Reserved.

Mr. Speaker, let me respond by saying that the gentleman is absolutely right when he states that the Chair does not rule on questions of constitutionality.

I would also like to say that on this question that is being brought forward by my friend, it is very clear to me based on statements that have been made by a wide range of constitutional scholars that what we are doing in the rules package that we are about to consider is in fact constitutional. In fact, before the Committee on Rules the very distinguished former Solicitor General Walter Dellinger said the following: ``It is simply inconceivable that a Constitution established to provide for the common defense and promote the general welfare would leave the Nation unable to act in precisely the moment of greatest peril. No constitutional amendment is required to enact the proposed rule change because the Constitution as drafted permits the Congress to ensure the preservation of government.''

Let me further, Mr. Speaker, say that the Committee on Rules intends to conduct further examination of the best way for the House to assure a continuity of government during a national emergency, and it is our hope that as we proceed with this work that further discussions will take place with the members of that very distinguished panel, the Continuity Commission, which included our former colleague, Senator Simpson, and Speakers Foley and Gingrich and former minority leader Bob Michel, Leon Panetta, Kwasi Mfume, and I believe we will have a chance to proceed with this; but I think it would be very appropriate for us to proceed with consideration of the rules package that we have.

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

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Texas (Mr. DeLay) for his fine statement and for yielding me the time to discuss this opening-day rules package.

Mr. Speaker, the House is an institution built upon its rules. Accordingly, it is very appropriate that one of the first orders of business for this 109th Congress will be to adopt a rules package which is both true to the traditions and very forward thinking in its outlook for the work of this Congress that lies ahead.

The package we have before us represents the work product of many Members. During the initial stages of compiling this rules package back in November, the Committee on Rules received 40 different proposals from both Democrats and Republicans. In addition to that, our committee staff has actively sought the input of the officers of the House, its committees and its caucuses to get their perspectives on the kinds of changes we can make to facilitate the work of the House.

All of the ideas contained in this resolution reflect the considered judgment of our colleagues and will ultimately improve our ability to carry out our constitutional responsibilities.

Mr. Speaker, I include for the Record at this point detail on each of these changes in a section-by-section analysis.

Section-By-Section Summary of H. Res. 5, Adopting House Rules for the

109th Congress

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

I just want to say to the gentlewoman from Rochester, New York (Ms. Slaughter) that every single Member of this institution, Democrat and Republican alike, is very concerned and focused on the integrity of this institution; and I believe that that is something which is an extraordinarily high priority for all of us. I believe that the package that we have coming before us is one which addresses many of the concerns that frankly were raised by the gentlewoman from New York (Ms. Slaughter).

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the very distinguished gentleman from Miami, Florida (Mr. Lincoln Diaz-Balart), my colleague on the Committee on Rules.

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

Let me say after having heard from two of my Committee on Rules colleagues that I anxiously look forward to working with them in a bipartisan way to try to proceed with the deliberations in consideration of measures of this House.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 5 minutes to the gentleman from Colorado (Mr. Hefley), the distinguished chairman of the Committee on Standards of Official Conduct.

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

I would like to respond to my very good friend from Maryland by saying that I may not be as eloquent today as I was when I was in the minority, but I continue to share my very strong commitment to ensure the integrity and the behavior of Members of this institution. I also will say as my friend said, it is very clear that the gentleman from Colorado (Mr. Hefley), chairman of the Committee on Standards of Official Conduct, has made it clear that he is supportive of this package. I and my colleagues looked at these recommendations, all of which emerged from members and former members of the Committee on Standards of Official Conduct. I also believe that it is very possible for us to maintain the highest ethical standards and to continue to ensure, to now ensure that due process is entitled to Members of this institution as they proceed with matters before that committee.

So I believe that this package is one which should enjoy strong bipartisan support, because when it comes to matters of ethics it will address the concern and the protection of Members of both the minority and the majority, as well as this institution as a whole.

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

Mr. Speaker, I am very happy to yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from New York (Mr. Boehlert), the very distinguished chairman of the Committee on Science.

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

Mr. Speaker, I yield such time as he may consume to the gentleman from Mississippi (Mr. Taylor) for purposes of a colloquy.

Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?

Mr. Speaker, I will be happy to respond to the gentleman.

Let me say we are in the midst of a discussion about ethics at this point. Obviously, it is our goal to maintain the highest ethical standards. We have a law, which is actually a criminal law, which states that it is a violation of 18 U.S. Code 607 for the solicitation of campaign contributions from Federal property.

The idea behind this change that is included in this rules package is that Members should not be required to carry two separate cell phones with them. This would allow campaign funds to be used for the purchase of a cell phone that might be used for calling your office or other official purposes. But the law which prevents the solicitation of campaign contributions from Federal property in fact is maintained and is one we that feel very strongly about.

In any Federal building whatsoever. On Federal property is what the law says. It is a violation of the law.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that the Chair may reduce to 5 minutes the minimum time for electronic voting on the motion to commit and the vote on the adoption of H. Res. 5 if the votes immediately follow a 15-minute vote, notwithstanding intervening proceedings attending the administration of the oath of office to Members-elect.

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

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

Mr. Speaker, we have a great rules package that is coming before us, a rules package which I believe is deserving of bipartisan support. The reason I say it is deserving of bipartisan support is that is the word that has been used by Members on both sides of the aisle to describe exactly what we have been doing here and should be doing here.

Mr. Speaker, this package includes a number of very important provisions. It allows us to deal with the prospect of a horrendous attack on this institution, and it allows us to continue this institution's operations so the American people will understand that this institution stands even at a time of great crisis. This rules package allows for the establishment of a new permanent standing committee on homeland security, as the Speaker outlined in his opening remarks here today. I believe that is something that will allow Democrats and Republicans to spend time working on that issue.

Mr. Speaker, this is a rules package which allows for bipartisan process at the ethics committee level. The Committee on Standards of Official Conduct is the committee which has the responsibility of working to ensure the integrity of all of the Members of this institution. The package we have before us does just that.

I believe that the statement made by the chairman of the Committee on Standards of Official Conduct, the gentleman from Colorado (Mr. Hefley), is very clear. He understands that the provisions included in this package will in fact maintain the integrity of this institution. He was not going to support the earlier package; he is supporting this package. The issue of bipartisanship is important because in this package we ensure that we will not see the politicization of the ethics process which tragically we have seen in the past, because it will require bipartisanship, which all Members are talking about, if we do proceed with the investigatory process.

That is the right thing to do, and I believe this package should in fact enjoy the support of Democrats and Republicans alike because it is designed to protect this institution and its Members.

Mr. Speaker, the House is an institution built upon its rules. Accordingly, it is appropriate that one of the first orders of business of the 109th Congress will be to adopt a rules package which is both true to its traditions and forward-thinking in its outlook.

The package we have before us represents the work product of many Members. During the initial stages of compiling this package, back in November, the Rules Committee received 40 difference proposals form both Democrats and Republicans.

In addition, our committee staff has actively sought the input of the officers of the House, its committees, and its caucuses to get their perspectives on the kinds of changes we can make to facilitate the work of the House.

While not every proposal we received was incorporated into this package, I assure you that each received substantial consideration by the Speaker and the Rules Committee. And, as always, the Rules Committee will continue to review our rules and operations to see where other improvements can be made.

Mr. Speaker, all of the ideals contained in this resolution reflect the considered judgment of our colleagues, and will ultimately improve our ability to carry out our constitutional responsibilities. While I will detail each of these changes in the section-by-section that I will place in the Record, I want to elaborate on just a few of these changes.

The gentlewoman from Virginia (Mrs. Jo Ann Davis) is the author of one important provision directing committees to review matters within their jurisdiction to ferret out duplicative government programs as part of their oversight planning at the beginning of each Congress.

There are a number of instances where we are conforming the rules to reflect current House practice, such as with the designation of leadership members of the Budget Committee and the taking of recesses in committee to allow flexibility on our schedules.

We are also making the ability to consider suspensions on Wednesdays permanent in

this Congress after our successful experiment in the 108th Congress.

The package includes important provisions to allow us to function in situations where large numbers of Members are incapacitated. The ``provisional quorum'' language includes a number of safeguards to ensure that this institution can continue to operate during times of turmoil and democracy will be preserved.

As we search for permanent solutions to the problems facing us in the post-9/11 era, this is an important step in meeting our responsibilities.

We will also eliminate the Corrections Calendar. While this was originally intended to make it easier to consider legislation making corrections to outright errors in law, it turned out to be more cumbersome than other procedures, such as consideration under suspension of the rules.

And yes, Mr. Speaker, in a change guaranteed to draw applause from my colleagues, the House rules will now allow us to make reference to the Senate and its Members, so long as those references are confined to the question under debate and avoid personality. The Senate has long had similar provisions and this new rule merely conforms our rules to theirs.

I know that my colleagues and I share the desire to maintain our traditions of dignity and decorum in proceedings, and will do so even with this rules change.

On another topic, the package makes a series of changes to our ethics rules.

We included two provisions suggested by the chairman and ranking member of the Standards Committee: (1) clarifying the rule on officially connected travel to allow a family member other than a spouse or child to travel with the member at the sponsor's expense, and (2) conforming the rules of the House to current law which allow the use of campaign funds to pay for certain official expenses, such as a cellphone.

We also included provision suggested by the gentleman from Connecticut (Mr. Larson) to conform the rules of the House to current law with regard to the 90-day pre-election limit on franked mail.

The package also includes two other provisions addressing our ethics rules. The first gives Members the same rights to choose their counsel before the Ethics Committee that they would enjoy if they were a respondent in a court case.

The second change addresses an inequity in the Standards Committee process requiring an investigative subcommittee if the chairman and ranking member don't act within 45 days. This change restores the presumption of innocence in our process.

As important as each of those changes are, Mr. Speaker, perhaps the most important change in this resolution will be the creation of a new standing Committee on Homeland Security.

It represents a far-reaching and critically important part of our overall strategic effort to protect the American people. The 9/11 Commission unanimously called for this action. They saw the need, and we believe most Members do, too.

Over the past 3 years, the Congress has asked the American people to accept change in countless ways. We have mandated change at the Federal, State, and local levels. We have asked for change from our allies and forced change upon our enemies.

And we saw the need for change over 2 years ago, and we responded, first with the enactment of the Homeland Security Act of 2002, and then with the formation of the Select Committee on Homeland Security. Their final report, a thorough and complete study of homeland security jurisdiction as it relates to House rules, was transmitted to my committee at the end of last year.

These measures made it clear to me and many other Members that steps need to be taken to further ensure the safety of the American people. The Rules Committee thoroughly reviewed the Select Committee's report and recommended a comprehensive and thoughtful reform effort that mirrors the recommendations of the 9/11 Commission: the formation of a permanent Committee on Homeland Security.

This change in House rule X, which governs the committee and their legislative jurisdictions, is delicately crafted architecture. It draws to the new committee only jurisdiction directly related to our defense against terrorism. Thus, it creates a primary committee while recognizing the other legitimate oversight roles of existing committees. It acknowledges the expertise and experience residing in other committees and leaves with them jurisdiction that may have a homeland security implication but not a direct policy relationship.

The House must have one central point where we, as national legislators, sort out the critical questions of securing our homeland without sacrificing our free society or a stable economy.

However, we envision a system of ``purposeful redundancy.'' By that we mean more than one level of oversight and an atmosphere in which the competition of ideas is encouraged.

With this jurisdiction and the legislative history that I will place in the Record, the Department of Homeland Security will have more certainty as to which committee has the primary responsibility for homeland security. At the same time, the American people will live with the assurance that we are working to prevent anything from falling through the cracks.

Mr. Speaker, the new committee will have jurisdiction over: (1) Overall homeland security policy; (2) the organization and administration of the Department of Homeland Security; and (3) functions of the Department of Homeland Security relating to border and port security (except immigration policy and non-border enforcement), customs (except customs revenue), the integration, analysis, and dissemination of homeland security information, domestic preparedness for and collective response to terrorism, research and development, and transportation security.

By approving this resolution, the House will do what the Speaker and the 9/11 Commission has asked it to do: consolidate jurisdiction of the House in one committee. This committee will be dedicated to setting national homeland security policy and to effectively overseeing that the Department of Homeland Security carries out its mission.

Mr. Speaker, in making these changes, I want to note several points for the record.

First, referrals to the Select Committee on Homeland Security in the 108th Congress will not be considered a precedent for referrals in the 109th Congress.

Second, at the request of Mr. Thomas, I am placing a document into the Record regarding understandings between the Department of Treasury and the Department of Homeland Security.

Third, because the Department continues to evolve, references to a department, agency, bureau, office, or subdivision include a reference to successor entities to the extent that the successor engages in homeland security activities now conducted by the department, agency, bureau, office, or subdivision referred to in the legislative history.

For example, the Homeland Security Act of 2002 transferred the Office of Domestic Preparedness to the Department of Homeland Security, to ``have the primary responsibility within the executive branch of Government for preparedness of the U.S. for acts of terrorism.'' Subsequently, its name has been changed by the Department to ``Office of State and Local Government Coordination and Preparedness (SLGCP)'' although its mission stays the same.

Finally, I welcome questions from my colleagues about jurisdictional matters related to this change. However, I want to caution all Members that referrals are solely within the Speaker's power, and, in my answers, I will not infringe upon the power.

Once again, I appreciate the input from all of you regarding the 109th rules package, and I feel that with your assistance, we will make the rules of the House stronger and make for a safer country.

Mr. Speaker, I am inserting for the Record the following legislative history regarding the changes made by this resolution to Rule X, along with supporting materials.

Legislative History To Accompany Changes to Rule X

rule x and the committee on homeland security

Legislative history

Overall homeland security policy--The jurisdiction of the

Committee on Homeland Security over ``overall homeland

security policy'' is to be interpreted on a government-wide

or multi-agency basis similar to the Committee on Government

Reform's jurisdiction over ``overall economy, efficiency, and

management of government operations and activities. . . .''

Surgical addresses of homeland security policy in sundry

areas of jurisdiction occupied by other committees would not

be referred to the Committee on Homeland Security on the

basis of ``overall'' homeland security policy jurisdiction.

For example, the Committee on Homeland Security shall have

jurisdiction over a bill coordinating the homeland security

efforts by all of the critical infrastructure protection

sectors. Jurisdiction over a bill addressing the protection

of a particular sector would lie with the committee otherwise

having jurisdiction over that sector.

Organization and administration of the Department of

Homeland Security--The jurisdiction of the Committee on

Homeland Security would apply only to organizational or

administrative aspects of the Department where another

committee's jurisdiction did not clearly apply. The

Committee's jurisdiction is to be confined to organizational

and administrative efforts and would not apply to

programmatic efforts within the Department of Homeland

Security within the jurisdiction of other committees.

Homeland Security Oversight--This would vest the Committee

on Homeland Security with oversight jurisdiction over the

homeland security community of the United States. Nothing in

this clause shall be construed as prohibiting or otherwise

restricting the authority of any other committee to study and

review homeland security activities to the extent that such

activity directly affects a matter otherwise within the

jurisdiction of that committee.

Individual committee concerns

Agriculture--The jurisdiction of the Committee on Homeland

Security over ``border and port security'' shall be limited

to agricultural importation and entry inspection activities

of the Department of Homeland Security under section 421 of

the Homeland Security Act of 2002. The Committee on

Agriculture shall retain jurisdiction over animal and

plant disease policy including the authority reserved to

the Department of Agriculture to regulate policy under

section 421 of the Homeland Security Act of 2002, and the

Animal Health Protection Act, the Plant Protection Act,

the Plant Quarantine Act, and the Agriculture Quarantine

Inspection User Fee Account. The Committee on Agriculture

shall retain jurisdiction over the agricultural research

and diagnosis mission at the Plum Island Animal Disease

Center.

Armed Services--The Committee on Armed Services shall

retain jurisdiction over warfighting, the military defense of

the United States, and other military activities, including

any military response to terrorism, pursuant to section 876

of the Homeland Security Act of 2002.

Energy and Commerce--The Committee on Homeland Security

shall have jurisdiction over measures that address the

Department of Homeland Security's activities for domestic

preparedness and collective response to terrorism. The words

``to terrorism'' require a direct relation to terrorism. The

Committee on Homeland Security's jurisdiction over

``collective response to terrorism'' means that it shall

receive referrals of bills addressing the Department of

Homeland Security's responsibilities for, and assistance to,

first responders as a whole. The Committee on Energy and

Commerce (and other relevant committees) shall retain their

jurisdiction over bills addressing the separate entities that

comprise the first responders. For example, the Committee on

Energy and Commerce shall retain its jurisdiction over a bill

directing the Department of Health and Human Services to

train emergency medical personnel.

Financial Services--The Committee on Financial Services

shall retain jurisdiction over the National Flood Insurance

Program and Emergency Food and Shelter Program of FEMA, and

the Defense Production Act. The Committee on Financial

Services shall retain its jurisdiction over the anti-money

laundering, terrorist financing, and anti-counterfeiting

activities within the Department of the Treasury and the

financial regulators.

Government Reform--The Committee on Homeland Security shall

have jurisdiction over ``the organization and administration

of the Department of Homeland Security.'' The Committee on

Government Reform shall retain jurisdiction over federal

civil service, the overall economy, efficiency, and

management of government operations and activities, including

Federal procurement, and federal paperwork reduction. The

Committee on Government Reform shall retain jurisdiction over

government-wide information management efforts including the

Federal Information Security Management Act. The Committee on

Homeland Security shall have jurisdiction over integration,

analysis, and dissemination of homeland security

information by the Department of Homeland Security, and

the Committee on Government Reform shall retain

jurisdiction over measures addressing public information

and records generally including the Privacy Act and the

Freedom of Information Act. The Committee on Government

Reform shall have jurisdiction over the policy

coordination responsibilities of the Office of

Counternarcotics Enforcement.

Intelligence--The Permanent Select Committee on

Intelligence shall retain jurisdiction over the intelligence

and intelligence-related activities of all departments and

agencies of the Federal Government, including the Office of

the Director of National Intelligence and the National

Counterterrorism Center as defined in the Intelligence Reform

and Terrorism Prevention Act of 2004.

Judiciary--The Committee on the Judiciary shall retain

jurisdiction over immigration policy and non-border

enforceme4tn of the immigration laws. Its jurisdiction over

immigration policy shall include matters such as the

immigration and naturalization process, numbers of aliens

(including immigrants and non-immigrants) allowed,

classifications and lengths of allowable stay, the

adjudication of immigration petitions and the requirements

for the same, the domestic adjudication of immigration

petitions and applications submitted to the Department of

Labor or the Department of Homeland Security and setting

policy with regard to visa issuance and acceptance. Its

jurisdiction over non-border enforcement shall be limited to

those aspects of immigration enforcement not associated with

the immediate entry of individuals into the country,

including those aspects of the Bureau of Immigration and

Customs Enforcement. The Committee on Homeland Security shall

have jurisdiction over border and port security including the

immigration responsibilities of inspectors at ports of entry

and the border patrol. As used in the new Rule X(1)(l)(9) and

this legislative history, the word ``immigration'' shall be

construed to include ``naturalization'' and no substantive

change is intended by the new rule's not containing the word

``naturalization.''

Science--The Committee on Science shall retain some

jurisdiction over the research and development activities of

the Department of Homeland Security as such matters are

incidental to the Committee on Science's

existing jurisdiction (except where those activities are in

the jurisdiction of another committee).

Transportation and Infrastructure--The Committee on

Transportation and Infrastructure shall retain jurisdiction

over the Coast Guard. However, the Committee on Homeland

Security has jurisdiction over port security, and some Coast

Guard responsibilities in that area will fall within the

jurisdiction of both committees. Jurisdiction over emergency

preparedness will be split between the Committee

on Transportation and Infrastructure and the Committee on

Homeland Security. The Committee on Transportation and

Infrastructure shall retain its jurisdiction under clause

1(r)(2) over ``federal management of emergencies and

natural disasters.'' This means that the committee retains

its general jurisdiction over the emergency preparedness

and response operations of the Federal Emergency

Management Agency (FEMA). Bills addressing FEMA's general

preparation for disaster from any cause shall be referred

to the Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure. The

Committee on Homeland Security shall have jurisdiction

over the Department of Homeland Security's

responsibilities with regard to emergency preparedness

only as they relate to acts of terrorism. Thus, the

Committee on Homeland Security shall have jurisdiction

over the responsibilities of the Office for Domestic

Preparedness, in accordance with section 430 of the

Homeland Security Act of 2002.

As indicated earlier, the Committee on Homeland Security's

jurisdiction over ``collective response to terrorism'' means

that it would receive referrals of bills addressing the

Department of Homeland Security's responsibilities for, and

assistance to, first responders as a whole and not over

measures addressing first responder communities individually.

The Committee on Homeland Security shall have jurisdiction

over the functions of the Department of Homeland Security

relating to transportation security, while the Committee on

Transportation and Infrastructure shall retain its

jurisdiction over transportation safety. In general, the

Committee on Homeland Security would have jurisdiction over

bills addressing the Transportation Security Administration

and the Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure would

have jurisdiction over bills addressing the various entities

within the Department of Transportation having responsibility

for transportation safety, such as the Federal Aviation

Administration and the Federal Motor Carrier Safety

Administration. The jurisdiction of the Committee on Homeland

Security does not include expenditures from trust funds under

the jurisdiction of other committees, including but not

limited to the Highway Trust Fund, the Airport and Airway

Trust Fund, the Harbor Maintenance Trust Fund, the Federal

Buildings Fund, and the Inland Waterways Trust Fund.

Ways and Means--The jurisdiction of the Committee on Ways

and Means over ``customs revenue'' is intended to include

those functions contemplated in section 412(b)(2) of the

Homeland Security Act of 2002 and includes those functions as

carried out in collection districts and ports of entry and

delivery.

Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time, and I move the previous question on the resolution.

Madam Speaker, I rise at a perfect opportunity to talk about the deficit.

The gentleman from California (Mr. Dreier), my colleague, would have the American public believe that we are in great shape. What he did not tell us was that the deficit currently is $8 trillion; that 20 percent of that deficit is owned by Japan, China and other foreign countries; that 40 percent of that deficit, in fact, is a trade-off between our various agencies in the Federal Government; and that our children and our grandchildren are going to be paying on that deficit. He then wants us to believe that, as a result of the tax cuts, the economy's in great shape, but give me a break. Stop trying to fool the American public.

The reality is, as a result of those tax cuts, this $8 trillion deficit currently exists, and as we continue to throw money after money over to Iraq and rebuild Iraq, give them education, give them health care, rebuild their infrastructure, we are failing to even want to spend time to rebuild the infrastructure of New Orleans, Mississippi and Alabama, and in fact, have not even contemplated how we are going to pay for the Katrina loss. But let me give my colleagues some other news.

It is, in fact, true that the Republicans are proposing to offset the cost of Katrina against people who can least afford to lose dollars, and they are going to use dollars that go to low-income folks, Medicare, Medicaid. They are going to use dollars that go to college education. They are going to use dollars that go towards the HUD department that provides for housing, and the list goes on.

So I do not know how he could stand on the floor of this House and make people of America think that we are doing well. We are really not, and in fact, the trade deficit continues to rise, and people in America are still out of work, while many of the companies are going across the border or across the seas and giving jobs to people in China and other countries.

The gentleman from California (Mr. Dreier) needs a wake-up call so we can begin to tell the people of America the truth.

Energy Bill Vote

Madam Speaker, let me switch horses just for a moment and talk about what just happened on the floor of the House.

We just had a vote on the energy bill, and my colleagues will recall that the vote, when it began, was supposed to be a 5-minute vote. Ultimately, it ended up probably being a 45-minute vote, and again, the Republicans are twisting arms of their colleagues to get them to vote in support of a bill when, in reality, they would not have done that. In fact, there are many times on the floor of the House when the vote should have been called and it was not.

I am going to quote some of my colleagues specifically on this issue. The gentlewoman from New York (Ms. Slaughter), my colleague says, Once again, on an issue of critical importance to the American people, the Republican majority has chosen to trample the democratic process and manipulate the outcome of a vote on the floor of the House of Representatives after the vote was completed. This is unethical subversion of our democracy, and the Republican leadership has brought shame on themselves in the House of Representatives. Unquote.

One would think that this was the first time that the Republican leadership had made a decision to trample on the rights of the people and to engage in shameless conduct by twisting arms on the floor of the House, but let me give my colleagues some background when this has happened previously.

On October 7, 2005, this is the bill we are talking about right now, the Gasoline for America's Security Act. The vote began at 1:57 p.m., a 5-minute vote. It was gaveled down at 2:43 p.m., some 46 minutes later.

On July 27 and 28, the legislative day of July 27, on the CAFTA, the vote started at 11:00 p.m. and went on till 1:20 a.m. Vote 442, it lasted 63 minutes. It originally was supposed to be a 15-minute vote.

In previous Congresses, on July 8, 2004, it was the Sanders amendment on the PATRIOT Act to the fiscal year 2005 Commerce Justice State appropriations bill. That was a 38-minute vote.

On March 30, 2004, on a motion to instruct conferees on PAYGO on the fiscal year 2005 budget resolution, it was a 28-minute vote when it should have been a 5-minute vote.

On November 22, 2003, the final passage of the conference report on H.R. 1, the prescription drug bill, imagine this, a 3-hour vote. During this time frame bribes allegedly offered.

On final passage of H.R. 1, the prescription drug bill, it was 50 minutes.

On March 20, 2003, final passage of the budget resolution, it was 26 minutes long.

On July 12, 2001, the campaign finance bill, this was a timeout to determine what was to occur next on the floor, 13 minutes.

On October 9, 1997, passage of fiscal year 1998 D.C. appropriations bill, 33 minutes.

The longest votes prior to the Republican majority in the House, October 3, 1994, a timeout to accommodate changes in the floor schedule was only 44 minutes.

And the list goes on.

Madam Speaker, this is a specific example of how the Republican leadership has used the floor because they are in the majority to push and shove and make people vote the way they want them to vote instead of the way in which the Member had chosen to vote previously. I call upon the American people to pay attention because as time goes along, it will be revealed what is happening on the floor of this House.

Let me switch veins one more time. Everybody has been talking about Hurricane Katrina and Hurricane Rita. Let

us talk about Hurricane Katrina 1 month later. It has been 1 month since Hurricane Katrina devastated the gulf coast region; yet as of September 27, less than one-tenth of the relief authorized by Congress has reached the 1.2 million households impacted by the storm and thousands of households have received no relief from FEMA at all.

Little wonder, since instead of providing relief to the survivors of the storms the Republicans continue to focus on special interests by appointing political cronies such as Michael Brown and David Safavian, who take jobs they are not qualified for and who unfairly award contracts to their supporters.

Here is a closer look at how the Republican failures are impacting the survivors of Katrina. Health care: Republican red tape leaves hurricane victims without care. Nearly one in four people living at the Houston shelters reported a time since the hurricane hit when they simply could not get the medical care they needed. This administration has failed simply to provide for basic health care needs of the Hurricane Katrina survivors.

Instead, they are pursuing a confusing and limited bureaucratic health care waiver approach that is making it difficult for Hurricane Katrina survivors to know what their health benefits are and which may leave many survivors, such as childless adults or poor parents, without any access to care at all and States without Federal funding to assist evacuees.

Democrats support a bipartisan simple and fair solution to ensure that all victims of the hurricane have temporary access to the basic care they need. They want to cut the red tape by allowing Medicaid to provide temporary health care coverage.

Now, with regard to housing, the Republicans have left thousands without a place to call home. A full 3 weeks after Katrina hit, fewer than 13,000 of the 200,000 families in need of housing assistance have received any help from the administration, even though there are more than one million low-cost rental units available in the South.

First, the administration proposed purchasing 300,000 travel trailers, recreational vehicles and manufactured housing, only to find that some of the orders may take a year to fill and only one-third of the proposed sites for the housing and the necessary infrastructure are in place. Then FEMA chartered cruise ships as temporary shelters, with little understanding that living on a ship at sea would make it difficult to find jobs and schooling. Then the President announced an urban homestead initiative which will provide little more than a lottery of properties held by the Federal Government that will help only a fraction of the affected families.

It was not until nearly 1 month after the disaster struck that the Bush administration finally announced it would begin to provide rent payments to families displaced by the storm.

Democrats have proposed using emergency housing vouchers to meet immediate needs and support funding for construction and repair of affordable housing in the disaster area. Let me take a note from this and say that also Democratic Members of the Congress have proposed various tax initiatives to encourage people to move back to the areas from which they left.

One of the pieces of legislation that I introduced provides specifically a tax credit or a tax incentive for families to go back and build where they lived. It would be like a first-time home buyer program that would allow them to build back in the community where they lived. Because basically it is possible, based on all that we can see, that many of the families who would want to move back to the various areas which have been affected would not be able to afford to move back to those communities.

I also have proposed in a piece of legislation that I have authored that the low-income housing tax credit be doubled in order to encourage developers to build in many of these areas. Currently, it is 1.78. Under the proposal that I have presented, it would be doubled to 3.50 to allow developers to be encouraged to build in those communities.

It is high time that we stop talking about assisting the victims of Katrina and Rita and give them what they need to be successful.

In addition, let us talk about economic security. As many as 400,000 individuals have lost their jobs as a result of Hurricane Katrina; yet the Republicans have proposed no changes to extend unemployment assistance. Unemployment benefits are the lowest in the country in the three impacted States, averaging less than $200 per week, or about 50 percent of the poverty level of a family of four.

Rather than acting to help working families, the Bush administration has cut the wages of workers working on Katrina reconstruction by suspending the Davis-Bacon rules in the gulf region which requires a payment of prevailing wage. Now, if we are going to talk about poor people in the United States of America, and then we are going to pay them below the prevailing wage, how do we expect they are going to be able to take care of their families and to afford health insurance, if that is the case?

It does not make sense at a time when the President says that poverty and racism are actually the outcome of what we see with Katrina and across this country that we would want to pay families at below prevailing wages. Also, in the process of putting in place these economic programs, the President has proposed that affirmative action policies not be put in place. Again, most of the people involved in the Katrina and Rita hurricanes were African Americans. Why would you not want to include in there some chances or opportunities to include affirmative action?

And the list goes on, as we talk about education and the opportunity for these young people to move into school systems or move into other colleges to be successful. We go on to talk about the process that the administration has instead chosen to advance the controversial agenda for education vouchers to private schools.

Some people may want to attend private schools, but many of the children may want to attend the kind of school they were attending before, a public school, where you have a diversity of students in the system. It is a shame that after all that we have gone through, after all the suffering that we have seen as a result of Katrina that we would not have in place a system, some 30-some days later, to support and encourage the people of the particular areas.

I also want to talk about the problem that we see with regard to first responders. They were supposed to, meaning the administration and this Congress, provide dollars to the various areas to support first responders. Instead, they have decided to not meet the needs of the first responders. Additionally, when Hurricane Katrina hit, emergency personnel were on at least five different channels, which was making communications difficult. Instead of fixing the problem for first responders in communicating with each other, the Republicans allowed it to fester.

We all recognized the problem we saw on 9/11, that the first responders had no way of communicating with one another. You would have thought, understanding that, that before another event occurred, such as Katrina or Rita, that we would have put in place a system and dollars for first responders to be able to communicate with one another. But we did not fix that.

One hopes that as the weeks and months go along that this Republican Congress, this majority Republican Congress, would attempt to address the issues that are important to the people of America, such as our first responders; that they will look at a real energy bill, instead of the one they placed on the floor and beat people into submission to vote for; and that they would also look at this culture of cronyism, wherein only their friends have an opportunity to bid on contracts.

Excuse me, they do not even have to bid on the contracts. Only their friends have access to contracts, wherein they have an opportunity to do the work that is created as a result of the disasters in our country.

As I close, Madam Speaker, this afternoon, I would say to the American public that there is a lot for you to take a look at and understand what is happening here on the floor of the House of Representatives, this pushing and arm twisting, the cronyism and the like.

Because, Madam Speaker, in the upcoming weeks we will be involved in a lot of issues that are going to come before this Congress that will be important to the American public, such as additional issues with regard to energy. And this happening at a time when the American public expects that we are going to be operating aboveboard and we are going to be operating in a way in that all of us can stand up and say that we are proud to be Americans; that we are proud to be a part of a Congress of the United States that acts appropriately; and that we are proud to support and help those who are most in need of our help.

Congratulations to Cleveland City Council President, Frank Jackson

Madam Speaker, if you would allow me, on a wholly different issue, I would like to take this opportunity at this time to congratulate the council president of the city of Cleveland, Frank Jackson. Frank Jackson just won the mayoral primary in the city of Cleveland, beating out the current mayor by some 4,000 votes. So this gives me a great opportunity to congratulate him for the work that he has done.

Is the gentleman sure about that?

The gentleman looks good.

Mr. Speaker, the gentleman is absolutely right. The amazing thing to me when I was listening to the Republicans in the last hour is when they were trying to make the analogy to their households and talking about their kids. And one of the Republican Members talked about how he went down to the candy store and you could only spend what was in your pocket, and that is what we want to do here. And I was saying, these guys on the Republican side of the aisle have been building up deficits ever since President Bush came into office.

How do they have the nerve to even talk about making the analogy with their households and going to the

candy store when from the day that they arrived they have been increasing the deficit?

I know the gentleman says he is older than me and I question that. I know I have been here longer than he. I remember when I first came down in 1988, there were a group of Republicans who would come down and do Special Orders every night, and they had the pages come out with this digital clock that really was the length of this dais here, and every night they would talk about the deficit and how they wanted to cut the deficit and the deficit was climbing too high.

That is just all completely out of the window. All they have done now is increase the deficit.

I have statistics here that this budget resolution which they were going to vote on last week and now they so far cannot get the votes for it, and hopefully they will never get the votes for it that they were talking about, will increase the deficit by more than $100 billion over 5 years. By contrast, the House Democratic budget achieved balance in 2012.

I wanted to respond to one thing the gentleman said because he took us back to the Clinton administration and the last 2 or 3 years when we had a surplus. Not only did we have a surplus because we had a balanced budget but the economy was booming. Jobs were being created left and right. I do not care if you were rich or you were poor, things were getting better. But President Bush comes in and he is elected and he says, the answer to the economy is we are going to cut taxes. And the taxes were cut mostly for wealthy people and corporate interests and special interests that were helping the Republicans with their campaign finance. And that was supposed to be the answer to the economy.

Well, I will say, I have this briefing paper from the Economic Policy Institute, which is a bipartisan group. This is not a Democratic organization. And they are talking about the boom that was not. The economy has little to show for the $860 billion in tax cuts under President Bush. As the gentleman said, we went from a surplus of something like 2 or $300 billion. Now just the opposite, a deficit that is two or three times that.

And they come to the conclusion in this report, I just want to read this one section, it says: ``Almost every broad measure of economic activity, gross domestic product, jobs, personal income, and business investment among others, has fared worse over the last 4 years than in the past cycles. Proponents of this series of major tax cuts since 2001 have projected that gauges such as these would reflect improvements after enactment.''

In fact, the opposite has occurred. Not only have we created a huge deficit under the Bush Republican administration, but all the indicators of economic activity have gone down. So where this Republican philosophy has just created a dynamic that has really ruined the economy, it is not completely ruined, we are getting along, but by every economic indicator things were better in the last few years of the Clinton administration.

Mr. Speaker, I wanted to say one thing, and then I want to lead into the issue of this budget reconciliation that we want to talk about tonight.

I wanted to go back to what my colleague from Massachusetts said about how, since the Bush administration came into office, the fiscal policy benefits wealthy people and is at the expense of the middle class. There is no question that is true.

I would venture to say that the Republican fiscal policy is really stupid for everyone because the bottom line is that in the last few years of the Clinton administration, when we had a surplus and we were balancing the budget, everybody was getting richer. The richer were getting richer, the middle class was doing better, and the poor were doing better.

I do not even think if you are wealthy you are doing better under Bush. You are doing better than the rest of the guys because the rest of the guys are suffering, but the irony of it is, in the last few years of the Clinton administration, the economy was booming so much that everybody was doing better. I do not even care if I were the wealthiest person in the world, I do not see how I benefit under this administration ultimately, because if the economy does not grow the way it did in the boom years of the Clinton administration, nobody benefits. It is true, of course, that it is primarily for the benefit of the wealthy. There is no question about that.

What I wanted to stress tonight, and all that we do is that the Republicans now have gone even further. Now they are saying because they have to pay for Katrina, they want to do this budget reconciliation, which is another sort of round of budget cuts; and those budget cuts are primarily at the expense of poor people and working-class people rather than the wealthy.

What we are seeing is all the programs that might benefit middle- class people, working-class people or poor people, whether it is student loans or it is health care or it is housing, are all being cut; and those cuts directly impact the hurricane victims. Rather than going after wealthy individuals or cutting benefits of programs that might benefit wealthy individuals or corporate interests, they are simply cutting programs for poor people and working people. That is simply not right.

As my colleague from Massachusetts was saying, the irony of it is they are increasing the deficit in order to give more tax breaks for the rich and for the corporate interests. At the same time, they are increasing the deficit by paying for Iraq because none of that is paid for. None of the war reconstruction in Iraq is paid for; and if you look at these charts, as you were saying, you can see that the very cuts that are being proposed in programs here in the United States, in many cases money is being spent in Iraq, deficit spending, to do the same things in Iraq that are being cut here.

I do not want to go through the whole thing, but if you look at health care, $10 billion in Medicaid cuts are proposed by this Republican budget; $252 million in cuts for health care professionals; $94 million in cuts to community health clinics in the U.S. In Iraq, we get 110 primary health care centers built or renovated, 2,000 health educators trained, 32 million children vaccinated. You can go through this whole list.

Mr. Speaker, I could not help but remember within a few days of the hurricane when President Bush gave a speech, I think from New Orleans, and he talked about how they were going to reconstruct the city and provide all of these programs and benefits, and none of it has happened. It sounded like he was doing a reconstruction program like in Iraq, or the Marshall Plan after World War II. Now they are proposing cuts in all of the programs that would actually benefit people.

It is not just poor people. If you look at the things that we are mentioning here for the U.S. versus Iraq, I talked about health care. The Republican budget would cut $9 billion in student loans, $806 million from No Child Left Behind. That is for all Americans. On the other hand in Iraq, they rehabilitated 2,717 schools, and 36,000 teachers and administrators were trained.

Even the environment, everybody breathes the air and drinks the water. In the U.S., the Republican budget has a $200 million cut in clean water State revolving funds, and opens ANWR to oil drilling. In Iraq, we spend $1 billion for safe drinking water, $4 million for marshland restoration. Everybody is drinking the water and benefiting from environmental infrastructure.

It is just really Americans versus Iraqis, and I am not saying that we should not help the Iraqis in some way. I did not support the war, and I still oppose the war, but I do not mind spending some money to help rebuild Iraq, but it is not fair to spend all of this money on Iraq and cut money for Americans.

Look at the infrastructure. In the U.S. under the Republican budget, $336 million is cut from the Army Corps of Engineers, including funding for the levee construction in Louisiana. It is no wonder the levee gave. We did not keep it up. There is a $2.3 million cut from Amtrak; high-speed rail funding is eliminated. In Iraq we are rehabilitating the canal system, including repairs to levees, and rebuilding the Iraq railway line.

The gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Ryan) talked about prevention before in the context of health care. It is not just Iraq versus America, it is the fact that these cuts are plain stupid. We talk about prevention in terms of health care, by eliminating community health centers, people go to emergency centers, and it costs more. An argument could be made if we did not cut funding for the levees in Louisiana, we may not even have had the crisis there.

Mr. Speaker, the budget bill that they want us to vote on, the one we were supposed to vote on last week, cuts funding for levees again, not necessarily the one in New Orleans, but other levees in Louisiana. This is part of the funding cuts. They want to cut levee construction now. This is not the same one that fell in New Orleans.

Mr. Speaker, I used this analogy last week, and I cannot help but repeating it again. Soon after the invasion of Iraq, the U.S. invasion, a couple of our Republican colleagues went over there. Maybe it was within 6 months of the U.S. invasion. It was in September of the year after. They had just come back, the Republican colleagues had just come back from Iraq, and they had been there on the first day of school. I will never forget because I was on the floor waiting to do a Special Order, and three or four of my Republican colleagues, they brought back with them the book bags and the pencils. They had these book bags that were in blue, and they had emblazoned on them the seal of the United States with the eagle. They were so proud of the fact that every Iraqi school child on the opening day of school had received a book bag with

the seal of the U.S., pencils, pads, all kinds of things, free of charge.

I had just come back from approximately the first day of school here in the U.S., and I had just been to a teacher event at one of my local schools, and the teachers were complaining that the pencils and paper were not provided there, and they had to actually go out, the teachers, and buy pencils and paper and pads and crayons for the children because they were not provided at our public school in my district.

The pride that was on the faces of my Republican colleagues for all the wonderful things we were doing in Iraq, and I kept saying that was very nice, but we do not have those things here in my district. It is not right. It is not fair. I am not saying again that we should not be helping the Iraqis, but it is just not fair that they get this help and we do not.

Mr. Speaker, if the gentleman will continue to yield, one of the things that the 30-Something Group has been talking about, and it relates directly to what he said, is this idea that there should be a bipartisan commission in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. And it is the same principle that the gentleman from Massachusetts brought up, that they just do not want any kind of investigation of themselves.

The Republicans control the White House, the Senate, the House of Representative. They know there are problems that came out of Hurricane Katrina. They know they are responsible. They do not want any investigation by a bipartisan commission because they do not want an investigation of themselves. They are afraid of what it is going to reveal. And that is the problem around here. They do not want oversight. They do not want accountability. They do not want any kind of effort on a bipartisan basis, which would happen with the gentleman's subcommittee, because it might reveal that they have basically created a lot of problems and screwed up on a lot of things. That is what they are against.

Mr. Speaker, I would like to address the ethics-related provisions that are in this package at the insistence of the Committee on Rules. I had the honor of serving as ranking member of the Committee on Standards of Official Conduct in the last Congress. It was an honor to serve with the gentleman from Colorado (Chairman Hefley), as he always managed to chair the committee in a completely bipartisan manner.

The headlines in this morning's paper say ``GOP Abandons Ethics Changes.'' It turns out that the headline is at best only half right. It is true that the most outrageous ethics undermining provision has been deleted from the rules package, but other provisions, provisions that would make major changes in the way the Committee on Standards of Official Conduct handles enforcements of the rules, they remain.

There should be no misunderstanding that these provisions that remain would seriously undermine the ethics process in the House, both because of the changes they would make in committee procedures, but, and equally important, because of the partisan way in which they are being adopted. If there is to be a meaningful, viable ethics process in the House, it must be a genuinely bipartisan process. That

point should be self-evident. How could there be a legitimate ethics process that is operated on a partisan basis? And to have a bipartisan process, it is absolutely essential that any major changes in the rules be made on a truly bipartisan basis. What is more, because of the importance and the sensitive nature of the ethics rules, it is also essential that any proposed changes be considered in a thoughtful, considered, and open way, with all Members being given the opportunity for input, Democrats and Republicans.

Until today, the House recognized these fundamental points. Until today, the House has not attempted to make major changes in the ethics rules or the Committee on Standards of Official Conduct procedures in a slapdash way, with literally only hours of consideration, and on a party line vote.

It will probably come as no surprise that the materials issued by the Committee on Rules that attempt to justify these amendments are based entirely on misstatements of the current rules. For example, under the benign sounding heading, ``Restore Presumption of Innocence,'' the Committee on Rules memorandum states, ``Currently, if the chairman and ranking minority member take no action on a properly filed complaint within 45 days, the matter automatically goes to an investigative subcommittee.'' Fine. But that statement is incomplete and, therefore, misleading.

The rules that have been in effect since 1997 clearly provide that at any time that a complaint is before the chairman and ranking member for consideration, either one of them may place the complaint on the committee's agenda and when either one of them does that, an investigative committee cannot be established without a majority vote of the committee.

Another example, Mr. Speaker. Under the heading ``Due Process for Members,'' the Committee on Rules memorandum states that, ``Under the current rule, the chairman and ranking member or the committee may take action against a Member without a complaint, notice, or the opportunity to be heard.''

This statement clearly implies that the committee may determine that a Member has committed a violation or impose a sanction without the Member having such rights, and that suggestion, Mr. Speaker, is flatly wrong. The rules are replete with the rights for Members who are accused of any violation.

When you turn to the actual text of the ``due process'' amendments, you find that what these amendments are concerned with is not committee actions that impose sanctions or determine violations, but instead on committee letters or statements that ``reference the official conduct of a Member.'' It may be well that the rules should provide certain rights to a Member whose conduct is going to be discussed in a letter or statement that the committee issues publicly, but what should those rights be? They should be determined through a deliberative, fair, bipartisan process.

But one specific right that this proposed rule provides to those Members is the right to demand an immediate trial in front of an adjudicatory subcommittee of the Committee on Standards of Official Conduct. But in the circumstances that the rule addresses, that trial would take place before the committee has conducted any formal investigation of the matter. No committee that is serious about conducting its business would allow itself to be put in that circumstance. So the effect of this amendment would be that whenever any alleged misconduct is brought to the committee's attention, the committee may be forced to choose between either launching a formal investigation of the matter or dismissing it entirely. Both of these rule changes lack careful consideration and, more seriously, are brought to us today through a partisan process.

I'd like to address the ethics-related provisions that are in this package at the insistence of the Rules Committee. I had the honor of serving as ranking member of the Ethics Committee in the last Congress, and I also served on the committee for 6 years during another time of controversy in the late 1980s. It was an honor to serve during the last 2 years with Chairman Hefley, as he always managed the committee in a completely bipartisan manner.

A headline in this morning's newspaper says, ``GOP abandons ethics changes.'' It turns out that the headline is at best only half right. It's true that the most outrageous ethics-undermining provision has been deleted from the rules package, but other provisions--provisions that would make major changes in the way the Ethics Committee handles enforcement of the rules--remain.

There should be no misunderstanding that these provisions that remain would seriously undermine the ethics process in the House, both because of the changes they would make in committee procedures, and, equally important, because of the partisan way in which they would be adopted.

If there is to be a meaningful, viable ethics process in the House, it must be a genuinely bipartisan process. That point should be self- evident--how could there be a legitimate ethics process that is operated on a partisan basis? And to have a bipartisan process, it's absolutely essential that any major changes in the rules be made on a truly bipartisan basis. What's more, because of the importance, and the sensitive nature of the ethics rules, it's also essential that any proposed changes be considered in a thoughtful, considered, and open way, with all Members being given the opportunity for input--Democrats and Republicans.

Until today, the House recognized these fundamental points. Until today, the House has not attempted to make major changes in the ethics rules or the Ethics Committee procedures in a slapdash way, with literally only hours of consideration, and on a party-line vote.

It will probably come as no surprise that the materials issued by the Rules Committee that attempt to justify these amendments are based entirely on misstatements of the current rules. For example, under the benign-sounding heading, ``Restore Presumption of Innocence,'' the Rules Committee memorandum states, and I quote:

``Currently, if the chairman and ranking minority member take no action on a properly filed complaint within 45 days, the matter automatically goes to an investigative subcommittee.''

That statement is incomplete--and therefore misleading. The rules that have been in effect since 1997 clearly provide that at any time that a complaint is before the chairman and ranking member for consideration, either one of them may place the complaint on the committee's agenda, and when either one of them does that, an investigative subcommittee cannot be established without a majority vote of the committee.

Another example: under the heading, ``Due Process for Members,'' the Rules Committee memorandum states that, and I quote:

``Under the current rule, the chairman and ranking member, or the committee, may take action against a Member without a complaint, notice, or the opportunity to be heard.''

This statement clearly implies that the committee may determine that a Member has committed a violation or impose a sanction without the Member having such rights, and that suggestion is flatly wrong. The rules are replete with rights for Members who are accused of any violation, and because of the bipartisan makeup of the committee, Members are typically accorded rights well beyond those required by the rules.

When you turn to the actual text of the ``due process'' amendments, you find that what these amendments are concerned with is not committee actions that impose sanctions or determine violations, but instead committee letters or statements that ``reference the official conduct of a Member.'' It may well be that the rules should provide certain rights to a Member whose conduct is going to be discussed in a letter or statement that the committee issues publicly, but what should those rights be?

They should be determined through a deliberative, fair, bipartisan process. But one specific right that this proposed rule provides to those Members is the right to demand an immediate trial in front of an adjudicatory subcommittee of the Ethics Committee. But in the circumstances that the rule addresses, that trial would take place before the committee has conducted any formal investigation of the matter. No committee that is serious about conducting its business would allow itself to be put in that circumstance. So the effect of this amendment would be that whenever any alleged misconduct is brought to the committee's attention, the committee may be forced to choose between either launching a formal investigation of the matter, or dismissing it entirely. There would be no chance for an expedited resolution of the case, even in those instances in which the committee believes it already has all the basic facts, and the conduct involved probably does not warrant a formal sanction. Both of these rule changes lack careful consideration and, more seriously, are brought to us today through a partisan process.

But the proposed amendment that raises even more concern is the one that provides for automatic dismissal of any complaint that

is not acted upon within a period as short as 45 days. When the House last considered Ethics Committee procedures, in 1997, it rejected, on a bipartisan vote, an amendment that would have required the automatic dismissal of any complaint that is not acted upon within 180 days.

The reason that amendment was rejected is that it was recognized that such a time limit would encourage deadlock on the committee, and partisanship among the committee members. Under a time limit, if one side or the other is uncomfortable about dealing with a particular complaint, those Members don't have to discuss it or otherwise try to deal with it--by their just doing nothing, the complaint will disappear. Yet now this provision for automatic dismissal has reappeared, and this time it has a far shorter time frame for committee consideration than the nearly identical provision that the House soundly rejected in 1997.

I want to close by asking all Members, including all Members of the leadership on both sides of the Aisle, to give some serious consideration--not just today, but in the weeks and months ahead--to whether you genuinely want to have a meaningful ethics process in the House, and what we as Members, individually and collectively, have to do in order for such a process to exist. As I said at the outset, for this process to exist, it has to be a truly bipartisan one, and it has to be treated with seriousness and respect. It has to be recognized that the basic purpose of the process is to consider and address legitimate ethics concerns, and if Members are successful in using the process for partisan, political purposes, it is going to fail. The approval of these amendments would seriously undermine the process and, for that reason alone, this rules package should be defeated.

Mr. Speaker, I thank my friend from Ohio. Before I begin to comment, let me say that over the past several months I have had a chance to observe the gentleman and the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Meek) and the gentlewoman from Florida (Ms. Wasserman Schultz). They have done an extraordinary job in reviewing what is happening in America.

It is an honor to join the 30-Something Group. I think in terms of honesty, I would have to disclose that I am a bit over 30. In fact, if you allow me, I am two members of the 30-Something Group because in one body you get 30 times two and maybe a little more.

I see. I know the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Pallone). We share the same alma mater, Middlebury College in Vermont. I know that I graduated a decade or so before the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Pallone).

I think so.

Because we are here to be honest, because in the previous hour I think what we heard tonight from our friends on the other side an attempt at humor. I do not think that they were being dishonest. I think that they were just demonstrating a great sense of humor because I heard the term ``fiscal responsibility'' as I was watching their conversation, and I really laughed out loud.

I do not know if the gentleman from New Jersey saw it like I did, but if the Republicans in this House and in the other branch and the White House represent fiscal responsibility, we are in serious trouble. Because I remember when the gentleman and I were here during the Clinton administration when President Clinton left. My memory is, and the gentleman can help me because I am a little older, there was a surplus in excess of $5 trillion. And maybe the gentleman can tell us, is there still a surplus after the Republicans have run this government?

What we have today is a single-party state, and what has happened? It certainly is not, in my judgment, and I think we probably share this conclusion, it does not reflect fiscal responsibility. What it does reflect is an appetite to borrow money and then to spend it.

With all due respect to my friend from New Jersey, I do not think that he realizes what they meant. They really meant that they would send their kid down to the candy store with a credit card because that is how they have run this country, on a credit card. It is borrow and borrow and borrow and borrow and you know what? Sooner or later that credit card gets maxed out. And the next thing if you are a family or if you are an individual, you are down at the bankruptcy court. That is why I say when I heard the term or the sentence that ``we are the party of fiscal responsibility,'' then I knew they were joking. I really did. And I started to laugh. That was a great punchline.

It is just another example of a great sense of humor on the part of our colleagues on the other side on the aisle. They gave us and the American people who were watching this evening a real good belly laugh. Fiscal responsibility? Please.

Mr. Speaker, I think when we hear our friends on the other side talk about the economy is growing, well, the economy is growing. The question is who is benefiting from that growth, and the answer is very simple. It is a very small segment of the American community. It is the top 1 percent, the top 5 percent. Their income is going up; but remember this, the median income for a family of four in this country that is directly in the middle, it is not an average, it is directly in the middle, has in fact gone down since the Bush administration came to power. There are today in absolute numbers and percentages more Americans below the poverty line.

So what we have is an economy today that is eroding the middle class and is creating a Nation and a society where a very few, a small segment, is doing quite well and everybody else is slipping behind.

What we have or what our friends would do is, they support ironically a welfare program, a welfare program for pharmaceutical companies; a welfare program for large energy companies; a welfare program, by the way, for Iraq, not for the United States, but for Iraq, because here is what we are doing in Iraq. We are building schools. We are building primary health care centers. We are educating teachers. I see the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Pallone) has a chart there that illustrates this.

Mr. Speaker, I think another aspect of this conversation ought to be informing the American people and our colleagues that while we are doing such things as building 6,000 miles of roads in Iraq, constructing 2,500 new schools or rehabilitating existing schools in Iraq, we are not going to see a single dime of those American tax dollars come back because we all were here when the money for those initiatives was appropriated. Democrats stood on this floor and said let us make it a loan; let us allow the American taxpayer to be paid back for these billions of dollars that they are investing in Iraq.

The Republican White House, the Republican majority said no. This is the same party who about an hour earlier was talking about welfare. Tell me, Mr. Speaker, can you imagine this kind of a welfare program being sponsored and promoted by a party that claims to be fiscally responsible?

We talk about welfare reform. This is a giveaway of extraordinary proportion; but you know what, we will not do this in America. We will do it in Iraq.

Guess what happened? There are layoffs occurring, as everyone knows, in Louisiana, in Mississippi, because the tax base for municipalities has been destroyed.

They are laying off firefighters, emergency responders, and teachers. Some school districts that formerly employed 2- or 3,000 educators no longer have schools that are operating. They have layoffs.

So what are these communities doing? They are calling on the Federal Government for help. You know what the Federal Government is saying to them? We cannot give it to you, but we will loan it to you. We will loan it to you. In other words, if you are in Iraq, we are going to give it to you. What a giveaway. But here in America, no, you have to have matching funds if you are a community. The State treasurer down in Louisiana said, we asked for a grant, and they said, no grant, but a loan. But if you are in Iraq, because of the action of the Republican majority and the White House, they said, no, we will just give it away.

The United States taxpayer is rebuilding Iraq, and they will never see a dime come back. If they are serious about Operation Offset, I am sure that we could work out a unanimous consent agreement where we would go back and renegotiate with the Iraqi Government and say, we will give you favorable terms, and we will not charge you an arm and a leg in terms of your interest; but at some point in time, that money has to come back to the coffers of the United States Treasury because we cannot carry you.

Do you remember Paul Wolfowitz saying this will not cost anything? They have those massive oil reserves that will fund the reconstruction of their country. They were wrong on that like they were wrong on the weapons of mass destruction, and like they

were wrong on al Qaeda, and like they have been wrong on so many different issues. But if you want to see welfare, go to Iraq. You will see an American welfare state operating today in Iraq.

Mr. Speaker, why should the American taxpayer be reimbursed? Why should we be carrying that burden? If they are serious about Operation Offset, let us renegotiate. We are the only country, the only major donor country, other than, I think, maybe Japan, that did not insist on providing reconstruction dollars on a loan basis. We are not going to be paid back.

And here we have Donald Rumsfeld in March 2003 saying, When it comes to reconstruction, before we turn to the American taxpayer, we will turn first to the resources of the Iraqi Government and the international community. Hogwash. Hogwash.

Mr. Speaker, I would say to the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Ryan), you go to Iraq if you are a student and go to school. If you are an Iraqi and you qualify, you get a grant. If you are an American, you have to pay your own way.

Is this Alice in Wonderland, up is down and down is up?

Mr. Speaker, the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Pallone) makes a very good point about investment. There was just completed in Iraq, in Mosul, a magnificent dam. From every source that I am aware of, it is purported to be extremely well engineered, and it is a dam that will hopefully serve the Iraqi people well. Good for them. They benefit from the welfare state funded by American taxpayers. But you know what? It was reported in the New Orleans Times Picayune, which is the paper down there, that last year the funding for levees in New Orleans was reduced. In other words, a levee that may have prevented the magnitude of the disaster that befell New Orleans and Louisiana could possibly have been averted, and we would not be looking at a $60 billion bill. But oh, no, the government is the problem.

Well, if the government and the Army Corps of Engineers had the funding, possibly, possibly, those levees and the issues of flood control could have been addressed in a timely fashion. But no, what we hear is government is the problem.

Mr. Speaker, there was a dam up in Taunton, Massachusetts, in a district that is represented by the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Frank) that was on the verge of collapsing and inundating a city of some 50,000 that would have been a disaster. But do not worry if you are in Iraq, particularly if you are in Mosul, you are well protected. You are well protected because you have a brand new dam funded by the American taxpayers. Thank you to the welfare program of the Republican Party for our friends in Iraq.

Mr. Speaker, how about helping our kids? How about helping our elderly? How about helping our disabled? How about protecting our cities? We talk about a strong America. A strong America begins at home. That is really what it is about. Right now, given what is happening to our economy, given all of the problems that are besetting our Nation, it is time that we focused on the United States of America, all of us together. Together we can make America a better place for every citizen.

Mr. Speaker, if the gentleman will continue to yield, can I pick up on the corruption theme. I am the ranking member on a subcommittee of the House Committee on International Relations. Its title is the Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee. We have not held one hearing after repeated requests to exercise our oversight responsibility into an unprecedented level of corruption in Iraq.

In Iraq, billions of dollars are missing. In fact, the defense minister of Iraq made this statement, that this is the greatest robbery of all time. There is in excess of $1 billion missing from that single ministry. I guess there was one contract where they bought some tanks from Poland that were 28 years old, 28 years old, to the tune of $230 million; and they cannot find the contracts. And the current Iraqi defense minister is saying all we have are scraps of paper and scraps of metal.

I found it particularly interesting listening to Fox News where there were two colonels who were very hawkish in their attitudes that described the situation in Iraq in terms of corruption as totally out of control. That is the biggest scandal of all, because here tragically today was memorable in the reality that there have been 2,000 American servicemen killed; and we all, Republicans and Democrats, join our fellow citizens in our sympathy to the families of those 2,000 as well as to the tens of thousands of American service men and women and others including Iraqi civilians and Iraqi members of their defense force that have been wounded and maimed for life.

But to think that this rampant corruption going on under the auspices of the Coalition Provisional Authority is not being reviewed and examined by the subcommittee with jurisdiction is absolutely an abrogation of our responsibility. They are afraid of it. They will not look into it. They will talk about it, but it is absolutely crying out for review.