Congratulating the 2007-2008 National Basketball Association World Champions, the Boston Celtics, on an outstanding and historic season.

Mr. Speaker, I rise as the designee of the Republican leader.

Mr. Speaker, we have spent a great deal of time this afternoon focusing on the fact that we have the first female Speaker of the United States House of Representatives in our Nation's history. And I think it is also very important for us to note today that we have the first female Chair of the House Rules Committee in my good friend, Ms. Slaughter, and I would like everyone to join in extending congratulations to Ms. Slaughter.

Now, let me say, Mr. Speaker, that I look forward to working in a bipartisan way in the spirit that was outlined by Speaker Pelosi, and I, of course, will treat the new Chair of the Rules Committee with the dignity that she deserves.

I will say, Mr. Speaker, that I do rise with mixed emotions today. I was very proud to join with you as we came down the center aisle escorting the new Speaker of the House, my fellow Californian. And I am very pleased that we have the first woman, the first Californian, and the first Italian American as Speaker of the House of Representatives.

I have mixed emotions because, while I am very, very proud of Speaker Pelosi, and the new Rules Chair, Ms. Slaughter, and others who are assuming leadership positions, I also am very disappointed.

I am disappointed as I look at this package that we are about to consider, because I do join with you, Mr. Speaker pro tempore, the distinguished majority leader, and Speaker Pelosi, as we have discussed privately and publicly, in our quest, and I think Speaker Pelosi put it extraordinarily well, focusing on the priorities that we have. We are, first and foremost, Americans. We are here to do the people's business and they sent a very strong message last November, and I believe we have an opportunity to do just that.

I will say that I remember very well the opening days of the 104th Congress, 12 years ago. I remember the very heady feeling that came from knowing that, for the first time, at that juncture, in almost half a century, we Republicans were in the majority of the House of Representatives, and we were going to do all that we had promised the American people.

We were that optimistic, quite frankly, because we didn't know any better. None of us had ever served in the majority and we were blissfully unaware of the pressures and problems associated with trying to govern this institution.

During the 109th Congress, the Democratic Caucus, many of whom actually served in the majority before 1995, made a lot of promises about how they would run this place if they ever achieved the majority again. Of course, they, unlike Republicans in 1994, had the experience of having run this place, having served in the majority. And I have a great deal of admiration for my colleagues, because they know exactly what they are facing. Knowing that, knowing exactly what they would face in the majority, they made a commitment to minority rights, should they regain the majority.

And that, Mr. Speaker, is why I said I am disappointed. The resolutions before us bear very little resemblance to the rhetoric on this floor and on the campaign trail. The much ballyhooed commitment to minority rights is virtually nonexistent in the measures before us today. They undermine minority rights that were constantly guaranteed when we were in the majority. The rights of the minority are undermined. Their promises are for a delivery date at some later point, if we agree to be cooperative, according to one Member on the other side of the aisle. And we have, as an IOU now, a wink and a nod and a gentle ``trust us.''

Mr. Speaker, trust is something that is in short supply in this House, and the actions of the incoming majority are, based on the package that has been brought before us early last evening, certainly less than 24 hours before we are considering it here on the House floor, are not doing a lot to bolster our reserves when it comes to the issue of trust. Despite an oft repeated commitment to provide Members with, as I said, at least 24 hours to review legislation before voting on the floor, we received this package at 6:15 last night, 6:15 only after that package was delivered to our friends up in the press gallery.

Now, Mr. Speaker, despite Speaker Pelosi's principle that we need to return to regular order for legislation, including a full committee process of hearings and markups and, I quote Ms. Pelosi here when she said we need an ``open, full and fair debate consisting of a full amendment process that grants the minority the right to offer its alternatives, including a substitute.''

Now, we, in spite of that great directive that came forward, we have a rules package that actually self-executes closed rules for bills that haven't even been introduced, and won't even be going through the committee process. The section of the package that includes those closed rules is debatable for just 10 minutes. This is the polar opposite, the polar opposite of how the Republicans opened the 104th Congress, when our priorities were considered in regular order and under an open amendment process.

Mr. Speaker, also providing a stark contrast is the fact that we put in place, from day one, a guaranteed bite at the apple for the minority in the form of a motion to recommit. We felt so strongly about the fact that when we were in the minority we were denied that chance. So that is why at the beginning of the 104th Congress we put into place that guarantee for the minority.

But I must remind my Democratic colleagues on the Rules Committee that, time and time again, they have made clear their view that the motion to recommit is an insufficient opportunity to articulate their alternative. That argument was propounded constantly as we were dealing with public policy questions. So you can imagine how surprised I was when the Speaker recently replied to a reporter's question about Republican alternatives to

the Democratic priorities by saying, ``They'll have a motion to recommit.''

Even worse than five closed rules, Mr. Speaker, is the rollback of one of the most essential elements of transparency that Republicans put into place back at the beginning of the 104th Congress; that is, the right to know how a member of a committee votes on legislation.

Mr. Speaker, this rules package exempts the Committee on Rules from the requirement to publish the votes of its members on its committee reports, something required of every other committee except the Ethics Committee.

Now, in my 12 years as a member of the Rules Committee majority, we took more than 1,300 votes in committee, every single one of which was accurately reported in the committee's report.

Mr. Speaker, at best, this is a solution in search of a problem. At worst, it is an attempt to shield the Rules Committee from the public scrutiny of its actions.

We were told by the distinguished Chair of the Rules Committee that ethics reform and rules reform were not just election year issues for Democrats. Now, Mr. Speaker, sadly, this document says something quite different than that. Promises were made, and they are not being kept. That is the thing that I find to be most troubling. We intend to explain the many inconsistencies for the record and as the debate moves forward.

At the same time, Mr. Speaker, we want to work with our democratic colleagues. Even with this treatment of minority rights, we stand here determined to work in a bipartisan way to confront the challenges that we all know face this country. Unfortunately, this rules package shuts us out from the start. It is my hope that the promises made will, indeed, be kept. But, Mr. Speaker, this package does not inspire a great deal of hope in that they in any way will.

And so, Mr. Speaker, I rise with a great deal of disappointment and a great deal of concern about the first actions that we are taking here.

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

Mr. Speaker, at this time I am happy to yield 2 minutes to my very distinguished colleague on the Rules Committee, Mr. Lincoln Diaz-Balart from Florida.

Mr. Speaker, I want to first congratulate Ms. Castor and certainly welcome her to the Rules Committee and look forward to serving with her.

Parliamentary Inquiry

I have a parliamentary inquiry, Mr. Speaker.

My parliamentary inquiry is, may I ask of the Chair exactly what it is we are debating and considering at this point. The Chair of the Rules Committee stood up and said, after I gave my opening remarks, that we were in the midst of a debate on the last year's rules package. I was wondering if the Chair might enlighten us as to exactly what it is that we are considering.

For the consideration of the rules package for the 110th Congress, am I correct?

Thank you very much for that clarification, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker, at this time I am very happy to yield 2 minutes to the very distinguished gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Price).

Mr. Speaker, at this time I am very happy to yield 2 minutes to the very distinguished gentleman from Cherryville, North Carolina (Mr. McHenry).

Madam Speaker, may I inquire of the Chair how much time is remaining on both sides.

Madam Speaker, at this juncture I am very pleased to yield 2 minutes to a very, very hardworking Member of the House, the Chair of the Republican Study Committee, the gentleman from Dallas (Mr. Hensarling).

Madam Speaker, at this time I am happy to yield 2 minutes to the very distinguished gentleman from Marietta, Georgia (Mr. Gingrey), a hardworking former member of the Rules Committee.

Madam Speaker, at this time I am happy to yield 2 minutes to our very distinguished chief deputy whip, my good friend from Richmond (Mr. Cantor).

I yield myself such time as I may consume to respond that I never used the words ``pain,'' I never said ``hurt.'' I said ``disappointment.'' I said disappointment, Madam Speaker, because I am very disappointed.

I will tell you this: I am prepared at this moment to take my three Republican colleagues and go right upstairs to the Rules Committee and go to work at this moment so that we don't have closed rules in the opening day rules package for consideration of measures that have not gone through the committee process and have not had any opportunity to even have our amendments denied in the Rules Committee.

I yield to the gentlewoman from New York.

Let me just say, we are prepared at this moment, Madam Speaker, we will send a resolution right now so the Rules Committee can begin meeting upstairs.

Madam Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to my friend from Nebraska (Mr. Terry).

Madam Speaker, may I inquire of the Chair how much time we have remaining?

Madam Speaker, I will yield an additional minute to the gentleman from Cherryville, North Carolina who would like to be recognized.

Madam Speaker, may I inquire of the distinguished Chair of the Rules Committee now, are there any further speakers on the majority side?

Madam Speaker, I yield myself the balance of the time.

Madam Speaker, I am actually very enthused and excited about the great new opportunity that lies ahead for every single one of us. We have heard speeches today from our distinguished Republican leader, and we are all very proud that my fellow Californian has become the first woman to preside over the greatest deliberative body known to man. And, as I said earlier, I am particularly proud of the fact that I am being succeeded by the distinguished chairwoman from New York (Ms. Slaughter), as the first woman to chair the Rules Committee.

I am enthused about the challenges that lie ahead, and I am very encouraged by the words that we heard from our new Speaker about the need for civility, about the need for us to make sure that we recognize that we are first and foremost Americans, and that the message from last November's election was a very clear one. It was a message that we should come together, work together, Democrats and Republicans alike, to solve the challenges that we face so that we can in fact do the people's business.

We are very proud of the accomplishments that we have had over the past 12 years, and I believe we can work with the new majority to build on those successes, the successes of ensuring that we have an economy that is second to none, an unemployment rate that is at near-record lows at 4.5 percent, strong domestic product growth, more Americans working than ever before in our Nation's history, more Americans owning their own homes, and more minority Americans owning their own homes.

I also am particularly proud of the fact that working together, Madam Speaker, we have been able to ensure that since that tragic day of September 11, 2001, we have not faced another attack on our soil.

The fact that we have not faced another attack is not an accident. It is because of good public policy and the leadership that we have had. Now we do have a change in leadership here in this institution, and there have been a wide range of promises that were made by Members who formerly served in the majority and now are coming back to majority status. As members of the minority, they talked about the need for enhanced minority rights. And I believe many of those things are very, very important. I believed them before, and I believe them now.

One of the things that I think is very important is for us to have an opportunity for consideration of measures here on the House floor that allow for a greater opportunity for Member participation. The thing that troubles me most is if we don't defeat this previous question and then defeat this rule that allows us to move forward, we will be proceeding with a package that will bring forward five closed rules, preventing the Rules Committee from having an opportunity to in any way consider the chance to bring forward amendments.

Never before, never before in our Nation's history have we seen an opening day Rules Committee that would allow for the consideration of five closed rules in the opening-day package. And one of the things, of course, that was discussed widely by our colleagues on the other side of the aisle which we have strongly supported is the notion of transparency, accountability, and disclosure.

One of the most troubling aspects of this measure is that we would move to prevent the Record from showing the votes that are cast in the Rules Committee.

We were very proud that we eliminated proxy voting when we came to majority status. Why? Because we wanted Members to show up to work, and we wanted the American people to see their work product.

Well, unfortunately, the American people understand what it means to show up to work. They understand what it means for greater disclosure and accountability and transparency. We heard the opening remarks during this rule debate on letting the sunshine in. The sun is shining outside today, and it is going to shine in. Under this provision, we see a prevention for the opportunity for the sun to shine in the Rules Committee, and I find it very troubling.

Madam Speaker, I will be asking Members to vote ``no'' on the previous question so we can amend this rule to make in order to consider the Speaker's minority bill of rights as was outlined on May 25, 2006, in her document ``New House Principles: A Congress For All Americans.'' We need to give the new majority an opportunity to live up to those commitments that were made.

Madam Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to insert the text of my amendment and extraneous materials in the Record immediately prior to the vote on the previous question.

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

Madam Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.

Madam Speaker, I offer a motion to commit.

I object.

Mr. Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.

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

I would like to begin by extending my compliments to my very good friend from Maryland, the distinguished majority leader, Mr. Hoyer. In fact, Mr. Hoyer just quoted John F. Kennedy and I believe that he was right on target in focusing on that brilliant quote of President Kennedy's where he said that we should not seek the Republican answer, we should not seek the Democratic answer, we should seek the right answer. I was struck with that, Mr. Speaker, and I believe that we should join in strong support of this resolution, of support of this title; and I am going to urge my colleagues to join in voting in support of this title which uses the rules base of the 109th Congress as the basis for which these proposed changes are being offered.

But I think it is very important for us to note that if we are going to, in fact, seek the right answer as opposed to the Republican answer or the Democratic answer, we need to do that by vigorously pursuing the deliberative process about which we all speak. And I know that during the past several years, my very distinguished colleagues on the other side of the aisle raised concerns about a lack of deliberation that existed in this House and the fact that more amendments could have been made in order. I will acknowledge that we could have made more amendments in order. That was clearly an option there. But as my friend, having served in the majority, knows very well, there are challenges that need to be addressed when you are in the majority, challenges of managing this institution. I see him sitting there very comfortably and I am glad that he is comfortable at this point, but I know full well that he, Mr. Speaker, is going to face many management challenges in the days and weeks and months ahead.

But during the past couple of years, what we have heard is a commitment to minority rights made by those who were formerly in the majority, who were in the minority at that time and are now back in the majority. And so I would argue that the words of President Kennedy can best be implemented if we in fact do increase the level of deliberation, and that is why as we look at the proposed changes that we are going to be considering, I have to say that when it comes to the actual management, I am concerned. I am concerned about the prospect of, for the first time in the history of this institution, taking prospectively five closed rules and placing that in the opening-day rules package.

Similarly, Mr. Speaker, I am concerned about the prospect of taking this issue of transparency, accountability, and disclosure about which we on both sides of the aisle regularly talk because we are here to represent all of the American people, the notion of now saying again for the first time in the history of this great institution that we are going to create an opportunity whereby we will not have accountability and transparency in our very important deliberations that will take place in the Rules Committee.

And so again I would say in response to the brilliant words of President John F. Kennedy, as outlined by our distinguished majority leader, Mr. Hoyer, that we do seek the right answer; and I believe that the best way to seek the right answer is through enhanced deliberation, and we have a chance to do that.

Now, I will when it comes to this vote urge my colleagues to vote in favor of title I. Title I, as you know, Mr. Speaker, simply provides a chance to use the opening rules package of the 109th Congress, and I think that that is a correct thing for us to do; and I hope the Democrats and Republicans alike, and the majority leader has just called for support of title I and I will urge the colleagues on our side of the aisle to join so that again we will be coming together and I think having the right answer on that.

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

Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?

I thank my friend for yielding. I really am very hesitant to interrupt the brilliance of my good friend from Fort Lauderdale.

Now that I have interrupted it, I just couldn't hesitate to interrupt when I heard that I somehow had a draft by virtue of knowing what the rules package that was put into place for the operation of the 109th Congress was? That was all we had. We had nothing whatsoever beyond the rules of the House and that is it.

I thank my friend for yielding.

Mr. Speaker, before I yield to my good friend from Pasco, I would simply like to ask unanimous consent to enter into the Record at this point a copy of the draft that we received that is dated January 2, 2007. The time stamp on that is 5:45 p.m. I was informed that we had it last night at 6:10 p.m., and it had already been circulated to those in the press gallery by that point.

I would be happy to yield to my friend.

The section that we are talking about right now is simply implementation----

It is simply implementation of the rules that have existed for the 109th Congress. I clearly was talking about the rules for the 110th Congress. In fact, if the gentleman was here when I had an exchange with the distinguished new Chair of the Rules Committee when she tried to argue that we somehow were debating the rules for the 109th Congress, the Chair confirmed the fact that we are in fact considering in toto the package for the 110th Congress using as base text the 109th.

What I have here and if I am able to gain unanimous consent for this, Mr. Speaker, to include in the Record, is the draft which uses the 109th base text and has the proposed changes, the different titles for the proposed changes for the rules of the 110th Congress.

I would ask unanimous consent to include this draft with the date and the time on it showing that it did not fall within the 24-hour notification period of time that my friends have consistently insisted on.

The gentleman objects to my including the draft?

Mr. Speaker, the simple point that I am trying to make is that we all know what the rules for the 109th Congress were. We have lived under those rules for the last 2 years. Yes, I was proud to have crafted those, working with my colleagues on this side of the aisle, and we passed those at the beginning of the Congress and we are going to have a chance in just a few minutes to vote on those again.

The point is, it is not the rules of the 109th Congress that we didn't have a draft of. We did not have a draft until January 3 at 5:45 p.m., which clearly did not comply with that 24-hour requirement that has been put forward. And that is the only point that I am trying to make.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Pasco, Washington.

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

Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased that we can, in fact, join in a bipartisan way in supporting implementation of title I of this provision. And I believe that it is great that my friend from Florida (Mr. Hastings) began heaping praise on the many accomplishments of the 104th Congress when we implemented things like an end to proxy voting, term limits on committee chairmen, and the other items which we have which go on and on and on, increased transparency and accountability and disclosure.

I will say that, as I have said, I am very, very troubled and saddened by the inconsistency when it comes to the issue of transparency and disclosure in light of the discussion that Mr. Hastings of Pasco, Washington and I have had about closing down transparency in the Rules Committee now.

My friend from Florida mentioned the fact that I may be the champion of closed rules. I will admit that as chairman of the Rules Committee, I did bring more than a few closed rules here, primarily on bills that related to tax issues, which was done under the Democratic majorities of the past and I suspect will be done in the future as well. But I will say this: Never before, never before have I, as chairman of the Rules Committee, prevented the Rules Committee from having an opportunity to deliberate and including in an opening day rules package five closed rules. I am concerned as we move forward with that. We will have that debate later on. But I look forward to urging my colleagues to join in support of title I.

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

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

Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of this package. Once again, I think we will have an opportunity for bipartisanship. The issue of ethics and lobbying reform is something that we believe is very, very important. As I sit here today, I am reminded of the fact that 1 year ago this month, Speaker Hastert and I stood right upstairs in the press gallery and unveiled a package for lobbying and ethics reform, which was maligned by many of our colleagues, unfortunately.

But I will say that I am very pleased with the fact that we were ultimately able to pass out of the House our measure, which did a number of things that I am happy to see are incorporated in this provision that is coming forward from the new majority.

The thing that troubles me most, Mr. Speaker, is the fact that this was done in a unilateral way. We are all very proud of the fact that we have a working, strong, vibrant bipartisan Ethics Committee. It would have been great if we could have had the Ethics Committee come forward with these recommendations.

There has been no consultation whatsoever between the majority and the minority, although I will say, again, I congratulate those Members of the new majority for including, including many of the items that were either incorporated in H.R. 4975, which was our lobbying and disclosure act that we passed out of the House last year, and some of the provisions that Speaker Hastert and I outlined a year ago this month: free clearance of travel, a ban on travel and an end to gifts. An end to the K Street Project. These are all very important reforms that I do think are essential.

I will say this, Mr. Speaker, as I listen to my very good friend from Massachusetts, and I congratulate him on his new position in the majority on the Rules Committee, what happens between today and March 1 of this year? Well, let us see, we have the month of January and the month of February, and, guess what, under this package, the status quo in the 110th Congress, under the Democratic majority, remains in place without any kind of reform or change.

So I have got to ask rhetorically, anyone who wants to answer as to why we are waiting until March 1 before we see any kind of implementation here. They want to see guidelines put forward, maybe by the Ethics Committee. If that is what they would like to do, why don't we impose an immediate ban until they come up with recommended guidelines?

So I will say that as I listen to these proposals, they are interesting, I am very pleased that they have incorporated them. I don't believe they go far enough. In a few minutes, my colleagues, Mr. Kirk and Mr. Shadegg, will be talking about concern on the pension issue, which unfortunately has been left out of this, but I do believe that by and large this is a measure that is going to be worthy of bipartisan support, and I am going to urge my colleagues to support it.

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

Will the gentleman yield? If you will recall, we passed

Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the distinguished gentleman from Omaha, Nebraska (Mr. Terry).

Mr. Speaker, let me, again, say that we look forward to supporting this package, much of which, the items that the gentlewoman just outlined, were included in H.R. 4975, which passed this House last May with strong bipartisan support.

Mr. Speaker, with that, I yield 2 minutes to my very good friend from Highland Park, Illinois (Mr. Kirk).

Mr. Speaker, let me just, before yielding to the gentleman from Marietta, say very quickly again, the legislation that passed the House, H.R. 4975, specifically banned the K Street Project. Look at the language. It is virtually identical. We focused on the issue of lobbyist travel and gifts. And I believe that we can come together in a bipartisan way. We want to work in a civil tone, as was outlined by Speaker Pelosi today.

Mr. Speaker, with that I am happy to yield 3 minutes to my very good friend, former member of the Rules Committee, the gentleman from Marietta, Dr. Gingrey.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume to congratulate the gentleman from New Hampshire. We welcome him here. Unfortunately, this package doesn't start today and start now. It starts March 1 of 2007, 2 months from now.

I also want to say to my very good friend from Massachusetts once again that if you look at the package that we passed in May of last year, it is a package that enjoyed bipartisan support. It is one of which we are very proud. And I believe that if you look at the fact that we did go beyond preventing registered lobbyists from coming onto the House floor and the gym, we are doing many of those same things here. It has been done before.

And that is why we are proud to be here in support of this effort, which, again, some of us believe does not go far enough and there are some problems with it, but we do believe it is a positive step. Why? Because it is a reaffirmation of what Speaker Hastert led us to last year.

With that, Mr. Speaker, I am very happy to yield 4 minutes to my good friend from Arizona (Mr. Shadegg).

Mr. Speaker, may I inquire of the Chair how much time is remaining on both sides.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume to say that I do congratulate my colleagues. I want to begin by saying as a Californian that I am very proud of the fact that California has provided the first female Speaker of the House of Representatives. Similarly, I have congratulated our colleague, Ms. Slaughter, who will be the first woman to chair the Rules Committee in our Nation's history.

This has been a historic day and I believe a very exciting day for us. I am pleased that we have been able to do a number of things already in a bipartisan way, and I think this issue of ethics and lobbying reform, building on the reforms that we passed in the 109th Congress, utilizing those very positive provisions, is exactly what we are about to vote on here in just a few minutes; and I think that it is a time when we can be civil.

And I will say to all of my friends on both sides of the aisle, the American people want us to deal with these problems, and I will reaffirm my commitment to my colleagues on the Rules Committee that I will continue to strive to comport myself in the most dignified way possible in dealing with my colleagues, and I urge support of this very important measure.

I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, let me explain what is in this bill for the Members.

We have $4 billion over the amount requested by the President. The President requested a total of $12.1 billion for military personnel pay and benefits. The committee recommends increasing the funds for those programs by $1.4 billion. The committee adds $1.4 billion to cover the full cost of housing allowance for military members in fiscal year 2007; $2.3 billion to cover the full cost of fielding an additional 36,000 Army troops.

If everybody here remembers, we added 30,000 troops in the supplemental, which the White House did not ask for, argued about, and which the Defense Department did not want. And yet now we are short of troops, and they are trying to blame the Congress for being short of troops.

We also added money for 9,000 additional marines. The committee recommends $52.5 billion for military operations, $2.2 billion over the President's request.

In addition to fully funding the request for military operations, the committee proposes an additional $2.5 billion to address training and equipping shortfalls in forces not deployed. We will set up a Reserve Readiness fund.

The committee recommends adding funds for the war in Afghanistan, $1 billion. That is where the original war started, and that is what you vote against if you vote against this bill.

$5.9 billion for the Afghanistan Security Forces fund, $3.8 billion for the Iraq Security Forces fund, and a total of $2.4 billion is recommended for the joint IED task force.

The recommendations propose an increase of $17 million for DOD's Family Advocacy program. In other words, all of us hear, when we go talk with the families, the problems that they have. We add $17 million for that particular fund.

We have three significant reductions. We reduce some of the buys of hardware which we think ought to be in the base bill.

The committee bill recommends a total of $24.8 billion for equipment purchases, a slight decrease to the President's request of $86 million. The committees proposed an allocation of $1.4 billion to purchase what they call MRAP vehicles, that is, the vehicles with the V shape, which we need so badly. And that is what you are voting against if you vote against this bill: $311 million above the request of the White House.

For Army procurement accounts the committee approves a total of $15 billion: $994 million for tactical radios, $2.2 billion for tactical trucks, $867 million for up-armored Humvees, $636 million for Bradley fighting vehicle upgrades. And that is what you are voting against if you vote against this bill.

The committee bill includes $192 million not requested for three additional F/A-18s. We take care of the SEABEEs, something they have talked about that have been decimated by this war, and we put equipment in for the SEABEEs.

The committee is recommending reductions to several high-profile programs requested by the President. We deny funding for two Joint Strike Fighter airplanes because they ought to be in the base bill, and we will talk about that depending on what they authorize.

The President requested a total of $1.4 billion for research and development. The committee recommends a total of $1 billion.

Working capital funds: the committee bill provides a total of $1.3 billion for working capital.

Now let me talk about defense health programs. We just saw what we went through with Walter Reed. Bill Young, who was chairman of the committee, and I went out to Walter Reed all the time. I had no idea, as most Members didn't, about what was going on at Walter Reed. And it really gets to me that every time we went out there, we asked them if you needed any help and they always told us everything is all right. We put more money in any way because we knew there would be some problems come about because of the fact that they were under BRAC. The committee decided unanimously to eliminate the closing of Walter Reed, especially during the time of war. We put $1.7 billion above the budget request.

The additional funding is for $450 million for post-traumatic stress. And that is not near enough, folks. That is not near enough. We figure there are going to be 65,000 military people who come back that are going to have post-traumatic stress. And that is what you are voting against if you vote against this bill.

We put $450 million in for traumatic brain injury care and research; $730 million to cover the funding shortfall created by Congress' having disapproved the Department's proposal to increase the health insurance premiums. And I am for that, but we didn't fund it. But we fund it in this bill, and that is what you vote against if you vote against this bill.

We put $62 million in for amputee care. Let me tell you something about amputee care. I went out to the amputee center in Brooks. Private industry put up a place in 18 months; $58 million they raised to put an amputee center up. We have been working on an amputee center at Walter Reed. It took us 3 years and it is still not built. Jerry Lewis, Bill Young, and myself, and it is still not done yet.

We are putting in $12 million for caregivers. The nurses called. They said, We have got a real problem here. We see these wounded. We see the people coming home all the time. It affects us mentally. It affects us emotionally. It affects us psychologically. We need help. So we put $12 million in; $6 million for Landstuhl, where they get the worst casualties; $2 million for Walter Reed; $2 million for Brooks; and $2 million for the hospital in California.

We put in $14.8 million for burn care. I want to tell you something, Members. You can go to all the hospitals. When you go to the burn care centers, you see the results of this war. We go to the hospitals. All of us go to the hospitals quite often. And let me tell you the burn centers are the worst when you go.

Now, we also took out 5 percent on contracting. Now, why did we do that? We did that because contractors are falling all over themselves and we asked the GAO and we asked the Inspector General of Iraq, How many contractors do you have? They couldn't tell us. They said, Help us find out how many contractors we have.

So we asked the Under Secretary of Defense. He couldn't tell us. He said, I will let you know in a week.

He still hasn't told us. So we took 5 percent out. They will tell us now how many contractors they have.

And we fenced 10 percent. So that is $800 million for the 5 percent and then $1.6 billion for the contractors to come out. So that is $2.1 billion we have taken out for the contractors.

We put in for CERP, which is a program in which there is $456 million provided under operations and maintenance for the commanders.

No permanent bases we said over and over again. We put in no torture, which has caused us so much problem when they didn't have the people trained when they were in Abu Ghraib.

Contracting oversight. We have a death gratuity amendment. Military attorneys, we put some money in for military attorneys.

Meeting readiness guidelines: let me tell you what we do to meet readiness guidelines. When you talk to these families, they need a year at home before they are redeployed. Is there anybody that thinks we should send these folks back before they have a year at home? Is there anybody that thinks we should extend them when they have 13 months in country? Is there anybody who thinks we should send troops into combat who aren't trained and ready? Is there anybody here?

We put benchmarks in for the Iraqi Government, as the chairman of the committee explained, because we need to give them the incentive. We need them to have some benchmarks so they understand that they have to get this done.

Every time something happens, and this is a problem we have, every time something happens, we step in. They started out, they said, with 80 percent of the people in the Iraqi units deployed in Iraq. Now it is 50 percent. Where are they? They are on leave. They deserted. They are not there. So who makes up the difference? Our troops are the ones making up the difference. We have to force the Iraqis to make up the difference.

Why are we even thinking about forcing the military to break their own guidelines because of this surge? Because of the fact they can't sustain the deployment. So the administration has decided, we are going to have to send people back with less than a year at home.

We are going to send people back that aren't trained and ready? That is unacceptable. That is unacceptable to every single Member of Congress. We have an obligation to the taxpayer under the Constitution to take care of defense.

We have an obligation to have oversight and auditing and accountability. We have had 14 hearings so far. We will have at least 40 more hearings before we have the base bill. I am going to put you on notice right now, the supplemental, the 2008 supplemental, is not going to come up with the base bill. The 2008 supplemental is going to be held, because we are going to see if there is going to be progress in this country before we bring up the 2008 supplemental. We are going to see if what they say is true. We are going to find out if this administration is giving us the facts.

We have said to them under the Moran amendment, you have to tell us how much oil production there is. Oil production is below prewar level. Electricity production is below prewar level. Unemployment is 60 percent.

Incidents have doubled since I spoke out here a year-and-a-half ago. Doubled. There are now 1,200 a week. And when I say ``incidents,'' I am talking about 140,000 troops deployed to Iraq, individually. I heard Elizabeth Edwards the other day talk about breast cancer, before she knew it had come back, and she said to me, there is 40,000 people that have breast cancer every year, but it is one at a time.

What we are talking about are troops, 140,000 troops, one at a time; 140,000 troops with families; 140,000 troops that have wives and husbands and mothers and fathers that have to suffer during these deployments.

When you go to the hospital, you see figures. Don't think when you say you see 2,500 people who have been killed, 3,000 have been killed or 25,000 have been wounded. It is individuals that have been wounded, individuals that have been killed, and those families are suffering.

We have to put some benchmarks so the Iraqis, they have civil war, we have to put benchmarks in this bill so the Iraqis start to do it themselves, and the Americans aren't forced to make up the difference, but they do it themselves.

Mr. Speaker, let me say to the Members what hurts our troops.

I found our troops, 44,000, without body armor. I found our troops with a shortage of jammers. I found our troops with a shortage of up- armored Humvees. I find our troops now, because of the policy, having to go back to Iraq before they have a year at home. I find our troops now because of the policy of this White House having to extend troops that have been there 13 months, and I find our troops having to go into combat untrained or not trained as well as they should, not going to the desert where they have this tremendous training area, going right into Iraq.

That is what hurts our troops. That is what hurts the morale of the troops when you send them without training, without the additional training they need, without the equipment they need and without the resources they need.

We are putting in the resources. If you vote against this bill, you are voting against the resources they need to go into combat.

One of the Members said, how many less Iraqis have been killed? I don't know how many less Iraqis we killed. I know 62 individual American soldiers or marines have been killed this last month.

I want to say about equipment, I have got a chart here with the Army National Guard. Every single National Guard unit in this Nation, all 50 States, doesn't have the Humvees they need.

Every State, they don't have the 7-ton trucks they need. Every State, they don't have other equipment, the equipment they need for jammers and so forth.

When you say they are training on equipment and are not fully trained, they don't have the equipment to train on. This bill provides that. When you vote against this bill, you are voting against the extra money to fix that problem.

Mr. Speaker, in Kosovo we had 30,000 sorties. We never lost one person to combat in Kosovo. Let me read the figures for you in 2001. All active duty Army divisions were rated highest readiness level. Do you know what they are today? Almost all are rated lowest level. Every National Guard unit today is rated the lowest level.

Mr. Speaker, we could not deploy our ground forces overseas for any threat. Our national security has been significantly increased because the depletion of our strategic reserve, our national strategic reserve. We got a problem here. We are trying to fix the problem. If you vote against this, you are voting against helping us to restore the equipment that we have lost in this country.

I will yield.

I take my time back.

Let me just say to the gentleman from California, when President Clinton was President, Bush as a candidate was running against him. He said, look, you are not ready to go to war. He said, two entire divisions of the Army would not have had to report until they are ready.

Let me tell you what it would be today. Almost no division in the United States is ready to report for duty if we had to send them out someplace else to a national threat. That is the difference today. Today we are trying to fix this. Today we put money in the bill to fix this.

Mr. Speaker, pursuant to House Resolution 261, I call up the bill (H.R. 1591) making emergency supplemental appropriations for the fiscal year ending September 30, 2007, and for other purposes, and ask for its immediate consideration.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 12 minutes.

Mr. Speaker, why are we here? We are here because 4 years ago the President plunged us into a preemptive war in Iraq, a country that had not attacked the United States, and we took that action on the basis of bad information, manipulated intelligence, with no visible plans for governing after the war was over.

Mr. Speaker, that attack diverted us from the hunt for bin Laden, the person who did attack us.

The war has now gone on for 4 years and, as a result, we have seen chaos and carnage. We have seen over 3,000 American service men and women die, many times more wounded and maimed. We have seen our influence decimated throughout the Middle East. We have seen our reputation as the democratic hope of the world tarnished by stories about torture and rendition.

I voted against that war. There were 215 Republicans who voted for it and 6 that voted against it. There were 81 Democrats who voted for it and 126 Democrats who voted against it. We had 132 votes, in total, against going to war. And ever since that time, we have been trying to get to 218 votes so we can turn this country and this war around.

Over the last 4 years, this war has been fought with virtually no sense of shared sacrifice. Military families have done double and triple duty, while the rest of America has had to accept the sacrifice of a tax cut. That is about all that has been asked of most Americans.

We have spent a huge amount of our national treasure, and now the President is asking for another almost $100 billion for this war and asking for an additional $3.5 billion for his own domestic priorities.

This bill is our response. It says to the President: ``Okay, you can have that money, but only under certain terms and conditions.'' And we try to do three things: number one, to redirect a greater effort to the right war in Afghanistan, rather than the wrong war in Iraq. Secondly, we try to protect our troops to the maximum extent possible and correct the neglect that they have suffered as they have returned from the battlefield. And, thirdly, we are trying to send a message to Iraq politicians that they need to change direction; that we will no longer tolerate an open-ended, interminable babysitting job; that they must get together and begin to resolve their own differences.

This bill sets a timetable for repositioning our troops out of Iraq. The exact timetable will be determined by the performance of the Iraqis and whether or not they meet important political and military benchmarks.

And this bill establishes a target for finishing our redeployment in any circumstance. It recognizes that our troops won the war, but it also recognizes that the President's plan calls upon troops to do something that they do not have the power to do, namely, to convince Iraqi factions to reach reasonable compromises on their own turf.

It sets reasonable conditions for moving our troops into a different posture. It holds Iraqis accountable to standards that the President himself has laid out. And it puts us on a new direction with respect to the war in Iraq.

And it does some other things, too. It completes action on a number of leftover pieces of business that the previous Congress left to this new incoming Congress.

The President himself asked for $3.4 billion to deal with the needs of FEMA. We are also finishing action on the BRAC action which requires $3.1 billion in additional funding. We are finishing action on the need to improve family military housing to the tune of $3.4 billion. We are finishing action on rebuilding the lives and providing other assistance to the Katrina victims after the most devastating natural disaster in the history of our country.

We are finishing the action on the agriculture disaster problem that Congress wrestled with for well over a year in the previous Congress without coming to resolution. And we are providing the final $1 billion in funds to combat a potential pandemic flu, funds which the President himself requested in an emergency appropriation in the year 2005.

And we are also finishing action on the action begun last year by the Congress in trying to deal with the fact that 14 States are going to run out of child health money; and we need, therefore, to provide $750 million to see to it that low-income families and children in low- income families are not pushed off those State health care rolls. This is a request that has come in from Republican and Democratic Governors alike.

And we have also provided some additional funding, above what the President asked for, items which are not

last year's business, but which we think are important in terms of this year's business.

We are increasing funding for veterans health and defense health by $3.4 billion. We are, on the homeland security front, increasing funding substantially. The President, since days after 9/11, has been resisting virtually every congressional effort to add funding for homeland security, for border security, for cargo security and the like.

We are continuing the effort to provide significantly more money than the President has asked for. If anybody wants to argue with that, I would suggest they take it up with the 9/11 Commission. I would suggest they take it up with the Hart-Rudman Commission. I would suggest they take it up with the 9/11 families. Everybody but Anne Coulter, I think, would be responsive to what those families think.

And then we are also providing $1.2 billion in additional funding for our war in Afghanistan. Mr. Speaker, I sat at CIA headquarters and watched, right after 9/11, as our predator aircraft were searching Afghanistan for bin Laden. And I know what the people at that agency were saying when they expressed their frustration that the President was diverting a huge share of our resources in the hunt for bin Laden to prepare for the unilateral attack on Iraq.

What this bill is trying to do is to correct that by, again, refocusing additional attention on the war against Afghanistan. And I make absolutely no apology for the funds that we have in here.

Now, some will say this is not a perfect instrument. They will differ with the time line that we have for the repositioning of troops, and they will differ with the benchmarks. But what I would say to them is that what is important in this document today is not the exact wording. What is important is not the exact timetable. What is important is not the exact enumeration of benchmarks. What is important is that, for the first time, this Congress will be exercising its constitutional responsibilities to provide real oversight on the executive branch of government, and we will be trying to set this country on a new direction.

Someone in this House said last week that we are similar in our position to a board of directors for a corporation. He said the President is the CEO. The President's Cabinet represents his management team, and we are the board of directors. And when a board of directors of a corporation sees that the management of the corporation is leading it down a disastrous path, it has a fiduciary responsibility to its stockholders to step in and correct the problem. That is what we are trying to do in this legislation. In this case, we have a fiduciary responsibility and a representational responsibility to the taxpayers and to our constituents, and we are trying to meet that responsibility today.

Now, there are some who have criticized us for doing so, some in newspapers and some on this floor. Very frankly, I am getting a bit tired of those who were consistently wrong from the beginning on the issue of Iraq, I am getting tired of them lecturing those of us who were consistently right from the beginning in our opposition to this war.

And when people ask me why we don't have a better solution, I tell them of the old story about Eddie Stanky, who used to play second base for the New York Giants many years ago. And one day, Leo Durocher, the manager, was hitting ground balls to the infield, and Stanky dropped two in a row. And so Durocher grabbed a glove and said, ``Here, kid, I'm going to show you how it's done.'' And he went out to second base, and the very first ball Durocher dropped. And he turned to Stanky, and said, ``Kid, you got second base so screwed up, nobody can play it.''

The fact is, if you substitute George Bush for Eddie Stanky and Iraq for second base, you have got the picture of what the problem is today.

Now, this Congress cannot run foreign policy, but it has an obligation to try to influence the policy and influence the conduct of that policy when we see it headed down the wrong path. Mr. Murtha has tried to lead the way in seeing to it that we face up to those responsibilities, and this legislation will give us an opportunity to do that.

I would hope it would be supported on a bipartisan basis.

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

Mr. Speaker, I yield 12 minutes to the distinguished chairman of the Defense Appropriations Subcommittee, Mr. Murtha.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the distinguished gentleman from New York (Mr. Serrano), the chairman of the Financial Services Subcommittee of the Committee on Appropriations.

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

Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the distinguished gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Moran).

Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the distinguished gentleman from Rhode Island (Mr. Kennedy).

Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from California (Mr. Farr).

Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the distinguished gentlewoman from California (Ms. Lee).

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the distinguished gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Murtha).

Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the distinguished gentleman from New Mexico (Mr. Udall).

(Mr. UDALL of New Mexico asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 1 minute.

The gentleman talks about how we need to support General Petraeus. Let me quote from Thomas Friedman, who has had years of experience in understanding the Middle East. He said: I hope the Democrats under Speaker Nancy Pelosi keep pushing to set a deadline for withdrawal from Iraq because they are providing two patriotic services that the Republicans failed to offer in the previous 4 years. The first is policy discipline. The other useful function Speaker Pelosi and her colleagues are performing is to give the President and General David Petraeus, our Commander in Iraq, the leverage of a deadline without a formal deadline. How so? The surge cannot work without political reconciliation among Iraqi factions, which means Sunni-Shiite negotiations, and such negotiations are unlikely to work without America having the leverage of telling the parties that if they do not compromise, we will leave. Deadlines matter. At some point Iraqis have to figure this out themselves. Since Mr. Bush refuses to set a deadline, Speaker Pelosi is the next best thing. Do not underestimate how useful it is for General Petraeus to be.

Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of time.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the distinguished gentlewoman from Connecticut (Ms. DeLauro), chairman of the Agriculture Appropriations Subcommittee.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Murtha).

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 30 seconds.

Mr. Speaker, the gentleman can have charts, but the charts don't change facts. I would also observe that the important thing is not what happened 7 or 8 years ago. The important thing is what we are going to do today and tomorrow.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from Pennsylvania.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 4 minutes.

Mr. Speaker, it may seem like the November elections took place ages ago, but the sentiments that created new majorities in the House and Senate are still strong.

The American people spoke loud and clear on November 7. Together, Republicans and Democrats and independents from across this great Nation voted for change. They voted to end the cycle of corruption, pay to play, and junkets.

Today, Mr. Speaker, the new Democratic majority is fulfilling the pledge we made to the voters. We are going to clean up Washington, D.C. We are going to give the people their House back.

Two years ago my friends on the other side of the aisle brought forward a rules package that, in my opinion, did not go nearly far enough in upholding the highest ethical standards. Today we offer a package that is based on real change. Members of Congress are elected to serve the American people, not their own individual private interests. And I am proud to say that today, this House of Representatives will enact a reform package that ends the culture of corruption once and for all. The days of the K Street project are over. No longer will Members of this House be able to dictate to any private entity the hiring or firing of anyone based on their political affiliation.

This rules package prohibits Members of Congress from traveling on corporate jets. My constituents in Massachusetts don't have the opportunity to get cheap travel on corporate jets and neither should Members of Congress.

Mr. Speaker, this rules package also changes the way Members of Congress and staff can travel for official business. I strongly believe that overseas trips and other travel can be important tools to helping Members of Congress understand complex domestic and international issues.

But the days of lobbyist-sponsored golf junkets will be relics of the past. The actions this package takes are simple and straightforward: no more junkets, no more gifts from lobbyists, no more travel on corporate jets.

This rules package is comprehensive, and it is historic. We are going to change the way this place is run, and we are going to change the way people look at the Congress. The American people don't want to pick up their morning newspapers and read about golf junkets to St. Andrews. They don't want to hear stories about how their Congressman or Congresswoman was wined and dined with $100 steak dinners.

Mr. Speaker, this is not complicated. These are commonsense items that should have been dealt with years ago. The time has come to do what is right, to hold Members of this House to the highest ethical standards.

With the election of Nancy Pelosi as Speaker of the House, the first woman Speaker in the history of the United States, Democrats are ushering in a new era and putting an end to the culture of corruption. We are changing the tone in Washington, and we are changing the way we conduct business.

Now, I know full well that the ethical problems of the past were not limited to one side of the aisle, and the solutions to those problems can and should come from both Democrats and Republicans. I know that many of my Republican friends agree that change is needed, and they wish that their leadership in the past would have moved forward on some of these changes. I look forward to working closely with them in the weeks and the months ahead.

Mr. Speaker, the American people demand, and they deserve, a higher standard of conduct from their elected officials. Today, we are raising the bar for how Members of the 110th Congress will carry out their duties and do their jobs.

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

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

Mr. Speaker, let me just say to my good friend from California, whom I have a lot of respect for, there is a big difference between what his leadership proposed in terms of higher ethical standards and what is being proposed here today. I have got to say to the gentleman that we include a little bit more than just banning lobbyists from the locker rooms. They are banned

from the locker rooms in this bill, but there is a heck of a lot more.

I am in the middle of my statement. I would also say to the gentleman that his party has been in control for 12 years, and there has been ample opportunity to change the status quo. The gentleman's party not only embraced the status quo, but we saw a proliferation of the culture of corruption, and that is what this is a response to. In answer to the gentleman's question as to this March 1 deadline, that is to give the Committee on Standards of Official Conduct ample time to put the rules and regulations and the disclosure requirements into place so that this can be an effective change.

So this is real historic change. We are going to end the culture of corruption in this Congress today. I am glad that the gentleman has said that he is going to support it. I hope that this is a bipartisan vote.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 5 minutes, for the purpose of debate, to the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Space).

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

Let me just educate the gentleman that the change that he is asking for requires a statutory change. Today we are dealing with the House rules. I will assure the gentleman and his constituents in Nebraska and people all over the United States who agree with him that we will have the opportunity to do that. We will go through House Administration and you will have the opportunity to do that. We will hopefully have a unanimous vote on that.

I am also happy to hear the gentleman and others on the other side of the aisle all of a sudden speak in favor of ethics reform and real change and ending the culture of corruption in this House. It is amazing what an election will do.

With that, Mr. Speaker, I yield 4 minutes to the gentlewoman from Ohio (Ms. Sutton), a new member of the Rules Committee.

Mr. Speaker, let me just respond to the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Kirk) by saying I know I am from Massachusetts, and you may think I have a funny accent and you have trouble understanding me. But let me repeat what I said before. In order to make the changes on the pension issue that he is asking for, which we all support, it requires a statutory change. And I think the staff over there will help clarify that. We are all for that.

In H.R. 4011, which Ms. Pelosi supported that you mentioned was a statute. We are going to do that.

Let me just say one other thing to the gentleman. You keep on referring to your ethics reform package as if it was some kind of this monumental change and reform.

You didn't ban the K Street Project, which has really resulted in so much outrage across the country. You had a temporary suspension on the issue of travel, and you had no ban on lobbyists' gifts.

This is real reform. We are going to end the culture of corruption.

With that, Mr. Speaker, I yield for the purpose of debate only 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from New York (Mrs. Gillibrand).

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

Let me just say, respond to my good friend from Georgia (Mr. Gingrey), who I am going to miss on the Rules Committee, if he thinks that the Republican reform package was meaningful reform, I will lend you my bifocals so you can read it more carefully. What ended up happening, what you ended up enacting essentially, after 12 years in the majority, was banning lobbyists from the locker room. That is all that became law.

You controlled the House of Representatives. You controlled the Congress. And you controlled the United States Senate, and that is basically all that you did.

So I would just say to the gentleman, if he wants to vote ``no'' on this, he can go right ahead and vote ``no'' on it. But that is defending the status quo.

I think the American people made it very clear during the last election that they are sick of the culture of corruption; that they want a ban on lobbyists' gifts; that they want an end to the K Street Project. They want a ban on Members using corporate jets to fly around the country. And so if you want to vote for the status quo, vote ``no'' on this. If you want to vote for real meaningful change, vote ``yes.''

Mr. Speaker, for the purpose of debate only, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from New Hampshire (Mr. Hodes).

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume, and I will commit to the gentleman from Arizona that we are going to enter into that exchange, and I look forward to having that statute on the floor where he can speak in favor of it and we can speak in favor of it too.

Let me also, Mr. Speaker, correct the record. The distinguished former chairman of the Rules Committee said none of this ethics reform takes place for 4 months. That is true on the travel, and I clarified that earlier as to why that is the case, so we had time to implement the rules and regulations of disclosure. But everything else, I will assure him, takes place immediately.

So once this ethics package passes, I would urge my colleague from California not to go out to dinner with any of his lobbyist friends because he might be breaking the law.

Mr. Speaker, I yield for purposes of debate only 2 minutes to the distinguished gentleman from Florida (Mr. Mahoney).

Mr. Speaker, at this time it is my privilege to yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Sarbanes).

Mr. Speaker, I want to say to my colleague from California (Mr. Dreier) that I appreciate his words of cooperation and bipartisanship, and I do hope, and it is my belief, that you will see a change in terms of more outreach across the aisle and more respect, quite frankly, for the opinions of every single Member of this House.

I agree this is a historic day. This is not only a historic day because we have elected the first woman Speaker of the House in the history of the United States of America, but this is also a historic day for what we are about to vote on. We are about to change the way we do business here in Washington. We are responding to what the American people made very clear on election day, that they are tired of the ethical lapses of their leaders in government; that they want an end to the culture of corruption; that they want a government that has high ethical standards; that they want Members of Congress to adhere to those high ethical standards and, if they do not, that they will be held accountable. So what we are doing today in this ethics package, I think, is also an important moment in our history.

What we are doing is we are doing what is right. We are holding the Members of this House to the very highest ethical standards. And I want to say to my colleague from Arizona (Mr. Shadegg) that I agree with him on the pension issue. So do, I think, everybody on our side of the aisle. And we are going to address that and we are going to hopefully get a unanimous vote on that issue, because he is right on that issue. But, again, we are not dealing with that. That requires a statutory change, and today we are dealing with the House rules.

Mr. Speaker, what we are doing here today, I will remind my colleagues again, is very important. We are ending gifts by lobbyists to Members of Congress, we are banning the use of corporate jets for Members of Congress for a minimal price so that they can take a corporate jet and fly anywhere in this country. No one else can do that, yet that has been a practice by too many Members in this Congress. That will be banned.

We will end the lobbyist-sponsored golf junkets. They will be relics of the past. This is a new day. This is a day where ethics and where integrity are going to hold a very, very high place. We are going to end the culture of corruption with this vote, and I urge my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to vote ``yes'' on that.

Mr. Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding and rise in opposition to the bill.

I want to say this: We have had a lot of good, sincere debates in the Defense Subcommittee of Appropriations, but one of the things that, in our honest disagreement about, that we have not talked about as much is the effects that the surge has already had. I wanted to bring up some statistics.

The 4 weeks prior to the surge which began on February 15, we had 1,440 civilian deaths; since that time, 265. That is a reduction of about 500 percent.

In terms of bombings, prior to the surge, we had 163. Then from February to March, it is down to 102.

Similar with car bombings, down 35 percent from 56 to 36.

The surge is already showing a significant impact. Two-thirds of the Iraqis polled by a British polling firm, 5,000 people which were sampled, the largest poll in the history of Iraq, two-thirds of the people say they are better off now than they were under Saddam Hussein. Seventy-three percent say they are not in a civil war. Al-Maliki, the Prime Minister's approval rating has gone from 29 percent in September to 49 percent now.

We are making progress. We are not defending the status quo. We are changing the course, and the Petraeus plan needs to be given time to work, and that is very, very important.

The second point that I want to make is there are so many extracurricular things in the $23 billion in spending that have nothing to do with the war in Iraq. Now, I serve on the Ag Committee, and I want to mention some of those.

There is a $100 million increase in the PL-480 program, but there is not a single word of it in the report as to why this is justified, why this is considered an emergency, $100 million.

Secondly, we have $25 million in there for spinach recall. The USDA did what they were supposed to do, but I want you to know you are setting a precedent for recall. We are not in the product compensation business on recalls.

Finally, we have $5 million in the bill because of a Canadian fish import issue.

All of these things are good, debatable topics, but they do not belong in an emergency appropriation bill. I think they should come back through the committee process on regular order where we can have a good debate and look at them on a separate piece of legislation.

While some of the provisions I support, such as the peanut storage and handling provision and some type of agriculture disaster assistance, this bill is not the appropriate place for them to be considered.

Title II-P.L. 480 Grants--The bill contains $100,000,000 above the President's request for Title II-P.L. 480 Grants.

There is not a single word of explanation in the report as to what or where the additional funds are to be used for.

The President's request included $350,000,000 of which approximately $150,000,000 would go to Sudan and for populations in Chad affected by the violence in Darfur; $30,000,000 for Afghanistan; $95,000,000 for Southern Africa; and $75,000,000 for the Horn of Africa.

Just last month the Congress included $1,215 billion for this program in the Joint Resolution to fund this program for the remainder of fiscal year 2007.

The bill provides $140,000,000 in additional relief for loses related to Hurricanes Katrina and Rita of which $25,000,000 would go to provide additional compensation to livestock producers and $100,000,000 would go to provide additional compensation for citrus producers--it appears that these additional funds are included in the bill only for the reason of doubling the $80,000 payment that livestock and citrus producers have already received, taking their payments up to $160,000.

The need for agriculture disaster assistance has been debated for the last several months.

While disaster assistance is clearly needed in some areas of the country, this bill provides $25 million for spinach producers who had losses due to a nationwide spinach recall last fall.

The FDA did what is was supposed to do, and initiated the recall to protect consumers.

This assistance is unprecedented, and there will be pressure put on this Committee to compensate producers whenever other food products are recalled.

Can you imagine the cost if we get in the business of compensating producers for losses that they incur because of food recalls? The latest list of some of the food recalls from FDA and USDA include: bread; peanut butter; corn chips; olives; oysters; milk; fresh cut fruit; summer sausage; ground beef; and the list goes on.

The reason foods were recalled is because they presented a health risk to the public, and the FDA or the USDA did what they were supposed to do.

The bill includes $5,000,000 for compensation to aquaculture operations who may have incurred a loss due to a restriction on imports from certain fish from Canada.

The emergency order, put on by the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service, on these fish from Canada was due to outbreaks or potential outbreaks of a destructive pathogen responsible for several large-scale fish deaths in the Great Lakes region--the reason APHIS put the order in place was to protect aquaculture in the Great Lakes states, and somehow $5,000,000 makes it into this bill to compensate for possible losses without any justification. Where did this number come from?

Finally, there are no funds for USDA to administer any of the disaster assistance provisions in the bill that total nearly $4,500,000,000. Members are already reacting to proposed FSA office closures that are occurring all over the country. This will only exacerbate the problem.

iraqi government progress

According to the U.S. Embassy in Iraq, over the last 30

days they have seen important developments in the history of

Iraq. The Iraqi government has taken steps to improve

security, governance, economic development and economic

opportunities.

Iraq's Prime Minister is actively leading the latest plan

in Baghdad.

Prime Minister Maliki created six committees to oversee the

non-security pieces of the Baghdad plan, with oversight of

economic development, essential services, communications,

community outreach and related functions.

Prime Minister Maliki's first trip to Anbar Province was a

clear gesture and attempt to involve Sunni tribal sheiks into

the government.

Anbar's tribal sheiks are switching allegiances away from

the insurgents and towards the government of Iraq.

The tribal sheikhs have started providing police and army

recruits to support stability in the region.

At the end of February, the Iraqi parliament's Council of

Ministers passed a hydrocarbon law that outlines the

equitable sharing of Iraq's oil wealth.

The Iraqi government hosted the Neighbors' Conference, the

first international conference in Baghdad since 1990. The

conference ended with regional and international partners

pledging to fight terrorism and to enhance security in

support of the goal of peace and security for the people of

Iraq.

Iran and Syria along with Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Jordan,

Turkey and the five permanent members of the U.N. Security

Council attended the conference.

military progress

SecDef stated (Mar 21) the deployment of Iraqi troops into

Baghdad is right on schedule--10 brigades total.

Operational strength of the Iraqi Brigades in Baghdad has

vastly improved.

First Brigade reported at 61 percent; Second came in at 65

percent; and the third came in at 85 percent. Other brigades

on their way are reporting in the high 90s to more than 100

percent strength.

The problem was not related to fighting, but rather an

issue with getting pay to families. Iraq does not have a

financial system that provides for electronic transfer of

monies--it is a cash transaction society. The Iraqi

Government found that troops were trying to take money to

their families and that is the reason they were absent.

They fixed the problem by paying deploying forces a bonus

upfront so they could leave money with their families and not

have to worry about them.

Overall, violence directed against Iraqi Civilians is down

about one-third and murders/assassinations are down 50

percent.

Civilian deaths down more than 500 percent: mid-Feb to mid-

March, 265; previous four weeks, 1,440.

Bombings down nearly 40 percent: mid-Feb to mid-March, 102;

previous 4 weeks, 163.

Car bombs down nearly 35 percent: mid-Feb to mid-March, 36;

previous 4 weeks, 56.

notes from secdef's talk at army caucus--mar 22

Active Army has met every retention and recruiting goal

since 9/11

Need to grow Army and we're doing so by 7,000 a year

Vital to meet Active Army's goal of 1 year deployed and 2

years home; Guard/Reserve goal is 1 year deployed and 5 years

home

Need to include Guard and Reserve in all of our plans

Modernization and putting them in Joint billets

We have programmed $46.4B for reset in FY 07/08

Modernization is also required--started $56B short

Need the FY07 Sup by April or we will have to take

Draconian measures and begin to reprogram money, impacting

all facets of the Army

Need $2B for BRAC this year and stated that we need to

expedite the construction of the medical facility on Ft

Belvoir and make Bethesda the premier medical facility

commonly asked question iraq

Q: What is your view of the timetables and provisions that

have been attached to the FY07 Supplemental?

A: It's important to elevate the level of debate. . . .

question is how we incentiveize the Iraqi government. But,

specific dates and strict conditionally would make it

impossible for commanders to complete the mission.

Q: Do you think the operations in Iraq will be over on

October 1?

A: Decisions need to be based by conditions on the ground.

Setting a date tells your adversary all he has to do is wait.

I think debate on the hill has been helpful; there is no

military solution, it has to be a political solution and we

are providing them the time they need.

Q: How is the deployment of Iraqi troops going? We have

heard they are reporting at low strength rates?

A: In Afghanistan, there are about 12 financial centers

that enable movement of money. Iraq has no such system yet,

so troops have to take cash home to their families. First

Brigades came in around 60 percent but other brigades are

reporting in the high 90s to more than 100 percent strength.

The problem was not related to fighting, but rather an issue

with getting pay to families--troops were trying to take

money to their families and that is the reason they were

absent. They fixed the problem by paying deploying forces a

bonus upfront so they could leave money with their families

and not have to worry about them.

Q: Are we neglecting Afghanistan?

A: After I visited Afghanistan, I made the decision to

extend the deployment of one Brigade and move the other

Brigade in. We will be adding 3,400 trainers and overall

about 6-7,000 soldiers. Britain and Australia are also

providing more troops as we prepare for a Taliban offensive

this spring. We think they may make a run at Khandahar and we

want to hit them hard.