assistance account that we have. It is different for four essential reasons.

First, the MCC will act as an incentive for countries to govern justly, to invest in their own people and create the right policy framework for economic growth. In short, it rewards good governance. No other development or economic assistance administered by USAID or the Department of State currently provides that kind of incentive.

Second, the MCC will offer up a laser focus on economic growth and poverty reduction. That is unlike current development assistance efforts where the U.S. government and other donors try to do a little bit of everything.

Third, the MCC recognizes that successful reforms have to be internally led. As I said a moment ago, this goes to countries where they have made a commitment to rooting out corruption, where they have openness and transparency, where they have a commitment to the rule of law, where they have a commitment to the protection of property rights. So it has to come internally in order to make this work. These are incentive kinds of grants, technical kinds of grants, things that will help the country do exactly what they need in order to have sustainable, long-term economic growth.

Fourth, the Congress has given the program the flexibility to meet the needs of the MCC countries as presented by the countries themselves.

In other words, it offers countries the prospect of local ownership and accountability for their own development, and that is why I believe this is critically important. The MCC promises to be one of America's best tools to help us address poverty, and I hope we can defeat this amendment. I urge my colleagues to defeat the amendment.

Mr. Chairman, I submit for the Record a copy of the letter sent to me by the Board of Directors of the MCC:

Millennium Challenge Corporation,

Arlington, VA.

Hon. Jim Kolbe,

Chairman, Subcommittee on Foreign Operations, Committee on

Appropriations, House of Representatives, Washington, DC.

Dear Mr. Chairman: As the members of the Board of Directors

of the Millennium Challenge Corporation, we greatly

appreciate your leadership and support for the Millennium

Challenge Account (MCA), a key Presidential priority. The

President's request will accelerate growth and opportunity

for countries that govern justly, invest in their people and

encourage economic freedom.

We are concerned, however, that the limitations on your

Subcommittee's appropriations allocation caused a reduction

in MCA levels to $1.25 billion, half of the President's $2.5

billion request. This level of funding may compromise the

Corporation's opportunity to commit to full multi-year

support to all countries that qualified to compete for MCA

assistance this year and could have an impact on the support

for countries that may qualify in 2005. For this reason, we

would strongly oppose any amendments which would impose

additional reductions, and will work with you to achieve the

necessary resources for this Presidential foreign assistance

initiative. Such amendments could call into question our

commitment to support those countries that have taken

responsibility for their own development through adoption of

sound policies.

We look forward to working with you to assure MCA is

adequately funded as we proceed with our critical mission in

the developing world.

Sincerely,

Colin L. Powell,

Chairman of the Board.

John Snow,

Vice Chairman of the Board.

Robert Zoellick,

U.S. Trade Representative.

Paul V. Applegarth,

CEO, Millennium Challenge Corporation.

Andrew S. Natsios,

Administrator, U.S. Agency of International Development.

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

Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the last word.

Mr. Chairman, I take this time to enter into a colloquy with the gentlewoman from Minnesota (Ms. McCollum).

I yield to the gentlewoman from Minnesota.

Reclaiming my time, Mr. Chairman, the gentlewoman is correct in her characterization. Assuming the availability of funds, we will seek to include report language that, at a minimum, would continue the program in Laos at the fiscal year 2004 level; but, if possible, at a higher level of $3 million.

Mr. Chairman, I claim the time in opposition to the amendment, and I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume; and I will not take 5 minutes, but just want to say that I would have serious concerns about this amendment. I think it is something that we can work with and perhaps solve in conference, but I would have severe heartburn about an amendment that is as arbitrary as this.

Let us say we were, for example, to have a major conference, like the Camp David Accords, or what we had in the Sinai a few years ago, where we came very close to a settlement on the peace accords. Obviously, hundreds of people were involved in that. This would arbitrarily limit any of the funding here from being spent to send people to a conference of that nature.

I yield to the gentleman from New Jersey, briefly.

Reclaiming my time, Mr. Chairman, I realize they could be coming under State Department, the White House and others that are not funded under this bill; but there are a number from USAID, Treasury, and others that would be funded and could be affected as a result of this. So I just have real concerns about that, and we will try to work that out.

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

Mr. Chairman, I rise to claim the time in opposition, and I do not rise in opposition to it. I think we all support the promotion of small business. We certainly need to have small enterprises get a fair shot at getting contracts and getting every business opportunity. And one of the things we have been pushing through AID is to do more with small businesses, both here and abroad.

The agency says that it has been essentially following the requirements of the proposed amendment now; and since it does simply restate current law, and in the interest of expediting business here in the House, I would accept this amendment and ask that we

review it in conference. So I am prepared to vote right now.

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

Mr. Chairman, I will not even take the 60 seconds. It seems to me there is a lot of misconceptions about this amendment here. Yes, we do welcome observers to our elections. We welcome people coming into this country. We have thousands of them come in every year. We invite them to come. They come under various plans, journalists, politicians, all kinds of people, who look at elections at the local level, at the State level, at the national level at our conventions. I have hosted those people in my district on election day, on primary day, on general election day. We should want those people to come here.

What we are talking about is whether we have people come here that have some kind of official capacity to determine the validity of our elections. We have a uniquely, unlike most other countries which have national elections, a National Elections Supervisory Board. Ours are so scattered. Every State has the responsibility for determining the elections.

So it would not be possible or not be wise to do that, and that is why this amendment is a very simple amendment that makes sense. Yes, come and observe, but you are not going to be here to determine the validity of the elections.

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

Mr. Chairman, I do rise in opposition to this amendment, which would limit the number of U.S. military and contractor personnel in Colombia. While I certainly can and would debate this on policy grounds, let me instead debate it on process, which I think is just as important here. This is an issue, and Members ought to know this, being currently decided in conference by the House and Senate Committee on Armed Services.

Permanent law limits the number of U.S. military and contractor personnel in Colombia to 400 each. That was enacted in the fiscal year 2002 foreign operations appropriations bill. The House Committee on Armed Services in their 2005 defense authorization bill included an increase in the number of military personnel to 500 and left the cap of 400 on contractor personnel. The Senate included in their bill an increase in military personnel to 800 and contractor personnel to 600, as the administration requested. Then on the floor of the other body, an amendment to limit these increases failed by a 40 to 58 vote.

This Committee was consulted by the administration on the personnel cap increase, and the House leadership decided that the authorizers would take the lead, which I think is appropriate.

The number of personnel in Colombia ought to be an issue of authorization. We provide the funds, but they should decide how many personnel may be in that country.

While my colleague may say this will allow the United States to get more deeply involved in Colombia, if one looks at the appropriation levels, that is not true. The Andean Counterdrug Initiative is streamlined from last year's $731 million.

So a vote in favor of this amendment would put this subcommittee right in the middle of the conference negotiations between the Armed Services Committees. I do not think we should be in that position.

Let me say a word on policy. Until recently, the agencies involved were able to work comfortably within the ceilings. The increased pace of implementation for all the programs we support being undertaken by the Uribe Administration offers an opportunity for real progress. The current cap levels have recently come to hurt management efficiency and planning and prevent full implementation of programs.

The average number of U.S. military and U.S. civilian contractors has grown as programs have been fully implemented or as new programs have started, such as the anti-kidnapping program started with the supplemental funds we appropriated last year.

During 2003, the number of U.S. military varied from 128 to 396; that of civilian contractors from 246 to 400. Requirements in our bill requiring human rights vetting and the prohibition on combat will be maintained.

Let me just say, in conclusion, that we have had some significant achievements in our efforts to eradicate coca in Colombia. Cultivation has been reduced by 21 percent in the last year on top of 15 percent in the year 2002. We

have reduced potential production of cocaine by over 20 percent. The number of communities that have voluntarily and manually eradicated cocaine is over 8,000 hectares in the year 2003.

So these are some of the reasons, but we will hear more in a little bit, why we ought to not support this amendment. I urge my colleagues not to do so.

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

Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Indiana (Mr. Souder).

(Mr. SOUDER asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. Chairman, will the gentlewoman yield?

I thank the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Menendez) for raising what I think is a very important point. Like he is, I am perplexed; I am disappointed with the administration's budget request for Latin America. I do not think it reflects the priorities or the national interests of the United States.

The gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Menendez) summarized some of the statistics; but for all of the Western Hemisphere, the development assistance, the child survival and health accounts were cut by 10\1/2\ percent in this year's request. And Central American countries received an even more disproportionate share of those cuts, a decrease of 17.8 percent.

Central American countries are our strong allies. They have become increasingly democratic. They are conducting fair and safe elections while electing governments that I believe history will view as turning points in these nations' future. But they do face daunting problems of poverty and corruption.

In countries such as Guatemala, El Salvador and Nicaragua, we are witnessing governments that are doing their best to tackle these problems head on. And we have of course recently negotiated a trade agreement with them that is going to require a lot of technical assistance for them to implement that. Add to these issues the need to get economic growth generated in Central America to provide a decent standard of living for their people, people are looking northwards for employment if not given any opportunities in their own country. Under those circumstances, I think Americans would support increasing assistance to these countries.

We do have in our report language that accompanies our bill before the House today language that directs the administration to restore the funding levels to last year's levels. I would prefer to see an increase and hope that we can see that sometime in the near future. I will push this issue further as we enter conference negotiations with the Senate, and I thank my colleague for raising this important issue. I thank the gentlewoman for yielding.

Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the last word.

Mr. Chairman, I yield to the gentlewoman from New York (Mrs. Lowey).

I yield to the gentleman from New Jersey.

I thank the gentleman with his comments. I am confident with his support and that of other Members of this body, we will get the attention of the administration on this issue.

Amendment Offered by Mr. Otter

Mr. Chairman, I reserve a point of order on the amendment.

Mr. Chairman, I rise in opposition to the amendment. I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Chairman, I agree completely with the sentiments expressed by the gentleman from Idaho (Mr. Otter). We certainly should not tolerate support for terrorism by any organization, that includes the Palestinian Authority. Indeed, the bill that is before you prohibits funds for the Authority, prohibits all funds for the Palestinian Authority, and includes a number of provisions affecting West Bank Gaza programs that would prohibit funds for any group or individual that supports terrorism.

This year the gentlewoman from New York (Mrs. Lowey) and I strengthen the prohibition on funding for terrorist groups by banning funding through the West Bank/Gaza program for any individual, any individual or group that advocates terrorism. The new provision also requires an immediate cut-off of funds if any group currently receiving funds advocates or engages in terrorist activities.

On the other hand, it is important to continue the West Bank/Gaza programs because they provide important humanitarian and infrastructure assistance for the Palestinian people. It is important to stress that all of the funds in this program are provided through nongovernmental organizations or through American contractors, or in some cases, Israeli contractors for water and sewer infrastructure programs. Not one cent goes to the Palestinian Authority.

I appreciate the concerns that the gentleman has expressed. They are the concerns of this subcommittee, and they are, I can assure the gentleman, expressed in the bill here. I understand the gentleman is prepared to withdraw his amendment.

Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the last word.

Mr. Chairman, I yield to the gentleman from California (Mr. Rohrabacher).

Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for his comments. I have to say that I find that these are very troubling charges, but we have only been recently informed of the issue. I intend to ask the State Department for further information regarding the situation, and I can assure the gentleman from California (Mr. Rohrabacher) that I will give it serious consideration.

The way Ethiopia deals with this issue will weigh heavily in the decisions we make in terms of policy and levels of assistance. So I appreciate the gentleman bringing this to our attention, and I will ask my staff to work with the gentleman to move towards a resolution.

Mr. Chairman, since I believe I will be the only one speaking here, I reserve my time.

Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentlewoman for yielding me time and for her leadership on so many issues.

What in the world are we worried about? If we have nothing to hide, then we should not have any concern whatsoever. Yet, today's New York Times in their article on the front page cites ``election troubles already descending on Florida.''

I truly expect that our elections will be well maintained and done in an honest and fair way, but no American should be ashamed or scared to have our democratic system observed and monitored by an international agency if voters are truly not being disenfranchised in the United States.

We have all served as monitors elsewhere. Why not have the same standard in our own country?

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

Election Troubles Already Descending on Florida

(By Abby Goodnough)

Miami, July 14.--Three years after Gov. Jeb Bush announced

a new voting system that he called ``a model for the rest of

the nation,'' Florida is grappling with some of the same

problems that threw the 2000 presidential election into

chaos, as well as new ones that critics say could cause even

more confusion this November.

The touch-screen voting machines intended to cure many of

the ills of 2000 have raised a host of other concerns here

just four months before the election. A new state rule

excludes the machines from manual recounts, and the integrity

of the machines was questioned after a problem was discovered

in the audit process of some of them. Voting rights groups

filed a lawsuit last week challenging the recount ban, and a

Democratic congressman has also sued to request a printed

record of every touch-screen vote.

The controversy over the new equipment is just one of

Florida's challenges, which also include confirming which

voters are ineligible, training poll workers on new policies

and processing a flood of new registrations.

State officials announced on Saturday that they would throw

out a controversial list used to remove felons from the

voting rolls, acknowledging that Hispanic felons were absent

from the list. Secretary of State Glenda E. Hood, appointed

by Governor Bush last year, had earlier dismissed concerns

from lawmakers and advocacy groups about the list of 48,000

suspected felons, which the state made public only after a

judge's order.

The United States Civil Rights Commission, which issued a

scathing report on the last election here in 2001, will

examine problems with the list of felons in a hearing

Thursday in Washington.

``The most important thing is to really show the voters

that there are reasons to have confidence in these systems,''

said Bobbie Brinegar, president of the League of Women Voters

of Miami-Dade County. ``But the mantra has been `trust us.'

And that is not good enough.''

Jacob DiPietro, a spokesman for Governor Bush, said the

governor was ``taking full responsibility'' for the problem

with the list, adding: ``His No. 1 priority is to have a

seamless election and an election where people have

confidence that their vote will be counted.''

The state, whose 36-day recount after the 2000 election

stunned and divided the nation, is expected to be a major

battleground again this year, with President Bush (the

governor's brother) and Senator John Kerry, his probable

Democratic opponent, fighting fiercely for its 27 electoral

votes. Mr. Bush won Florida by 537 votes last time, but

thousands of votes were discarded because of voter error on

poorly designed ballots and other problems.

The Republican-led Legislature quickly passed an overhaul

of the voting system in 2001, banning the punch-card ballots

that caused so much trouble in 2000, giving counties money

for new voting equipment and setting recount guidelines. It

adopted two-thirds of the recommendations from a bipartisan

task force that Governor Bush appointed after the 2000

election, but stayed away from some of the more

contentious issues.

Most notably, lawmakers passed over recommendations to make

the positions of county elections supervisors nonpartisan and

to review the state's policy of permanently stripping felons

of voting rights. The package that the Legislature adopted

has played a role in the new turmoil. Tucked into the law was

a provision keeping registration records secret. A state

judge struck it down on July 2, opening the way for a close

examination of the list of suspected felons to purge from the

rolls.

Newspapers then reported that the list had a simple but

glaring flaw: it guaranteed that no Hispanics, who tend to

vote Republican here, would be purged, while thousands of

blacks, who tend to vote Democratic, might be purged.

Governor Bush moved quickly to drop it, but he was too late

to avoid accusations from Democratic lawmakers and groups.

The critics have denounced the effort to keep the list

secret, the touch-screen problems and other troubles as

purposeful efforts by Florida's Republican leadership to give

President Bush an advantage here.

Unlike her predecessor Katherine Harris, who was co-

chairwoman of President Bush's 2000 campaign in Florida even

as she oversaw elections, Ms. Hood has publicly stayed away

from politics. But critics say that Ms. Hood, a Republican

and former Orlando mayor whom Governor Bush appointed, has

sown doubt by dismissing criticism of the electoral system

and by not answering questions sufficiently.

The abrupt resignation of Ed Kast, the state's director of

elections, last month--he

said he wanted to pursue other interests--only deepened

public distrust, said Sandy Wayland, a member of the Miami-

Dade Elections Reform Coalition.

While previous secretaries of state were elected, Ms. Hood

was the first appointed by the governor, the result of a 2003

change in the State Constitution. She reports to Governor

Bush, who is therefore more directly responsible for her

office's successes and failures.

``She is dealing with some really sophisticated, aggressive

partisans,'' said Lance deHaven-Smith, a political science

professor at Florida State University, speaking of the Jeb

Bush administration. ``She has been a good soldier, getting

up and saying, `Everything is fine, not to worry.' And come

to find out, some of the problems that people feared were

actually there.''

The coalition asked Ms. Hood's office last month to allow

an independent review of the touch-screen machines now used

by 15 of 67 counties, including Miami-Dade, Broward and Palm

Beach. The office said that only counties were authorized to

seek such audits, and told reporters that the request was an

effort to undermine voter confidence.

Through a public-records request, the coalition obtained e-

mail messages and other documents from Miami-Date election

officials who referred to a flaw in the touch-screen

equipment's ability to audit elections results, a backup way

of recording votes. The e-mail messages date back as far as

June 2003.

Constance Kaplan, the Miami-Dade County elections

supervisor, publicly acknowledged the problem this spring.

This month, the company that makes the machines, Elections

Systems and Software, provided software to correct the flaw,

which the county and state say will not affect the machines'

accuracy.

``It is important to note that the anomaly was rare, and

all votes were counted as the anomaly did not affect the vote

itself but rather the audit after,'' Ms. Hood's office

wrote in a statement Tuesday.

Nicole de Lara, Ms. Hood's communications director, said

that Ms. Kaplan's office had ``unfortunately'' not alerted

Ms. Hood to the problem, and that she first learned of it

from an article in The Daily Business Review in late May.

Some critics suspect that Mr. Kast's resignation was related

to the malfunction, but Mr. Kast said in an interview it was

not.

Ms. Wayland is among many here who contend that counties

like Miami-Dade and Broward adopted touch-screen technology

too soon, swayed by aggressive lobbyists. The 52 counties

that do not use touch-screen equipment use optional-scan

machines, which produce records that can be manually

recounted.

A recent analysis by The Sun-Sentinel found that touch-

screen machines in South Florida failed to record votes eight

times more often than optical-scan machines in the March

presidential primary.

Nonetheless, Ms. de Lara said touch-screen machines were

wholly reliable for tabulating votes. She added that they

would never require a recount because under State law the

only reason for a manual recount is ``voter intent'' when a

voter makes too many or too few choices. Touch-screen

machines do not allow people to vote for more than one

candidate, she said. And if people do not choose any

candidate for a given office, that is their prerogative, she

said.

The rule says no manual recounts will be conducted when

votes are cast by touch-screen machine.

The election reform coalition and other groups have also

expressed concerns about a new policy on provisional ballots,

used by Floridians if poll workers cannot verify their

registration on the spot. The Legislature decided that

provisional ballots cast outside a voter's home precinct can

be thrown out, which voting-rights groups call unfair.

Florida is one of several States where people are

questioning touch-screen technology. California's Secretary

of State, Kevin Shelley, has prohibited the use of machines

from Diebold Election Systems in four counties for the

November election, and has ordered that touch-screen systems

bought after July 1, 2005, produce a paper record that is

verifiable by the voter.

``There's no question in my mind that ultimately there will

be paper trails in every county in Florida,'' said

Representative Robert Wexler, a Florida Democrat whose suits

challenging paperless voting systems are on appeal. ``The

only question is when.''

Mr. Chairman, I join the chairman in opposition to the amendment. Because what the amendment would do is cut $250 million from the International Development Association and IDA funds, loans to the poorest countries in the world, mostly African countries, at low rates of interest and long-term repayment schedules.

IDA is the source of much of the capital that poor countries use to rebuild vital infrastructure and deal with the chronic problems of poor health and education systems. This amendment, if we had unlimited funds and we can do it all, it might make sense, but in light of the good work of the committee in trying to balance needs in all the accounts, I do not think we can possibly deal with cutting $250 million from IDA, and, therefore, I am opposed to this amendment.

Mr. Chairman, I applaud the spirit of the gentleman's amendment and regret that I cannot support it in this context. We have worked hard to bring a bill to the floor under a requirement to reduce the President's request by $1.9 billion. And so in order to accomplish this, we were forced to make, as you know, many tough choices, and reducing funding for the Global Environmental Facility of the World Bank, unfortunately, was one of them.

I have always worked hard to get adequate funding for the GEF because

Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the last word.

Mr. Chairman, I rise to support the intent of the gentlewoman's amendment, and I appreciate her thoughtful comments.

The problem of unexploded ordnance in Laos is real and will be addressed immediately. I would strongly urge a significant portion of the funds already in the bill for demining be used to address this problem in Laos, and I want to thank the gentlewoman for bringing this important issue to the attention of the committee.

Amendment Offered by Mr. Garrett of New Jersey

Mr. Chairman, I rise to claim the time in opposition.

Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Hastings).

Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Cummings), the distinguished chair of the Black Caucus.

Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Hoyer), our distinguished leader.

Mr. Chairman, I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentlewoman from Texas (Ms. Eddie Bernice Johnson).

Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Watson).

Mr. Chairman, I yield 30 seconds to the gentlewoman from New York (Mrs. Maloney).

(Mrs. MALONEY asked and was given permission to revise and extend her remarks.)

Mr. Chairman, I yield 30 seconds to the gentlewoman from Texas (Ms. Jackson-Lee).

(Ms. JACKSON-LEE of Texas asked and was given permission to revise and extend her remarks.)

Mr. Chairman, I yield 30 seconds to the gentlewoman from Florida (Ms. Corrine Brown).

(Ms. CORRINE BROWN of Florida asked and was given permission to revise and extend her remarks.)

Mr. Chairman, I rise in support of the Farr amendment.

As part of the fiscal year 2001 supplemental for Plan Colombia, Congress limited U.S. military and contractor presence in Colombia to 800 people. That bill, which first established our support for Plan Colombia, also strictly limited our assistance to Colombia for antinarcotic purposes.

As many of my colleagues may remember, that decision was made because Members were concerned that our involvement would increase as time went by and that the United States would expand the scope of its involvement from an antinarcotics campaign to an anti-insurgency campaign.

As the involvement of the Colombian terrorist organizations and drug trafficking increased, Congress approved an expansion of the authority governing our involvement in Colombia. Essentially, we allowed our resources and manpower to be used more broadly to pursue terrorist organizations involved in drug trafficking. The overall U.S. manpower caps remained in place, but were adjusted to allow 400 military and 400 contractor personnel, and this was done at the request of the administration in the 2002 Foreign Operations bill. The expanded authority was approved with those manpower limitations in mind; but this year, the administration has requested an expansion of our manpower cap to 800 military and 600 contractor personnel.

The House-passed Defense authorization bill partially grants this request, increasing the manpower cap to 500, while the Senate version of the bill grants the entire request to allow 800 military and 600 contractors. Today, the House should send a clear signal to the conferees in that bill by voting to limit our military presence to 550.

Our Armed Forces, and especially the Army and Special Forces, are stretched to the breaking point with our commitments in Iraq and Afghanistan.

It will take years for us to recover. While an increase of 400 may not seem large, I view this as a manifestation of a long-term plan to ramp up U.S. involvement in Colombia. Who knows what expansion will be sought next year?

The request to increase manpower is clearly intended to expand U.S. troop involvement in the Colombian's war against the FARC, that war that has been under way for 20 years. Solving Colombia's problems will not be accomplished with a few hundred additional U.S. soldiers. There must be a comprehensive effort that includes a plan for reintegration of former combatants back into Colombian society.

I respect the view of others. I certainly understand their point of view. I have always supported assistance for Colombia in the context of a plan that I thought made sense. The U.S. is now spending close to $1 billion a year in Colombia, including ever-increasing amounts found in the DOD appropriations bill. I do not support this manpower increase, because I believe it continues to expand U.S. involvement, and a violent political struggle will only lead to an ever-increasing commitment of U.S. manpower.

The amendment grants a modest increase in military manpower, reflects the House position as contained in the House defense authorization bill, and it is the soundest policy, in my judgment.

I urge my colleagues to support the Farr amendment.

Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the last word.

Mr. Chairman, I yield to the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Menendez).

I yield to the gentleman from Arizona.

I thank the chairman and I want to assure my good friend, the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Menendez), that I share the gentleman's commitment to working with you to increase the dollars for Latin America because we realize how critical this is.

The committee's recommendation to increase both the Child Survival and Development Assistance accounts by a combined total of $328 million above the President's request was in large part meant to restore cuts made to Latin American countries. In addition, the committee report as cited by the chairman contains specific directive language mandating that the Agency For International Development restore cuts made to Central American countries when the FY 2005 operating plans are developed.

Frankly, it is unclear to me why the administration would choose to reduce our commitment to our closest neighbors at a time when overall foreign aid is increasing. Additional funding would enable vital education, maternal and infant health, and democracy and agricultural programs to be restored.

It is my hope that the administration's fiscal year 2006 request will reflect the clear interests of Congress at a robust level of funding for Latin America, as evidenced by the gentleman's amendment.

I want to conclude by saying, I share our chairman's deep commitment to Latin America. We thank the gentleman for his comments on this issue, and we assure the gentleman that we are going to work together to make sure that Latin America gets the assistance that it rightly deserves.

Mr. Chairman, I offer an amendment.

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

(Mr. FARR asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. Chairman, I want to thank the gentleman from Arizona (Chairman Kolbe) and the ranking member, the gentlewoman from New York (Mrs. Lowey), for the opportunity to debate an important topic on foreign aid to Colombia under the Plan Colombia.

The amendment that I am going to offer today would cap the military personnel in Colombia. The gentleman from Arizona (Chairman Kolbe) knows how much Colombia means to me as a former Peace Corps volunteer in that country, and I would like to debate this issue with my colleagues here on the floor.

In the original Plan Colombia, Congress placed caps on the number of personnel that would be allowed in Colombia, U.S. military personnel and U.S. civilian personnel. Those caps were put in place to prevent the growth of the U.S. military commitment in Colombia. I became very concerned when I

heard the administration had asked Congress to increase the manpower caps in Colombia to 800 U.S. military personnel and 600 contractors.

It has been pointed out to Congress just last week by General Richard Cody, who told the House Committee on Armed Services that the recent troop deployments in Iraq have taken a toll on U.S. readiness to deploy elsewhere and even to replace troops currently deployed in U.S.-led military combat in Iraq and in Afghanistan. To quote General Cody, ``We are stretched thin with our active and reserve component forces right now. Absolutely.'' Yet the administration wants to double the number of troops allowed under the manpower caps from 400 to 800.

Even General Hill of SOUTHCOM recently said before the Committee on Government Reform that rebuilding the social and economic system is needed in order to solve the problems in Colombia.

But today the administration has been calling Members' offices to ask them to oppose the Farr-Schakowsky-McGovern amendment, because the administration is dead set on working to expand the military aid, not the economic aid to Colombia.

After 5 years of spending almost $4 billion on Plan Colombia, is it not time that we reassess our policy? The Committee on Armed Services did that. The gentleman from Mississippi (Mr. Taylor) is to be commended for his work on the Committee on Armed Services, because he was able to get a reasonable ceiling on U.S. personnel in Colombia. He got bipartisan support and amended the defense bill to do just that. I am asking the same in the foreign ops bill.

Mr. Chairman, I yield 3 minutes to the gentlewoman from Illinois (Ms. Schakowsky)

Mr. Chairman, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Stupak).

Mr. Chairman, I yield 4\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. McGovern).

Mr. Chairman, I yield 3\1/2\ minutes to the ranking member of the committee, the gentlewoman from New York (Mrs. Lowey).

Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 2\1/2\ minutes at this time.

I want to respond to the gentleman from Illinois and the gentleman from Indiana. They say that Plan Colombia is working, and it is working under the existing caps. My point is that, as a person who lived in that country and worked in the economic development and the community development as a Peace Corps volunteer, is that I believe that Colombia has the capacity with our help to win this war on terrorism, to win this war on drugs, and it is the obscene amount of money that drug cartels dumped into the country that is doing it.

But you are not going to win that by putting all of the emphasis on the military side, and that is where the mission creep is. We have the most amount of money being spent on the military than we ever have, and we are winning the war. Now we need to spend money on the civilian side, on the economic side.

You cannot win this war. What you have to do is win the peace, and the peace will not be won until the investment is in Colombians to do the job for themselves.

My job in the Peace Corps was to work myself out of a job, and I think what we have lost track of here or lost sight of is that we are not really emphasizing how do we get these countries to do the job themselves. How do we get the contractors that are being paid American dollars, how do we get military that is our military to work themselves out of a job? Until we answer that and see that we are moving in that direction, I think we are asking the wrong question and we are quoting the wrong facts here.

Yes, it is moving in the right direction. In fact, we would argue that, because of the way it is moving, there ought to be a greater emphasis, not a less emphasis, on local economic development, on fighting the war on poverty. There is only 20 percent of the budget that now goes to the economic side of it. That is the least amount of money since the war in Colombia, the Plan Colombia began. So the mission creep is on the military side, and I think the mission creep ought to be on the other side, on the economic side. Until we win the war on poverty, we will not win the peace, and until we win the peace, we will not have a stable country.

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

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

In conclusion, I would ask for unanimous consent that, at the end of this, we withdraw the amendment to keep this dialogue going. I think we can focus on really trying to do the right thing in Colombia, and I do not think that there is any difference on either side of the aisle that we want the Colombians to be able to have the capacity to govern themselves in a peaceful fashion.

They certainly, of all the countries that we are involved in, have a better infrastructure, a longer-running democracy, more communities established all over the country, have well-educated people, but they also have a massive amount of poverty. The biggest problem with the drug war is it has displaced millions of people who just do not have an adequate place to live or a job or the social services or the health services and educational services that are necessary.

That is my concern, that if we are putting more emphasis essentially into the military, we are going to have less emphasis, because there is only so much money you can spend on what I think is so essential, to having a lasting peace in Colombia. And that is, we have got to provide for the infrastructure, the social, economic infrastructure of all of the people that have been displaced, and we are moving away from that, from the ability to have alternative crops.

Remember, the crops that are growing and are being destroyed are way out in the boonies in the middle of the jungles. You are not going to reestablish a market crop in the jungles. You are going to have to reestablish a market crop in the areas.

And, remember, Colombia has been one of the leading agricultural countries in the world. We have all been drinking its coffee forever, and the quality of that coffee is the highest there is. We could do more by paying more for Colombian coffee, would be the best help in economic aid to that country of anything that I can imagine.

But I would like to make sure that, as we go into conference on this bill and into the defense bill, that we keep in mind that the war in Colombia is not going to be won by mission creep of the military. It is going to be won when we start tipping the scale, as the gentleman from Indiana said, to put more emphasis in the peace effort and less in the war effort.

Mr. Chairman, I ask unanimous consent to withdraw the amendment.

Mr. Chairman, I do not believe this is mission creep, this is more like Mission Success. But I want to say first before I get into it, and I appreciate that the gentleman from California has agreed to withdraw his amendment, as I have tremendous respect for the gentleman from California who has truly been committed to Colombia, who was in the Peace Corps in Colombia, and has worked through many of these problems. And the gentleman from Massachusetts has shown, through his personal visits to Colombia in a repeated way and in different areas that he is truly and deeply concerned, as is the gentlewoman from Illinois.

I think it is important that even when we have deep differences of philosophy on how to approach narcotics, how to approach things like sending our troops overseas, that we treat each other with respect here in this body and it is very important, even in these most contentious times, that we try to do that here; and we all need to work towards that. But we do have some disagreements.

First, the reason I say that I believe it is Mission Success is that one way we measure this is whether we have succeeded in reducing the massacres which have gone down this year compared to last year by 41 percent, massacre victims by 55 percent, kidnappings by 46 percent, executive kidnappings by 60 percent, illegal roadblocks by 66 percent, roadblock kidnappings by 61 percent, bank robberies by 66 percent; in addition to the statistics we are getting on cocaine and heroin seizures which are substantially up, but which often, as we all know are fungible, because it seems like we always discover more but, in fact, at this point, we cannot even find in organized areas big plots of heroin, which has been a growing problem. They have moved it into higher altitudes; and, quite frankly, we did not understand how hard it was going to be to continue to make the reductions. Similar in coca. They have reconfigured. We are making progress. We believe we are at a critical tipping point.

We have an administration in Colombia that has finally understood a basic point, not only about the DMZ, but about going after, in a repeated way, the coca growers.

I am a strong supporter, as the gentleman from California knows, of alternative development. We have met down in Colombia with leaders there and understand unless we can rebuild their justice system, it is the oldest democracy in South America, but unless we can rebuild that justice system, we have deep problems, and we have worked to try to make sure funding goes both ways.

But, quite frankly, nobody will run for office if they think they are going to be assassinated. Businessmen are fleeing the country if they think they are going to be kidnapped. I went in Nelson Mandela Village with many of the displaced people, and they do not want to go home because, first, the FARC comes through and terrorizes them, then the paramilitaries come through and terrorize them; often the kidnappings, and what they need is some order.

We have an administration under President Uribe who is giving the order. And, to my view, and I think to most observers, this is the model for Iraq. By the way, we are not asking for 800; we are saying a cap, and that way we do not have to come back. The number there of advisors varies. These are not fighters, soldiers in the sense of them shooting bullets like in Afghanistan and Iraq. These are advisors. In my opinion, this is where we want to be in Iraq, this is where we want to be in Afghanistan, where we are arguing how many advisors we have there.

But the people on the ground in Colombia who are fighting and dying are Colombians, not Americans. And they are fighting, by the way, over something that is our drug habit and Western Europe's drug habit. They did not have, and I heard them all the time here, a civil war. They have at different points in time, like many countries, had people who are displaced landowners or people who felt land distribution was unfair, which it generally is in South America, and had a civil war; but this is now a narcotics war with only a small pocket.

The total support for the FARC is less than the drug lords, terrorists, dealers, and other terrorists groups in the United States. We would not like it if Colombia referred to us as having a civil war because we have drug dealers in our country or we have terrorists in our country. The group that tried to negotiate the peace, and many of them have come out, may have at one time been there for altruistic, civil war motives; but this is a classic terrorism war at this point, and Uribe is going after it. He, as much as anybody. And we can see it in Medellin; we can see it in Putumayo and in other areas working for alternative development.

I believe this lifting of the cap which may be only 450, may be 500, hopefully will eliminate the need to come in, if there are times when we need a few more, of advisors to train the Colombians and to use the model where they are really turning the progress. Quite frankly, if we do not reach a tipping point, we have a problem, and we need to work together, that after these people start to move back into their villages, after they start to rebuild their communities, we absolutely have an obligation to help with the financial alternative development, to help them rebuild those institutions.

I appreciate the gentleman from Arizona (Chairman Kolbe) and the gentleman from Florida (Chairman Young) working in this bill to allow, one group that I worked with was Kid Save where we have many of these older kids who are orphaned or who have been abandoned, and this bill now allows some money to be able through AID to help those kids in adoption in the United States and in Colombia; and that is the type of thing we need to be working towards. But to achieve that, we have to have order.

Mr. Chairman, I basically agree with the gentleman from California that I am disappointed that as we need more dollars, if we do, for some military operations that they would come out of the domestic side. Long term, you are absolutely right. We have to win the hearts of the people, but, as the gentleman knows, we have two variables that have complicated the final kind of push over the top.

One, they moved the heroin up higher on the mountains; and it requires a different military capability with the helicopters and different training. And, secondly, they moved east, into the country, into the jungles, farther from our air bases; and we need the capability, at least at certain periods of time, to increase the number of advisers to address those two things.

But, long term, if we are not moving in the direction you are talking, we will never win this war and we will not accomplish it. But there are times when you have to have different strategies, and I believe that is essential at this point in time.